Related Party Transactions

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2015

Related Party Transactions [Abstract]

Related Party Transactions

Note 13.  Related Party Transactions

The following table summarizes our related party transactions for the periods indicated:

	For the Three Months Ended September 30,				For the Nine Months Ended September 30,
	2015		2014		2015		2014
Revenues – related parties:
Unconsolidated affiliates	$	13.9	$	11.0	$	27.3	$	63.8
Costs and expenses – related parties:
EPCO and its privately held affiliates	$	246.0	$	212.8	$	703.9	$	688.0
Unconsolidated affiliates		66.9		35.8		165.3		138.4
Total	$	312.9	$	248.6	$	869.2	$	826.4

The following table summarizes our related party accounts receivable and accounts payable balances at the dates indicated:

	September 30, 2015		December 31, 2014
Accounts receivable - related parties:
Unconsolidated affiliates	$	1.7	$	2.8
Accounts payable - related parties:
EPCO and its privately held affiliates	$	64.6	$	98.1
Unconsolidated affiliates		15.7		20.8
Total	$	80.3	$	118.9

We believe that the terms and provisions of our related party agreements are fair to us; however, such agreements and transactions may not be as favorable to us as we could have obtained from unaffiliated third parties.

Relationship with EPCO and its Privately Held Affiliates

We have an extensive and ongoing relationship with EPCO and its privately held affiliates (including Enterprise GP, our general partner), which are not a part of our consolidated group of companies.  

At September 30, 2015, EPCO and its privately held affiliates (including Dan Duncan LLC and certain Duncan family trusts) beneficially owned the following limited partner interests in us:

Total Number  of Units	Percentage of Total Units Outstanding
675,259,617	33.7%

Of the total number of units held by EPCO and its privately held affiliates, 118,000,000 have been pledged as security under the credit facilities of certain of the privately held affiliates at September 30, 2015.  These credit facilities contain customary and other events of default, including defaults by us and other affiliates of EPCO.  An event of default, followed by a foreclosure on the pledged collateral, could ultimately result in a change in ownership of these units and affect the market price of our common units.

We and Enterprise GP are both separate legal entities apart from each other and apart from EPCO and its other affiliates, with assets and liabilities that are also separate from those of EPCO and its other affiliates.  EPCO and its privately held affiliates depend on the cash distributions they receive from us and other investments to fund their other activities and to meet their debt obligations.  During the nine months ended September 30, 2015 and 2014, we paid EPCO and its privately held affiliates cash distributions totaling $705.9 million and $652.8 million, respectively.  Distributions paid during the nine months ended September 30, 2015 excluded 35,380,000 Designated Units (see Note 11).  Likewise, distributions paid during the nine months ended September 30, 2014 excluded 45,120,000 Designated Units.

From time-to-time, EPCO and its privately held affiliates elect to reinvest a portion of the cash distributions they receive from us into the purchase of additional common units under our DRIP. These purchases totaled $50 million and $75 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2015 and 2014, respectively. In addition, a total of $50 million of distributions were reinvested in connection with the distribution we paid on November 6, 2015.  In March 2015, a privately held affiliate of EPCO purchased 3,225,057 common units from us under our ATM program for $31.01 per unit. See Note 11 for additional information regarding our DRIP and ATM program.

We have no employees.  All of our operating functions and general and administrative support services are provided by employees of EPCO pursuant to the ASA or by other service providers. The following table presents our related party costs and expenses attributable to the ASA with EPCO for the periods indicated:

	For the Three Months Ended September 30,				For the Nine Months Ended September 30,
	2015		2014		2015		2014
Operating costs and expenses	$	215.3	$	179.0	$	612.2	$	591.6
General and administrative expenses		26.4		29.6		78.8		84.5
Total costs and expenses	$	241.7	$	208.6	$	691.0	$	676.1