Easton Energy Enters Agreement to Sell its Gulf Coast Liquids Pipeline System
Houston, May 13, 2024 – Easton Energy (Easton), a Houston-based midstream company, announced today that it has entered into an agreement to sell its Gulf Coast Liquids Pipeline System to ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE: OKE) for approximately $280 million, subject to customary price adjustments. Easton will retain, and continue operating, its natural gas liquids (NGL) and olefins storage business located in Markham, Texas.
The system included in the transaction is comprised of approximately 450 miles of NGL and hydrocarbon pipelines located throughout the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast midstream corridors for NGL and olefin service.
“These pipelines are a critical piece of the U.S. Gulf Coast NGL and hydrocarbon value chain,” said G.R. “Jerry” Cardillo, Easton’s Chief Executive Officer. “This transaction recognizes value for our customers, shareholders, and our business partners. We will now pivot our focus to our remaining business, our NGL and olefins storage business.”
Easton is a portfolio company of Cresta Fund Management (Cresta), a Dallas-based private equity fund that manages over $1.6 billion of capital.
“This transaction confirms the potential Cresta saw in these pipelines when we acquired them in 2018,” said Chris Rozzell, Cresta’s Managing Partner. “We are enthusiastic about Easton’s sharpened focus on its storage business and are excited about its ability to provide services to a variety of different NGL customers.”
Easton’s salt dome storage infrastructure is located between key NGL and petrochemical markets in Mont Belvieu and Corpus Christi, Texas. This infrastructure includes brine handling facilities and multiple salt dome wells with approximately 40 million barrels of NGL and olefins storage capacity.
Easton expects to close the transaction mid-year 2024. Closing is subject to customary conditions including termination or expiration of the waiting periods under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act.
About Easton Energy
Easton Energy LLC is a Houston-based midstream company focused on developing infrastructure assets that support the transportation, storage, and processing of natural gas liquids (NGL), refined products, and petrochemicals. Easton’s primary assets include liquid hydrocarbon salt cavern storage facilities at Markham, Texas, and approximately 455 miles of product distribution pipelines that connect key product markets along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. For more information, please visit eastonenergy.com.
About Cresta Fund Management
Cresta Fund Management (Cresta) is a Dallas-based private equity firm providing growth equity for sustainable and conventional energy infrastructure solutions for the industrial, logistics and agricultural sectors. With approximately $1.6 billion of assets under management, Cresta is led by a strong, operations-focused team with decades of experience in the energy and infrastructure industries. For more information, please visit crestafunds.com.
Easton and Cresta Media contact:
Jessica Groshek
External.Affairs@crestafunds.com
Easton Energy Relocates Corporate Headquarters
October 1, 2023 (HOUSTON) - Easton Energy LLC, a Houston-based infrastructure company that provides transportation and storage services for natural gas liquids, refined products, and petrochemicals, has moved their corporate headquarters from the Energy Corridor to the Memorial City area. The location provides centralized access for customers, contractors and employees.
Effective immediately, our new address is:
840 Gessner Rd, Ste 100
Houston, TX 77024
Easton Energy Appoints New Chief Commercial Officer
July 21, 2023 (HOUSTON) – Easton Energy LLC, a Houston-based infrastructure company that provides transportation and storage services for natural gas liquids, refined products, and petrochemicals, announced it has appointed Brian Ball as Chief Commercial Officer effective July 24, 2023.
Mr. Ball joins Easton, after various assignments at Enterprise Products, Buckeye Partners and was most recently Vice President, Business Development at Catahoula Resources. For two decades, he has been instrumental in commercial development activities with a focus on refined products, natural gas liquids (NGLS) and petrochemicals. Mr. Ball is a graduate of Texas A&M and holds an MBA from the University of St. Thomas.
Easton Energy Announces Key Appointments to Management Team
December 8, 2021 (HOUSTON) – Easton Energy (“Easton” or the “Company”), a Houston-based infrastructure company that provides transportation and storage services for natural gas liquids, refined products, and petrochemicals, today announced it has appointed G.R. “Jerry” Cardillo as President and Chief Executive Officer effective December 1, 2021. In addition, the Company recently promoted Al Martinez to Chief Commercial Officer from his previous role as Senior Vice President Commercial. The appointments of Mr. Cardillo and Mr. Martinez bring over 80 years of collective experience to the Easton executive team.
Mr. Cardillo brings over 40 years of prior energy industry experience. Mr. Cardillo is a graduate of the United States Merchant Marine Academy and holds an MBA from the University of Louisiana Lafayette. He has been a significant contributor on various upstream, midstream and downstream assignments, most recently as President and CEO at Contanda Terminals LLC (now part of the BWC Terminals). Prior to his role at Contanda, Mr. Cardillo spent over 14 years at Enterprise Products Company where he served as Senior Vice President with overall leadership of the Petrochemicals and Marine services divisions.
Mr. Martinez brings over 40 years of midstream energy experience with extensive industry relationships and institutional knowledge in the Natural Gas Liquids (NGLs) and petrochemical markets. Prior to Easton, Mr. Martinez served as Director of Commercial Development at Martin Midstream. Mr. Martinez spent 35 years at Enterprise Products LP where he served in various leadership roles, most recently as Senior Vice President of NGL Marketing & Supply.
Cresta’s Partner, David Miller, stated, “We’re pleased to add industry veterans Jerry and Al to the Easton executive team and look forward to working with them to continue executing the vision of growth for Easton.”
About Easton Energy
Easton is a Houston based midstream company focused on developing infrastructure assets that support the transportation, storage, and processing of natural gas liquids (“NGLs”), refined products, and petrochemicals. Easton’s primary assets include liquid hydrocarbon salt cavern storage facilities at Markham, TX and approximately 416 miles of product distribution pipelines that connect key markets along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. Easton is backed by private equity sponsor Cresta Fund Management. For more information, please visit: www.eastonenergy.com.
About Cresta Fund Management
Easton is a portfolio company of Cresta Fund Management (“Cresta”), a growth-oriented, middle market-focused private equity firm with over $1b of assets under management that invests in sustainable and conventional energy, industrial, materials, and agricultural infrastructure. Founded in 2016 and based in Dallas, Texas, Cresta’s team has a strong operational history, with decades of combined development, engineering, commercial, trading, legal and financial experience in the infrastructure industry, and its founding partners have worked together as a team since 2007. For more information please visit www.crestafunds.com.
Global Infrastructure Partners Announces Preferred Equity Investment in Easton Energy
NEW YORK, NY - September 30, 2021 - Global Infrastructure Partners (“GIP”) announced that it has made a preferred equity investment of up to $245 million in Easton Energy LLC (“Easton”). Easton is a Houston based midstream company focused on developing infrastructure assets that support the transportation, storage, and processing of natural gas liquids (NGL), refined products, and petrochemicals along the Gulf Coast. Easton’s assets include liquid hydrocarbon salt cavern storage facilities in Markham, Texas, and roughly 450 miles of pipelines that connect key product markets along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast.
GIP is making the investment through Global Infrastructure Partners Capital Solutions Fund II (“GIP CAPS II”), part of GIP’s Credit platform (“GIP Credit”). The Easton investment represents the second commitment made by GIP CAPS II. CAPS provides customized credit financings for infrastructure issuers in GIP’s core sectors of midstream energy, power, renewables, energy transition, transport and water/waste, while leveraging GIP’s significant operating expertise.
Proceeds from the investment will be used to fund the organic growth of Easton’s asset base and other strategic growth opportunities, with a tailored delayed draw structure to support both existing and future growth projects. Easton is backed by Cresta Fund Management, a growth-oriented, middle market-focused private equity firm that invests in sustainable and conventional energy, industrial, materials, and agricultural infrastructure. The highly experienced Easton management team brings considerable experience in managing natural gas liquids and feedstock transportation and distribution services.
Denny Sreckovic, Managing Director at GIP, said: “We are very pleased to have entered into this transaction with Easton and its sponsor, Cresta. Easton’s assets provide services that are core to its Gulf Coast midstream and petrochemical customers. This investment exemplifies GIP’s ability to provide tailored financing solutions for high quality, critical infrastructure projects and partner with experienced management teams and sponsors.”
Brad Ramsey, President and CEO of Easton, said: “We welcome this opportunity to partner with GIP, a leading infrastructure investor with experience in the midstream sector. GIP was able to tailor a Preferred Equity financing structure that optimally supports our continued growth capital needs and complements our existing capital structure. We view GIP as an important financial partner as Easton looks to continue its strategic infrastructure expansion.”
Evercore acted as financial advisor to Easton and the company received legal counsel from, Willkie Farr & Gallagher. Latham & Watkins provided legal counsel to GIP.
About Global Infrastructure Partners
Global Infrastructure Partners (“GIP”) is an independent infrastructure fund manager that makes equity and debt investments in infrastructure assets and businesses. GIP targets investments in the energy, transport, digital infrastructure, and water/waste sectors in both OECD and select emerging market countries. GIP’s teams are located in 10 offices: London, New York, Stamford (Connecticut), Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Mumbai, Delhi, Singapore and Hong Kong. GIP Credit provides financing solutions and makes debt and non-common equity investments in infrastructure assets and companies. For more information, visit www.global-infra.com.
About Cresta Fund Management
Cresta Fund Management (“Cresta”) is a growth-oriented private equity firm that invests in sustainable and conventional energy and industrial infrastructure. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Cresta Management’s founding partners are seasoned industry veterans who bring value across the investment cycle from initial diligence through business operations. For more information, please visit: www.crestafunds.com.
About Easton Energy
Easton Energy (“Easton”) is a Houston based midstream company focused on developing infrastructure assets that support the transportation, storage, and processing of natural gas liquids (NGL), refined products, and petrochemicals. Easton’s primary assets include liquid hydrocarbon salt cavern storage facilities at Markham, TX and approximately 450 miles of product distribution pipelines that connect key product markets along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. For more information, please visit: www.eastonenergy.com.
Easton Energy Announces Enhancement of Storage Rights at Markham, TX
HOUSTON, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Easton Energy LLC (“Easton” or the “Company”), a Houston based midstream company, today announced the expansion of Easton’s rights to store Natural Gas Liquids (“NGLs”) and Olefins in the existing salt caverns at Markham, TX with the addition of Crude Oil rights.
The Markham, TX salt dome has been an operational storage location for multiple NGL and olefin related businesses for over 40 years and has associated and supporting pipelines running through the facility and area. The Markham salt dome is a strategic balancing point in between petrochemical markets in Houston and Corpus Christi and is positioned to support crude Oil export growth in between the Freeport, TX and Corpus Christi, TX markets.
Easton President and CEO, Joel McComas stated, “We’re pleased to expand our relationship with Texas Brine Company, LLC through its subsidiary at Markham and to add the ability to store crude oil in the Markham salt dome. The combination of expanding our NGL and olefin storage rights with the addition of crude Oil storage, we believe, continues to make Markham a premium location for our customers to optimize their respective businesses. Further, as a function of our great working relationship with our sister company, Sentinel Midstream, we’ve been fortunate to develop a series of supporting pipeline and storage opportunities in the Gulf Coast crude Oil markets around Markham, TX largely driven by our brine pond development and the remaining 40mbbls of storage capacity.”
Texas Brine CEO Ted Grabowski stated, “We’re pleased to support Easton in the development of the Markham salt dome as a storage hub connecting several key markets. Markham is a strategic location with great potential for more storage development. We wish them continued success for many years to come.“
About Easton Energy LLC
Easton Energy is a Houston based midstream company focused on developing infrastructure assets that support the transportation, storage, and processing of natural gas liquids (NGL), refined products, and petrochemicals. Easton’s primary assets include liquid hydrocarbon salt cavern storage facilities at Markham, TX and approximately 416 miles of product distribution pipelines that connect key product markets along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. Easton Energy is backed by Cresta Fund Management, a middle-market focused infrastructure firm focused on investing in hard assets that transport, store, process or sequester basic materials. For more information, please visit: www.easton.energy
About Texas Brine Company, LLC
Texas Brine, together with its wholly-owned subsidiaries, is the largest independent brine producer in the United States, supplying over 30 percent of the brine requirements of the chlor-alkali industry. Its underground caverns, developed through brine production, are designed to meet the storage needs for a wide variety of gas and liquid products. For more information, please visit texasbrine.com.
Contact
Easton Energy LLC, Tyler Wharton, TWharton@easton.energy
Texas Brine Company, LLC, Brain Rapp, BRapp@texasbrine.com
SOURCE Easton Energy LLC
Related Links
Friends (And NGL Storage) In Low-Lying Places, Part 3 - Easton Energy's Storage And Pipe Projects
New fractionation plants, steam crackers and export facilities are being built along the Gulf Coast, all spurred by rising U.S. production of natural gas liquids. This incremental NGL output and these new projects are putting serious pressure on existing NGL pipeline and storage infrastructure, and prodding the development of new salt-cavern storage capacity for mixed NGLs, NGL purity products, and ethylene and other olefins. Also, new, expanded and repurposed pipelines to enhance NGL-related flows throughout the region are in the works. Today, we continue our series on NGL storage facilities along the Gulf Coast with a look at Easton Energy Services’ plans for more underground storage capacity in Markham, TX, and new NGL and olefin pipelines.
[Published by: Housley Carr — Full Article]
Easton Energy Announces Acquisition of Gulf Coast Natural Gas Liquids Pipeline Systems from Williams
HOUSTON, Dec. 6, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Easton Energy LLC ("Easton" or the "Company"), a Houston based midstream company, today announced the acquisition of approximately 416 miles of Gulf Coast natural gas liquids (NGL) pipelines from The Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE: WMB) for $177 million in cash. The pipeline assets are primarily used to transport natural gas liquids from various supply sources to petrochemical consumers in Texas and Louisianamarkets. The transaction was completed in partnership with Easton's financial sponsor, Cresta Energy Capital, an energy infrastructure focused private equity firm based in Dallas.
"Paired with our salt cavern storage development at Markham, Texas, this acquisition represents an opportunity for Easton to utilize a significant footprint of pipelines to connect key NGL storage markets with end users along the Texas Gulf Coast," said Joel McComas, President, Easton Energy.
"It has been exciting to partner with Easton since its formation," said Chris Rozzell, Managing Partner at Cresta Energy Capital. "This acquisition highlight's Easton's commitment to investing in much needed natural gas liquids infrastructure across the U.S. Gulf Coast. We look forward to supporting Easton's ongoing growth as the company continues to build on its existing platform."
About Easton Energy LLC
Easton Energy is a Houston based midstream company focused on developing infrastructure assets that support the transportation, storage, and processing of natural gas liquids (NGL), refined products, and petrochemicals. Easton's primary assets include liquid hydrocarbon salt cavern storage facilities at Markham, TX and approximately 416 miles of product distribution pipelines that connect key product markets along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. Easton Energy is backed by Cresta Energy Capital. For more information, please visit: www.easton.energy
About Cresta Energy Capital
Cresta Energy Capital is a Dallas based private equity firm focused on middle market infrastructure investments across the energy and related sectors. Cresta was founded in 2016 by energy infrastructure professionals that understand that executing on successful value add investment opportunities requires a unique perspective and a partnership mindset. For more information, please visit: www.crestaenergy.com
Contact
Easton Energy LLC, Tyler Wharton, twharton@easton.energy
Cresta Energy Capital, Dena Peterson, dena.peterson@crestaenergy.com
SOURCE Easton Energy LLC