Production growth coupled with strong domestic and international demand for natural gas liquids (NGLs) in 2013 drove a record-setting year for Enterprise Products Partners (EPD) in both finance and operations, executives there told analysts during a recent fourth-quarter conference call.

“In 2013, we transported a record 5 million barrels per day of NGLs, crude oil, refined products and petrochemicals, while our gas processing plants handled a record 4.6 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas on a fee basis and our NGL fractionators averaged a record 726,000 barrels per day,” explained Michael Creel, Enterprise’s chief executive.

Distributable cash flow increased 15% to 1.02 billion in the fourth quarter from $886 million year-over-year.

“For the second consecutive quarter, we had record NGL and crude oil transportation volumes, record NGL fractionation volumes and record LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) export volumes,” Creel said.

Analysts at Morningstar Inc. noted that while Enterprise’s assets span the midstream space, its dominance in NGLs is especially pronounced.

“We think this integration positions the partnership for stable base cash flows and provides a tremendous platform for growth,” Morningstar said in a recent investors’ note.

Perhaps chief operating officer Jim Teague said it best during the conference call.

“We benefit from diversity, both geographic and product, which gives us option to make money under almost any market condition,” he said.

Operationally, Enterprise remains strong. In the Eagle Ford, the company’s build-out is almost complete. Relative to NGL pipelines, the Mid-America Rocky Mountain expansion and the Texas Express pipelines are in service, and Enterprise has started to linefill the Front Range project. The ATEX pipeline went into service January 1 and work is on schedule for the Aegis pipeline header where the first segment to Lake Charles is expected to be in-service by the end of the year.

Enterprise completed the Seaway reversal early last year and the company is close to completing the looping of Seaway, Teague said. In addition, Enterprise completed the lateral from Jones Creek to the Enterprise Crude Houston (ECHO) terminal on the Houston Ship Channel. The company is working on the tank build-out, the 95-mile lateral to Beaumont/Port Arthur and the header along the channel. The assets are strategic to both the supply and demand sectors of the industry and Enterprise expects it to be a solid foundation for additional crude expansions. By the time the work is complete, Enterprise will have direct connectivity from ECHO to every Texas refinery in Houston, Texas City, Beaumont, and Port Arthur, as well as water access across six docks in three locations, Teague said.

Work at the Beaumont refined product export dock is expected to be up and running during the second and third quarters of this year. The company has put its eighth fractionation train into service, and with several new units exceeding their design capacity, almost 700,000 barrels per day of fractionation is taking place at Mont Belvieu, approximately 1.2 million bbl. per day system-wide.

Enterprise’s propane dehydration (PDH) plant is progressing toward a late 2015 startup. Dock expansions are under construction that will increase capacity from 7.5 million bbl per month to 9 million bbl. per month of LPG.

At Tudor Picking & Holt, analysts said Enterprise needs some mergers and acquisitions activity to grow beyond 2015 because the company can expect less than 6% growth in cash flow from regulated NGL pipelines in 2014 and less than 10% growth from Gulf Coast projects the following year.

“Project backlog shrinks significantly into 2015, making us think that M&A is increasingly likely in the next 24 months,” TPH said.