Energy Transfer LP

Greetings and welcome to the Energy Transfer Fourth Quarter Earnings Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during this conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note that this conference is also being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to our host, Tom Long, Co-Chief Executive Officer for Energy Transfer. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Energy Transfer Fourth Quarter 2021 Earnings Call, and thank you for joining us today. I'm also joined today by Mackie McCree and other members of our senior management team who are here to help answer your questions after our prepared remarks. Hopefully, you saw the press release we issued earlier this afternoon as well as the slides posted to our website. As a reminder, we will be making forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These statements are based on our current beliefs, as well as certain assumptions and information currently available to us, and are discussed in more detail in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021. which we expect to be filed this Friday, February the 18th. I'll also refer to adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow, or DCF, both of which are non-GAAP financial measures. You'll find a reconciliation of our non-GAAP measures on our website. I'd like to start today by looking at some of our fourth quarter and full year 2021 highlights. For the full year 2021, we generated adjusted EBITDA of $13 billion which was a significant increase over 2020 and in line with our expectations. DCF, attributable to the partners of Energy Transfer as adjusted, was $8.2 billion, which resulted in excess cash flow after distributions of approximately $6.4 billion. On an incurred basis, we had excess DCF of approximately $5 billion after distributions of $1.8 billion and growth capital of approximately $1.4 billion. On January 25th, we announced a quarterly cash distribution of 17.5 cents per common unit, or 70 cents on an annualized basis, which represents a 15% increase over the previous quarter and represents the first step in our plan to return additional value to unit holders. we moved record volumes through our NGL pipelines and NGL and refined products terminals for the full year 2021, primarily driven by growth in volumes through our Needle and Terminal and on our Mariner East pipeline system. In addition, NGL fractionation volumes reached a new record during the fourth quarter, largely driven by growth in volumes feeding our Montbell E-Fractionators. At our Needle and Terminal, we completed expansions in early 2021 that brought our company-wide total NGL export capacity to more than 1.1 million barrels per day, which we believe is the largest in the world. On December 2, 2021, we completed our acquisition of Enable Midstream Partners, which provides increased scale in the Mid-Continent and Arklatex regions and improved connectivity for our natural gas, crude oil, and NGL transportation customers. The combination of energy transfers and Enable's complementary assets will allow us to continue to provide flexible, reliable, and competitive services for our customers as we pursue additional commercial opportunities utilizing our improved connectivity and expanded footprint. We continue to expect the combined company to generate more than $100 million of annual run rate cost savings synergies, of which we expect to achieve $75 million in 2022. In addition, we are in the process of identifying and evaluating a number of commercial and operational synergies that are expected to enhance the operational capabilities of our systems by capitalizing on improved efficiencies and increasing utilization and profitability of our combined assets. Before moving to a growth project update, I want to briefly touch on the recent winter weather conditions seen across many of our assets. This bout of winter weather was less severe and significantly less disruptive than winter storm URI last year, and commodity prices remained much more stable throughout as a result. As we always do, we have procedures in place to provide layers of protection and risk mitigation, including engineering controls and winterization processes. and pre-planning and pre-positioning of resources to assure we are able to respond when needed. Our extensive experience with operating pipelines, processing plants, and storage facilities, combined with a significant amount of preparation, allows us to operate reliably throughout extreme weather conditions, and this is due to the consistent and extraordinary efforts of our employees. I'll now walk you through recent developments on our growth projects, Starting with Mariner East Pipeline System, construction of the final phase of the Mariner East Pipeline is complete and commissioning is in progress, which will bring our total MGL capacity on the Mariner East Pipeline System to 350,000 to 375,000 barrels per day, including ethane. Energy Transfers Mariner East Pipeline System now includes multiple pipelines across the state of Pennsylvania, connecting the prolific Marcellus and Utica shells to markets throughout the state and the broader region, including Energy Transfer's Marcus Hook Terminal on the East Coast. For full year 2021, NGL volumes through the Mariner East Pipeline System and Marcus Hook Terminal are up nearly 10% over 2020. With our expanded network, we will see volumes continue to grow. And our Pennsylvania Access Project, which allows refined products to flow from the Midwest supply regions into Pennsylvania, New York, and other markets in the Northeast, started flowing refined products in January. At our expanded Needland Terminal, NGL volumes continue to increase during the fourth quarter, including export volumes under our Orbit Ethane Export Joint Venture, which have remained strong. For the full year of 2021, we loaded nearly 26 million barrels of ethane out of the facility. For 2022, we expect to load a minimum of 40 million barrels of ethane and project this to increase to up to 60 million barrels for 2023. We also expect our LPG export volumes at Neerland to continue to grow in 2022. And in total, our percentage of worldwide NGL exports has doubled over the last two years, capturing nearly 20% of the world market, which was more than any other company or country exported during the fourth quarter of 2021. At Mont Bellevue, we recently brought online a 3 million barrel high-rate storage well, which increases our total wells to 24 and our NGL storage capabilities at Mont Bellevue to 53 million barrels. Turning to our Cushing South pipeline, In early June, we commenced service on the 65,000 barrels per day crude oil pipeline, providing transportation service from our Cushing Terminal to our Needland Terminal, which also provides access for Powder River and DJ Basin barrels to our Needland Terminal via an upstream connection with our White Cliffs Pipeline. This pipe is already being fully utilized, and as we mentioned on our last call, we're moving forward with Phase II which will nearly double the pipeline's capacity to 120,000 barrels per day. Phase 2 is expected to be in service by the end of the first quarter of 2022 and is underpinned by third-party commitments. As a reminder, minimal capital spend was required for this phase. Next, construction on the Ted Collins link is progressing and is now expected to be completed late in the first quarter of 2022. The Ted Collins link will increase market connectivity for our Houston terminal. It will also give us the ability to fully load and export WTI barrels as well as low-gravity Bakken barrels out of the Houston market, demonstrating Energy Transfer's unique capability to provide a neat Bakken barrel to markets along the Gulf Coast. Our Permian Bridge project, which connects our gathering and processing assets in the Delaware Basin with our GMP assets in the Midland Basin was placed into service in October and continues to be significantly utilized. This project allows us to move approximately 115,000 MCF per day of rich gas out of the Midland Basin and to utilize available processing capacity more efficiently while also providing access to additional takeaway options. In addition, an expansion is underway which will bring the pipeline's total capacity to over 200,000 MCF per day in the first quarter of 2022. And due to significantly increased producer demand, we now plan to build a new 200 MMCF per day cryogenic processing plant in the Delaware Basin. The Gray Wolf plant is supported by new commitments and growth from existing customer contracts and is expected to be in service by the end of 2022. In addition, provide incremental revenue to our midstream segment. Once in service, the volumes from the tailgate of the plant will utilize our gas and NGO pipelines for takeaway, providing three revenue streams. Now, in order to address the growing need for additional natural gas takeaway from the Permian Basin, we are diligently evaluating a takeaway project that would utilize existing energy transfer assets along with new-built pipeline providing producers with firm capacity to the premier markets of Katy, Carthage, Gillis, and Henry Hubbs. This pipeline project would include the construction of a new, approximately 260-mile pipeline from the Midland Basin to our existing 36-inch pipeline southwest of Fort Worth, parallelly existing right away. From there, it would interconnect with our existing assets with available capacity for delivery through our vast pipeline network to markets at Carthage, as well as to Katy, Beaumont, and the Houston Ship Channel, and other markets along the Gulf Coast, including deliveries to the Gillis and Henry Hubs. We view this project as an ideal solution for natural gas growth out of the Permian Basin that we can complete much more quickly than our competitors' options at significantly less cost about following an existing right-of-way along the majority of the route. In addition, it is aligned with our strategy of identifying and repurposing underutilized assets in order to maximize the value of our uniquely positioned existing asset base. Customer discussions are underway as we pursue this project. Given the proposed route and our ability to utilize existing assets, we believe we could complete construction of the project in two years or less. once we have reached FID. Turning to the Gulf Run pipeline, which will be a 42-inch interstate natural gas pipeline with 1.65 BCF per day of capacity. Gulf Run is backed by a 20-year commitment from Golden Pass LNG and will provide natural gas transportation between the Hainesville Shell and the Gulf Coast, connecting some of the most prolific natural gas-producing regions in the U.S., with the LNG export market. Pipeline construction is underway and is expected to be completed by the end of 2022. Lastly, in July of 2021, we announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Republic of Panama to study the feasibility of jointly developing a proposed Trans-Panama Gateway Pipeline. We anticipate working closely with Panama to successfully bring this project to fruition. Panama's geographic location and favorable investment climate make this an attractive project. We continue to believe this project will create the most liquid and attractive LPG supply hub in the world and are excited about the opportunity it presents. Now for an update on our alternative energy activities. In January of 2022, we announced that we expanded our alternative energy group through the hiring of a vice president of alternative energy. This role is responsible for developing alternative energy and carbon capture projects for energy transfer, along with various ESG initiatives, including the development of carbon capture offset programs that are accretive to our operations. In addition to the two solar projects we announced in 2021, we are also continuing to explore several opportunities for solar, wind, and forestry carbon credit projects on our existing acreage in the Appalachian region. We remain in discussions with other large renewable energy developers. On the carbon capture front, we continue to pursue our carbon capture project at Marcus Hook that would involve capturing CO2 from the flue gas and delivering it to the customers for use in the food and beverage industries. This project looks financially attractive based upon preliminary cost estimates and design feasibility studies. We are also pursuing several carbon projects related to our assets including projects involving the capture of CO2 from processing and treating plants for use in enhanced oil recovery or sequestration. We continue to believe that our franchise will allow us to participate in a variety of projects involving carbon capture or other innovative uses as we continue to reduce our carbon footprint. Lastly, we published our annual corporate responsibility report to our website in December. Now let's take a closer look at our fourth quarter results. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $2.8 billion compared to $2.6 billion for the fourth quarter of 2020. DCF, attributable to the partners as adjusted, was $1.6 billion for the fourth quarter compared to $1.4 billion for the fourth quarter of 2020. For the fourth quarter, we saw higher transportation volumes across all of our segments, including record volumes in the NGL refined product segment. as well as a $60 million adjusted EBITDA contribution from the acquisition of Enable for the month of December. On January 25th, we announced a quarterly cash distribution of 17.5 cents per common unit for 70 cents on an annualized basis. This distribution will be paid on February 18th to unit holders of record as of the close of business on February 8th. This distribution represents a 15% increase over the previous quarter and represents the first step in our plan to return additional value to unit holders while maintaining our leverage ratio target of 4 to 4.5 times debt to EBITDA. Future increases to the distribution level will be evaluated quarterly with the ultimate goal of returning distributions to the previous level of $0.305 per quarter, or $1.22 on an annualized basis, while balancing our leverage target, growth opportunities, and unit buybacks. Turning to our results by segment, starting with NGL and refined products, adjusted EBITDA was $739 million compared to $703 million for the same period last year. This was primarily due to higher transportation and terminal services margins related to increased throughput at our Neyland Terminal in the fourth quarter of 2021, as well as increased fractionation and refinery services margins. NGL transportation volumes on our wholly owned and joint venture pipelines increased to a record 1.9 million barrels per day compared to 1.4 million barrels per day for the same period last year. This increase was primarily due to increased export volumes feeding into our needle and terminal from the initiation of service on our propane and ethane export projects. Higher volumes from the Permian and Eagleford regions as well as increased volumes on our Mariner East pipeline system. And our fractionators also reached another record for the quarter, with average fractionated volumes of 895,000 barrels per day compared to 825,000 barrels per day for the fourth quarter of 2020. For our crude oil segment, adjusted EBITDA was $533 million compared to $517 million for the same period last year. This was primarily due to higher crude oil transportation volumes out of the Permian Basin, improved volumes through our Needland Terminal, and improved performance on our Bakken and Bayou Bridge pipelines as a result of recovering volumes in the fourth quarter of 2021 and the addition of the Enable assets. For Midstream, adjusted EBITDA was $547 million compared to $390 million for the fourth quarter of 2020. This was primarily due to a $147 million increase related to favorable NGL and natural gas prices. In addition, our midstream segment also benefited from growth in the Permian, South Texas, and Northeast, and the acquisition of the Enable assets in December 2021. Gathered gas volumes were 14.8 million MMBTUs per day compared to 12.6 million MMBTUs per day for the same period last year, due to higher volumes in the Permian, South Texas, and Northeast Wheat regions, as well as addition of the naval assets in December of 2021. Permian Basin volumes continue to be strong, and Midland Inlet volumes remain at or near record highs. As a result, we are expanding our Permian Bridge project and constructing our new Gray Wolf Processing Plant in the Delaware Basin. In our interstate segment, adjusted EBITDA was $397 million compared to $448 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. While volumes are beginning to improve, we did experience contract expirations at the end of 2020 on Tiger and FEP, and due to very mild temperatures throughout the Midwest, we experienced lower demand on our panhandle and truck line systems during the fourth quarter. However, these decreases were partially offset by increases on Rover and Tiger due to more favorable market conditions and to significant volume growth out of the Hainesville. These results also include the Enable assets in December of 2021. We have seen steady growth recently in the interstate segment, with the fourth quarter up more than 10% over the third quarter of 2021, even without the impact of Enable. For our interest rate segment, adjusted EBITDA was $274 million compared to $233 million in the fourth quarter of last year. This was primarily due to increased firm transportation volumes from the Permian and South Texas, the recognition of certain revenues related to winter storm URI, and an increase in retained fuel revenues due to higher natural gas prices, as well as the addition of the naval assets in December of 2021. Now turning to our 2022 adjusted EBITDA guidance with expectations for continued strong performance for my existing business, as well as the addition of the enable assets, we expect our full year 2022 adjusted EBITDA to be $11.8 billion to $12.2 billion. And moving to our 2022 growth capital expenditures, we expect growth capital expenditures, including expenditures related to the recently acquired enable assets, to be between $1.6 billion and $1.9 billion, balanced primarily across the midstream NGL refined products and interstate segments. This number includes approximately $200 million of 2021 planned capital that has been deferred into 2022, as well as growth capital related to the recently acquired Enable assets, in particular Gulf Run Pipeline. In addition, This includes newly approved projects in the Permian Basin that support growing natural gas production through new gathering and processing capacity, improved efficiencies, and reduced emissions. These projects include construction of a new processing plant, optimization of the waste pipeline, and modernization and de-bottlenecking of the existing system. The majority of these new projects are expected to provide strong returns and be completed at a 6x multiple on average. Now looking briefly at our liquidity position as of December 31st, 2021, total available liquidity under revolving credit facility was slightly over $2 billion and our leverage ratio was 3.07 for the credit facility. During the fourth quarter, we utilized cash from operations to reduce our outstanding debt for approximately $400 million. And for full year 2021, we reduced our long-term debt by approximately $6.3 billion. We expect to generate a significant amount of cash flow in 2022, which will be strategically allocated in a manner that best positions us to continue to improve our leverage, invest in the growth of the partnership, and return value to our unit holders. As we approach our leverage target range, we have taken our first steps toward returning additional capital to our equity holders through distribution growth, which we will continue to evaluate on a quarterly basis. In addition, We have increased our growth capital spend, as I mentioned earlier on the call, with this capital focused on strong returning projects that will be in service in less than 12 months. And we expect to continue to pay down debt throughout the year with excess cash flow from operations. During the fourth quarter, we continue to see volumes recover across many of our systems, including another record quarter for volumes in our NGL refined product segment. Looking ahead, We are excited about the opportunities in front of us. We will continue to explore and implement commercial synergies around the recently acquired Enable assets. And we continue to see growth across our NGL business segment, driven by increasing demand both domestically and internationally. We have entered 2022 with a much stronger balance sheet than 2021 and will continue to place emphasis on financial flexibility and pay it down debt in 2022. while continuing to position ourselves to return value to our unit holders. Given the volume growth expected out of the Permian Basin, we have some attractive new projects underway that will address new demand, enhance the efficiency and flexibility of our existing asset base, and generate attractive returns above our target threshold. We also continue to make progress on the alternative energy front, which can further enhance and effectively grow our energy franchises. Operator, please open the line up for our first question.

Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, at this time we will conduct our question and answer session. Please limit yourselves to one question and one follow-up question for each time that you place yourself in the question queue. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press the star key followed by the number two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions.