EnLink Midstream, LLC

and Chief Financial Officer. Walter Pinto, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, is also in the room to answer any questions during the Q&A session. 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 investors.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 files. This call also includes discussions pertaining to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Definitions of these measures, as well as reconciliation and comparable gap measures, are available in our press release and the appendix of our presentation. We encourage you to review the cautionary statements and other disclosures made in our press release and our SEC filings, including those under the heading Risk Factors. We'll start today's call with a set of brief prepared remarks by Jesse and Ben, 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 Jesse Arenivas.

Thank you, Brian, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our first quarter 2023 results. The momentum we entered the year with continues as customers remain active across each of our segments. Our team continues to find additional ways to leverage our existing assets in the ground, driving attractive returns. Later on the call, Ben will provide more color on our results, but we generated approximately $324 million of adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter of 2023, which includes an adverse impact of approximately $6 million due to the lingering impact of winter weather and an earthquake we experienced at the end of 2022. Despite this impact, NLINK is on pace to achieve the midpoint of our adjusted EBITDA guidance range of $1.305 billion to $1.405 billion. Today, we operate three large-scale GNP systems led by our largest segment, the Permian. Over the past three years, we've averaged 40 rigs across our system, and today, we stand about 30% above our historical average. This solid level of activity drives our growth today and sets us up well for the future. In the most recent quarter, we've seen gathered volumes in the Permian more than double over the past three years to nearly 1.7 million MMBTUs per day. We remain laser focused on continuing to reinvest in attractive projects and meeting producer needs. Late last year, we brought online the Phantom plant, which added over 235 million cubic feet a day of capacity to our Midland system. We also recently announced our third plant relocation and our first to the Delaware Basin, where we will add approximately 150 million cubic feet a day of processing capacity in the second quarter of 2024. This growth in our GNP platform helps drive our Louisiana business, where we service industrial end users with both gas and NGLs. This supply growth helped drive our decision, along with our partners, to restart Gulf Coast fractionators earlier than was originally planned. As we look to 24 and beyond, we're very excited about our growth prospects in Louisiana, both for our traditional gas and NGL business and for our CO2 business. Last week, the state of Louisiana received some promising news on the policy front. As the EPA decided that, subject to public comment period, it plans to grant the state's application for primacy over Class VI wells, which are used to inject CO2 deep underground for permanent storage. We believe granting Louisiana primacy is an important milestone for accelerating commercial CCS deployment in the state. As we discussed at our recent Investor Day, Enlink's Carbon Solutions Group is executed on our first mover advantage and is building out its scalable CCS business. Emitters are now selecting sequestration providers, and the decision over privacy will serve as a real catalyst to Louisiana becoming a global leader in low-carbon manufacturing. We're pleased to see Louisiana continuing to leverage its unique business advantages, support for innovation and climate action to spur new business development. Last year, the state received nearly 21 billion in new business developments and investments. These investments include meaningful build out of our nation's LNG export capacity. There is eight BCF operational, BCF a day operational capacity in Louisiana today. An additional 11 BCF a day of capacity is either under construction or approved and awaiting FID in the state of Louisiana. Other industries are making large investments in the state of Louisiana. For example, CF Industries in Mitsui are evaluating a site in the Ascension Parish for the construction of a new $2 billion blue ammonia production facility. Investments like these serve to expand the CO2 market beyond the current 80 million metric tons along the Mississippi River corridor. They also increase the demand for natural gas and transportation services. In summary, despite the recent volatility in commodity prices, we are very excited about 2023 and beyond. We remain focused on creating sustainable value through investing in high return projects to meet the needs of our customers and our growing downstream business. With that, I'll turn it over to Ben to provide an overview of our operations and our financial results.

Thanks, Jesse, and good morning, everyone. Let's start with our largest segment, the Permian, where segment profit for the first quarter of 2023 came in at $96 million. Segment profit in the quarter included approximately $0.4 million of operating expenses tied to plant relocations. and $6.3 million in unrealized derivative gains. Excluding plant relocation OPEX and unrealized derivative activity, segment profit in the first quarter of 2023 decreased 10% sequentially, but grew over 3% from the prior year quarter. As we indicated in our February call, The first quarter results were adversely impacted by lower volumes due to the lingering impact of winter weather and an earthquake that we experienced at the end of 2022. These impacts amounted to about $4 million in the Permian in the first quarter of 2023. Despite those impacts, it was a record quarter for gathered volumes, with average natural gas gathering volumes approximately 6% higher compared to the fourth quarter of 2022 and 25% higher from the prior year quarter. Our March volumes averaged about 1.8 million MMBTUs a day, an exit rate that reflects strong growth absent the impacts of weather and the earthquake. Turning now to Louisiana, we experienced another quarter of solid performance in the gas segment, and we saw seasonal strength in the NGL segment in the first quarter. Segment profit for the first quarter of 2023 came in at $96.4 million. Segment profit included unrealized derivative losses of $9 million. Excluding the impact of unrealized derivative activity, segment profit in the first quarter of 2023 increased approximately 5% sequentially and 10% from the prior year quarter. Moving up to Oklahoma, we delivered segment profit of $94.7 million for the first quarter of 2023. Segment profit in the quarter included unrealized derivative losses of approximately $1.4 million. Excluding plant relocation OPEX and unrealized derivative activity, segment profit in the first quarter of 2023 decreased 7% sequentially, but grew approximately 1% from the prior year quarter. The first quarter results were adversely impacted by approximately $2 million due to the lingering impact of winter weather experienced in the fourth quarter of 2022. Despite the weather impact, average natural gas gathering volumes increased 10% sequentially and 18% compared to the prior year order. We have been pleased with the resilience our Oklahoma business has shown, despite headwinds from lower commodity prices, as we continue to see robust drilling activity levels. We have not seen a meaningful change in our volume outlook for 2023, and we expect to see double-digit growth in gathered volumes compared to 2022. Wrapping up with North Texas, segment profit for the quarter was $76.1 million, including unrealized derivative gains of $2.7 million. Excluding unrealized derivative activity, segment profit in the first quarter of 2023 decreased 3% sequentially, but grew 23% from the prior year quarter. The improvement over the prior year was driven in part by the acquisition that closed in the third quarter of 2022. Natural gas gathering volumes were 5% lower sequentially, but were 19% higher compared to the prior year quarter. We continue to make solid progress to reduce our CO2 emissions intensity. The previously announced project with our largest customer in North Texas, BKV, to capture and permanently store CO2 from our Bridgeport facility is progressing ahead of schedule, and we now expect an in-service date in early fourth quarter 2023. These solid results were in line with our expectations and drove another robust quarter with $324 million in adjusted EBITDA. These results represent 6% growth in adjusted EBITDA over the prior year. We are reiterating our adjusted EBITDA guidance for 2023, and we are currently tracking toward the midpoint of the range. Our midpoint incorporated the potential for a slowdown in activity in Oklahoma and North Texas in the second half of 2023. and our view of the strength of the business has not changed since we provided guidance in February. Capital expenditures net to NLINC, plant relocation expenses, and investment contributions were $157 million in the first quarter of 2023. This included a $43.5 million contribution to our Matterhorn joint venture and a $6.2 million contribution to Gulf Coast Fractionators. The timing of these investment contributions resulted in higher overall CapEx during the quarter, but this timing was as expected, and we still generated free cash flow after distributions of approximately $6 million. On the balance sheet side, we continue to be in a strong position with a leverage ratio of 3.4 times at the end of the first quarter and ample liquidity. We remain investment-grade at Fitch, and one notch below investment grade at S&P and Moody's, with a positive outlook at S&P. In early April, we closed a $300 million tack-on offering to our 2030 notes to take advantage of favorable interest rates, reduce our floating rate exposure, and maximize our available liquidity. Consistent with our capital allocation plan to return capital to investors, we maintained our common unit distribution of 12.5 cents per unit in the first quarter, which represents an 11% increase over the first quarter of 2022. Additionally, we remain active with our common unit repurchase program with approximately $50 million spent in the first quarter. This puts us on pace to complete our $200 million unit repurchase program for 2023. In summary, the NLINC team delivered solid results in the first quarter of 2023, and we expect the momentum to continue for the rest of the year. Despite the recent volatility, our assets are well positioned to grow, led by our largest segment today, the Permian. With that, I'll turn it back to Jesse.