Kinder Morgan, Inc. is one of the largest energy infrastructure companies in North America. The company specializes in owning and controlling oil and gas pipelines and terminals.
Kinder Morgan owns an interest in or operates approximately of pipelines and 143 terminals. The company's pipelines transport natural gas, liquefied natural gas, ethanol, biodiesel, hydrogen, refined petroleum products, crude oil, carbon dioxide, and more. Kinder Morgan also stores or handles a variety of products and materials at their terminals such as gasoline, jet fuel, ethanol, coal, petroleum coke, and steel.
The company has approximately of natural gas pipelines and is the largest natural gas pipeline operator in the United States, moving about 40 percent of the natural gas consumed. The company previously had built a major presence in Canada with the Trans Mountain pipeline, but that infrastructure is now publicly owned and operated. The company's division traditionally provides carbon dioxide () for enhanced oil recovery projects in North America, but also increasingly for carbon sequestration efforts.
History
Beginnings
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (KMP) was founded in 1997 when a group of investors acquired the general partner of a small, publicly traded pipeline limited partnership (Enron Liquids Pipeline, L.P.) later renamed Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P. Its cofounder Rich Kinder had been the president of Enron. After Kinder was denied an expected promotion to replace Kenneth Lay as chief executive officer, he departed the company, purchasing its interest in ELP for $40 million.
In 1999, Kinder Morgan conducted a reverse merger with KN Energy, a utility and pipeline company. Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America (NGPL), which serves the Chicago market, was acquired through this deal. KN Energy became Kinder Morgan's second publicly traded company, Kinder Morgan, Inc. (KMI).
In 2001, Kinder Morgan's third publicly traded company, Kinder Morgan Management, LLC (KMR) was formed to facilitate institutional ownership of KMP equity.
Leveraged buyout
On August 28, 2006, Kinder Morgan announced that it would be taken private in a management-led leveraged buyout totaling approximately $22 billion. Outside participants in the transaction include Fayez Sarofim, Goldman Sachs Capital Partners and Highstar Capital (then owned by American International Group). KMI began trading again on the NYSE on February 11, 2011, following the largest private-equity backed U.S. IPO offering in history.
Subsequent events
In October 2011, Kinder Morgan Inc. agreed to buy El Paso Corp. (EP) for $21.1 billion and gave the combined company of gas lines, eclipsing Enterprise Products Partners LP (EPD) as the biggest U.S. pipeline operator. The transaction paid with shares of Kinder Morgan, Kinder Morgan warrants, and all of cash portion $11.5 billion through Barclays (BARC) borrowing.
On August 10, 2014, Kinder announced it was moving to full ownership of its partially owned subsidiaries Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, Kinder Morgan Management, and El Paso Pipeline Partners in a deal worth $71 billion. The transaction closed on November 26, 2014. Prior to November 26, 2014, the Kinder Morgan group publicly traded companies included Kinder Morgan, Inc. (NYSE: KMI), Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P. (NYSE: KMP), Kinder Morgan Management, LLC (NYSE: KMR) and El Paso Pipeline Partners, L.P. (NYSE: EPB); a merger transaction combined all under Kinder Morgan, Inc. (NYSE: KMI), on November 26, 2014.
American Petroleum Tankers
On December 23, 2013, Kinder Morgan announced that, through its Kinder Morgan Energy partner subsidiary (NYSE: KMP), it would acquire the U.S. oil tanker operator American Petroleum Tankers (APT) and its affiliated company SCT (State Class Tankers) from the U.S. private equity investment firms Blackstone Group and Cerberus Capital Management. APT operates a fleet of five U.S. flagged MR 50,000 tons—330,000 barrels—oil tankers and has four other similar tankers on order from the General Dynamics shipbuilding company NASSCO in California. This acquisition appears to be the first case whereby a pipeline operator will also be able to offer marine transportation.
This acquisition would facilitate the export of U.S. natural resources to overseas markets, and Kinder Morgan had lined up several LNG export customers by July 2014.