diff --git a/hyracks/hyracks-storage-am-btree/src/main/java/edu/uci/ics/hyracks/storage/am/btree/dataflow/NullTupleReferenceFactory.java b/hyracks/hyracks-storage-am-btree/src/main/java/edu/uci/ics/hyracks/storage/am/btree/dataflow/NullTupleReferenceFactory.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f2163a1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/hyracks/hyracks-storage-am-btree/src/main/java/edu/uci/ics/hyracks/storage/am/btree/dataflow/NullTupleReferenceFactory.java
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+package edu.uci.ics.hyracks.storage.am.btree.dataflow;
+
+import edu.uci.ics.hyracks.api.context.IHyracksContext;
+import edu.uci.ics.hyracks.dataflow.common.data.accessors.ITupleReference;
+
+public class NullTupleReferenceFactory implements ITupleReferenceFactory {
+	
+	private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
+
+	@Override
+	public ITupleReference createTuple(IHyracksContext ctx) {
+		return null;
+	}
+
+}