Kinder Morgan, Inc. operates as an energy infrastructure company in North America.
As of December 31, 2024, the company owned an interest in or operated approximately 79,000 miles of pipelines, 139 terminals, approximately 700 Bcf of working natural gas storage capacity and RNG generation capacity of approximately 6.1 Bcf per year of gross production. The company’s pipelines transport natural gas, refined petroleum products, crude oil, condensate, CO2, renewable fuels and other products, and it...
Kinder Morgan, Inc. operates as an energy infrastructure company in North America.
As of December 31, 2024, the company owned an interest in or operated approximately 79,000 miles of pipelines, 139 terminals, approximately 700 Bcf of working natural gas storage capacity and RNG generation capacity of approximately 6.1 Bcf per year of gross production. The company’s pipelines transport natural gas, refined petroleum products, crude oil, condensate, CO2, renewable fuels and other products, and its terminals store and handle various commodities, including gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, chemicals, petroleum coke, metals, and ethanol and other renewable fuels and feedstocks.
Strategy
The key elements of the company’s strategy are to focus on stable, fee-based energy transportation and storage assets that are central to the energy infrastructure of growing markets within North America or served by the U.S. exports; and leverage economies of scale through growth from asset expansions and acquisitions that fit within its strategy.
Segments
Natural Gas Pipelines
Natural Gas Pipelines business segment includes interstate and intrastate pipelines, underground storage facilities, the company’s LNG liquefaction and terminal facilities and NGL fractionation facilities, and includes both FERC regulated and non-FERC regulated assets.
The company’s primary businesses in this segment consist of natural gas transportation, storage, sales, gathering, processing and treating, and various LNG services. Within this segment are approximately 41,000 miles of wholly owned natural gas pipelines and its equity interests in entities that have approximately 26,000 miles of natural gas pipelines, along with associated storage and supply lines for these transportation networks, which are strategically located throughout the North American natural gas pipeline grid. The company’s transportation network provides access to the major natural gas supply areas and consumers in the western U.S., Rocky Mountain, Midwest, Texas, Louisiana, Southeastern and Northeast regions. The company’s LNG terminal facilities also serve natural gas market areas in the southeast.
Natural Gas Pipelines Segment Contracts
Revenues from the company’s interstate natural gas pipelines, related storage facilities and LNG terminals are primarily received under long-term fixed contracts. The company’s Texas Intrastate natural gas pipeline operations derive approximately 76% of sales and transport margins from long-term transport and sales contracts. As contracts expire, the company has additional exposure to the longer term trends in supply and demand for natural gas. As of December 31, 2024, the remaining weighted average contract life of the company’s natural gas transportation contracts held by assets it owns or has equity interests in (including intrastate pipelines’ sales portfolio) was approximately seven years and its LNG regasification and liquefaction and associated storage contracts were subscribed under long-term agreements with a weighted average remaining contract life of approximately 10 years.
Midstream assets provide natural gas gathering and processing services. These assets are mostly fee-based, and the revenues and earnings the company realizes from gathering natural gas, processing natural gas in order to remove NGL from the natural gas stream, and fractionating NGL into its base components, are affected by the volumes of natural gas made available to the company’s systems. Such volumes are impacted by producer rig count and drilling activity. In addition to fee-based arrangements, some of which may include minimum volume commitments, the company also provides some services based on percent-of-proceeds, percent-of-index and keep-whole contracts. The company’s service contracts sometimes rely solely on a single type of arrangement, but more often they combine elements of two or more of the above, which helps it and its counterparties manage the extent to which each shares in the potential risks and benefits of changing commodity prices. The company’s natural gas marketing activities generate revenues from the sale and delivery of natural gas purchased either directly from producers or from others on the open market.
Customers
The company’s customers who ship through its natural gas pipelines compete with other forms of energy available to their natural gas customers and end users, including oil, coal, nuclear and renewables such as hydro, wind and solar power, along with other evolving forms of renewable energy.
Products Pipelines
Products Pipelines business segment consists of the company’s refined petroleum products, crude oil and condensate pipelines, and associated terminals, its condensate processing facility and its transmix processing facilities.
Products Pipelines Segment Contracts
The company’s crude, condensate and refined petroleum products transportation services are primarily provided pursuant to FERC or state tariffs, which do not require contractual commitments, or long-term contracts that normally contain minimum volume commitments. The company’s petroleum condensate processing facility splits condensate into its various components, such as light and heavy naphtha, under a long-term fee-based agreement with a major integrated oil company. The company’s crude oil marketing activities generate revenues from the sale and delivery of crude oil and condensate purchased either directly from producers or from others on the open market.
Terminals
Terminals business segment includes the operations of the company’s refined petroleum product, chemical, renewable fuel and other liquid terminal facilities (other than those included in the Products Pipelines business segment) and all of its bulk terminal facilities, which handle products, such as petroleum coke, metal and ores, among others. The company’s terminals are located primarily near large U.S. urban centers. The company often classifies its terminal operations based on the handling of either liquids or dry-bulk material products. In addition, the company’s Terminals’ operations include Jones Act-qualified product tankers that provide marine transportation of crude oil, condensate, refined petroleum products and renewable fuel between U.S. ports.
Terminals Segment Contracts
The company’s liquids terminals business generally enters into long-term contracts that require the customer to pay its fee regardless of whether they use the capacity. Thus, similar to the company’s natural gas pipelines business, its liquids terminals business is less sensitive to short-term changes in supply and demand. Therefore, the extent to which changes in supply and demand affect the company’s terminals business in the near term is a function of the remaining length of the underlying service contracts (which on a weighted average basis was approximately two years as of December 31, 2024), the extent to which revenues under the contracts are a function of the amount of product stored or transported, and the extent to which such contracts expire during any given period of time.
CO2
CO2 business segment produces, transports and markets CO2 for use in enhanced oil recovery projects as a flooding medium for recovering crude oil from mature oil fields. The company also owns and operates oil and gas producing fields, and RNG, LNG and landfill GTE facilities. The company’s CO2 pipelines and related assets allow it to market a complete package of CO2 supply and transportation services to its customers.
CO2 Segment Contracts
The company’s CO2 source and transportation business primarily has third-party contracts with minimum volume requirements, which as of December 31, 2024 had a remaining average contract life of approximately six years. The company’s success in this portion of the CO2 business segment can be impacted by the demand for CO2. In the CO2 business segment’s oil and gas producing activities, the company monitors the amount of capital it expends in relation to the amount of production that it expects to add.
CO2 Segment Competition
The company’s primary competitors for the sale of CO2 include suppliers that have an ownership interest in McElmo Dome, Bravo Dome and Sheep Mountain CO2 resources. The company’s ownership interests in the Central Basin, Cortez and Bravo pipelines are in direct competition with other CO2 pipelines. The company competes with other interest owners in the McElmo Dome unit and the Bravo Dome unit for transportation of CO2 to the Denver City, Texas market area.
Major Customers
The company’s revenue is derived from a wide customer base.
Regulations
The company operates its interstate natural gas pipeline and storage facilities subject to the jurisdiction of the FERC and the provisions of the Natural Gas Act of 1938 (NGA), the Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978 (NGPA), and the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (the Energy Policy Act). These laws give the FERC authority over the siting, construction and operation of such facilities, including their modification, extension, enlargement and abandonment.
Some of the company’s U.S. refined petroleum products, NGL, and crude oil gathering and transmission pipelines are interstate common carrier pipelines, subject to regulation by the FERC under the Interstate Commerce Act, or ICA. The intrastate common carrier operations of the company’s refined products pipelines in California are subject to regulation by the CPUC under a depreciated book plant methodology. The intrastate operations of the company’s crude oil and liquids pipelines and natural gas pipelines and storage facilities in Texas are subject to regulation with respect to such intrastate transportation by the RCT.
The company is subject to the Jones Act and other federal laws that restrict maritime transportation (between U.S. departure and destination points) to vessels built and registered in the U.S. and owned and crewed by U.S. citizens. The company generates both hazardous and non-hazardous wastes that are subject to the requirements of the Federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and comparable state statutes. The company’s operations are subject to the Clean Air Act, its implementing regulations, and analogous state statutes and regulations. The company is subject to pipeline safety regulations issued by the United States Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), as well as any states that are certified by PHMSA to regulate pipeline safety for intrastate pipelines in their respective states. The company is subject to the requirements of federal and state agencies, including, where appropriate, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), that address, among other things, employee health and safety.
History
The company was founded in 1997. The company was incorporated in 2006. It was formerly known as Kinder Morgan Holdco LLC and changed its name to Kinder Morgan, Inc. in 2011.