NuStar Energy L.P. (NYSE:NS) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Selman Akyol with Stifel. Your line is open.

Selman Akyol: Thank you. Good morning. Just a couple of quick ones for me. Just you guys talked about fuels marketing having a strong quarter, and I guess, I’m just wondering how the outlook is for the fourth quarter going on?

Danny Oliver: So I think there’s – right now, our full year outlook has us just below the near record year last year. I think there’s some room for upside in Q4 given our current forecast, but just mostly around how much volume of butane will be able to get into the gasoline pool in the fourth quarter. But still seeing very strong margins in both our bunker marketing business and also butane blending.

Selman Akyol: Got it. Appreciate that. And then I guess, in the prepared comments, you guys talked about ammonia and you talked about strong organic growth over the next – and I had several years written in my notes here. But I’m just kind of curious, you talked about $25 million of investments. And as you look out over the next several years, should we continue to think of investments into that being sort of the smaller chewable? Or as you look out and you see the growth in that business, is there going to be a real large project that’s going to require a significant amount of capital?

Danny Oliver: Yes. No, I think the former. We’ve got a lot of operational leverage to work with, and that spend will be spread out over several years. We’ve got – or a few years. We’ve got the OCI project. As Brad mentioned, we’ll go into service in early 2024 and that we’ve already announced. And then the blue and green projects that Brad was referring to, we’ll go into service in kind of a 2026, 2027 time frame. So that spending will be spread out over two or three years.

Brad Barron: The thing that I would add to Danny’s – this is Brad. The thing I would add to Danny’s comments is because of the infrastructure that we have in the area, we’re really focused on low multiple projects. And so I think we have several good small, low multiple projects and there’s other opportunities to play further out as ammonia opportunity develops.

Selman Akyol: Great, I’ll leave it there. Thank you very much for the color.

Brad Barron: Thanks Selman.

Operator: And I’m not showing any further questions at this time. I’d like to turn the call back over to Pam for any closing remarks.

Pam Schmidt: Thank you, Kevin. We would once again like to thank everyone for joining us on the call today. If anyone has additional questions, please feel free to contact NuStar Investor Relations. Thanks again, and have a great day.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today’s presentation. You may now disconnect, and have a wonderful day.