Holly Energy Partners Lp (HEP) has reported 2.08 percent rise in profit for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2016. The company has earned $41.36 million, or $0.40 a share in the quarter, compared with $40.52 million, or $0.49 a share for the same period last year.

Revenue during the quarter grew 15.71 percent to $112.53 million from $97.25 million in the previous year period. Total expenses were 51.52 percent of quarterly revenues, up from 47.61 percent for the same period last year. That has resulted in a contraction of 392 basis points in operating margin to 48.48 percent.

Operating income for the quarter was $54.55 million, compared with $50.95 million in the previous year period.

Commenting on the fourth quarter of 2016, George Damiris, chief executive officer, stated, "We are pleased with our solid financial performance in the fourth quarter. Our strong and stable cash generation allowed us to accelerate our year over year distribution growth and progress towards our 8% distribution growth target as we maintained our record of continuous quarterly distribution increases. Effective as of October 1, 2016, we successfully completed our acquisition of an atmospheric distillation tower, a fluid catalytic cracking unit, and a polymerization unit located at the HollyFrontier Woods Cross refinery, and these units were accretive to distributable cash flow in the quarter. We will continue to leverage our relationship with HollyFrontier and our Mid-Continent, Northwest and Southwest logistics footprint to generate new organic and external growth opportunities.