The gasoline wholesaling business is as boring as they come. There’s not much creativity or risk in buying product from refiners and reselling it to filling stations under long-term contracts and at a predictable markup.

You have to fight for the custom of the independent dealers like everyone else, but if you get your fair share and the fuel trucks run on time the small per-gallon margin will reliably accrue on the bottom line

In fact, the business is so dull a major risk is bored management branching off into something else. Our last pick in this space, Global Partners (NYSE: GLP), was sabotaged by ill-advised expansion into crude-by-rail logistics.

The much larger gasoline distributor Sunoco (NYSE: SUN) is much more heavily involved in managing retail locations, a business that’s more lucrative but also complicated and cyclical.

There’s a master limited partnership out there, though, that’s committed to boring old gasoline distribution as its bread and butter.  What’s not boring is the growth and the cost savings that CrossAmerica Partners (NYSE: CAPL) is managing to squeeze out of this staid, mature sector. Its distribution yields an annualized 8.9% at the current unit price, and is expected to increase 5% to 7% this year.

Source: CrossAmerica Partners

CrossAmerica’s formula is simple but effective. It has been an aggressive acquirer of gasoline distribution rights in what remains a highly fragmented industry. It then consolidates the purchased businesses’ support functions at its Allentown, Pennsylvania home base. And those stations it ends up owning directly are contracted to new operators whenever feasible, trading the highly variable and non-qualifying retail gasoline and convenience store profits for the much steadier and MLP-qualifying rental income.

So far, that recipe is working beautifully: distributable cash flow per unit was up 12% year-over-year in the second quarter, allowing CrossAmerica to increase its distribution 9% from a year earlier while still improving distribution coverage to 1.07x. Leverage increased manageably over the last year from 3.6x to 4.3x EBITDA.

In contrast with the filling station operators who do better when gas prices are low or falling, distributors like CrossAmerica have seen their margins pressured modestly over the last two years, since lower prices result in smaller discounts from their suppliers. They’ll be in line for a proportional modest boost once gas prices rebound, though CrossAmerica sells 87% of its gallons at a fixed markup.

The main uncertainty concerns the general partner. CrossAmerica was known as Lehigh Gas Partners until the founder of the family business that sponsored it sold the general partner interest and associated incentive distribution rights to CST Brands (NYSE: CST) for $85 million two years ago. Two months ago,  CST Brands was in turn acquired by Canadian convenience store giant Alimentation Couche-Tard (TSE: ATD-A, ATD-B; OTC: ANCUF) in a $4.4 billion deal expected to close early next year. That would leave Couche-Tard, with its market capitalization of $37 billion, in charge of CrossAmerica, currently valued at $860 million. Couche-Tard certainly doesn’t need CrossAmerica’s pricey equity capital, even though the MLP structure is an effective shelter for U.S. gas distribution profits otherwise subject to the corporate income tax.

The prospect of a new general partner with no history with or real need for one’s MLP isn’t a dreamy one for limited partners. But CrossAmerica has already weathered one such transition, operating as a largely autonomous affiliate of CST Brands for the past two years. Outside investors should ultimately do no worse under new ownership if it doesn’t choose to buy them out.

With a sustainable yield near double digits, a proven track record for creating value and room for some margin expansion, Cross-America is a worthy income play right now. We’re adding it to the Growth Portfolio; Buy CAPL below $33.