Hess Midstream LP

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first quarter of 2026 HES Midstream Conference Call. My name is Kevin, and I'll be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in a 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 1-1 on your telephone. You'll then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised today's conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would like to turn the conference over to Jennifer Gordon, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please proceed.

Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for participating in our first quarter earnings conference call. Our earnings release was issued this morning and appears on our website, www.hessmidstream.com. Today's conference call contains projections and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, that may cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in such statements. These risks include those set forth in the risk factor section of HES Midstream's filings with the SEC. Also, on today's conference call, we may discuss certain GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of the differences between these non-GAAP financial measures and the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the earnings release. With me today are Jonathan Stein, Chief Executive Officer, and Mike Chadwick, Chief Financial Officer. I'll now turn the call over to Jonathan Stein.

Thanks, Jennifer. Welcome everyone to our first quarter 2026 earnings call. Today, I will discuss our first quarter performance and outlook for the remainder of the year. And then I'll hand the call over to Mike to review our financials. In the first quarter, we continued to execute our operational priorities and deliver our financial strategy. We delivered solid operational performance and achieved our guidance, which included the impact of severe winter weather in January and February. In March, we completed an accretive $60 million share and unit repurchase on the public and our sponsor. And last week, we increased our distribution 2%, approximately 8% on an annualized basis for Class A shares. This increase included our targeted 5% annual increase for Class A shares and a distribution level increase following our repurchase that maintains our total distributed cash on a lower share and unit count. Turning to our results. During the quarter, throughput volumes averaged 430 million cubic feet per day for gas processing, 119,000 barrels of oil per day for crude terminaling, and 115,000 barrels of water per day for water gathering. In line with our guidance, throughput volumes were down compared to the fourth quarter, primarily due to severe winter weather in January and February, partially offset by recovery in March, as well as capture of additional third-party gas volumes. Consistent with our annual guidance, we continue to expect volumes to grow the rest of the year, excluding the impact of planned maintenance at TGP in the second quarter that is expected to reduce volumes by 5 to 10 million cubic feet per day for the quarter. Turning to HES Midstream's capital program. In the first quarter, we safely brought online the second of two new compressor stations after completing it in the fourth quarter of 2025. In the first quarter, capital expenditures were $10 million, seasonally lower than the fourth quarter of 2025 as severe winter weather restricted activity levels. We expect our capital spend to be seasonally higher in the second and third quarters as we continue to execute our program, including completion of greenfield high-pressure gathering pipeline infrastructure that we started in 2025. However, with the second compressor station online and reflecting Chevron's move to longer laterals, which reduces well-connected capex for HESA midstream, we have now reduced our 2026 estimated capital expenditure by a third to approximately $100 million. As a result of this reduction, and together with the deferral of cash taxes, we are increasing our 2026 adjusted free cash flow guidance to $910 to $960 million, reflecting a 20% increase year over year at the midpoint. Hess Midstream remains a leader in shareholder cash returns with one of the highest free cash flow yields across our peer set. In summary, we remain focused on executing safe, and reliable operations while leveraging our historical investment in existing infrastructure to continue generating significant adjusted free cash flow, allowing us to equally provide returns to our shareholders through going distributions and incremental share repurchases while simultaneously continuing to reduce our debt leverage. With that, I'll hand the call over to Mike to review our financial performance for the first quarter at guidance.