Strong competitive position and diverse business mix; Sizable proportion of fee-based revenues; and Improvement in credit-protection measures. Aggressive growth strategy; Master limited partnership structure leads to a high amount of distributable cash flow being distributed to unitholders; and Volatile natural gas processing margins. Standard&Poor's Ratings Services bases its ratings on midstream energy company Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (EPD) and its operating subsidiary Enterprise Products Operating LLC on the companies' strong business risk profiles and significant financial risk profiles. As of March 31, 2011, EPD had about $14 billion of reported debt. Key credit strengths include EPD's operating scale, business-line diversity, and high proportion of fee-based revenues. EPD's aggressive growth strategy, commodity price and volume risk exposure, and significant
