Revenue Revenue (Policies)

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2021

Revenue from Contract with Customer [Abstract]

Revenue [Policy Text Block]

Disaggregation of Revenue

The Partnership’s consolidated financial statements reflect eight reportable segments, which also represent the level at which the Partnership aggregates revenue for disclosure purposes. Note 15 depicts the disaggregation of revenue by segment.

Revenue Recognition, Deferred Revenue [Policy Text Block]

Contract Balances with Customers

The Partnership satisfies its obligations by transferring goods or services in exchange for consideration from customers. The timing of performance may differ from the timing the associated consideration is paid to or received from the customer, thus resulting in the recognition of a contract asset or a contract liability.

The Partnership recognizes a contract asset when making upfront consideration payments to certain customers or when providing services to customers prior to the time at which the Partnership is contractually allowed to bill for such services.

The Partnership recognizes a contract liability if the customer’s payment of consideration precedes the Partnership’s fulfillment of the performance obligations. Certain contracts contain provisions requiring customers to pay a fixed minimum fee, but allow customers to apply such fees against services to be provided at a future point in time. These amounts are reflected as deferred revenue until the customer applies the deficiency fees to services provided or becomes unable to use the fees as payment for future services due to expiration of the contractual period the fees can be applied or physical inability of the customer to utilize the fees due to capacity constraints. Additionally, Sunoco LP maintains some franchise agreements requiring dealers to make one-time upfront payments for long term license agreements. Sunoco LP recognizes a contract liability when the upfront payment is received and recognizes revenue over the term of the license.

The following table summarizes the consolidated activity of our contract liabilities:

	Contract Liabilities
Balance, December 31, 2020	$	290
Additions	249
Revenue recognized	(165)
Balance, March 31, 2021	$	374
Balance, December 31, 2019	$	365
Additions	170
Revenue recognized	(196)
Balance, March 31, 2020	$	339

Costs to Obtain or Fulfill a Contract

Sunoco LP recognizes an asset from the costs incurred to obtain a contract (e.g., sales commissions) only if it expects to recover those costs. On the other hand, the costs to fulfill a contract are capitalized if the costs are specifically identifiable to a contract, would result in enhancing resources that will be used in satisfying performance obligations in the future and are expected to be recovered. These capitalized costs are recorded as a part of other current assets and other non-current assets and are amortized on a systematic basis consistent with the pattern of transfer of the goods or services to which such costs relate. The amount of amortization expense that Sunoco LP recognized for the three months ended March 31, 2021 and 2020 was $4 million and $5 million, respectively. Sunoco LP has also made a policy election of expensing the costs to obtain a contract, as and when they are incurred, in cases where the expected amortization period is one year or less.

Performance ObligationsAt contract inception, the Partnership assesses the goods and services promised in its contracts with customers and identifies a performance obligation for each promise to transfer a good or service (or bundle of goods or services) that is distinct. To identify the performance obligations, the Partnership considers all the goods or services promised in the contract, whether explicitly stated or implied based on customary business practices. For a contract that has more than one performance obligation, the Partnership allocates the total contract consideration it expects to be entitled to, to each distinct performance obligation based on a standalone-selling price basis. Revenue is recognized when (or as) the performance obligations are satisfied, that is, when the customer obtains control of the good or service. Certain of our contracts contain variable components, which, when combined with the fixed component are considered a single performance obligation. For these types of contacts, only the fixed component of the contracts are included in the table below.