Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP

First quarter 2022 results conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 1 on your telephone. As a reminder, today's program may be recorded. And now I'd like to introduce your host for today's program, David Krantz, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Brookfield Infrastructure. My name is David Crank, and I'm the Chief Financial Officer of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners. Joining me today is Sam Pollack, our Chief Executive Officer, and Scott Peek, our Chief Investment Officer for North America. Following our prepared remarks, Ben Vaughn, our Chief Operating Officer, will join us to take your questions. At this time, I would like to remind you that in our remarks today, we may make forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to no For further information on known risk factors, I would encourage you to review our annual report on Form 20F, which is available on our website. I'd like to begin with a few comments around the current macroeconomic environment. Top of mind for investors today are the elevated inflation levels, rising interest rates, and decelerating global growth that creates headwinds for many industries. During these periods, the infrastructure sector generally outperforms. The growth and resiliency operating costs to customers. Exposure to rising interest rates is mitigated by long-term capital structures, largely on a fixed rate basis given the highly predictable cash flows these assets produce. From a valuation perspective, the established frameworks employed across revenue, expense, and debt financing protect or expand margins through revenue compounding, offsetting increases in our capital costs. to start the year. We are pleased to report funds for operations, or FFO, of $493 million, a 14% increase year over year. This was the highest in our partnership's history. FFO per unit of $96 capital projects over the last 12 months. Our base business continues to perform well, benefiting from outperformance in utility and transport segments. Additionally, results from our North American midstream operations have benefited from IPL's first full quarter contribution, as well as outsized cash flow due to higher asset utilization and notable increase in commodity sensitive revenues. Taking a closer look at our Our UK regulated distribution business continues to experience strong sales activity, ending the quarter with over 100,000 new connections sold, a 32% increase quarter over quarter. This is the second highest quarterly result on record, largely attributable to water connection sales. At our Brazilian regulated gas transmission operation, Overall, our annualized rate increase across our portfolio is approximately 6% for the year, with potential for room to further increase. FFO from our diversified terminals increased by 40% compared to the first quarter of 2021. Our port operations maximized ancillary revenue by providing short-term storage solutions to our customers, offsetting lower volumes from shipping delays and transportation availability. Our US LNG export terminals In our midstream segment, we generated FFO of With IPL, we are experiencing increased customer demand and benefit from an over-billed strategy employed on the long-haul pipelines. During the quarter, we executed long-term transportation service agreements that combined will add approximately $50 million of Canadian annual run rate EBITDA by 2025. North American polypropylene continues to be robust, with end-use customers excited about the introduction of our ESG-friendly product and geographic diversity of supply. FFO from our data segment was in line with the prior year at $58 million. Underlying growth from additional points of presence and inflationary tariff escalators were offset by lower revenues at our U.S. data center operation that were repositioning for hyperscale growth, as well as the impact of foreign exchange. We continue to focus advancing customer demand continues to grow globally. Today, we have active developments at seven data centers in five different countries. Once complete, we expect to add 25 megawatts of additional capacity to our portfolio. I'd now like to touch on the strength of our balance sheet. In recent years, we have spent considerable effort proactively managing our corporate and In April, we further enhanced our corporate balance sheet and supplemented our liquidity through a Canadian $600 million note issuance. The offering was oversubscribed and well-received and split between a 12-year and 30-year tranche, with an average coupon of approximately 5.5%. Following a note offering, corporate liquidity totalled nearly $3 billion, which we plan on enhancing through our advanced capital recycling initiatives currently underway. Following the strong relative performance of our shares and units over the last few years, we think that this split will ensure that our public securities remain accessible to individual holders and improve the liquidity of our units and shares. It is important to note that this split will not dilute our existing investors and will not be taxable in Canada or the United States.

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be joining today's call to discuss natural gas as a reliable transition fuel and a path to energy security. We are operating in a market environment of disrupted supply chains and rising commodity prices. The impact of recent geopolitical events has raised commodity prices to levels not seen in years and reinforced the importance of energy security. Natural gas, and more specifically LNG, will continue to be a leading transition fuel in the move towards net zero. It is also expected to play a key role in providing global energy security. These elements highlight the valuable role our critically located infrastructure plays in the processing, transportation, and distribution of natural gas. Our North American midstream businesses are well positioned in the key markets currently benefiting from high utilization rates and increasing commodity prices. These businesses typically reserve a small portion of operational capacity as uncontracted to provide operating flexibility. Under the backdrop of the current market, this available capacity has generated incremental revenue that has contributed to our strong financial performance. An indirect benefit of a constructive commodity environment is its impact on our energy customers who are currently experiencing strong cash flow and strengthening balance sheets. These tailwinds to our customers' financial profile, coupled with improving market sentiment, is expected to incent reinvestment into their operations. After several years of more limited production growth, we anticipate a renewed interest in customer-initiated infrastructure expansion projects to increase capacity and throughput across our asset base. Today, we own three businesses that are expected to benefit from increased demand for LNG. There is significant interest in securing capacity at USC, LNG export terminals. Customers on our U.S. natural gas pipeline are discussing the contracting options for a third phase of our Gulf Coast egress. And lastly, our Canadian midstream business is well situated to process and support gas deliveries to West Coast LNG export terminals currently under construction. In addition to traditional energy businesses, our utility operations play a vital role in the transportation and distribution of natural gas to residential and industrial customers. In each of the countries we operate, energy regulators are advocating for energy security and diversification of supply that includes natural gas as a transition fuel and reliable source of base load generation. The more limited investment in traditional energy supply and the intermittency of renewable power have created more scarcity value for our assets. As we continue to expand our footprint and recontract our assets on attractive terms, we are well positioned to deliver strong returns on both our in-place businesses and our capital recycling initiatives in the years to come. That concludes my remarks for today. I will now pass the call over to Sam.