Gut-wrenching corrections verging on crashes take no prisoners, and the Great Energy Drain of 2014 has been predictable at least in that regard.

Master limited partnerships held up well at first as shale stocks got slammed by falling oil prices and fear of even worse to come. Then the upstream MLPs succumbed, victimized by high leverage and lofty valuations.

Finally, the bears came for the midstream core of the MLP space, because institutional investors faced with rapidly deteriorating sentiment and rising risk tend to sell first and focus on long-term value later. That’s the downside of all the institutional inflows that have lifted MLP valuations in recent years.

At this point, MLPs are facing their greatest test since the end of the 2008/09 bear market and recession. The Alerian MLP Index is down 13% over October’s nine trading sessions, and marginally in the red year-to-date.

The good news is that the index’s yield has jumped from 5.2% to nearly 6% in not quite two weeks. The bad news is that the growth story that persuaded investors to accept historically low yields is no longer looking quite as credible as it did with crude at $95 and money pouring into shale drilling.

Those record MLP prices of late August owed everything to the feel-good narrative of a shale boom unleashing a torrent of oil and gas that would need new pipes, processing plants and storage facilities to get to market.

Investors were also lulled by the siren song of tax-deferred yields higher than those on offer from most bonds not rated junk. The past two weeks have provided an overdue reminder that there’s more than yield to an income investment, and that the risks of equities, including MLPs, are very different from those of fixed income.

What’s happened to check the yield chase? Most importantly, growth in global oil demand has recently slowed, hurt by China’s industrial malaise and Europe’s limp toward yet another recession. This softening in demand coincided with a surge in crude supply from North American shale as well as Libya, despite the civil war that has split that country.

The Saudis, long counted on to forestall a global glut with production cuts, said no thanks, making it clear they would compete for market share even at the cost of significantly lower prices.

How much lower? The Saudis claim they could live with $80 per barrel or even less for an extended time.

As it happens, $80 crude would also be unlikely significantly crimp US shale production. But it would certainly slow the rate of further exploration and development, dimming the promise of growth in midstream services.

Whether the price goes that low and stays that low is another matter. But oil’s dive below its multi-year trading range can’t be ignored, and obviously hasn’t been.

What will be the fallout for MLPs? The first thing to admit is that the soured sentiment for domestic energy exploration is likely to remain a headwind for months if not years, forcing MLP investors to rely on yield for near-term returns instead of the recently abundant capital gains. Also, the double-digit distribution growth that many MLP have been promising lately could prove harder to pull off, especially for partnerships involved in crude gathering, shipping and logistics.

Our preference, expressed frequently in recent months, remains for decent and sustainable yields that don’t trade too much current income for the promise of more down the road.

Some growth-oriented partnerships have become interesting as well given the recent discounting. Shale development is likely to proceed at only a slightly slower pace. And in any case the MLP sector is more invested in natural gas, which has barely budged, than slumping crude.

We’ve been warning for more than a year about the inevitability of a serious correction given creeping complacency and high valuations. We prepped for it by ousting most upstream MLPs from our portfolios earlier this year, and by recommending profit-taking on several of the biggest midstream winners. And now that the downdraft is here we’re not panicking.

For the overwhelming majority of MLPs, distributions are not at risk. In fact, the recent action presents attractive entry points for several secure partnerships we haven’t recommended in the past, as the New Buys feature in this month’s MLP Profits issue will detail.

Our confidence in distributions stems from a systemic review of the leverage and distribution coverage of our portfolio picks, carried out as part of the move from the four-point safety rating system to the use of portfolio baskets to denote risk, alongside additional data and analysis. See In Focus for our findings and rationale.

We’ve also used this month’s Portfolio Update to make several changes that should enhance the security of our overall portfolios, because it’s quite likely the volatility in energy prices and energy equities is far from done. Given the rapid discounting of crude, we’ve also taken a look at how that might affect many of the MLPs we recommend.

Most will have no trouble continuing to grow their distributions. But this is no cause for complacency. Even lower oil prices are a real risk, and if the recent global slowdown were to turn into a full-blown slump the energy sector would certainly pay a much higher price than it has to this point.

But that worst-case scenario still seems less likely than the reality of uneven growth, with the healing US economy and pockets of emerging market strength offsetting Europe and China.

It may well be that the correction isn’t done. As markets gyrate, know that MLP cash flows remain largely unaffected and that continued selling would present even more opportunities for the patient investor.

The exploitation of shale and preparations to turn the US into a major energy exporter should continue even with crude at $85 or $80. And the resulting moratorium on new deepwater drilling would leave supply growth trailing demand gains before long.

Taking the long view on MLPs has paid big dividends over the long haul. This time should prove no different.