Energy

Ahead of Earnings, Kinder Morgan Buys Product Terminals for $350 Million

Storage tanks
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A day ahead of its scheduled announcement of third-quarter 2015 results, Kinder Morgan Inc. (NYSE: KMI) announced on Tuesday that it had agree to acquire 15 refined products terminals and associated U.S. infrastructure from a division of BP PLC (NYSE: BP) in a transaction valued at about $350 million.

Kinder Morgan and BP Products North America will form joint venture that will own 14 of the 15 terminals. Once the transaction is completed, now expected in the first quarter of next year, Kinder Morgan will own 75% of the JV and one of the terminals and will be the operator and marketer. The assets are located in the Midwest, the Northeast, the Southeast and on the West Coast.

As part of the transaction, BP will enter into commercial agreements securing long-term storage and throughput capacity from the JV, which plans to market additional capacity to third-party customers.

Before any of this transpires, Kinder Morgan will report third quarter results after markets close on Wednesday. Analysts are expecting earnings per share of $0.19 on revenues of $3.82 billion. Kinder Morgan has missed estimates in three of the past four quarters, but it is difficult to tell whether that’s due to the company’s relatively recent conversion from a master limited partnership and the usual confusion that causes among analysts, or if there’s something wrong with the business. We’ll look at this in more detail in an earnings preview.

Shares of Kinder Morgan traded down less than 0.1% around noon Tuesday, at $31.67 in a 52-week range of $25.81 to $44.71.

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