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ORGANIZATION AND OPERATIONS
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12 Months Ended |
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Dec. 31, 2011
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| ORGANIZATION AND OPERATIONS [Abstract] | |
| ORGANIZATION AND OPERATIONS | ORGANIZATION AND OPERATIONS Organization NuStar Energy L.P. (NuStar Energy) (NYSE: NS) is engaged in the terminalling and storage of petroleum products, the transportation of petroleum products and anhydrous ammonia, and petroleum refining and marketing. Unless otherwise indicated, the terms “NuStar Energy L.P.,” “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. NuStar GP Holdings, LLC (NuStar GP Holdings) (NYSE: NSH) owns our general partner, Riverwalk Logistics, L.P., and owns a 16.3% total interest in us as of December 31, 2011. Operations We conduct our operations through our subsidiaries, primarily NuStar Logistics, L.P. (NuStar Logistics) and NuStar Pipeline Operating Partnership L.P. (NuPOP). We have three business segments: storage, transportation, and asphalt and fuels marketing. Storage. We own terminal and storage facilities in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, including St. Eustatius in the Caribbean, the United Kingdom and Turkey providing approximately 84.6 million barrels of storage capacity. Our terminals provide storage and handling services on a fee basis for petroleum products, specialty chemicals and other liquids, including crude oil and other feedstocks. Transportation. We own common carrier refined product pipelines in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota covering approximately 5,480 miles, consisting of the Central West System, the East Pipeline and the North Pipeline. The East and North Pipelines also include 21 terminals providing storage capacity of 4.5 million barrels, and the East Pipeline includes two tank farms providing storage capacity of 1.2 million barrels. In addition, we own a 2,000 mile anhydrous ammonia pipeline located in Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Nebraska. We also own 940 miles of crude oil pipelines in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and Illinois, as well as associated crude oil storage facilities providing storage capacity of 1.9 million barrels in Texas and Oklahoma that are located along the crude oil pipelines. We charge tariffs on a per barrel basis for transporting refined products, crude oil and other feedstocks in our refined product and crude oil pipelines and on a per ton basis for transporting anhydrous ammonia in our ammonia pipeline. Asphalt and Fuels Marketing. Our asphalt and fuels marketing segment includes our refining operations and fuels marketing operations. We refine crude oil to produce asphalt and other refined products from our asphalt operations. Our two asphalt refineries have a combined throughput capacity of 104,000 barrels per day, and the related terminal facilities provide storage capacity of 5.0 million barrels. This segment also includes a fuels refinery in San Antonio, Texas with throughput capacity of 14,500 barrel per day. Additionally, as part of our fuels marketing operations, we purchase crude oil, gasoline and other refined petroleum products for resale. The activities of the asphalt and fuels marketing segment expose us to the risk of fluctuations in commodity prices, which has a direct impact on the results of operations for the asphalt and fuels marketing segment. We enter into derivative contracts to attempt to mitigate the effect of commodity price fluctuations. |