Kinder Morgan Energy Partners' Dividend Up 6%

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P. informs in its Q4 2014 financial report that it has increased its quarterly cash distribution per common unit to $1.38 ($5.52 annualized) payable on May 15, 2014, to unitholders of record as of April 30, 2014.

The above represents a 6 percent increase over the first quarter 2013 cash distribution per unit of $1.30 ($5.20 annualized) and is up from $1.36 per unit ($5.44 annualized) for the fourth quarter of 2013.

Chairman and CEO Richard D. Kinder said:
“KMP had a strong first quarter and increased the distribution for the 51st time since current management took over in February of 1997. We earned distributable cash flow before certain items of $1.55 per unit for the first quarter, which equates to coverage in excess of our distributions of $76 million.

Our five business segments produced $1.569 billion in segment earnings before DD&A and certain items, a 23 percent increase over the first quarter of 2013.

Growth was led by contributions from the Copano acquisition, a dropdown from Kinder Morgan, Inc. associated with the El Paso Corporation transaction, outstanding results from the Natural Gas Pipelines group, increased oil production at our CO2segment and strong results from our Terminals business.

We continue to see exceptional growth opportunities across all of our business segments and currently have identified approximately $14.9 billion in expansion and joint venture investments at KMP that we are confident will come to fruition and drive future growth. This compares to a backlog of $13.5 billion in projects announced in our January earnings release.”