Organization

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2020

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]

Organization

Organization

    We are a growth-oriented master limited partnership founded in Delaware in 1996 and focused on the midstream segment of the crude oil and natural gas industry as well as the production of natural soda ash. Our operations are primarily located in the Gulf Coast region of the United States, Wyoming, and in the Gulf of Mexico. We provide an integrated suite of services to refiners, crude oil and natural gas producers, and industrial and commercial enterprise and have a diverse portfolio of assets, including pipelines, offshore hub and junction platforms, our trona and trona-based exploring, mining, processing, producing, marketing, and selling business based on Wyoming (our "Alkali Business"), refinery-related plants, storage tanks and terminals, railcars, rail unloading facilities, barges and other vessels, and trucks. We are owned 100% by our limited partners. Genesis Energy, LLC, our general partner, is a wholly-owned subsidiary. Our general partner has sole responsibility for conducting our business and managing our operations. We conduct our operations and own our operating assets through our subsidiaries and joint ventures.

    We currently manage our businesses through four divisions that constitute our reportable segments:

•Offshore pipeline transportation, which includes processing of crude oil and natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico;

•Sodium minerals and sulfur services involving trona and trona-based exploring, mining, processing, soda ash production, marketing and selling activities, as well as processing of high sulfur (or “sour”) gas streams for refineries to remove the sulfur, and selling the related by-product, sodium hydrosulfide (or “NaHS,” commonly pronounced "nash");

•Onshore facilities and transportation, which include terminaling, blending, storing, marketing, and transporting crude oil and petroleum products; and

•Marine transportation to provide waterborne transportation of petroleum products and crude oil throughout North America

Covid-19 and Market Update

    In March 2020, the World Health Organization categorized Covid-19 as a pandemic, and the President of the United States declared the Covid-19 outbreak a national emergency. Our operations, which fall within the energy, mining and transportation sectors, are considered critical and essential by the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and we have continued to operate our assets during this pandemic.

We have a designated internal management team to provide resources, updates, and support to our entire workforce during this pandemic, while maintaining a focus to ensure the safety and well-being of our employees, the families of our employees, and the communities in which our businesses operate. We will continue to act in the best interests of our employees, stakeholders, customers, partners, and suppliers and make any necessary changes as required by federal, state, or local authorities as we continue to actively monitor the situation.

Covid-19 has caused commodity prices to decline due to, among other things, reduced industrial activity and travel demand that are expected to continue in the near future. Additionally, actions taken by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other oil exporting nations beginning in early March 2020 caused additional significant declines and volatility in the price of oil and gas. These low and volatile commodity prices are expected to continue at least for the near-term and possibly longer, reflecting fears of a global recession and potential further global economic damage from Covid-19, including factory shutdowns, travel bans, closings of schools and stores, and cancellations of conventions and similar events, resulting in, among other things, reduced fuel demand, lower manufacturing activity, and high inventories of oil, natural gas, and petroleum products, which could further negatively impact oil, natural gas, and petroleum products and industrial products.

Due to the economic effects from commodity prices and Covid-19, demand and volumes throughout our businesses were negatively impacted beginning in the second quarter of 2020. As a result of lower current demand and the outlook for our crude-by-rail logistics assets, and rail becoming an uneconomic means of transportation for producers to get crude oil to their refineries, we identified a triggering event and subsequently recognized a non-cash impairment charge associated with these assets in our onshore facilities and transportation segment during 2020 ( See Note 7 for additional discussion). In response to the pandemic and as part of our overall cost savings strategy, we recorded a one-time charge of approximately $13 million associated with restructuring and severance expenses incurred during the period.

As we closed out the year, we believe we have begun to see a slight recovery in demand as certain regions of the United States and the world slowly begin their re-opening phases. Specifically, in our sodium minerals and sulfur services operating segment, domestic and ANSAC volume demand and NaHS demand in South America have shown signs of recovery which we expect to continue into 2021.

In addition to Covid-19, we experienced several major weather disruptions, including Tropical Storm Cristobal and Hurricanes Laura, Marco, Delta and Zeta, which caused significant downtime and damage to certain of our assets in the Gulf of Mexico causing an increase to our operating costs in our offshore pipeline transportation segment.

We will continue to monitor the market environment and will evaluate whether additional triggering events would indicate possible impairments of long-lived assets, intangible assets and goodwill. Management’s estimates are based on numerous assumptions about future operations and market conditions, which we believe to be reasonable but are inherently uncertain. The uncertainties underlying our assumptions could cause our estimates to differ significantly from actual results, including with respect to the duration and severity of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the current volatile economic environment and to the extent conditions further deteriorate, we may identify additional triggering events that may require future evaluations of the recoverability of the carrying value of our long-lived assets, intangible assets and goodwill, which could result in further impairment charges that could be material to our results of operations.