ORGANIZATION AND OPERATIONS |
12 Months Ended |
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Dec. 31, 2019 | |
| Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract] | |
| ORGANIZATION AND OPERATIONS | ORGANIZATION AND OPERATIONS Organization NuStar Energy L.P. (NYSE: NS) is engaged in the transportation of petroleum products and anhydrous ammonia, and the terminalling, storage and marketing of petroleum products. 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. 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 wholly owned subsidiaries of NuStar GP Holdings, LLC (Holdings), which became a wholly owned subsidiary of ours on July 20, 2018. Recent Developments Sale of St. Eustatius Operations. On July 29, 2019, we sold our St. Eustatius terminal and bunkering operations (the St. Eustatius Operations) for net proceeds of approximately $230.0 million (the St. Eustatius Disposition). In 2019, we recorded long-lived asset and goodwill impairment charges totaling $336.8 million related to the St. Eustatius Operations in “(Loss) income from discontinued operations, net of tax” on our consolidated statement of loss. In the second quarter of 2019, we determined the St. Eustatius Operations and the European operations, as discussed below, met the requirements to be reported as discontinued operations, and as a result, we reclassified certain balances to assets and liabilities held for sale and certain revenues and expenses to discontinued operations for all applicable periods presented. Please refer to Note 5 for additional discussion. Selby Terminal Fire. On October 15, 2019, our terminal facility in Selby, California experienced a fire that destroyed two storage tanks and temporarily shut down the terminal. The property damage was isolated, and in the fourth quarter, we incurred losses of $5.4 million, which represent the aggregate amount of our deductibles under various insurance policies. We believe we have adequate insurance to offset additional costs in excess of the insurance deductibles. Other Events Sale of European Operations. On November 30, 2018, we sold our European operations for approximately $270.0 million (the European Disposition). The operations sold included six liquids storage terminals in the United Kingdom and one facility in Amsterdam with total storage capacity of approximately 9.5 million barrels (the European Operations). We recognized a non-cash loss of $43.4 million related to the sale in “(Loss) income from discontinued operations, net of tax” on our consolidated statement of income for the year ended December 31, 2018. Please refer to Note 5 for further discussion. Merger. On July 20, 2018, we completed the merger of Holdings with a subsidiary of NS. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Holdings unitholders received 0.55 of a common unit representing a limited partner interest in NS in exchange for each Holdings unit owned at the effective time of the merger. Please refer to Note 4 for further discussion of the merger. Hurricane Activity. In the third quarter of 2017, several of our facilities were affected by the hurricanes in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, including the St. Eustatius terminal, which experienced the most damage and was temporarily shut down. In 2017, we recorded a $5.0 million loss for property damage at the terminal, which represents the amount of our property deductible under our insurance policy, and we received insurance proceeds of $12.5 million, of which $3.8 million was for business interruption. In 2018, we received $87.5 million of insurance proceeds in settlement of our property damage claim for the St. Eustatius terminal, of which $9.1 million related to business interruption. Proceeds from business interruption insurance are included in “Cash flows from operating activities” in the consolidated statements of cash flows. We recorded a $78.8 million gain in the consolidated statement of income in 2018 for the amount by which the insurance proceeds exceeded our expenses incurred during the period. The insurance proceeds related to business interruption and the gain are included in “(Loss) income from discontinued operations, net of tax” in the consolidated statements of (loss) income. Navigator Acquisition and Financing Transactions. On May 4, 2017, we acquired Navigator Energy Services, LLC for approximately $1.5 billion (the Navigator Acquisition). In order to fund the purchase price, we issued 14,375,000 common units for net proceeds of $657.5 million, issued $550.0 million of 5.625% senior notes for net proceeds of $543.3 million and issued 15,400,000 of our 7.625% Series B Fixed-to-Floating Rate Cumulative Redeemable Perpetual Preferred Units (Series B Preferred Units) for net proceeds of $371.8 million. Please refer to Notes 6, 14 and 20 for further discussion. Axeon Term Loan. On February 22, 2017, we settled and terminated the $190.0 million term loan to Axeon Specialty Products, LLC (the Axeon Term Loan), pursuant to which we also provided credit support, such as guarantees, letters of credit and cash collateral, as applicable, of up to $125.0 million to Axeon Specialty Products, LLC (Axeon). We received $110.0 million in settlement of the Axeon Term Loan, and our obligation to provide ongoing credit support to Axeon ceased. 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: pipeline, storage and fuels marketing. Pipeline. We own 3,205 miles of refined product pipelines and 2,155 miles of crude oil pipelines, as well as approximately 5.2 million barrels of storage capacity, which comprise our Central West System. In addition, we own 2,600 miles of refined product pipelines, consisting of the East and North Pipelines, and a 2,000-mile ammonia pipeline, which comprise our Central East System. The East and North Pipelines have storage capacity of approximately 7.4 million barrels. 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 the Ammonia Pipeline. Storage. We own terminal and storage facilities in the United States, Canada and Mexico, with approximately 61.3 million barrels of storage capacity. Our terminal and storage facilities provide storage, handling and other services on a fee basis for petroleum products, crude oil, specialty chemicals and other liquids. Fuels Marketing. Prior to the third quarter of 2017, our fuels marketing operations involved the purchase of crude oil, fuel oil, bunker fuel, fuel oil blending components and other refined products for resale. We ceased marketing crude oil in the second quarter of 2017 and exited our heavy fuels trading operations in the third quarter of 2017. These actions were in line with our goal of reducing our exposure to commodity margins, and instead focusing on our core, fee-based pipeline and storage segments. The remaining operations in our fuels marketing segment include our bunkering operations in the Gulf Coast, as well as certain of our blending operations associated with our Central East System.
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