Liam Denning, Columnist

The Senate Tax Plan Sets a Trapdoor for MLPs

One reform bill would wipe out the rationale for forming new pipeline partnerships.

November 28, 2017 at 5:37 PM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), speaks to reporters about the proposed Senate Republican tax bill, after attending the Senate GOP policy luncheon, at US Capitol on November 14, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Photographer: Mark Wilson

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Most of the energy world has its eyes on Vienna this week. Anyone invested in pipeline companies, though, ought to be fixated on Washington, DC.

Predicated largely on a tax break, the master limited partnerships operating much of America's oil and gas logistics are more than a little exposed to tax reform. And there are important differences between the House bill and the Senate's effort that spell potential delight or despair for MLPs.