The outlook for natural gas, crude oil and refined products pipelines looks good for 2012, according to three separate reports released Wednesday by Fitch Ratings. Fitch based its conclusions on recent past performance in the sector, which it views as stable.

In general, gas prices and demand are expected to stay low next year, according to the rating agency, citing the continued advent of cheap, plentiful shale gas and record storage levels. Fitch also doesn’t think the pipeline sectors are vulnerable to a continued recessionary economy or worse.

Gas pipelines in particular should continue to benefit from a “predominance of capacity reservation contracts,” which should buffer the impact of commodity price and volume throughput volatility. Increased throughput volumes and the benefits of an inflation-adjusted tariff index from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should help crude oil and refined productions pipelines, Fitch said.

“Across all segments, liquidity is generally solid and maturity schedules [for debt] are manageable,” Fitch said.

Barring an unforeseen major impact from weather, pipeline throughput generally is expected to remain “steady,” Fitch said. The reports acknowledge that there could be some modest increases in demand for refined products, and the switch away from coal-fired generation for environmental reasons could boost the demand for gas in the electric generation sector.

One area that will impact pipelines is the continued tilting toward more domestic production from emerging unconventional sources, Fitch said. “Shift in production toward emerging unconventional production basins and liquids-rich plays will drive industry growth,” Fitch said, adding that particular focus among pipelines will be on serving the burgeoning shale production through expansions.

“Fitch does not believe that a ‘double-dip’ recession or increased environmental and regulatory costs will materially impact credit quality for natural gas pipelines.” The rating agency sees cash flow and earnings stability provided by the long-term capacity reservation contracts. In short, it sees credit stability across the pipeline sector over the next several years.

A recession could affect the crude oil and refined product pipelines by lowering demand, and that would in turn hurt credit quality, Fitch said, but it would only matter if throughput declines were significant. The other risk for refinery products is individual refinery shutdowns.

“In the long term, Fitch views recontracting risk as a concern for natural gas pipelines and MLPs [master limited partnerships] given the ever-changing supply/demand dynamic for natural gas in the United States,” Fitch said. “New supply has the potential to displace traditional supply and affect capacity use on select systems, although changing market and regulatory factors make predicting winners and losers difficult.”

Separately, Fitch said that for midstream service companies “commodity price sensitivity” remains a key credit consideration in 2012.

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