EnLink Midstream, LLC

Good day and welcome to the NLINK Midstream first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brian Brungardt, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to InLink's first quarter of 2021 earnings call. Participating on the call today are Barry Davis, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Ben Lamb, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, and Pablo Mercado, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We issued our earnings release and presentation after the markets closed yesterday, and those materials are on our website. A replay of today's call will also be made available on our website at www.nlink.com. Today's discussion will include forward-looking statements, including expectations and predictions within the meaning of the federal securities laws. The forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this call, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise. Actual results may differ materially from our projections, and a discussion of factors that could cause actual results to differ can be found in our press release, presentation, and SEC filings. This call also includes discussion pertaining to certain non-GAAP financial measures, definitions of these measures, as well as reconciliations of comparable GAAP measures are available in our press release in the appendix of our presentation. We encourage you to review the cautionary statements and other disclosures made in our press release in our SEC filings, including those under the heading Risk Factors. We'll start today's call with a set of brief prepared remarks by Barry, Ben, and Pablo, and then leave the remainder of the call open for questions and answers. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Barry Davis.

Thank you, Brian, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our first quarter 2021 results. After a 2020 that was a challenging year, yet one in which our performance exceeded expectations, the first quarter of 2021 was a continuation of that strong performance. I am incredibly proud of the relentless effort our employees made during winter storm URI, not only to ensure the integrity and performance of our assets, but also to ensure people's homes could be heated and powered and that impact to the communities we serve would be short-term in nature. I am particularly thankful that they did that while remaining safe. For the first quarter, NLINK delivered another strong, resilient quarter. We achieved adjusted EBITDA of $249 million and free cash flow after distributions of $94 million, both of which exceeded our expectations. When you drill down into our segment performance, we achieved another quarter with all four asset segments generating significant cash flow. This is a tremendous outcome given the unprecedented temporary volatility Winter Storm URI presented and speaks to the operational excellence focus we have had over the last few years. Overall, URI had a minimal net impact to our first quarter results, despite the unprecedented temporary impact to volumes across all our segments. Importantly, all of our systems are back online and volumes have returned to normal. With the strong first quarter results, we remain positioned to meet our full year 2021 adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow guidance. Our focus for 2021 continues to be one of execution with four key areas that our team is working on today. First is operational excellence and innovation. We have been laser focused on this. We have centralized some compressor station and plant monitoring to enhance the cost and scalability of operations, and we have fully embraced an efficiency mindset, which has led to operating our business better each and every day. Second is financial discipline and flexibility. With our focus on operational excellence, we continue to reduce operating and G&A expenses in the first quarter. and we continue to forecast another year of very strong free cash flow after distributions with the ability to continue to pay down debt. Our third focus area is strategic growth. We have previously discussed our disciplined approach to opportunistic accretive bolt-on acquisitions. Yesterday, we announced an acquisition consistent with our strategy with the Amarillo Rattler system in the Midland Basin. The Amarillo Rattler acquisition builds on our longstanding relationship with Diamondback Energy and offers another example of using operational synergies to achieve attractive economics. In terms of business development, we continue to see our Louisiana footprint offering growth opportunities. In addition to new projects like the Venture Global project we completed last year, our extensive asset footprint and longstanding customer relationships position us well to collaborate with others in an energy transition over the long term. And our fourth and final focus area is sustainability and safety. Providing safe, reliable operations is the foundation of sustainability at NLINC and the cornerstone of our operational excellence. You'll see the clear evidence of this through our third annual sustainability report issued last night and available on our website. Yesterday, we advanced our goal of being part of the energy transition and being an active participant in it. As we build our path towards a long-term emission goal, we have established emission reduction milestones, which include striving for a 30% reduction in methane emissions intensity by 2024 and pursuing a path to reach a 30% reduction in our total carbon dioxide equivalent emissions intensity in our operations by 2030. These milestones will build a path to our long-term goal to reach a net zero emissions by 2050. Lastly, to remain united with our industry in addressing the environmental impact, we also join the environmental partnership. With that, I'll turn it over to Ben to talk about operations.