Organization and Summary of Significant Agreements

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2020

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]

Organization and Summary of Significant Agreements

(1) Organization and Summary of Significant Agreements

(a) Organization of Business

ENLC is a Delaware limited liability company formed in October 2013. The Company’s common units are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “ENLC.” ENLC owns all of ENLK’s common units and also owns all of the membership interests of the General Partner. ENLK is a Delaware limited partnership formed in 2002. EnLink Midstream GP, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and our wholly-owned subsidiary, is ENLK’s general partner. The General Partner manages ENLK’s operations and activities.

Devon Transaction

In 2014, we completed a series of transactions with Devon pursuant to which Devon contributed certain subsidiaries and assets to us in exchange for a majority interest in us (the “Devon Transaction”).

GIP Transaction

On July 18, 2018, subsidiaries of Devon closed a transaction to sell all of their equity interests in ENLK, ENLC, and the Managing Member to GIP. As a result of the transaction:

•GIP, through GIP III Stetson I, L.P., acquired all of the equity interests held by subsidiaries of Devon in ENLK and the Managing Member, which, as of the closing date, amounted to 100% of the outstanding limited liability company interests in the Managing Member and approximately 23.1% of the outstanding limited partner interests in ENLK;

•GIP, through GIP III Stetson II, L.P., acquired all of the equity interests held by subsidiaries of Devon in ENLC, which, as of the closing date, amounted to approximately 63.8% of the outstanding limited liability company interests in ENLC; and

•Through this transaction, GIP acquired control of (i) the Managing Member, (ii) ENLC, and (iii) ENLK, as a result of ENLC’s ownership of the General Partner.

Simplification of the Corporate Structure

On January 25, 2019, we completed the Merger, an internal reorganization pursuant to which ENLC owns all of the outstanding common units of ENLK. As a result of the Merger:

•Each issued and outstanding ENLK common unit (except for ENLK common units held by ENLC and its subsidiaries) was converted into 1.15 ENLC common units, which resulted in the issuance of 304,822,035 ENLC common units.

•The General Partner’s incentive distribution rights in ENLK were eliminated.

•Certain terms of the Series B Preferred Units were modified pursuant to an amended partnership agreement of ENLK. See “Note 8—Certain Provisions of the Partnership Agreement” for additional information regarding the modified terms of the Series B Preferred Units.

•ENLC issued to Enfield, the current holder of the Series B Preferred Units, for no additional consideration, ENLC Class C Common Units equal to the number of Series B Preferred Units held by Enfield immediately prior to the effective time of the Merger, in order to provide Enfield with certain voting rights with respect to ENLC. ENLC also agreed to issue an additional ENLC Class C Common Unit to the applicable holder of each Series B Preferred Unit for each additional Series B Preferred Unit issued by ENLK in quarterly in-kind distributions. In addition, for each Series B Preferred Unit that is exchanged into an ENLC common unit, an ENLC Class C Common Unit will be canceled.

•The Series C Preferred Units and all of ENLK’s then-existing senior notes continue to be issued and outstanding following the Merger.

•Each unit-based award issued and outstanding immediately prior to the effective time of the Merger under the GP Plan was converted into 1.15 awards with respect to ENLC common units with substantially similar terms as were in effect immediately prior to the effective time.

•Each unit-based award with performance-based vesting conditions issued and outstanding immediately prior to the effective time of the Merger under the GP Plan and the 2014 Plan was modified such that the performance metric for any then outstanding performance award relates (on a weighted average basis) to (i) the combined performance of ENLC and ENLK for periods preceding the effective time of the Merger and (ii) the performance of ENLC for periods on and after the effective time of the Merger.

•ENLC assumed the outstanding debt under the Term Loan and ENLK became a guarantor thereof. See “Note 6—Long-Term Debt” for additional information regarding the Term Loan.

•We refinanced our existing revolving credit facilities at ENLK and ENLC. In connection with the Merger, we entered into the Consolidated Credit Facility, with respect to which ENLK is a guarantor. See “Note 6—Long-Term Debt” for additional information regarding the Consolidated Credit Facility.

•We were required to allocate the goodwill in our Corporate reporting unit previously associated with the incentive distribution rights in ENLK granted to the General Partner which were created in connection with the Devon Transaction, to the Permian, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and North Texas reporting units. See “Note 3—Goodwill and Intangible Assets” for more information on this transaction.

•We reduced our deferred tax liability by $399.0 million related to ENLC’s step-up in basis of ENLK’s underlying assets with the offsetting credit in members’ equity. See “Note 7—Income Taxes” for more information on the deferred tax liabilities.

(b) Nature of Business

We primarily focus on providing midstream energy services, including:

•gathering, compressing, treating, processing, transporting, storing, and selling natural gas;

•fractionating, transporting, storing, and selling NGLs; and

•gathering, transporting, stabilizing, storing, trans-loading, and selling crude oil and condensate, in addition to brine disposal services.

Our midstream energy asset network includes approximately 11,900 miles of pipelines, 22 natural gas processing plants with approximately 5.5 Bcf/d of processing capacity, seven fractionators with approximately 290,000 Bbls/d of fractionation capacity, barge and rail terminals, product storage facilities, purchasing and marketing capabilities, brine disposal wells, a crude oil trucking fleet, and equity investments in certain joint ventures. Our operations are based in the United States, and our sales are derived primarily from domestic customers.

Our natural gas business includes connecting the wells of producers in our market areas to our gathering systems. Our gathering systems consist of networks of pipelines that collect natural gas from points at or near producing wells and transport it to our processing plants or to larger pipelines for further transmission. We operate processing plants that remove NGLs from the natural gas stream that is transported to the processing plants by our own gathering systems or by third-party pipelines. In conjunction with our gathering and processing business, we may purchase natural gas and NGLs from producers and other supply sources and sell that natural gas or NGLs to utilities, industrial consumers, marketers, and pipelines. Our transmission pipelines receive natural gas from our gathering systems and from third-party gathering and transmission systems and deliver natural gas to industrial end-users, utilities, and other pipelines.

Our fractionators separate NGLs into separate purity products, including ethane, propane, iso-butane, normal butane, and natural gasoline. Our fractionators receive NGLs primarily through our transmission lines that transport NGLs from East Texas and from our South Louisiana processing plants. Our fractionators also have the capability to receive NGLs by truck or rail terminals. We also have agreements pursuant to which third parties transport NGLs from our West Texas and Central Oklahoma operations to our NGL transmission lines that then transport the NGLs to our fractionators. In addition, we have NGL storage capacity to provide storage for customers.

Our crude oil and condensate business includes the gathering and transmission of crude oil and condensate via pipelines, barges, rail, and trucks, in addition to condensate stabilization and brine disposal. We also purchase crude oil and condensate from producers and other supply sources and sell that crude oil and condensate through our terminal facilities to various markets.

Across our businesses, we primarily earn our fees through various fee-based contractual arrangements, which include stated fee-only contract arrangements or arrangements with fee-based components where we purchase and resell commodities in connection with providing the related service and earn a net margin as our fee. We earn our net margin under our purchase and resell contract arrangements primarily as a result of stated service-related fees that are deducted from the price of the commodities purchased. While our transactions vary in form, the essential element of most of our transactions is the use of our assets to transport a product or provide a processed product to an end-user or marketer at the tailgate of the plant, pipeline, or barge, truck, or rail terminal.

(c) Current Market Environment

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak a pandemic and recommended containment and mitigation measures worldwide. The ongoing pandemic has reached every region of the globe and has resulted in widespread adverse impacts on the global economy, on the energy industry as a whole and on midstream companies, and on our customers, suppliers, and other parties with whom we have business relations. The pandemic and related travel and operational restrictions, as well as business closures and curtailed consumer activity, have resulted in a reduction in global demand for energy, volatility in the market prices for crude oil, condensate, natural gas and NGLs, and a significant reduction in the market price of crude oil during the first half of 2020. As a result of the demand destruction, reduced commodity prices, and an uncertain timeline for full recovery, many oil and natural gas producers, including some of our customers, curtailed their current drilling and production activity and reduced or slowed down their plans for future drilling and production activity. As a result of these decreases in producer activity, we experienced reduced volumes gathered, processed, fractionated, and transported on our assets in some of the regions that supply our systems during the first half of 2020. Although volumes have since been restored nearly to pre-pandemic levels, capital investments by oil and natural gas producers remain at low levels.

There is considerable uncertainty regarding how long the COVID-19 pandemic will persist and affect economic conditions and the extent and duration of changes in consumer behavior, such as the reluctance to travel, as well as whether governmental and other measures implemented to try to slow the spread of the virus, such as large-scale travel bans and restrictions, border closures, quarantines, shelter-in-place orders, and business and government shutdowns that exist as of the date of this report will be extended or whether new measures will be imposed. A sustained significant decline in oil and natural gas exploration and production activities and related reduced demand for our services by our customers, whether due to decreases in consumer demand or reduction in the prices for oil, condensate natural gas and NGLs or otherwise, would have a material adverse effect on our business, liquidity, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows (including our ability to make distributions to our unitholders).