Oil Pipeline Owner Plains Searches for Deals as Shale M&A Heats Up

“We’re hopeful that we’ll be successful on some bolt-on acquisitions,” Chief Financial Officer Al Swanson said on a quarterly earnings call Friday. Small acquisitions of Permian Basin crude gathering lines have helped boost the company’s earnings, Swanson said.

Since last year, there has been a wave of acquisitions among US oil and gas producers as they seek to cut costs and line up new well sites. While most of the deals have been between drillers, the pipeline sector is also ripe for tie-ups like Sunoco LP’s purchase of NuStar Energy LP last month, analysts have said.