It becomes clear that cutting payouts has severely damaged appetite for the sector, something we realized through this type of feedback. A similar post examined how Energy Transfer (ET) had lowered payouts for certain classes of investor, (see Energy Transfer: Cutting Your Payout Not Mine) and drew an even bigger response (272 comments). Our post showed that while original Energy Transfer Equity investors had avoided distribution cuts, holders of Energy Transfer Partners, Sunoco Logistics and Regency Partners hadn’t fared so well. MLP-only funds can no longer claim to provide broad sector exposure, since they omit most of the biggest North American pipeline companies. Pipeline investors are hoping that the Wells Fargo chart showing lower capex in the future will, finally, be accurate.

Source: Forbes December 31, 2018 22:07 UTC