The ratings reflect our view that the long-term trend of increasing domestic onshore and Canadian crude oil production has weakened LOOP LLC's competitive position. These barrels coming from the domestic onshore and Canadian producers directly compete with waterborne foreign imports, which LOOP relies on for most of its throughput volume and operating cash flow. As a result, we expect LOOP's throughput volume and financial measures to weaken further. This is particularly detrimental for LOOP because its import business generates about 5 to 10 cents more margin per barrel than do domestic volumes. In our base-case projections, we estimate that foreign imports will decline 5% relative to last year while U.S. demand for crude will remain flat. As a result, we
