USA Compression Partners, LP operates as an independent provider of natural gas compression services in the U.S. The company is managed by the company’s general partner, USA Compression GP, LLC (the ‘General Partner’), which is wholly owned by Energy Transfer.
As of December 31, 2024, the company had 3,862,102 horsepower in its fleet. The company provides compression services to its customers primarily in connection with infrastructure applications, including both allowing for the processing an...
USA Compression Partners, LP operates as an independent provider of natural gas compression services in the U.S. The company is managed by the company’s general partner, USA Compression GP, LLC (the ‘General Partner’), which is wholly owned by Energy Transfer.
As of December 31, 2024, the company had 3,862,102 horsepower in its fleet. The company provides compression services to its customers primarily in connection with infrastructure applications, including both allowing for the processing and transportation of natural gas through the domestic pipeline system and enhancing crude oil production through artificial lift processes. As such, the company’s compression services play a critical role in the production, processing, and transportation of both natural gas and crude oil.
The company has focused its compression services in unconventional resource plays throughout the U.S., including the Utica, Marcellus, Permian, Denver-Julesburg, Eagle Ford, Mississippi Lime, Granite Wash, Woodford, Barnett, and Haynesville. According to studies promulgated by the EIA, the production and transportation volumes in these unconventional plays, namely tight oil and gas shale plays, are expected to collectively increase over the long term. Furthermore, changes in production volumes and pressures of shale plays over time require a wider range of compression service levels than in conventional basins. The company is well-positioned to meet these changing operating conditions due to the operational design flexibility inherit within the company’s compression-unit fleets.
The company’s business includes compression services serving infrastructure applications, including centralized natural gas gathering systems and processing facilities, which utilize large-horsepower compression units and also gas lift applications on crude oil wells targeted by horizontal drilling techniques. Gas lift is a process by which natural gas is injected into the production tubing of an existing producing well to reduce hydrostatic pressure and allow the oil to flow at a higher rate. This process, and other artificial-lift technologies are critical to the enhancement of oil production from horizontal wells operating in tight shale plays.
The company operates a fleet of compression units with an average age of approximately 12 years and a useful life that could potentially extend decades when properly maintained. The company acquires its compression units primarily from third-party fabricators who build the units to the company’s specifications, utilizing specific components from original equipment manufacturers and assembling the units in a manner that provides the company the ability to meet certain operating condition thresholds. The company’s standard new-build compression units generally are configured for multiple compression stages, which allows the company to operate its units across a broad range of operating conditions. The design flexibility of the company’s units, particularly in midstream applications, allows the company to enter into longer-term contracts and reduces the redeployment risk of its horsepower in the field. The company’s modern and standardized fleet, decentralized field level operating structure and technical proficiency in predictive and preventive maintenance and overhaul operations have enabled the company to achieve average service run times consistently at or above the levels required by its customers and maintain high overall utilization rates for the company’s fleet.
As part of the company’s services, the company engineers, designs, operates, services, and repairs its compression units and maintains related support inventory and equipment. The compression units in the company’s modern fleet are designed to be easily adaptable to fit its customers’ changing compression requirements.
The company provides compression services to its customers under fixed-fee contracts with initial contract terms that typically range from six months to five years, depending on the application and location of the compression unit. The company typically continues to provide compression services at a specific location beyond the initial contract term, either through contract renewal or on a month-to-month or longer basis. The company primarily enters into fixed-fee contracts whereby its customers are required to pay its monthly fee even during periods of limited or disrupted throughput, which enhances the stability and predictability of the company’s cash flows. The company bills most of its customers in advance of the service date and also typically utilizes annual inflation adjustments in the company’s term contracts.
The company provides compression services to major oil companies and independent producers, processors, gatherers and transporters of natural gas and crude oil. Regardless of the application for which the company’s services are provided, the company’s customers rely on the availability of the equipment used to provide compression services. The company’s customers may have compression demands in conjunction with their field development projects in areas of the U.S. where the company is not operating, and the company continually considers further expansion of its geographic areas of operation in the U.S. based upon the level of customer demand. The company’s modern, flexible fleet of compression units, which have been designed to be rapidly deployed and redeployed throughout the country, provides the company with opportunities to expand into other areas with both new and existing customers.
The company also owns and operates a fleet of equipment used to provide natural gas treating services, such as carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide removal and natural gas cooling and dehydration, to natural gas producers and midstream companies.
Operations
Compression Services
The company provides compression services for a fixed monthly service fee. As part of the company’s services, the company engineers, designs, operates, services, and repairs its fleet of compression units and maintains related support inventory and equipment. In certain instances, the company also engineers, designs, installs, operates, services, and repairs certain ancillary equipment used in conjunction with the company’s compression services. The company consistently has provided average service run times at or above the levels required by the company’s customers. In general, the company’s team of field technicians services only its compression fleet and ancillary equipment. In limited circumstances, and for established customers, the company will agree to service third-party owned equipment. The company does not own any compression fabrication facilities.
Compression Fleet
The fleet of compression units that the company owns and uses to provide compression services consists of specially engineered compression units that utilize standardized components, principally engines manufactured by Caterpillar Inc. and compressor frames and cylinders manufactured by Ariel Corporation. The company’s units can be modified for specific customer applications. As of December 31, 2024, the average age of the company’s compression units was approximately 12 years. The company’s modern, standardized compression unit fleet is powered primarily by the Caterpillar 3400, 3500, and 3600 engine classes, which range from 400 to 5,000 horsepower per unit. These larger-horsepower units, which the company defines as 400 horsepower per unit or greater, represented 87.2% of the company’s total fleet horsepower (including compression units on order) as of December 31, 2024. The remainder of the company’s fleet consists of smaller-horsepower units ranging from 40 horsepower to 399 horsepower that are used primarily in gas lift applications. The average age and overall composition of the company’s compressor fleet result in fewer mechanical failures, lower fuel usage, and reduced environmental emissions.
Many of the company’s compression units contain devices that enable the company to monitor the units remotely through cellular and satellite networks to supplement the company’s technicians’ on-site monitoring visits. The company intends to continue to selectively add remote monitoring systems to the company’s new and existing fleet during 2025 where beneficial from an operational and financial standpoint. All of the company’s compression units are designed to automatically shut down if operating conditions deviate from a pre-determined range.
The company adheres to routine, preventive, and scheduled maintenance cycles. Each of the company’s compression units is subjected to rigorous sizing and diagnostic analyses, including lubricating oil analysis and engine exhaust emission analysis. The company has proprietary field-service automation capabilities that allow the company’s service technicians to electronically record and track operating, technical, environmental, and commercial information at the discrete unit level. These capabilities allow the company’s field technicians to identify potential problems and often act on them before such problems result in down-time.
Generally, the company expects each of its compression units to undergo a major overhaul between service deployment cycles. The timing of these major overhauls depends on multiple factors, including run time and operating conditions. A major overhaul involves the periodic rebuilding of the unit to materially extend its economic useful life or to enhance the unit’s ability to fulfill broader or more diversified compression applications. Because the company’s compression fleet is consisted of units of varying horsepower that have been placed into service with staggered initial on-line dates, the company is able to schedule overhauls in a way that avoids excessive annual maintenance capital expenditures and minimizes the revenue impacts of down-time.
Marketing and Sales
The company’s marketing and client service functions are performed on a coordinated basis by its sales team and field technicians. Salespeople, applications engineers, and field technicians qualify, analyze, and scope new compression applications, as well as regularly visit the company’s customers to ensure customer satisfaction, determine a customer’s needs related to existing services being provided, and determine the customer’s future compression service requirements. This ongoing communication allows the company to quickly identify and respond to its customers’ compression requirements.
Customers
The company’s customers consist of approximately 275 companies in the energy industry, including major integrated oil companies, public and private independent exploration and production companies, and midstream companies. The company’s ten largest customers accounted for approximately 41% of the company’s total revenues for the year ended December 31, 2024.
Suppliers and Service Providers
The principal manufacturers of components for the company’s natural gas compression equipment include Caterpillar Inc., Cummins Inc., INNIO Waukesha, and TECO-Westinghouse for engines; Air-X-Changers, Alfa Laval (US), AXH air-coolers, EADS Cooling Solutions, LLC, and R&R Engineering Co. for coolers; and Ariel Corporation, Cooper Machinery Services Gemini products, and Arrow Engine Company for compressor frames and cylinders. The company also relies primarily on three vendors, A G Equipment Company, Alegacy Equipment, LLC., and Standard Equipment Company, to package and assemble the company’s compression units.
Governmental Regulations
The Occupational Safety and Health Act (‘OSHA’) and comparable state laws strictly govern the protection of the health and safety of employees. The OSHA hazard communication standard, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency community right-to-know regulations under Title III of CERCLA (the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act), and similar state statutes require that the company organizes, and as necessary, discloses information about hazardous materials used or produced in the company’s operations to various federal, state, and local agencies, as well as to employees.
History
The company was founded in 1998. It was incorporated in 2011. The company was formerly known as USA Compression Holdings, LP and changed its name to USA Compression Partners, LP in 2011.