Dividend Power Score
A single, comprehensive score designed to measure the true strength of a company’s dividend.
This score combines three essential pillars of dividend quality:
Consistency – Measures how reliable the dividend has been over time, focusing on payment history, stability, and the absence of cuts or suspensions.
Payability – Assesses the company’s financial ability to sustain its dividend, taking into account cash flow, earnings coverage, balance sheet strength, and overall financial health.
Growth – Evaluates the long-term growth of both the dividend and the company’s share price, highlighting businesses that consistently increase payouts while creating shareholder value.
Higher scores identify companies that have historically delivered dependable income alongside sustained dividend growth and long-term capital appreciation.
Company Overview
Hess Midstream LP (NYSE: HESM) is a U.S.-based midstream energy company that owns, operates, develops, and acquires infrastructure assets primarily serving crude oil, natural gas, and produced water operations in the Bakken shale region of North Dakota. The company operates within the broader energy infrastructure and midstream sectors, providing fee-based services that support upstream oil and gas production. Its operations are concentrated around gathering, processing, storage, terminaling, compression, and water handling services tied largely to production from acreage dedicated by Hess Corporation and other producers.
The company’s primary revenue drivers are long-term, fee-based commercial agreements associated with its Gathering, Processing and Storage, and Terminaling and Export operations. Hess Midstream was formed in 2014 through the contribution of midstream assets by Hess Corporation and later completed an initial public offering in 2017. The company’s strategic positioning is supported by long-term minimum volume commitments, a concentrated footprint in the Bakken, and integrated infrastructure that connects upstream production with downstream transportation markets. Public filings and investor disclosures consistently identify Hess Corporation as its anchor customer and strategic sponsor.
Business Operations
Hess Midstream generates revenue through multiple integrated midstream operating segments centered in the Bakken region. Its core business units include Crude Oil Gathering, Natural Gas Gathering and Compression, Gas Processing and Fractionation, Produced Water Gathering and Disposal, and Terminaling and Storage assets. The company owns extensive pipeline networks, compressor stations, gas processing plants, rail-loading terminals, and water handling systems designed to support large-scale shale production. Revenue is predominantly fee-based and supported by long-term commercial contracts with inflation-linked tariff structures and minimum throughput commitments.
Operations are primarily domestic and concentrated in North Dakota, though the company’s infrastructure indirectly supports broader North American energy transportation markets through downstream pipeline and export connectivity. Hess Midstream maintains commercial relationships with Hess Corporation and third-party producers operating in the Williston Basin. Key operating subsidiaries include Hess Midstream Operations LP and affiliated infrastructure entities. Public disclosures indicate that the company’s integrated asset footprint and centralized infrastructure network provide operating efficiencies and high utilization rates relative to more geographically fragmented midstream systems.
Strategic Position & Investments
Hess Midstream’s strategic direction has focused on expanding and optimizing its Bakken-focused infrastructure platform while maintaining stable cash flow generation through long-term contracts. The company has invested in incremental gas processing capacity, compression infrastructure, produced water systems, and crude oil gathering expansions to support rising throughput volumes in the Williston Basin. Investor materials and SEC disclosures indicate that management prioritizes disciplined capital allocation, distribution growth, operational efficiency, and leverage management.
The company’s strategic alignment with Hess Corporation has remained central to its business model, particularly as Hess Corporation advanced development activity in the Bakken prior to Chevron Corporation’s announced acquisition of Hess Corporation. Hess Midstream has also pursued periodic asset dropdowns and infrastructure expansions connected to sponsor development plans. Emerging operational priorities include reducing methane emissions intensity, improving system reliability, and expanding produced water handling capabilities. Data from public filings and investor presentations consistently identify integrated infrastructure density and long-duration contracts as competitive advantages.
Geographic Footprint
Hess Midstream’s operational footprint is concentrated in the Williston Basin and Bakken shale region of North Dakota, where it owns and operates extensive midstream infrastructure assets. The company is headquartered in Houston, Texas, while maintaining operational facilities and field infrastructure across key producing counties in North Dakota. Its systems connect upstream production to interstate transportation and downstream refining and export markets across the United States.
Although the company does not maintain a broad international operating footprint, its infrastructure supports crude oil and natural gas volumes that ultimately participate in global energy markets through downstream transportation and export systems. The company’s influence is therefore primarily domestic but strategically linked to broader North American hydrocarbon supply chains. Public company disclosures consistently describe the Bakken as the core geographic and operational focus of Hess Midstream’s business model.
Leadership & Governance
Hess Midstream operates under a governance structure influenced by its relationship with Hess Corporation and public unitholders. The company’s leadership has emphasized stable cash generation, operational reliability, disciplined capital investment, and long-term infrastructure development tied to Bakken production growth. Public filings and earnings materials indicate a strategic focus on maintaining predictable distributions while supporting sponsor-related development activity.
Key executives include:
- John B. Hess – Chair of the Board
- John Gatling – President and Chief Operating Officer
- Jonathan C. Stein – Chief Financial Officer
- Gregory P. Hill – Director
- Jennifer M. Gordon – General Counsel and Secretary
Public filings, including SEC filings and investor presentations, consistently identify the company’s leadership philosophy as centered on operational efficiency, disciplined financial management, and long-term contracted infrastructure growth within the Bakken region.