(Source: Tulsa World)

By Rod Walton, Tulsa World, Okla.
Jul. 2--Publicly traded SemGroup Energy Partners, the now separated spinoff from bankrupt SemGroup LP, Thursday filed its fourth-quarter and annual earnings report for 2008. The release is almost four months late but is the company's third catchup filing since March.
SemGroup Energy Partners, also known as SGLP, totaled $17.8 million in net income last year despite its parent firm's financial collapse, according to the report. Fourth-quarter figures, however, showed a net loss of $1.7 million.
"Our operating rules were obviously affected by the private company's filing for bankruptcy," SGLP CEO Kevin Foxx said in a statement. "In this challenging environment, we have focused our efforts on third-party agreements for our crude oil terminaling and storage, crude oil gathering and transportation and asphalt services business independent of the private company."
SemGroup spun off some of its storage, pipeline and trucking assets to form SGLP and take it public in July 2007. One year later, the public SemGroup's stock tanked from $22 to $11 per share and lower on news that the parent company was insolvent and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Hedge funds Manchester Securities and Alerian Capital Management took board control in July 2008 after SemGroup defaulted on a $150 million loan, according to reports. Foxx resigned his SemGroup leadership positions but stayed on to lead SGLP.
Nasdaq delisted SGLP from its index earlier this year after the company failed to file quarterly reports by three deadlines. The second quarter 2008 earnings were not published
until March of this year, with the third quarter following in May.
The second-quarter numbers showed a $21.6 million profit, although those figures reflect the period ending weeks before the SemGroup bankruptcy. The third-quarter net loss totaled $11.85 million.
The parent company had allocated more than $100 million in annual revenues to its spinoff by moving oil and asphalt through SGLP fee-based storage and terminal facilities, according to reports.
The public entity was forced to find more third-party customers for those services. Third-party storage and transportation revenues rose from $5 million in 2008's second quarter to more than $13 million for both fourth-quarter 2008 and first-quarter 2009, according to the earnings report.
SGLP still has not released its overall first quarter 2009 figures.
The company's release also did not say whether SGLP executives planned to hold a conference call, as is common with most earnings reports, to talk about the business. SGLP has not had a conference with analysts and media since August 2008.
In a statement, however, Foxx expressed optimism about SGLP's future contracts.
"The asphalt contracts, in connection with our existing crude oil storage, transportation and terminaling business further stabilize our revenues, which we expect on a go-forward basis to be more than 95% from third parties," he said. "We also wish to express our gratitude to our new asphalt counterparties, existing crude oil customers and approximately 400 employees for their continued support."
Trading for SGLP, which dropped as low as 80 cents per unit on the Nasdaq last year, was listed at $5.93 Thursday afternoon on the over-the-counter "Pink Sheets" electronic market.
-----
To see more of the Tulsa World, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.tulsaworld.com.
Copyright (c) 2009, Tulsa World, Okla.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
NASDAQ-NMS:SGLP,
A service of YellowBrix, Inc.