The impact on the U.S. energy industry of the worldwide crude oil price drop cannot be denied. But results will vary widely by segment and—in the case of some well-positioned midstream players—may create investor opportunities.

Upstream, operators expect to trim 2015 drilling plans and speculation abounds that higher-cost plays will see a significant drop in capex activity as crude prices sag well below the $100 per barrel (bbl) benchmark through the first three quarters of this year.

Downstream is a different matter: A crude price drop is good news. “In an oversupplied oil market, refiners win,” Raymond James Equity Research observed in a recent research report. Usually, oil feedstock prices drop faster than petroleum product prices, widening refiners’ crack spreads and increasing profitability.

“Demand factors are positive and U.S. crude supply growth should still be sufficient to disconnect WTI [West Texas Intermediate] from Brent. Both dynamics should benefit U.S. refiners,” RBC Capital Markets said, reporting on a Dec. 1 investor conference call with its analysts.

But what about midstream?

Prospects for the middle of the industry look less promising than at the first of the year but brighter than the upstream segment, most analysts agree. Midstream’s long-term move toward fee-based services, rather than commodity-based pricing structures, will ease revenue declines even if drilling drops. Low commodity prices certainly will impact drilling and resulting new production so, over time, midstream operators that rely solely on fees will feel an impact.

Midstream’s biggest firm, Kinder Morgan Inc., this week announced its financial projections for the new year with an upbeat tone.

“We anticipate strong growth in 2015 across our pipeline and storage businesses and currently have a backlog of approximately $18 billion in expansion projects and joint-venture investments that have a high certainty of completion,” Chairman and CEO Richard Kinder said in the announcement. “We are generating strong growth even though we have revised our projected WTI crude oil price to $70/bbl. As our track record demonstrates, we own and operate a large, diversified portfolio of stable, primarily fee-based energy assets across North America, which produce substantial cash flow in virtually all types of market conditions, regardless of commodity prices.”

Kinder’s comments match the corporation’s continuing self description as a “toll road” linking upstream producers and downstream consumers.

Overall for the midstream, a lot depends on drilling trends in the near future and prospects for revised 2015 upstream capex plans look weak.

“We don't know if OPEC has ulterior motives to let oil prices drift lower and pinch the global E&P sector, or if reaching a consensus on cuts was just too challenging,” Wells Fargo Securities said in report published following the cartel’s Nov. 27 meeting in Vienna. “What's clear is that lower cash flows are highly likely to translate into lower E&P spending across a host of regions/countries. A handful of E&P companies have already announced meaningful 2015 capex reductions (vs. 2014) and more are sure to follow with oil prices well below $80/bbl post OPEC’s announcement.”

Sunil Sibal, Global Hunter Securities MLP and midstream analyst, said in a research report published this week that “weak commodity prices are a headwind for not only the MLPs that have direct commodity exposure but also those that have exposure to crude oil, natural gas and/or NGL volumes flowing through their systems. A persistent weak commodity price environment is likely to result in curtailed activity by E&P producers impacting those volumes.”

In mid November, Sibal published two revised, and lower, commodity price scenarios for 2015-2016. His preferred projections at the time were $78-$79/bbl for WTI, $85-$89 for Brent and natural gas at $3.90 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf). An alternate—and more pessimistic—projection pegged WTI at $70/bbl next year, rising to $75/bbl for 2016.

“We further assume that producer volume growth is curtailed in some of the faster-growing shale plays, further impacting cash flows for the midstream players in those basins,” he said.

As December began, “post the OPEC decision to maintain production levels at 30 million bbl per day, it seems like this alternate case may most likely end up being closer to the base case for commodity prices,” Sibal said in an update to his November report.

The collective impact on midstream’s 2015 capex should be more muted—at least early in the year, according to RBC’s MLP analyst, T.J. Schultz.

In the RBC conference call, Schultz noted that “most of the 2015 capital budgets for midstream [are] set on committed projects so we would see kind of marginal impact to spending in at least that early part of 2015. The focus point on capex will really be on commentary around project backlogs. This should kind of help ascertain what medium-term capex is real and what falls off the books. This should be somewhat companies specific—different MLPs do have different ways” of handling capex backlogs, he added.

Baird Equity Research is among the research firms that see investor opportunity ahead as midstream stock and unit prices wallow well below highs set earlier in 2014.

“With crude oil seeing another leg down following OPEC’s decision to stand pat... we advise investors to use the weakness to build positions in higher-quality, infrastructure-oriented names,” Baird advised in a research report. “Cyclical names may look more attractive but negative momentum and tax loss selling give us pause for the balance of 2014. We expect this tape to be dominated by resilient top lines, fee-for-service businesses, and large-cap sponsored MLPs.

“MLPs are not a homogeneous asset class; MLPs are a structure. Varying degrees of cyclicality and commodity exposure can be found in the MLP structure,” it added.

Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. also sees opportunities for midstream investors in the current environment.

“Several of our BUY-rated names have been handed a beatdown as growthy midstream space is less like utes [utilities] and more like contracted, non-discretionary services supporting E&Ps,” it said in a report, adding “things aren’t so bad” for well-positioned midstream firms at $70/bbl. It advised clients that it was revising its financial models.

A later report, based on the new models, found the “good news is that while the near-term isn’t quite as rosy as a few weeks ago” Tudor’s midstream picks “are still able to support healthy dividend growth rates with no risk for a cut.”

RBC’s Schultz also said in the conference call he “would expect some mid-street MLPs to look at slowing distribution growth as early as 2015 and focus more on building coverage where possible” if low prices linger.

The near-term impacts of the current pricing environment will first be “seen on commodity-exposed MLPs, which in midstream is typically the gathering and processing of stocks and some with NGL exposure,” he added.

“We do know that there are some growing, fee-based cash flow streams from these guys though. The next focus, near term, would be some risk from gathering volumes accrued by rail” with later impacts on pipeline projects and other midstream facilities, Schultz said.