With the pending roll up of the Kinder Morgan companies into Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI), I have little interest in the detailed quarterly financial results. It will probably take until this time next year before we can start to evaluate the KMI growth prospects plus or minus the company's projections for the next half decade.

However, since Chairman and CEO Richard Kinder is generally not afraid to say exactly what he thinks and has a multi-decade record of success, it is always interesting to sit through one of the 90 minutes conference call. My goal is to pick up nuggets of information that will help with my overall understanding of the investment potential for KMI or for the energy midstream sector in general. 

So here goes with the items that I pulled from the 2014 Q3 call that I think are illuminating:

• Kinder Morgan is shooting to be able to proceed with votes of investors and complete the roll up by Thanksgiving. 
• The total Kinder Morgan complex project backlog increased to $17.9 billion, up from $17 billion at the end of Q2. During Q3, $1.1 billion in projects were completed, resulting in a net backlog increase of $2 billion for the quarter.
• When questioned, management gave a "shadow" backlog number of greater than $20 billion. Kinder Morgan transports something like 9% of all the natural gas moved in the U.S. and the bulk of both the real and shadow backlog is for additional pipeline projects. 
• Even though the El Paso Pipeline Partners LP (EPB) distribution has not been increased for five quarters, the Q3 DCF per unit was up 12% compared to Q3 of 2013. Just a point to show business is improving for the struggling MLP.
• Q3 general and admin expenses were lower for all three companies compared to a year ago.
• Rich Kinder led a sub discussion concerning his belief that the demand for new infrastructure will start to come from the demand side rather than the energy production companies. He noted that petrochemical producers and export demand for NGLs was just starting to appear. These factors will produce additional demand for midstream assets, and that demand will grow with lower energy prices. To paraphrase, Rich Kinder stated that opportunities in midstream infrastructure keep getting better - demand driven, pushed by lower energy prices.
• Concerning the current volatility and lower prices in the energy market, Kinder stated that they have not yet seen an impact with any ongoing project discussions.

Bottom line is that Kinder Morgan remains bullish on its opportunities to maintain its growth providing primarily natural gas and NGL midstream services. Lower nat gas and NGL prices will just shift the midstream asset demand from the producer side to the user side.