Enterprise Products Partners (EPD) Q3 Earnings In Line

Enterprise Products Partners L.P.’s (NYSE:EPD) third-quarter 2016 adjusted earnings per limited partner unit of 30 cents came in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate.

However, the bottom line deteriorated from the year-ago quarterly earnings of 34 cents. Lower commodity sale prices hampered results.

Quarterly distribution at Enterprise Products increased 5.2% year over year to 40.5 cents per common unit, or $1.62 per unit on an annualized basis. Adjusted distributable cash flow of $978 million provided coverage of 1.15x. The partnership retained $124 million in cash flow, thereby reducing its financing needs.

Revenues in the quarter plunged to $5,920.4 million from $6,307.9 million in the year-ago quarter.

Third-Quarter Segmental Performance

Gross operating income in the NGL Pipeline & Services segment increased to $704 million from $696 million in the year-ago quarter.

Onshore Natural Gas Pipeline and Services’ gross operating income decreased to $179 million from $192 million in the year-ago quarter.

Gross operating income from the Onshore Crude Oil Pipelines & Services segment was $254 million as against $255 million in the year-ago quarter.

Petrochemical & Refined Product Services segment reported gross operating income of $172 million compared with the year-earlier level of $192 million.

The Offshore Pipelines & Services segment had no contribution to gross operating income as the partnership closed the sale of its offshore Gulf of Mexico business on Jul 24, 2015. In the prior-year quarter it recorded a gross operating margin of $7 million.

ENTERPRISE PROD Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Financials

During the quarter, the partnership spent $621 million. Outstanding total debt principal as of Sep 30, 2016 was $24.2 billion. Enterprise had consolidated liquidity of $3.5 billion, which comprised unrestricted cash on hand and available borrowing capacity.

Zacks Rank

Enterprise Products Partners currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked players from the same sector are Enbridge Inc. (NYSE:ENB) , Braskem SA (NYSE:BAK) and TransCanada Corporation (TO:TRP) . All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Enbridge Inc. reported a negative earnings surprise of 10.00% in the preceding year quarter.

TransCanada posted a positive earnings surprise of 22.92% in the last reported quarter.

Enviva Partners has a mixed earnings surprise history. The partnership posted positive earnings surprises in two of the last four quarters. It reported a positive earnings surprise of 20.51% in the preceding quarter.

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