Plains All American Pipeline LP Q3 2007 Earnings Call Transcript

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2007-11-03 22:03:29.0

Tags: Plains All American Pipeline L.P.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen we will now be conducting a question and answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question is coming from Barret Blaschke with RBC Capital Markets.

Barret Blaschke - RBC Capital Markets

Hi guys couple of quick questions. I wondered, we got in to backwardation of little bit on the call. What does that look like for the storage business, I mean where are you in terms of, how full are the tanks basically and how does marketing offer that?

Harry N. Pefanis - President and Chief Operating Officer

Well, we generally don't disclose how much oil we have in our tanks drawing for an account of our customers. A substantial amount of our tankage is leased to the third party customers. Obviously it doesn't make much economic sense for us to hold crude oil in tanks in a backwardated markets.

Barret Blaschke - RBC Capital Markets

Great.

Harry N. Pefanis - President and Chief Operating Officer

So when the market flips from Contango to backwardation we generally,see, an uptick which was reflected and the third quarter and our fourth quarter guidance out there is probably reflective of a worsened, the normal margin and I think that had about $0.66 of barrel though typical... in a typical market. We'd expect probably more than the $0.66 that's per barrel of our margin from that segment of our businesses. I don't know, if, I, really answered your question but...

Barret Blaschke - RBC Capital Markets

Yes, I didn't ask it really well probably. But I guess what I am wondering is what kind of downside protection do you have on the stores side or the contract?

Greg L. Armstrong - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, let me breakdown the Tankage. We've got, right now I mean we are building more tanks. Most of it as Harry pointed is under contract but of the 64 million barrels roughly that we have right now, we only use about 18% to 20% of that for our own purposes at peak during the contango period. So and about half of the 64 is used for servicing the pipeline side and the other part of it is all subject to leases that range anywhere from some 30 days but in most cases its three to five year leases. So we have a fair amount under lease. So it's not as big an impact as you might expect. It's, just when it happens it's very positive and that's why we have always been talking about the baseline level. So I would tell you as a result a combination of factors, increased number of products that have to be handled which we are pushing refineries to find other ways to store the crude if any more than on-time tankage for their refined products in the different varieties they have to carry the increased number and grades accrued and the increased influx of those coming from Canada. There's quite a bit of demand out there just for fundamental tanking or take each for tunneling storage activities just to meet day-to-day needs. So again it's when the contango shows up its really affecting a small number of our tanks and just adds a lot of value when it's there. When you pull that out though the baseline level's very, very solid.

 

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