Can Enterprise Products Weather the Ongoing Oil Price Softness?

Enterprise Products Partners L.P. EPD is one of the leading midstream energy service providers that transports and stores energy products between producers and consumers. EPD’s revenues are insulated from current crude price fluctuations, as it generates stable fee-based revenues from transporting, storing and processing energy products.

West Texas Intermediate (“WTI”) oil prices are now below $60 per barrel, marking a sharp decline from around $72 per barrel in the prior year, according to oilprice.com. As a result, the overall energy business is under pressure, especially the upstream sector.

However, the midstream player is backed by stable fee-based revenues generated from diversified assets. The company’s booked midstream assets include over 50,000 miles of pipelines and liquids storage properties with a capacity exceeding 300 million barrels.

The contracts booked by shippers are typically for the long term. Under these contracts, shippers reserve the partnership’s pipelines and storage facilities and commit to transporting a minimum amount of product. These long-term contracts ensure that shippers pay for the capacity reserved, whether utilized or not, generating stable and predictable income for the partnership. This is largely protected from crude price volatility, making EPD’s business model stable.

KMI & WMB Have Stable Business Models Like EPD

Two other midstream players are Kinder Morgan Inc. KMI and The Williams Companies, Inc. WMB. Both KMI and WMB generate stable, fee-based revenues by utilizing their respective assets under long-term contracts. Moreover, WMB and KMI are among the leading natural gas transporters, hence not vulnerable to the ongoing oil price weakness.

With the global shift toward cleaner fuel, demand for natural gas is expected to rise in the coming days, which is likely to strengthen natural gas prices according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (“EIA”) in its Short-Term Energy Outlook.

Stronger natural gas prices indicate a promising future not only for firms engaged in natural gas production and exploration, but also for those dealing with transportation and storage of the resource, like KMI and WMB.

EPD’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Shares of EPD have gained 1.8% over the past year compared with the 0.3% increase of the composite stocks belonging to the industry.

From a valuation standpoint, EPD trades at a trailing 12-month enterprise-value-to-EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) of 10.46x. This is below the broader industry average of 12.26x.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for EPD’s 2025 earnings has remained constant over the past seven days.

Enterprise Products currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report

This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

Zacks Investment Research