Dallas enjoyed balmy 70-degree days in mid-November when Energy Transfer Partners LP struck its $2.23 billion Sunoco dropdown, but the mindset of the deal-makers was on January’s chill.

“They’re doing it now so they’ll have cash for next year and the market is a little uncertain,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Michael Kay, who liked the deal, told a Bloomberg reporter at the time.

The MLP agreed to sell its 68.42% interest in Sunoco LLC to Sunoco LP, its sister MLP in the Energy Transfer Equity LP (ETE) family, as the final part of a $5.7 billion series of dropdowns spread over little more than a year. The moves were designed to consolidate the Sunoco retail business and simplify the financial structure of ETE.

The parent reported a 39% increase in its distributable cash flow in third-quarter 2015 compared to the same period in 2014. Sounds good, but that total was diminished by 3% by the transaction to acquire Sunoco LLC in exchange for shares in ETP.

“The ETP units had a higher distribution attached than the Sunoco units it received,” Kay wrote in a report. “Without the deal, cash flow would have been up 5% over 2Q. Tighter coverage ratios in 2H [second half] at its MLPs could slow 2016 growth.”

In the five-year period that ended in early December, investors saw the value of ETE’s units grow by 290%. That includes a 36% plunge since late July when the market began to sour on prospects for the pipeline sector, a reaction against the low prices for the commodities intended to move through those lines.

The Motley Fool offered three takeaways from ETE’s third-quarter results: Investors should be aware that this company is more vulnerable than most in the sector to commodity price weakness, its internal realignment will allow better focus on core business and that it “has ample liquidity to weather the current storm in the energy market.”

In this climate, that’s about all an investor can want.

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