Category Archives: Midstream

Targa Resources appoints new CFO

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Targa Resources has promoted Ben Branstetter to be its next CFO. He replaces Will Byers, who is retiring after two years in the role. The changes are effective September 1.

Targa has its head office in downtown Houston.  The company is the largest natural gas processor in the Permian Basin. It owns pipelines to its NGL (Natural Gas Liquids) processing plant in Mont Belvieu, near Houston. The company is also a leading exporter of LPGs (Liquefied Petroleum Gas). [note – LPGs primarily comprise Propane and Butane, whereas LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) is methane].

The company has revenues of $17 billion and a market capitalization of $63 billion.

Mr. Branstetter joined the company in 2017 and currently serves as the President – Logistics and Transportation. He is a Texas Longhorn, who started his career at Glencore as a Risk Manager. He also worked at Phillips 66 and Lazard investment Bank before joining Targa. Mr. Branstetter will receive a base salary of $600,000.

Mr. Byers, who is 50, joined Targa in June 2024. He had previously held CFO roles at two PE-backed midstream companies. Mr. Byers will remain with the company until the end of 2026. He won’t get severance, but his restricted stock units will continue to vest. He will get a 2026 annual incentive cash bonus, once that is determined.

Targa has hired Brent Secrest to replace Mr. Branstetter. Mr. Secrest has spent the past 11 years working in various roles at Enterprise Products, another publicly-traded midstream company.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1389170/000119312526364099/0001193125-26-364099-index.html

 

 

 

 

Western Midstream to acquire Aris Water Solutions for $1.5B

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[Update 10-14-25 – The deal has now been completed]

Western Midstream (‘WES’) has agreed to acquire Aris Water Solutions for $1.5 billion. Both companies are based in Houston. Occidental Petroleum owns a 43.5% stake in WES.



Aris is a water infrastructure company with 790 miles of pipeline in the northern part of the Delaware basin that straddles the Texas/New Mexico border. WES owns midstream assets in the southern part of the Delaware Basin and believes that the combination will create a ‘one-stop shop’ for customers in the area. WES also has midstream assets in other basins in the US.

Currently, 72% of the EBITDA of WES comes form Natural Gas, 18% from oil, and 10% from water. After the deal closes, the proforma share for water will rise to 16%..

The biggest customer for Aris is ConocoPhillips. They happen to own 22% of Aris. In addition, Occidental is the 4th largest customer for Aris.

Up to $415 million of the consideration will be be paid in cash, the rest in WES stock. Aris shareholders will own approximately 7% of WES after the transaction closes, expected in Q4 2025. WES will also take on the $500 million of debt that Aris has. Therefore the enterprise value of the deal is $2 billion.

Aris was formed in 2015 and went public in October 2021 with a market capitalization of $278 million.

The companies are targeting $40 million of estimated cost synergies through back office and public company consolidation savings.

Investor Presentation – WES Aris

 

 

 

Targa Resources appoints new Chief Financial Officer

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Targa Resources has appointed Will Byers as its new CFO. He replaces Jen Kneale, who will now become the President of Finance and Administration.

It may sound like a demotion, but it is not.  Mr. Byers will report to Ms. Kneale, who has been given expanded responsibilities and will continue to report to the CEO, Matt Meloy. Mr. Meloy was the CFO before Ms. Kneale.



Targa is a Houston-based midstream company with a market capitalization of $29 billion. It is primarily involved in the gathering and treatment of natural gases in the Permian Basin and its transportation by pipeline to its processing and export facilities in the Houston region.

Mr. Byers joins from Manchester Energy, a private equity-backed midstream business where he has been CFO for two years. Prior to that, he was CFO at Navitas Midstream Partners until its sale in 2022 to Enterprise Products for $3.25 billion. Before that, Mr. Byers was a managing director at Barclays and worked in investment banking for 14 years. Mr. Byers will receive a base salary of $575,000.

Ms. Kneale has served as the CFO since 2018. She joined the company in 2013 from the energy private equity group of Tudor Pickering. Her base salary will increase from $635,000 to $680,000.

SEC filing – 8-K Targa appoints new CFO

Houston midstream company to be acquired for $7.1 billion

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Energy Transfer has agreed to acquire Crestwood Equity Partners in an all-stock transaction that values Crestwood at $7.1 billion enterprise value.

Crestwood is a midstream company that primarily has gathering and processing assets in the Williston Basin in the Bakken, the Delaware Basin in the Permian, and, to a lesser extent, the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. The company was formed in 2001 and went public in 2013 following a merger with Inergy Midstream.



In the past couple of years, the company has been streamlining its portfolio, selling assets in the Marcellus and Barnett shale basins and buying Oasis Midstream (Williston Basin) for $1.7 billion in February 2022.  It has its head office in downtown Houston.

ET has its head office in Dallas and is a much bigger company. Its market capitalization is $39 billion, compared to just $2.8 billion for Crestwood.

ET believes it can achieve cost synergies of $40 million a year. In addition, it should be able to refinance the debt acquired in the deal at a lower interest rate.

The Crestwood executive management are in line for big change-of-control payments, assuming they are terminated as a result of the deal. Bob Phillips, Chairman and CEO, who joined Crestwood in 2007, will receive $20 million. This includes the value of accelerated stock units. The other five senior executives will get a combined $36 million.

The deal is expected to close in Q4 2023.

Investor Presentation

 

Midstream company appoints new CFO

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Crestwood  Equity Partners has appointed John Black as its new CFO. He replaces Robert Halpin, who had been CFO since 2015. Mr Halpin will remain with the company as President, a role he took over in January.



Crestwood owns and operates midstream businesses primarily in the Williston, Powder River and Delaware Basins.  In February, it completed the acquisition of Oasis Midstream for $1.8 billion. The company currently has a market cap of $2.9 billion and has its head office in downtown Houston.

Mr. Black, age 34, joined Crestwood in 2014 and was formerly the Senior VP, Finance. Prior to joining Crestwood, he held positions at First Reserve and Citi. He will receive a base salary of $400,000.

Josh Wannarka, Senior VP, Investor Relations, has been promoted to to Mr. Black’s old position. He joined the company in 2015. In his new expanded role, Mr. Wannarka will oversee the investor relations team and the full financial planning and analysis function.

Andrew Thorington, VP of Finance, has been promoted to VP, Finance and Investor Relations. He joined the company in 2014.

Crestwood Equity – press release

Shell to acquire rest of Shell Midstream in $1.9 billion transaction

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Shell has agreed to acquire all of the common units of Shell Midstream Partners it did not already own for $15.85 a unit, in cash. The transaction is worth $1.9 billion. Shell currently owns 68.5% of the common units.

Back in February, Shell had offered $12.89 for each common unit in a zero-premium bid.

Many years ago, Master Limited Partnerships were in vogue and it was the fashion for E&P companies to spin off their midstream assets into publicly-traded MLPs. Shell were fashionably late in that they only spun off Shell Midstream for $23 per unit in October 2014, right before the crude oil price crash.

That crash laid bare the claim that MLPs had low risks and therefore low cost of capital. In addition, the tax rules changed in 2018 reducing the benefits of MLPs. Most publicly-traded MLPs have already been taken private by their sponsor. Why pay a dividend of 8% on a MLP when you can bring it inhouse by borrowing at 5%?

The transaction has been approved by the Conflicts Committee but most minority investors remain unhappy as they believe that the deal undervalues the company, particularly as some of the midstream assets were damaged by Hurricane Ida in 2021.

The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2022.

SEC filing – Shell to acquire Shell Midstream Partners

Houston midstream CFO steps down

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Summit Midstream Partners Logo. (PRNewsFoto/Summit Midstream Partners)

Marc Stratton, the CFO of Summit Midstream will be stepping down, effective March 4, 2022. He will be replaced by Bill Mault, who is currently VP Corporate Development, Finance and Treasurer.



Summit has its head office in downtown Houston and operates midstream assets in the Utica, Williston, DJ and Permian Basins. It went public in 2012 and had a peak market capitalization of $1.9 billion in 2014. Its current market cap is $243 million.

The company appointed a new CEO, Heath Deneke, in August 2019 and last year, it completed a refinancing that replaced a lot of debt that was due to mature in 2022. The company still has $1.4 billion of debt. It expects to pay down $130 million or so this year.

Mr. Stratton joined Summit in 2009 as a founding member and became its CFO in December 2018. He will receive a severance of 1.5 times his combined base salary ($350,000), 2021 annual bonus  paid (not stated but assumed to be $350,000) x 1.5) and a pro-rata bonus for 2022.  Mr. Stratton’s unvested phantom stock units will also vest. They will be worth about $0.8 million.

Mr. Mault joined the company in 2016 and has a background in investment banking. He will receive a base salary of $300,000.

The company also announced it was promoting Matt Sicinski to Senior VP and Chief Accounting Officer. He joined in February 2020, having previously worked at Venari Resources and Southwestern Energy.

SEC filing – 8-K Summit CFO steps down

BP Midstream Partners to be acquired by its former parent

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BP Midstream Partners (BPMP), based in west Houston, is to be re-acquired by its parent, BP, in an all-stock transaction. Each unitholder will receive 0.575 of an American Depositary Share of BP for each public common unit owned. At the current price of the ADRs, that amounts to $14.89 per unit

Back in August, BP offered to buy BPMP common units at $13.01 per unit. BP currently owns 54.4% of the outstanding BPMP units.

BPMP owns the pipelines and other midstream assets that service BP’s Gulf of Mexico’s fields as well as the pipelines around the Whiting refinery in Indiana.

BP Midstream was spun off by BP only in October 2017 at $18 per unit. That was a few years later than many of its competitors. In fact, the trend to re-acquire them started shortly thereafter in 2018.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022.

SEC filing – BP to acquire BPMP

 

 

Phillips 66 to takeover Phillips 66 Partners

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Phillips 66 has agreed to buy its publicly-traded MLP partnership, Phillips 66 Partners for $3.4 billion in an all-stock deal. This continues the recent trend of MLP’s being brought back in-house.

The partnership was originally spun off in July 2013. At the end of last year, Phillips 66 owned 74% of the common units of the partnership, and controlled the general partnership that managed the MLP. 98% of the revenues of the MLP were generated from Phillips 66.

Phillips 66 signaled back in February that it was considering a takeover of the MLP.



Companies spinning off their midstream assets into a separate master limited partnership was all the rage about 10-15 years ago. It was sold to retail investors as a high-yield, low risk play. Unfortunately that proved not to be the case, as many entered the energy downturn in late 2014 too highly leveraged. That led to distribution cuts and the sector fell out of favor. (The Phillips MLP has not cut its dividend since it has been a public company).

In addition, in some cases, the retail unitholders suffered at the hands of the controlling general partner.  The tax reform legislation passed in 2017 also reduced the tax benefits that MLPs receive.

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022.

Phillips 66 MLP acquisition – press release

 

 

Houston midstream company to be acquired for $1.8 billion

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[Update – The deal closed on February 1, 2022]

Crestwood Equity Partners has agreed to buy fellow Houston company, Oasis Midstream Partners, for $1.8 billion. $160 million will be paid in cash, the rest in stock. Oasis will own about 22% of Crestwood after the deal goes through.



Oasis Midstream was spun out of Oasis Petroleum in September 2017. Its assets are primarily midstream assets in the Williston Basin in North Dakota. There are also a few assets in the Delaware Basin. In 2020, it had revenues of $347 million. Of that, 97% were generated by Oasis Petroleum.

Oasis Petroleum has a 67.5% limited partner interest in Oasis Midstream. The parent entered a pre-packaged bankruptcy in late 2020. After exit, its founder and CEO retired, and it sold its Permian Basin assets for $481 million to become a pure-play Bakken E&P operator.

Crestwood already has 796 miles of pipeline in the Bakken and 311 miles in the Delaware Basin, plus related infrastructure. It also has assets in the Marcellus, Barnett and Powder River Basins.

Crestwood expects to generate $25 million in cost savings from operations and general and administrative expenses.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001136352/000119312521307205/d243796dex993.htm