Unless otherwise indicated, the terms "NuStar Energy," "NS," "the Partnership," "we," "our" and "us" are used in this report to refer to NuStar Energy L.P., to one or more of our consolidated subsidiaries or to all of them taken as a whole.
CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION In this Form 10-Q, we make certain forward-looking statements, such as statements regarding our plans, strategies, objectives, expectations, estimates, predictions, projections, assumptions, intentions, resources and the future impact of the coronavirus, or COVID-19, the responses thereto, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, economic activity and the actions by oil producing nations on our business. While these forward-looking statements, and any assumptions upon which they are based, are made in good faith and reflect our current judgment regarding the direction of our business, actual results will almost always vary, sometimes materially, from any estimates, predictions, projections, assumptions or other future performance suggested in this report. These forward-looking statements can generally be identified by the words "anticipates," "believes," "expects," "plans," "intends," "estimates," "forecasts," "budgets," "projects," "will," "could," "should," "may" and similar expressions. These statements reflect our current views with regard to future events and are subject to various risks, uncertainties and assumptions, which may cause actual results to differ materially. Please read Item 1A. "Risk Factors" contained in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, as well as additional information provided from time to time in our subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, for a discussion of certain of those risks, uncertainties and assumptions.
If one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or if the underlying assumptions prove incorrect, our actual results may vary materially from those described in any forward-looking statement. Other unknown or unpredictable factors could also have material adverse effects on our future results. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this forward-looking information, which is as of the date of this Form 10-Q. We do not intend to update these statements unless we are required by the securities laws to do so, and we undertake no obligation to publicly release the result of any revisions to any such forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this report or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
NuStar Energy L.P. (NYSE: NS) is primarily engaged in the transportation, terminalling and storage of petroleum products and renewable fuels and the transportation of anhydrous ammonia. Our business is managed under the direction of the board of directors of NuStar GP, LLC, the general partner of our general partner, Riverwalk Logistics, L.P., both of which are indirectly wholly owned subsidiaries of ours.
Our operations consist of three reportable business segments: pipeline, storage and fuels marketing. As of June 30, 2022, our assets included 9,950 miles of pipeline and 63 terminal and storage facilities, which provided approximately 49 million barrels of storage capacity. We conduct our operations through our subsidiaries, primarily NuStar Logistics, L.P. (NuStar Logistics) and NuStar Pipeline Operating Partnership L.P. (NuPOP). We generate revenue primarily from:
•tariffs for transportation through our pipelines; •fees for the use of our terminal and storage facilities and related ancillary services; and •sales of petroleum products.
The following factors affect the results of our operations:
•economic factors and price volatility;
•industry factors, such as changes in the prices of petroleum products that affect demand or production, or regulatory changes that could increase costs or impose restrictions on operations;
•factors that affect our customers and the markets they serve, such as utilization rates and maintenance turnaround schedules of our refining company customers and drilling activity by our crude oil production customers;
•company-specific factors, such as facility integrity issues, maintenance requirements and outages that impact the throughput rates of our assets; and
•seasonal factors that affect the demand for products transported by and/or stored in our assets and the demand for products we sell.
Recent Development On April 29, 2022, we sold the equity interests in our wholly owned subsidiaries that owned our Point Tupper terminal facility (the Point Tupper Terminal Operations) to EverWind Fuels for $60.0 million, plus working capital, which is subject to adjustment (the Point Tupper Terminal Disposition). The terminal facility had a storage capacity of 7.8 million barrels and was included in the storage segment. We recognized a non-cash pre-tax impairment loss of $46.1 million in the first quarter of 2022 and a non-cash gain on the sale of $1.6 million in the second quarter of 2022. We utilized the sales proceeds to reduce debt and thereby improve our debt metrics. Please refer to Note 3 of the Condensed Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in Item 1. "Financial Statements" for additional information.
Other Events Debt Amendments. On January 28, 2022, we amended and restated our $1.0 billion unsecured revolving credit agreement to extend the maturity to April 27, 2025, replace the LIBOR-based interest rate and modify other terms. Also on January 28, 2022, we amended our $100.0 million receivables financing agreement to extend the scheduled termination date to January 31, 2025, replace the LIBOR-based interest rate and modify other terms.
Eastern U.S. Terminals Disposition. On October 8, 2021, we completed the sale of nine U.S. terminal and storage facilities, including all our North East Terminals and one terminal in Florida (the Eastern U.S. Terminal Operations) to Sunoco LP for $250.0 million in cash (the Eastern U.S. Terminals Disposition). The terminals had an aggregate storage capacity of 14.8 million barrels and were included in the storage segment. We utilized the proceeds from the sale to reduce debt and improve our debt metrics.
Trends and Outlook While 2022 marks the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., we continue to see signs of stabilization and improvement across the U.S. and in NuStar's footprint. U.S. refined product demand outlook has seen some sustained improvement, as COVID-19 vaccinations have continued to allow more people go about normal day-to-day activities and traveling. However, variants have continued to emerge and have increased COVID-19 case counts, which may further impact the overall demand recovery in 2022.
Since Russia's military invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, prices for several commodities produced in those countries, including oil and gas, rose sharply and have been volatile on market concerns about worldwide supply constraints. The long-term impact of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, along with the lingering impact of COVID-19, on the global and U.S. economy remains uncertain; however, at this time, we do not expect these events to have a significant impact to our operations or financial position.
We expect sustained healthy U.S. shale production growth in 2022 from improving global demand as well as supply constraints from the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Based on the strong volume growth in the first half of 2022 and our producers' drilling plans for the second half of this year, we expect our Permian system volumes to see healthy overall growth in 2022, compared to 2021 volumes. Prices for motor fuels this year have been, and remain, at higher levels than in previous years and global inflation continues to raise prices for most, if not all, goods and services, which many economists have predicted will increase downward pressure on consumer demand across sectors, which would, in turn, reduce demand for the transportation and storage services we provide. Based on historic performance and current trends, we expect our refined products pipeline systems to continue to perform at or above 100% of our pre-pandemic levels through 2022, due in part to the fact that our systems are located in the mid-continent and Texas where unavailability of alternative modes of transportation makes the demand for motor fuels relatively inelastic, especially in comparison to more densely populated coastal U.S. regions. In addition, we expect our refined product pipeline systems to benefit from the positive revenue impact of our tariff indexation increases effective July 1, which will help us to counterbalance the impact of inflation on our business.
While many terminals in our storage segment are somewhat insulated from demand volatility due to contracted rates for storage and minimum volume commitments, revenue at our St. James facility, where some contract expirations this year are coinciding with the ongoing economic uncertainty and continued crude price backwardation, has been negatively impacted as some customers have declined to renew until market trends improve. Conversely, we expect to benefit in our West Coast region during the second half of 2022 from our recent completion of two more renewable fuel projects there, where we continue to grow our renewable fuels distribution system and increase our share of California's renewable fuels market.
The lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ripple through the U.S. economy, notably in the form of rising inflation and supply chain issues. The Russia-Ukraine conflict seems to have only amplified inflation and supply chain constraints so far in 2022. The U.S. Federal Reserve has raised interest rates and is expected to implement additional increases in 2022, which will increase the cost of our variable-rate debt. In addition, the distribution rates on our 8.50% Series A, 7.625% Series B and 9.00% Series C Fixed-to-Floating Rate Cumulative Redeemable Perpetual Preferred Units have converted, or will convert by year-end 2022, from fixed rates to floating rates that increase or decrease with prevailing interest rates. On the other hand, our ability to pass along rate increases reflecting changes in producer and/or consumer price indices to our customers, under our tariffs and contracts, should counterbalance the impact of inflation on our costs. We plan to continue to manage our operations with fiscal discipline and to evaluate our capital expenditures as we remain committed to improving our debt metrics and strengthening our balance sheet. We expect to continue to fund all of our expenses, distribution requirements and capital expenditures for the full-year 2022 using internally generated cash flows.
Our outlook for the partnership, both overall and for any of our segments, may change, as we base our expectations on our continuing evaluation of several factors, many of which are outside our control. These factors include, but are not limited to, uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict; uncertainty surrounding future production decisions by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other oil-producing nations (OPEC+); the state of the economy and the capital markets; changes to our customers' refinery maintenance schedules and unplanned refinery downtime; crude oil prices; the supply of and demand for petroleum products, renewable fuels and anhydrous ammonia; demand for our transportation and storage services; the availability and costs of personnel, equipment, supplies and services essential to our operations; the ability to obtain timely permitting approvals; and changes in laws and regulations affecting our operations.
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