Refining has been the best-performing subsector of energy (excluding renewables) for five of the last eight years. How did refiners, whose profit is totally dependent on volatile commodity prices, become a darling of energy? While structural benefits like U.S. crude discounts undoubtedly helped refining as oil price weakness hurt other subsectors, the shift to harvesting free cash flow and funneling it into shareholder returns was also key. As discussed last week, midstream is getting closer to reaching an inflection point for free cash flow generation as growth spending moderates in line with more modest