Third – quarter net income more than doubled for Inter Pipeline Fund (TSX:IPL.UN) as revenue grew 20 per cent for the operator of oil and gas transport, storage and gas liquids extraction businesses in Canada, Britain, Germany and Ireland.
Inter Pipeline said Thursday its net income was $76.8 million or 34 cents per unit in the July-September quarter, up from $35.1 million or 18 cents per unit in the year-ago period.
Revenue grew to $340.8 million from $284.5 million, powered by 31 per cent growth to $231.4 million the natural gas liquids extraction segment.
Funds from operations improved 27 per cent to $85.7 million or 39 cents per unit, while the trust distributed $46.7 million or 21 cents per unit.
The profit gain was “largely the result of favourable frac-spreads realized on sales of propane-plus extracted at the Cochrane (Alta.) natural gas liquids extraction facility, and strong revenue growth in the conventional oil pipeline business segment,” Inter Pipeline stated.
Oilsands transportation revenue was down 10 per cent from a year earlier at $35.2 million, while conventional oil pipeline revenue grew 30 per cent to $39.3 million and bulk liquid storage revenue shrank 10 per cent to $34.9 million.
Cold Lake oilsands pipeline throughput averaged 328,400 barrels per day during the quarter, down from 356,200 b/d a year earlier, “impacted by weather and power-related production issues at Imperial Oil’s Cold Lake project and at Canadian Natural Resources’ Primrose/Wolf Lake property.”
The trust has an outstanding debt balance of $2.3 billion but stressed that it is “very well positioned to operate and grow during this time of global credit uncertainty.” It said its bank syndicate is well diversified, with 16 institutions involved, and it still has over $1.3 billion in undrawn credit capacity.
It confirmed its monthly distribution of seven cents per unit, yielding just over 10 per cent at the current unit price, and “believes it is well positioned to maintain its current level of cash distributions to unitholders through 2011 and beyond, despite becoming a taxable entity.”
