Related-Party Transactions (Notes)

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2011

Related Party Transactions [Abstract]

Related-Party Transactions [Text Block]

RELATED-PARTY TRANSACTIONS

Commercial Agreements. The Partnership entered into various long-term, fee-based commercial agreements with Tesoro at the closing of the Offering, and subsequent to the Offering, under which we provide various pipeline transportation, trucking, terminal distribution and storage services to Tesoro, and Tesoro commits to provide us with minimum monthly throughput volumes of crude oil and refined products.

If, in any calendar month, Tesoro fails to meet its minimum volume commitments under these agreements, it will be required to pay us a shortfall payment. These shortfall payments may be applied as a credit against any amounts due above their minimum volume commitments for up to three months after the shortfall payment was made. We believe the terms and conditions under these agreements, as well as our other initial agreements with Tesoro described below, are generally no less favorable to either party than those that could have been negotiated with unaffiliated parties with respect to similar services. These commercial agreements with Tesoro include:

• a 10-year pipeline transportation services agreement under which Tesoro pays the Partnership fees for gathering and transporting crude oil on our High Plains system;

• a crude oil trucking transportation services agreement under which Tesoro pays the Partnership fees for trucking related services and scheduling and dispatching services that we provide through our High Plains truck-based crude oil gathering operation, which was amended effective January 1, 2012 to extend the agreement to five years and convert fees to mileage- based rates;

• a 10-year master terminalling services agreement under which Tesoro pays the Partnership fees for providing terminalling services at our eight refined products terminals, which was amended, effective December 1, 2011, to include additional ancillary services for certain terminals;

• a 10-year pipeline transportation services agreement under which Tesoro pays the Partnership fees for transporting crude oil and refined products on our five Salt Lake City ("SLC") short-haul pipelines; and

• a 10-year SLC storage and transportation services agreement under which Tesoro pays the Partnership fees for storing crude oil and refined products at our SLC storage facility and transporting crude oil and refined products between the storage facility and Tesoro's Utah refinery through interconnecting pipelines on a dedicated basis.

Each of these agreements, other than the SLC storage and transportation services agreement, contain minimum volume commitments. The fees under each agreement are indexed for inflation and, except for the amended trucking transportation services agreement, give Tesoro the option to renew for two five-year terms. The amended trucking transportation services agreement will renew automatically for one five-year term unless earlier terminated by us or Tesoro.

Additionally, these agreements include provisions that permit Tesoro to suspend, reduce or terminate its obligations under the applicable agreement if certain events occur; provided, however that Tesoro will still be responsible for one year of continuing minimum payments. These events include Tesoro deciding to suspend refining operations permanently or indefinitely at one or more of its refineries that will impact the use of assets under these agreements as well as certain extraordinary events beyond the control of us or Tesoro that would prevent us from performing required services under the applicable agreement.

In addition to the commercial agreements described above, we also entered into or are contemplating entering into the following agreements with Tesoro:

Omnibus Agreement.  The Partnership entered into an omnibus agreement with Tesoro under which Tesoro agrees not to compete with us under certain circumstances. It also grants us a right of first offer to acquire certain of Tesoro's retained logistics assets, including certain terminals, pipelines, docks, storage facilities and other related assets located in California, Alaska and Washington. Further, the omnibus agreement addresses our payment of an annual fee to Tesoro for the provision of various general and administrative services. Tesoro also reimburses the Partnership for certain maintenance and expansion capital expenditures that are recorded as capital contributions, and Tesoro indemnifies us for certain matters, including environmental, title and tax matters associated with the ownership or operation of our assets arising at or before the closing of the Offering on April 26, 2011.

Operational Services Agreement.  The Partnership entered into an operational services agreement with Tesoro under which we reimburse Tesoro for the provision of certain operational services to us in support of our pipelines, terminals and storage facility including operational services performed by certain of Tesoro's field-level employees. There is an annual fee, initially in the amount of $0.3 million (prorated for the first year of services), for reimbursement of our general partner and its affiliates for certain operational services performed by certain of Tesoro's field-level employees in support of our pipelines, terminals and storage facility as outlined in our operational services agreement. Additional amounts are charged in accordance with the agreement as necessary.

TLLP Transactions. Revenues from affiliates consist of revenues from commercial agreements we entered into with Tesoro at the closing of the Offering and subsequent to the Offering under which Tesoro pays us fees for gathering, transporting and storing crude oil and transporting, storing and terminalling refined products. Pursuant to our omnibus agreement, we pay Tesoro an annual corporate services fee, payable in equal monthly installments, initially in the amount of $2.5 million (prorated for the first year of services), for the provision of various centralized corporate services including executive management, legal, accounting, treasury, human resources, health, safety and environmental, information technology, insurance coverage, administration and other corporate services.

Predecessor Transactions. Related-party transactions of our Predecessor were settled through division equity. The balance in receivables and accounts payable from affiliated companies represents the amount owed from or to Tesoro related to certain affiliate transactions. Revenues from affiliates in the combined statements of operations of our Predecessor consist of revenues from gathering and transportation services to Tesoro and its affiliates based on regulated tariff rates for the FERC regulated portions of our High Plains system.

Summary of Transactions. A summary of revenue and expense transactions with Tesoro, including expenses directly charged and allocated to our Predecessor, are as follows (in thousands):

	Year Ended December 31,
	2011		2010		2009
			Predecessor		Predecessor
Revenues	$	77,443	$	19,477	$	19,297
Operating and maintenance expenses (a)	14,907		32,460		31,452
General and administrative expenses	7,379		3,198		3,141

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(a) Operating and maintenance expenses include imbalance settlement gains of $7.2 million, $3.3 million and $1.6 million in the years ended December 31, 2011, 2010 and 2009, respectively. It also includes operating lease expenses of $0.2 million, $0.4 million and $0.2 million in the years ended December 31, 2011, 2010 and 2009, respectively, related to our sublease from Tesoro of our Anchorage terminal.

In accordance with our partnership agreement, our common and subordinated units and general partner interest are entitled to receive quarterly distributions of available cash. In 2011, we paid quarterly cash distributions, totaling $9.6 million to Tesoro. On January 19, 2012, we declared a quarterly cash distribution of $0.3625 per unit based on the results of the fourth quarter of 2011, including $5.9 million to Tesoro, which was paid on February 13, 2012.