Master limited partnerships and related exchange traded products rallied Tuesday after President Donald Trump pledged to advance construction of key energy pipelines.
The JPMorgan Alerian MLP Index ETN (NYSEArca: AMJ) and the ALPS Alerian MLP ETF (NYSEArca: AMLP), the two largest MLP-related exchange traded products, rose 2.3% and 1.7% on Tuesday, respectively.
MLPs strengthened after Trump took steps to advance the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, revealing the new administrations looser constraints on the oil industry, Bloomberg reports.
“We are going to renegotiate some of the terms,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as he signed the two measures. “We will build our own pipelines; we will build our own pipes.”
The shift in policy on U.S. energy pipelines is a major departure from the Obama administration, which previously rejected TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone Proposal in 2015 and kept the Dakota Access blocked since September. The policy change will be a boon for the oil industry, allowing companies to expand infrastructure and ease transportation bottlenecks.
“We’re going to make the process much more simple for the oil companies and everybody else that wants to do business in the United States,” Trump told U.S. auto executive at the White House meeting Tuesday morning.
TransCanada (NYSE: TRP) shares jumped 3.2% on the news. TRP makes up large components of other MLP ETFs, including 9.1% of Global X MLP & Energy Infrastructure ETF (NYSEArca: MLPX) and 7.6% of Tortoise North American Pipeline Fund (NYSEArca: TPYP). On Tuesday, MLPX rose 2.3% and TPYP gained 2.1%.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer argued that both the Dakota Access and Keystone projects would “increase jobs, increase economic growth, and tap into America’s energy supply more,” explaining that Trump wanted to balance environmental protection with activity that can bolster job growth and the economy.
“From now on we’re going to be making pipeline in the United States. We build the pipelines, we want to build the pipe. We’re going to put a lot of workers, a lot of skilled workers, back to work. We will build our own pipeline, we will build our own pipes, like we used to in the old days,” Trump said.
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