Sunoco LP (NYSE:SUN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Spiro Dounis: Two follow-ups on kind of what we already touched on, maybe just to put a finer point on it. But just looking at guidance now, starting to look really conservative for 2023, and I realize we’ve got a lot of the year left to go. But if I think about one of the biggest factors driving the difference in our model is, of course, these elevated margins that you’re seeing. So just curious, maybe you could touch a little bit more on. What is keeping margins elevated right now in this market? And what of those factors could possibly reverse as the year goes on to bring that down? Or is it looking pretty resilient at this point?

Joseph Kim: This is Joe. Let me take the first part of that on guidance, and then I’ll turn it over to Karl talking about margins. As far as guidance, we just gave guidance in December. So we’re 1.5 months into the year. And I think I stated it on my prepared remarks, Karl stated in his prepared remarks, we’re off to a very good start, and we finished up the fourth quarter very strong. So 1.5 months in, I think it is a bad habit for companies to update guidance every couple of months, and we’re not going to get into that bad habit. As the year progresses, more data, if there’s material change, we’ll provide guidance or revise guidance history. And we did that twice last year with upward guidance. So like I think you characterized it, it is very early, but I understand your point.

Karl Fails: Yes. And as far as the margin strength goes, Spiro, I mentioned a number of factors in my prepared remarks. And some of those I think are quarter-to-quarter dependent, but the majority of those, as we look into the near future, will continue. So I’ll kind of put them in those 2 buckets, right? The price movement that we saw down with prices moving dramatically down in the third quarter and then carried a tailwind into the fourth quarter. Yes, we’re going to have periods like the first half of last year where prices are moving up, and then we’ll have periods like the second half where prices are moving down, and you’ll have some variation in margins based on that. The other factors that I mentioned, though, related to volatility of prices as well as kind of overall higher breakeven margins and then the contributions of our capital deployment, whether it’s through organic or through M&A, those are going to continue.

And so I wouldn’t necessarily see a change in 2023 or even maybe in 2024 based on those. So that gives us confidence as we look forward that, as Joe said, our business is strong. We expect to have another really good year this year.

Spiro Dounis: Got it. That’s helpful color. Second one, so it caused a little bit of noise around the first quarter. But just the 7-Eleven makeup payment kind of in the feature over the last few years. I know sometimes it’s harder to predict, but just curious if you can just any sort of guidance on what that could look like in 1Q.

Karl Fails: Sure. Yes. I’m always careful to not disclose 7-Eleven’s volumes. But I think it’s fair to say that we’re expecting a higher makeup payment this year than last year. And so that would be a fair assumption.

Spiro Dounis: Okay. Got it. And one more, if I could sneak it in, perhaps most importantly, should I assume that next year’s December Analyst Day will be in Puerto Rico?

Karl Fails: We can talk about it.

Operator: . Our next question comes from Ned Baramov with Wells Fargo.

Ned Baramov: There was a small leak on the Colonial pipeline in January. I guess one line was down for several days. Could you talk about the potential impact to you if any? And maybe touch on the volume trends in January, February?