Key adjustments from last week:

• Congratulations to all of the very patient Copano Energy, LLC (CPNO) unitholders on the acquisition announcement by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, LP (KMP) at a 23.5% premium to Copano’s closing price on January 29.
• Adjusted VNR for an 8.0 million unit equity offering at $27.85 on January 30.
• Adjusted NMM for a 4.5 million unit equity offering at $14.15 on January 31.
• Adjusted GMLP for a 3.9 million unit equity offering at $29.74 on February 1 plus the private placement of $12.4 million worth of units to Golar LNG Ltd (GLNG). The proceeds were used for the $215 million acquisition of the Golar Maria from Golar LNG Ltd. GMLP’s financial data is now also pro forma for the acquisition. SEC Filing
• Added 10 Year U.S. Treasury yield data and Yield Curve Steepness data (20 Year U.S. Treasury  yield minus the 3 Month T-Bill rate) to the Markets and Levels summary page.
• A total of 85 4Q 2012 distributions have been announced with 45 increases, 37 held flat and 3 decreases (Variable Rate MLPs RNF, UAN, and Coal MLP OXF). In a general sense the declared distributions have been slightly ahead of my expectations.
• OXF suspended its distributions completely and their units were down 37% for the week. OXF was at the very top of the DCR Watchlist page, the category where you do not want your MLP position to be ranked number 1.

The Heat Index is very high so I expect to see some weakness in unit prices as we get past the ex-dividend dates for the various MLPs. If adding to or opening new positions I would look for better prices before pulling the trigger (use limit orders at levels below current market prices and then be patient, you may catch an equity offering that drops the unit price 4% to 5%).

The MLP Protocol Monthly Analytics Report for February is now available, the March 2013 report will be available after March 1st. Monthly Report adjustments:

• Generally went through and condensed various sets of information, i.e. dropped the Relative Risk pages and instead included the Risk Rating in with each MLP segment  data.
• Added the recent changed pages from the Subscriber Version of the Weekly Snapshot.
• Created a Markets and Levels section that includes some of the long-term history data and added aggregate U.S. production and reserve data, expanded the drilling rig data to show rig counts vs. commodity prices and rig counts vs. aggregate U.S. production.
• Added section divider pages for each MLP segment.
• Dropped the sphere/bubble charts.

MLP Protocol Weekly Snapshot report: MLPP 020113 Snapshot vFree