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Oiltanking Partners L.P., a Houston-based oil terminal and storage company, has filed with U.S. regulators to raise up to $200 million in an initial public offering (IPO) of common units.

The SEC filing did not disclose the number of units the company planned to sell or their expected price. The shares are proposed to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the trading symbol OTLP.

The general partner of Oiltanking Partners is OTLP GP LLC, which is owned by Oiltanking Holding Americas Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Oiltanking GmbH. The privately held German company Marquard & Bahls owns Oiltanking GmbH, one of the world's largest independent providers of crude oil storage.

Oiltanking Partners said it would use part of the proceeds to repay $125 million in debt to Oiltanking Finance BV and an undisclosed amount in distributions to Oiltanking Holding Americas. Oiltanking Partners will use the rest as working capital.

As Oiltanking Partners was only formed last month, the company provided combined financial data of its predecessors - Oiltanking Houston LP and Oiltanking Beaumont Partners LP.

The two companies posted a combined net income of $37.81 million in 2010, up from $25.11 million in 2009 and $12.58 million in 2008. The firms had revenue of $116.45 million in 2010, compared with $100.84 million and $79.11 million in the previous two years.

"Oiltanking GmbH intends for us to be its growth vehicle in the United States to acquire, own and operate terminaling, storage and pipeline assets that generate stable cash flows," Oiltanking Partners L.P. said in a SEC filing.

"Our primary business objective is to generate stable cash flows to enable us to pay quarterly distributions to our unitholders and to increase our quarterly cash distributions over time. We intend to achieve that objective by anticipating long-term infrastructure needs in the areas we serve and by growing our tank terminal network and pipelines through construction in new markets, the expansion of existing facilities, acquisitions from the Oiltanking Group and strategic acquisitions from third parties," the company added.

Oiltanking GmbH is currently the second largest independent tank storage provider for petroleum products, chemicals and gases worldwide. It owns and operates 71 terminals in 22 countries within Europe, North and South America and Asia. Its overall storage capacity exceeds 17.6 million cubic meters.