S&P takes various actions on Kinder Morgan

Standard & Poor's said it took the following ratings actions on the corporate family of U.S. midstream energy company Kinder Morgan Inc.:

• Affirmed Kinder Morgan's BB corporate credit rating and revised its outlook to stable from positive;

• Raised all ratings on El Paso Pipeline Partners LP (EPB) and its Colorado Interstate Gas Co. and Southern Natural Gas Co. subsidiaries to BBB from BBB- with stable outlooks;

• Affirmed the ratings, including the BBB corporate rating, on Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP with a stable outlook; and

• Upgraded the corporate credit rating on Copano Energy LLC to BBB from BBB- as it has become increasingly integrated within Kinder Morgan Energy, which also guarantees its only debt issue.

S&P said its ratings on Kinder Morgan reflect the company's "satisfactory" business risk profile and "aggressive" financial risk profile as per the criteria. Kinder Morgan's credit quality centers on its ownership of Kinder Morgan GP Inc., the general partner of the master limited partnership of Kinder Morgan Energy, El Paso LLC, including El Paso's pipeline assets as well as general and limited partnership interests in EPB, and a minority equity interest in NGPL PipeCo LLC.

As of Dec. 31, 2013, Kinder Morgan and its subsidiaries had about $36 billion of total reported debt, while Kinder Morgan and El Paso had about $10 billion of debt collectively on a stand-alone basis.

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