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spk05: Welcome to the quarterly earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session of today's conference. At that time, you may press star 1 on your phone to ask a question. I would like to inform all parties that today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman of Kinder Morgan. Thank you. You may begin.
spk00: Thank you, Sheila. Before we begin, as I always do, I'd like to remind you that KMI's earnings release today and this call include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as well as certain non-GAAP financial measures. Before making any investment decisions, we strongly encourage you to read our full disclosure on forward-looking statements and use of non-GAAP financial measures set forth at the end of our earnings release, as well as review our latest filings with the SEC for important material assumptions, expectations, and risk factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated and described in such forward-looking statements. Let me begin by saying that over the last several quarters, I've started these calls with a review of our financial philosophy and strategy at Kinder Morgan. I went back and looked at what I've said over the last few quarters, and the message has been very consistent, and it is this. We generate significant amounts of cash, and we'll use that cash to fund our expansion CapEx needs, pay our dividends, and to keep our balance sheet strong and occasionally on an opportunistic basis to repurchase shares. We will use a disciplined approach to approving any new projects. And that's exactly what we're doing, even in this challenging year of 2020, which I believe shows the resilience and strength of our collection of midstream assets. Now, as we look beyond this year, we can't predict with any accuracy what the future will bring in terms of a return to normalcy for our economy and our lifestyle. But we are confident that KMI will continue to generate strong cash well in excess of our expansion CapEx needs and the funding of our current dividend. That will allow us to maintain a strong balance sheet and return significant additional cash to our shareholders through increased dividends and our share repurchases. So if the results and outlook are that positive, why is that not reflected in our stock price? Well, I'm certainly no expert on that subject, but it appears that many investors are not committing any funds to the energy business without any consideration of the unique characteristics of our midstream sector. Now, we are not climate change deniers and we recognize the growing momentum of renewables in America's energy mix. That said, there is a long runway for the products we handle, particularly natural gas. For a clear-eyed examination of the role of fossil fuels in the energy transition, I recommend everyone read the excellent new book, The New Map, by Pulitzer Prize winner Daniel Yergin. In it, he details in specific terms the need for oil and particularly natural gas in the coming decades and indicates the importance of existing energy infrastructure like ours. Now, beyond the present use of our assets, our extensive pipeline infrastructure can play an important role in facilitating many of the changes being advocated to lessen global emissions. To name just three examples, if green hydrogen becomes a reality, we can move some amount of it through our pipes. If refiners produce renewable diesel, we can transport that through our product pipelines. And if CCUS advances, we have more experience in moving CO2 and injecting it underground than virtually any other company in America. In short, to paraphrase Mark Twain, The rumors of our death are greatly exaggerated. And with that, I'll turn it over to Steve.
spk09: All right. Thank you, Rich. So I'll give you an overview of our business and then turn it over to our president, Kim Diney, to cover the outlook and segment updates. Our CFO, David Michaels, will take you through the financials, and then we'll take your questions. Our financial principles remain the same, maintaining a strong balance sheet, maintaining our capital discipline through our return criteria, a good track record of execution, and by self-funding our investments. And on that front, we evaluated all of our 2020 expansion capital projects and reduced CapEx by about $680 million from our 2020 budget for almost 30%. That was in response to the changing conditions in our markets. We still have over $1.7 billion of expansion capital in 2020 on good returning project investments. We're also maintaining cost discipline. We now stand at about $188 million of expense and sustaining capital cost savings for 2020, including deferrals. About $118 million of that is permanent savings, we believe. The result of this work on our capital budget and our costs is that our projected DCF less discretionary capital spend is actually improved versus our plan by about $135 million to our 2020 plan and about $600 million versus our 2019 actuals. All that notwithstanding the pandemic. We more than offset the degradation to our DCF forecast with spending and capital investment cuts in 2020. Finally, we are returning value to shareholders with a 5% year-over-year dividend increase to $1.05 annualized, providing an increased but well-covered dividend. It's a strong balance sheet capital and cost discipline and returning value to our shareholders. You'll note that we omitted the reference to getting to $1.25 dividend that we projected back in 2017. Omitting $1.25 is not backing away from further dividend increases. We remain committed to paying a healthy, well-covered dividend. It's simply wise, we believe, to preserve flexibility to return value to shareholders in the best way possible for shareholders, especially in light of a share price that shows an 8-plus percent yield on a well-covered dividend. We will review dividend policy with the Board following completion of our 2021 budget process. We have accomplished some important work so far during 2020, which I believe will lead to long-term distinction for our company. First, as Kim will cover, we've been successful in advancing our Permian Highway Pipeline project under very difficult circumstances, including local opposition, legal and permit challenges, and by the way, a global pandemic too. We're distinguishing ourselves and demonstrating to our customers and partners our ability to get projects done in difficult conditions. Second, we are already an efficient operator, but we are getting more efficient and more cost effective. We believe that is one of the keys to success in our business for the long term. As I mentioned last quarter, our management team is in the midst of an effort to examine how we are organized and how we operate. We are centralizing certain functions in order to be more efficient and effective, and we are making appropriate changes to how we manage and how we are staffed, and I believe that we will achieve substantial savings. Additionally, as always, we'll be evaluating costs and revenues as part of our annual budget process, which we're also in the midst of right now. We'll bring those two efforts to a close in the coming weeks and incorporate the results into our 2021 guidance. It's essential to be cost-effective while also maintaining our commitment to safe and compliant operations. That's embedded in our values, our culture, and in how we put our budget together. The management team is committed to these objectives, too, and that commitment is also critical to our long-term success. Third, we'll soon be publishing our ESG report. We have incorporated ESG reporting and risk management into our existing management processes. The report will explain how. In the meantime, Sustainalytics has ranked us number one in our sector for how we manage ESG risk. These things are all important to our long-term success, and we have advanced the ball significantly on all three in 2020. So what have we been doing during the pandemic? We're completing a major, new, fully contracted natural gas pipeline in the face of opposition. We're expanding our gas network in Texas and have expanded our terminal capabilities in the Houston Ship Channel. We've reduced costs and capital expenditures, actually increasing our cash flow after CapEx for the year. We continue to advance the ball on ESG, and we're also completing organizational restructuring at the same time. All this while keeping all of our assets running safely, reliably, and efficiently and continuing to originate new business. I'm grateful for the quality of our people and the strength of our culture, two things we probably don't emphasize enough. One more thing. There's a lot of discussion around our sector right now about ongoing energy transition, and I'd like to make a few points about how we participate. First, we and many objective experts, as Rich mentioned, believe that natural gas is essential to meeting the world's energy needs and meeting climate objectives, as it has here in the U.S., U.S. natural gas will play a significant role, and our assets are well positioned to benefit from that opportunity. More important to us is the value of what we specifically do, which is less about providing the commodity itself and more about providing the transportation and storage capacity or deliverability. The value of that increases for the power sector as more intermittent resources are relied on for power generation. Natural gas is clean, affordable, reliable, and pipelines deliver that commodity by the safest, most efficient, most environmentally sound means. We'll continue to look for additional ways to benefit from the long-term energy transition, including the role of our infrastructure in firming intermittent renewable resources, which is what I just mentioned, our marketing of our low methane emissions performance as responsibly produced and transported natural gas. That's a good synergy between our ESG performance that's lowering our methane emissions overall and our commercial opportunities. We're distinguishing ourselves as an environmentally responsible provider, and increasingly that matters to our customers. Further down the road, there may be hydrogen blending opportunities in our natural gas pipelines, and if the incentives are adequate, captured manmade CO2 to be transported on our CO2 pipelines and used for EOR. We'll also continue to evaluate other opportunities in the renewable sector that, as always, will be very disciplined. The G in ESG is critically important, and we won't forget about that. We believe the winners in our sector will have strong balance sheets, low-cost operations that are safe and environmentally sound, and the ability to get things done in difficult circumstances. as always, will evolve to meet the challenges and opportunities we face. And with that, I'll turn it over to Kim.
spk14: Okay, thanks, Steve. Today, I'm going to go through a review of each of our business segments, as well as a high-level summary of the full-year forecast. So first, starting with the natural gas segment, transport volumes were down about 2% or approximately 575,000 decatherms per day versus the third quarter of 2019. That was driven primarily by lower LNG demand, competition from Canadian deliveries, and lower Rockies production. These declines were partially offset by a full quarter of volumes on our GCX pipeline that went into service last year. Physical deliveries to LNG facilities off our pipelines were down about 700,000 decatherms a day versus the third quarter of 2019. They were also down versus the second quarter of this year. However, we have seen a recovery in those volumes, and current volumes are nearing pre-pandemic levels. Exports to Mexico were very strong in the quarter. They were up 500 a day when compared to the third quarter of 2019, and over 650 per day versus the second quarter of this year. Deliveries to power plants were up 5%, driven by cold switching and warmer weather. Our gathering volumes were down about 13% in the quarter compared to the second quarter of 2019. For gathering volumes, I think the more informative comparison in the current environment is versus the second quarter of 2020. So compared to the second quarter, volumes were down about 4%. Kinderhawk, which serves the Haynesville, was down due to lack of drilling and decline in existing wells. However, we're still expecting, based on conversations with customers and the forward curve on natural gas prices, to see new drilling in the Haynesville in 2021. The bright spot in the quarter was volumes on our Highland system in the Bakken, which were up approximately 30% versus the second quarter of this year. On our natural gas projects, we completed ELBA during the quarter, and the facility is now fully in service. On PHP, we're now about 97% mechanically complete, and we expect to be fully in service in early 2021. On our product pipeline segment, refined products volumes were down about 16% for the quarter versus the third quarter of 2019 as a result of the continued pandemic impact. The 16% compares to about a 14% reduction that EIA shows for the third quarter. So our volumes are slightly worse than the EIA, and that's primarily because jet fuel is a percentage of our total volumes is greater than it is for the EIA mix. For each month in the quarter, we did see an improvement in volumes over the prior month. For October, we're currently expecting volumes to be off approximately 13% versus the prior year. The 13% is comprised of road fuels off about 5% and jet fuel approaching off 50%. Crude and condensate volumes were down about 17% in the quarter versus 2019. but improved by about 11 percent over the second quarter. In terminals, we experienced decline in our refined products throughput of about 22 percent. But here, the impact of lower volumes is mitigated by the fixed take-or-pay contracts that we have. But for those of you who are trying to read through to demand, I would point out that the percentage is significantly impacted by imports in the Northeast and exports in the Gulf Coast. If you look at our rack facilities, which is probably a better gauge of what's happening with demand, they were off about 11% in the quarter. Our liquid utilization percentage, which is a more accurate predictor of the health of this business, given the structure of our contracts, remains high at about 96%. If you exclude tanks out of service for required inspection, utilization is 98%. The bulk side of our business, which accounts for roughly 20% of the terminal segment earnings, was impacted by weakness in coal and petroleum coat volumes. In CO2, oil production was down approximately 12%, and CO2 sales volumes were down approximately 33%. However, lower op-ex and help on oil prices more than offset the lower volumes. Our team's done a tremendous job of adjusting to the current reality, They've achieved cost savings both on the OpEx and the capital side. They've reevaluated and cut capital projects that didn't meet our return criteria. And therefore, free cash flow from this segment is expected to be better than budget and better than 2019. For the full year, our guidance remains the same as we gave you last quarter. We expect to be below plan by slightly more than 8% on EBITDA and slightly more than 10% on DCF. Embedded in this guidance is over $187 million in cost savings between G&A, OpEx, and Sussane and CapEx. To give you a better sense of what we're projecting on fourth quarter volumes, for refined products within the products pipeline segment, we're estimating volumes to be off about 10% versus the prior year. On crude and condensate volumes, we're estimating volumes to increase by approximately 5% versus what we saw in the third quarter. And on natural gas gathering volumes, we're expecting volumes in the fourth quarter to be essentially flat with what we saw in the third. On debt to EBITDA, we're expecting to finish the year at approximately 4.6 times debt to EBITDA. So slightly better on this metric than what we told you last quarter. And with that, I'll turn it over to David Michaels.
spk10: All right. Thank you, Kim. Today we're declaring a dividend of $0.2625 per share, or $1.05 annualized, which is flat with last quarter. For our quarterly performance, our revenues were down $295 million from the third quarter of 2019, driven in part by lower natural gas prices in Q3 of this year versus Q3 of last year. And those lower natural gas prices also drove a decline in associated cost of sales of $107 million, which partially offset the lower revenues. Net income attributable to KMI was $455 million for the quarter, 10% down from the third quarter of 2019. Our adjusted earnings is a bit higher at $485 million, down 5% from the third quarter of 2019. Adjusted earnings per share was 21 cents for the quarter, down one cent from the prior period. Moving on to DCF performance for the third quarter, Natural gas, the natural gas segment was down $8 million with lower contributions driven by our sale of our coaching pipeline, along with lower volumes on our South Texas and Kinderhawk gathering and processing systems, partially offset by contributions from elbow liquefaction and Gulf Coast Express projects coming online. A product segment was down $67 million, driven by lower refined products volumes, as well as lower crude and condensate contributions, mainly due to demand impacts from the pandemic, as well as lower oil prices. Our terminal segment was down $49 million, driven mostly by the sale of KML and the terminals associated with that business, as well as lower refined products, coal, steel, and pet coke volumes. Our CO2 segment was up $5 million due to lower operating costs and improved year-over-year realized pricing given improved midland cushion hedges, more than offsetting the lower CO2 demand and lower produced crude oil in that segment. The G&A and corporate charges were lowered by $18 million, driven by lower non-cash pension expenses, the sale of KML, as well as cost savings. The JVD DNA and non-controlling interest items combined show a $24 million reduction driven mainly by our partner at Elva Liquifaction sharing in greater contributions from that facility. That brings us to adjusted EBITDA of $125 million or 7% lower than the third quarter of 2019. The low EBITDA interest expense was $61 million favorable versus last year. driven by lower floating rates benefiting our interest rate swaps as well as lower debt balance, partially offset by lower capitalized interest. Our cash taxes were higher in the third quarter by $37 million due to deferred payments at Citrus Plantation and our Texas margin tax from the second quarter of 2020 into the third quarter. For the full year, cash taxes are fairly close to our budget. The other item, The main driver behind our other item, favorable $34 million, was a change in the schedule of our contributions to our pension plan. In 2019, we made the entire annual contribution to our pension plan in the third quarter, and this year we began making quarterly contributions. Overall, we expect to contribute $10 million more in 2020 versus 2019 to our pension plan. Total DCF of $1.85 billion is down 5% from the third quarter of last year. And our GCF per share of 48 cents is down two cents from last year. On the balance sheet, the end of the quarter at 4.6 times debt to EBITDA and expect the end of the year at the same level, which is up slightly from last quarter at 4.5 times and up from 4.3 times at year end 2019. During the quarter, we had a very nice capital markets execution. In August, we issued $750 million of 10-year senior notes with a 2% coupon and $500 million of 30-year senior notes with a 3.25% coupon. And those were the lowest ever achieved 10-year and 30-year issuances coupons associated with those 10 and 30-year issuances respectively for KMI. The issuances also further bolstered our already strong liquidity position as those proceeds more than covered the amount of debt maturing in the quarter So at the end of the quarter, we had an undrawn $4 billion credit facility and over $600 million of cash on hand. Our net debt ended the quarter at $32.6 billion, down $433 million from year end and up $189 versus last quarter. To reconcile the quarter changes... We generated $1,085,000,000 in distributable cash flow. We spent $600,000,000 on dividends, $400,000,000 on growth CapEx and JV contributions, and had a $270,000,000 work in capital use. And that gets you mostly to the $189,000,000 change for the quarter, for the change from year end. We've generated $3.347 billion of distributable cash flow. We brought in $900 million from the Pemina share sale in the first quarter. We've paid out dividends of $1.77 billion. We've spent $1.4 billion on growth capital and JV contributions. We've spent $235 million on taxes associated with the Trans Mountain and Pemina share sales. We've bought back $50 million of KMI shares, and we've had $360 million of working capital use, mostly interest expense paid. And that explains the majority of the $433 million reduction in net debt from year end. And with that, I'll turn it back to Steve.
spk09: Okay, thanks, David. So, Sheila, we'll open it up to questions and answers. I'll remind you, as we've done in the past, that it's a courtesy to all callers who are going to ask that you limit your questions to one question per person with one follow-up. However, if you do have unanswered or additional unanswered questions, get back in the queue and we will come back around to you. Okay, Sheila?
spk05: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, please press star 1. If you need to withdraw your question, press star two. Again, to ask a question, please press star one. Our first question comes from Jeremy Tenet with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open.
spk02: Good afternoon. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Maybe just starting off with a high-level question here on the pace of recovery. It's obviously difficult to tell here, but just wondering what your thoughts are, if I If you look at the GMP segment, I'm wondering what you could tell us as far as what type of activity you're seeing in the quarter and how you think that might recover over the next couple of quarters. And a similar question on the product demand side, what are you seeing now and when do you think it's possible to get towards kind of pre-COVID levels, just trying to get a better feel for, you know, how this could unfold over the next couple of quarters here?
spk09: Okay. Yeah, fair enough. I mean, broadly, as you heard from the numbers that Kim went through, We're continuing to see month-over-month improvements in the refined products side of things. Things bumped back up big in the second quarter, and in the third quarter it's been more gradual. But we're still seeing month-over-month improvements, but it's gradual. And I think, you know, we don't have any special insight into – How quickly people will return to driving, they're certainly starting to. Diesel volumes have remained fairly strong. Jet is, I think most people would say, and I think we would say, that jet is likely to lag, but its impact on us is relatively smaller than what its volume impact is. So about 12% of what we handle in our refined products business is jet, but it only comes down to about, 8% of the EBDA for those segments. And then for KMI overall, it's about, I'm sorry, 12% of refined products, 3.5% of the combined refined products and terminal segments on EBDA contributions, so 1% for KMI overall. That's the whole of jet volume. So 12% 12% of the total volumes, but only 8% of the EBITDA. On GNP, so gradual recovery there. On GNP, as Kim said, when we look at the change versus last quarter, it's a much smaller change than what it was on a year-over-year basis. And there, I mean, I think the recovery is going to be, we saw a big comeback in the Bakken, for example. I think the Eagleford will probably continue to lag. The Hainesville is also lagging, but we expect that that's going to start turning around because we do need to produce natural gas in the United States. And if we're not going to produce it to meet demand, if we're not going to produce it in associated gas plays, it's going to come from the dry gas plays. and the Hainesville is well-positioned for that, and our assets are well-positioned on the dry gas plays from an interstate standpoint, on TGP for the Marcellus and Utica, and from a gathering standpoint for the Hainesville, and very capital-efficient increases in production that we can achieve there. So, look, it's a bit of a mixed bag across the GMP landscape, but that's directionally how I would size it up.
spk02: that's a very helpful thanks and maybe just turn into california and energy transition as you guys talked about before in california we see the internal combustion engine phase out plans and see greater penetration from ev and biodiesel and just you know put it all together thinking about this refineries potentially closing there how does this impact kmi or more importantly how does kmi i guess respond to this going forward yeah so there are pluses and minuses um on
spk09: I'll start with the plus side. As refineries convert to generate more renewable diesel, we can handle renewable diesel in our pipelines. We can handle it in our storage tanks. We think there may be opportunities for us to develop in our products pipeline segments and additional facilities to handle increases in renewable diesel that come out of the developments in California. In California, it is heavily subsidized, and so it will make sense people to make those investments and we're looking for ways that we could participate so i mean i think just broadly there are some things that we have to pay attention to in terms of being able to track renewable content which becomes more challenging once we get over the five percent uh level but we can we can we can adapt and adjust to that but i think the easy way to think about it is renewable diesel looks like regular diesel when it's in our pipes and tanks um On the negative side, certainly we've seen the announcement about the intent to phase out or really eliminate internal combustion engine sales in new cars in California. A couple points that I would make that kind of mitigate that. One is not all of our volumes on our SFPP system move to serve California markets. Some of it moves to serve Arizona as well as serving California. Nevada, both in the Las Vegas and Reno markets. And the other thing is it takes a while. I mean, we're talking about between now and 2035. It takes about 10 to 12 years to roll over the vehicle fleet, et cetera. So there are a number of things that really mitigate that impact for us on the refined product side.
spk02: Got it. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you. Our next question comes from Oswal Pradhan with Bank of America. Your line is open.
spk08: Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. Firstly, on M&A, Steve, we know we have seen a wave of upstream M&A recently, and midstream sector appears to be primed for it as well with recent headlines around certain G&P companies exploring sale. If a deal were to satisfy your criteria for leverage and DCF accretion, which area of business would KMI prioritize pursuing M&A in?
spk09: Yeah, again, you said that really key point there, which is it has to meet the criteria, and that includes meeting balance sheet criteria as well as being a business that I think generally that we're already in and that we're confident we can operate and we can bring some additional synergies too. We can always bring cost synergies, we believe. We are an efficient operator, but we have to find other things that we can do. Look, I think there are two parts of this. I mean, certainly the activity that's going on in E&P right now, I mean, I think that's a good thing for the sector, and I think, you know, indirectly, therefore, a good thing for midstream in the sense that, you know, you're getting stronger, you know, more well-capitalized players, you know, with plans to continue to develop. I think, and they're doing it in a way that doesn't, harm the entity going forward by paying too big of a premium, for example, et cetera. In midstream, we continue to keep our eye on relative valuations with all those criteria that I mentioned, and we're going to be very conservative and very disciplined about our participation there. The other thing I think we'll begin to see more of, but it's on the sidelines right now, is asset packages coming on the market. There's a lot of those I think were put on hold back in March and April and do think that we'll start to see a little bit more activity there. And we're in that information flow. And if we find something that's attractive, as we did on a fairly small scale at the end of last year, we'll look to act on those. So not yet really seeing it in midstream, but we think there may be some asset sales that come online later in the process here. Kevin, anything that you want to add to that?
spk12: No, I think you covered it all very well, Steve.
spk08: Got it. Thanks for that, Steve. And second question on traditional thoughts on shareholder return here. How are you weighing buyback versus distribution growth? And the question here is, given the Given that distributions have not been re-audited recently, would you say that buybacks may be a better option than your current intention to raise distributions to the $1.25 per share level?
spk09: Yeah, you know, I think both Rich and I covered it at the beginning. We're looking at what the best way is to return excess cash to shareholders. maintain a strong balance sheet, invest in projects at good returns that are well above our cost of capital, et cetera. And you're right. I mean, in the current environment of security that's yielding over 8%, certainly that's the case. However, we're going to be thoughtful about this. Our board will be thoughtful about it when they deliberate on it and make the decision. Just because dividends are out of favor now doesn't mean we shouldn't be paying them and shouldn't be increasing them. We think that that's a very valuable and reliable and steady way to return cash to our shareholders, excess cash to our shareholders. And we believe that the market from time to time appreciates that and from time to time it doesn't. And I don't think we can make our decisions based on what is currently prioritized. But clearly, by saying what we said in the release, we're giving ourselves flexibility, which I think is, as I said, it's a very wise thing for us to do in a time like this.
spk08: Got it. Thank you, Steve. I'll jump back in with you.
spk05: Thank you. Next, we will hear from Colton Bean with Tudor Pickering Holt and Company. Your line is open.
spk13: Good afternoon. Appreciate the prepared remarks around energy transition and potential opportunities for the KMI asset base. Coming at it from a slightly different angle, can you speak to your philosophy on capital structure in the context of transition?
spk09: Capital structure in what sense?
spk13: Mostly thinking here in terms of the balance sheet and whether, you know, is leverage the appropriate metric? Is there some consideration of rateable debt? I'm really just trying to understand, you know, if there is whether it's 2030 or 2060, if there is some sort of timeline out there, how you evaluate that when you look at the balance sheet.
spk09: Yeah, no, I understand. Look, we still believe, and Anthony can weigh in on this as well, but we still believe and believe that the rating agencies believe that we are appropriately rated at triple B flat at around four and a half times. When you look at our whole business mix, I'll make a little bit of a broader point here. I'm not the expert that you all are in other sectors, but in my casual observation of it, it's funny to me that in our sector, when we talk in terms of like 2040, 2050, 2060, there aren't many businesses out there right now that can really be thinking in terms of that length of time for them to be in business and doing things that they're doing today. And so I think there's no pressure there to do something different on a four and a half times when you think about that runway and when you think about the quality of our assets and the diversity of our cash flows and the length of our contract terms. increasing irreplaceability of our assets, if you will. I mean, the harder it is to build new infrastructure, the flip side of that is that the existing infrastructure, which we happen to have a lot of, becomes more valuable, all things being equal. And so I guess the short answer is no.
spk13: And I'd appreciate that. And then on the Rockies pipeline network, you mentioned some producer optimism in the Hainesville. I've just given a moving strip here. Could you characterize recent conversations around the Rockies region and whether your thoughts on recontracting potential have shifted at all?
spk09: You know, I'll ask Tom Barton to speak to that, Tom.
spk01: Yeah, I mean, I think clearly – you know, we're seeing, uh, less development activity in the Rockies than we were seeing, uh, probably a year ago. And so, uh, that, that certainly will have an impact on, uh, of excess capacity in that market. But I mean, I think, uh, you know, we have valued that, I think, uh, in the past, uh, appropriately. And so I don't see that as a material change to us, uh, overall, um, you know, clearly, uh, things that we've known about that are on the contracting cliff, such as Ruby, you know, things of that nature. We've considered that in our long-term plan and don't see that really being impacted by the current change.
spk13: Yeah, I appreciate that.
spk05: Thank you. Our next question comes from Jean Ann Salisbury with Bernstein. Your line is open.
spk04: Hi, good afternoon. So we're expected to have too much gas takeaway at the Permian next year when PHP and Whistler start. Can you remind us how much of your existing gas takeaway there is under take or pay, and if we should expect significant cannibalization when PHP starts next year?
spk09: The vast majority of it is under reservation fee-based contracts, so that's really EPNG and NGPL and the Hill Country Pipeline, which is a smaller intrastate pipeline than the two new ones that we're building. So it's mostly preservation fee or taper pay-based. I mean, I think that the one impact that we'll see or that we've started to see is that, you know, with less With less constraint, there's less of the short-term business that we were doing and getting nice rates for. So it does have some impact not to the base as much as to some of the upside opportunities that we have been seeing. So there will be some impact at the margin there. Tom, anything else you want to add to that?
spk01: No, you covered it, Steve. Thank you.
spk04: Okay, thanks. And then just one more about energy transition. So in a scenario where 2035 utilities gas demand dropped significantly, but to your point earlier, they still need very high availability of gas to cover peak daily demand. How would you see contract structures with utilities and gas pipelines changing, if at all? Do you think they'll have to kind of keep contracting their maximum daily quantities or pay you the same or pay you less? If you could just talk a little bit about how contract you think would change in that environment?
spk09: Yeah, I think, you know, we think that within the existing tariff structures that have, you know, that largely we can accommodate that environment. And, for example, and I'll ask Tom to add any color here that he wants to. For example, you know, if you need the power or if you need the gas deliverability you know, for three hours every day, but you don't need it for 24 hours a day, well, it doesn't have to be sold that way. We can sell it on a long-term basis at max rate or at a negotiated rate, and people have – they pay to have the capacity available when they need to call on it. Now, that might mean that utilization goes down, but if somebody who contracts for and charges for our services based on the reservation of the capacity itself, then – We think that we can and we have successfully worked through that and gotten renewals on good terms with our customers, including in California. We've sold capacity to merchants, et cetera, who are holding it on the same idea. They can capture the upside on a spike, for example, but we can parlay it into term contracting. We are looking at, you know, are there new service structures that we should be considering that would be more attuned to variable demand from power generators? And we may have some ideas there, and we may make some proposals there, including on the storage front. But I think we can manage within the structure we have. Tom?
spk01: Yeah, I think that's right, Steve. I mean, we are starting to see some variable-type services being contracted out west. But the long and short of it is we're getting, you know, really good value on our capacity, whether it's sold on a 24-hour basis and used less and or selling, you know, variable services to meet that growing need, really, of capacity to backstop renewables.
spk04: Got it. So you do have examples where the maximum daily quantity is much higher than the utilization, but utilities can still pay you through that contract director.
spk01: Yeah, we do have some of those services that we sell out west.
spk04: Well, that's all for me. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you. Our next question will come from Shanier Gershuni with UBS. Your line is open.
spk08: Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Just wanted to come back to one of the earlier questions. Unfortunately, I have to use your question on this.
spk09: But just with respect to the commentary around buybacks and the dividend, maybe I'm paraphrasing here a little bit here, but you added buybacks officially to your press release, which I didn't really see last time. You've talked about the increased flexibility. Is the right way for us to think about this on a go-forward basis that You definitely are focused on flexibility. You see where the yield is today. And is it fair to conclude that you're basically looking at an option where you maybe increase the dividend at a smaller rate, but that you look to pair return of capital needs to shareholders via using buybacks? And so it could sort of be a twin announcement in January rather than specifically around the dividend. the right way for us to be thinking about that as one of the options you're considering? Two things. One is that, again, we'll complete our budget process and talk to the board about how to look at dividend policy for 2021. But, yeah, as I said earlier, we are by talking about buybacks. And, of course, we've been talking about buybacks for a while. We've used about 575 of the board-authorized two billion of capacity. We did a little bit earlier this year for example. So that's not a new message. I think what's new is that we are emphasizing the flexibility by not specifically talking about $1.25 and a timeframe on $1.25. So the answer is yes on retaining flexibility, and that is what we're trying to get across today. Perfect. And maybe as a follow-up question, I realize it's a little early to be talking about guidance given you're still in the budgeting process. But on the last call, there was some discussion around CapEx potentially being as low as $1 billion for growth CapEx. You also made further emphasis on reducing costs, and I believe Kim sort of addressed that in the prepared remarks as well, too. How have things evolved in your thinking since the second quarter? Do you see deeper cuts on both on the horizon? Just any color that you can provide on how you're thinking, you know, directionally on both operating costs from where we sit today as well as the discussion on CapEx from the last call where the billion dollars came up. Yeah, so, you know, we are in the middle of our process right now, but I think one thing that has emerged fairly clearly, and I don't think it's all that surprising, but, you know, we talked about being at the low end of the range, or I'm sorry, below the historical range of $2 to $3 billion, and responded yes when you asked, you know, maybe as little as a billion. I think that's shaping up to be a pretty good assumption for 2020. uh 2021 because we can kind of see that we can sort of see the projects late from here and so that kind of low one billion dollar range is uh looks looks reasonable everything else that you mentioned is really getting worked through right now um i mentioned the the cost savings evaluation that we've done and in parallel uh we've been working on our budget and really are getting a bit sick of that as we review our business unit budgets in the coming weeks here. And so all that's going to have to get folded together, and it's a little more complicated than it's been in past years, as you might expect because of that, but still expect we're going to be able to give you guidance. It might not be on the exact anniversary of when we did it last year, but we still think we can pull those together and give you some indication. Perfect. Really appreciate the call that you provided, and I'll jump back in the queue to ask my remaining renewable natural gas question.
spk06: Okay.
spk05: Thank you. Our next question will come from Spiro Dunas with Credit Suisse. Your line is open.
spk12: Hey, Anthony and everyone. Steve, I'm curious as you go through the budget process here and go through all the assets with the fine teeth comb again, getting out of the analyst day, has the downturn changed the way you think about some of your assets and whether or not they're still core of the business? I'm just curious if anything's sort of been permanently shifted lower and thinking about certain assets maybe still carrying their weight from a free cash flow perspective. Does that present any disposition candidates now that maybe you didn't think about earlier in the year?
spk09: Yeah, you're going to kind of hear a repeat of the way we've talked about this before, but I think we've done, you know, we did our, obviously our Canadian divestitures for a variety of reasons. You saw that, you know, most of what we've been doing since then has been relatively small and kind of pruning assets to align things. You know, John Schlosser and his team have done a great job over the years of sort of migrating us more toward refined products hubs and a little bit away from these kind of islands and bulk terminal assets. We still have some very good bulk terminal assets, but I think we've done a good job of kind of pruning. And then I'll say the other thing that we always say, which is We are a shareholder-driven company, and if values appear and they're worthwhile and our shareholders are going to be better off on the other side of the transaction than they were on the way in, then we will consider it. We are a shareholder-driven company, and so even if it's a business that we like, if the value is really strong and robust, we'll consider those things, too.
spk12: Okay, fair enough. Sounds like pretty consistent there. If I could just get you to apply on the natural gas price outlook in 21. I know it's not a major driver for you, but just given your position on both the supply side and demand side, it seems like you have a pretty unique view here. And I guess as we head into next year, obviously there's supply constraints and the associated gas basins. I imagine on the demand side, we're not going to have the same sort of LNG cancellations that we saw this year. And so that's sort of moving in the other direction. So curious, you know, just given where the price outlook is now above three, you know, could that actually get tighter from here? Are you seeing enough, I guess, resiliency in the gas basins and maybe a recovery in the Hainesville to sort of offset that on the supply side?
spk09: Yeah, so supply is drifting down because of the associated gas plays and demand is going up. And I'm not a commodities trader, but that looks like it's going to drive prices higher. And, of course, that's what we're beginning to see. I think the other phenomenon, though, that has to be factored in there is that, you know, I don't – I think that there is a bit of a lag in reflex time or response time here in terms of making the switch from associated gas to the dry gas plays. I mean, people – are getting their plans together. And, you know, we've had good conversations with customers, et cetera. But I think you're probably right. We are the swing supplier from a global LNG standpoint, but I think earlier this year was unusual in terms of the level of cancellations. I think LNG has been going back up. I think time is like 7.8 BCF a day now, which is kind of in line with what it was pre-COVID. COVID and we've got some additional facilities that are coming on that are going to drive demand further. Something's got to come in and fill that in. And it seems like that's lagging a little bit. Now, a lot's been reflected in the price already, but it seems like there could be some still some volatility and maybe some continued upward pressure. Tom, anything else you want to point to that you observe?
spk01: No, I think you covered it all. I mean, it's It is a need for dry gas development, and that doesn't happen overnight. And I think the demand signals for 2021 look good. And so, you know, we could see things fairly tight. I think that at least the first half of 21, probably drawing down storage levels lower certainly than we have in recent times to help fill some of that. And then, you know, we really need to see response from the producer community. for the second half of 21 and beyond.
spk09: And as you point out, it's not directly, it doesn't as directly affect us as it does the producer segment, but we do benefit from, you know, some volatility in people's need to have storage and pull on storage, or we'll get some benefit out of that, I think, derivatively.
spk12: Perfect. Thanks for the call, guys. Be well.
spk05: Thank you. Our next question will come from Tristan Richardson with Truist Securities. Your line is open.
spk11: Hey, good afternoon. Just a quick one, a follow-up on the whole energy transition topic. You mentioned in your prepared remarks that you guys do and have evaluated more kind of renewable-oriented projects. Can you talk about return hurdles? Are projects that could conceivably make sense for KMI projects
spk09: competitive with traditional midstream projects or or do the acceptable return metrics look different just because this is a different opportunity set with a different growth profile yeah so the returns are lower and lower than what we would see in a midstream investment um and you know the argument is that there's so much capital um uh available for those opportunities that um the cost of capital is lower and um and um ultimately reflected, too, in the equity cost of capital for companies that are directly in that business. You know, I don't see us gambling on an uplift in our overall equity value because we start to make some investments in solar panels or windmills. I think we're going to, as I said, continue to be very disciplined. We've got a lot to work with in terms of what Tom and his team can do to complement renewable generation. As I mentioned, marketing the fact that we are a very low methane emissions source of supply and transportation service. So things like that that don't require us to compromise on returns for our shareholders, but still nevertheless allow us to participate, and I think participate in a meaningful way. The other things are, you know, Dax and his team, as I mentioned, they are looking hard at the at renewable diesel opportunities. And I think we can look, we can see returns in those businesses that are nice and very consistent with, and in some cases, maybe, you know, at the high end of some of the returns that we would get in our midstream business. John Schlosser is looking at the same thing in his business, his refined product terminaling business. So I think we're looking to participate in a way that doesn't compromise on our return criteria.
spk11: Very helpful. And then one last one on the buyback topic. I think the word flexibility has been used a lot this afternoon and seems like that's where the emphasis is. I think there's been some prescription out there in a lower growth environment that a buyback program should be programmatic. But I think that would actually probably take away from that flexibility. Is that a fair way to think about y'all's opinion on a programmatic type of buyback plan?
spk09: Yeah, our view really hasn't changed on that. Opportunistic is the operative term, and that's the way we've administered the program that's already – not program, but the authorization that the board has already put in place, and we would expect that to be – to continue that approach, be opportunistic in our purchases.
spk11: Thank you guys very much.
spk05: Thank you. Our next question comes from Pierce Hammond with Simmons Energy. Your line is open.
spk09: Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my questions. Steve, how should we think about 2021 adjusted EBITDA? What do you see as the high level puts and takes around next year's outlook for Kinder Morgan? I don't have one for you until we finish the budget process. And, look, this is something that I think happens every call. That's the third quarter call, which is we report on the quarter, and people are naturally turning their attention to the year ahead. And so are we, but we're not done yet. And so I think we'll save that until we finish that work, and then we'll let people know where we think we're coming out. Okay, I understand. Thank you, Steve. And then following up on an earlier question from one of the analysts about ENP, M&A, and kind of the big wave that we've seen. Do you think that that big wave ultimately places pressure on the midstream sector to consolidate, or does that not play a role? I don't think it really plays a role. I think that it will proceed on its own course. You know, people have been pointing out really for seven or eight years now that there are probably too many midstream energy companies to actually serve the market need, and therefore there should be some consolidation. But it really hasn't happened in a material way other than the kind of internal consolidation, if you will, MLPs and GPs combining and those sorts of things. But there's still a rationale for it is what I'd say, and I'd point to all the factors I talked about and answered the earlier question as the things that need to come together in order for it to make sense to us to act on, particularly in these times. And the particularly in these times point is that there's still a lot of uncertainty out there. I mean, we're not on the other side of the downturn to U.S. energy, not on the other side of the virus certainly yet. And so I think there remains a fair degree of uncertainty out there.
spk11: Thank you.
spk05: Thank you. Next, we will hear from Michael Lapidus with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
spk07: Hey, guys. Thank you for taking my question. Real easy one here. There's a lot of smaller E&Ps and a few larger ones that are in distress, financial distress. Can you talk about kind of your broad exposure to them and how much in the way of either contract rejection risk or simply contract renegotiation risk presents itself when you're going through the planning process and thinking about 2021 and beyond?
spk09: Okay. Yeah, a few things on that. You know, for us, we believe, you know, we provide essential services to these producers, and so generally we have some insulation from contract rejection to the extent that they – and that will vary from basin to basin, okay? But if they're going to continue to produce, they need to continue to get their product to market, and we're there providing – important services for their ability to do that. And so that always enters into the rejection affirmation discussions. And, you know, we've got, I'd say balance, if you look now at where we are, probably less than 1% on a revenue basis exposed in 2020 to B minus and below, still running like 75% of our revenues. This is, Revenues from customers that are above, I think it's $5 million is the threshold we use. It might be $10. But anyway, our customers, 75% are investment grade or have provided substantial credit support. We have experienced about a $40 million credit hit from producer bankruptcies for 2020. And, again, I think we're – we have a number of – things that we can do that help insulate us, including calling for adequate credit support, including having assets that provide services that are needed, whether it's by the company or the debtor in possession.
spk07: Got it. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Steve. Much appreciated.
spk05: Thank you. Our next question will come from Elvira Escada with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
spk03: Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for answering all the questions. I have a couple of follow-ups. On the upstream M&A, I know you mentioned that in a way as more upstreams merge, it's a benefit having larger, better capitalized customers. What are your thoughts on do you think that, you know, this also would benefit the larger, more integrated midstream companies that can provide more services or have more, you know, a bigger footprint? Do you think that that actually works to your benefit?
spk09: It works to the upstream consolidation working to the benefit of the integrated midstream yeah the larger midstream companies you know with larger assets yeah yeah um i think i mentioned this earlier but i but i think it is good overall not just for that sector but um uh for ours as well that we're getting producer combinations out there that are that are producing healthy companies that intend to continue to produce oil and natural gas and and are coming out in good shape from those transactions or would emerge from the other side of those transactions in good shape. And I think that's always helpful. Now, I think it's a question of how quickly do they form their new drilling plans and all of that sort of thing. But I think it's a healthy thing overall for the energy business and at least derivatively for our sector.
spk03: Got it. Okay. And then just one follow-up on the energy transition question. You mentioned the ability to use your existing assets, and you talked about hydrogen and the ability to use your existing gas pipelines. So natural gas pipelines can transport, I think, anywhere from 5% to 15% hydrogen blend with without really much modification, what would be required to transport more hydrogen?
spk09: Okay. Kim, do you want to take a shot at that one?
spk14: Sure. I think, you know, the issue with transporting more hydrogen, Elvira, is embrittlement of pipes, and so it can cause cracking in certain types of steel. And then on the compressors, you know, the issue is certain compressors, you know, they can handle generally compressors within the last, that are manufactured within the last 20 years, roughly, can generally handle hydrogen blends that are 10% or less. Compressors that are older than that may require some upgrades even to handle, you know, the zero to 10%. But again, just like on the pipeline embrittlement, The compressor stations may not be able to handle current compressor stations, probably cannot handle greater blends than the 10% without some modification.
spk09: Then the only thing I'd add to that, Avira, is that we have to look at or think about the downstream end uses as well. Can the power plants, which power plants can take what levels of hydrogen, the industrial uses, et cetera. You start to you start to challenge the downstream end uses as well.
spk03: Got it. Great. Thanks very much.
spk05: Thank you. Our next question comes from Shanir Khurshuni with UBS. Your line is open.
spk11: Hi. Good afternoon, guys. Just a follow-up question here.
spk09: The early part of the call with energy transition questions were a lot about the challenges of IRS, a great question on the hydrogen side.
spk08: I was wondering about something that I think is more closer to home right now or more in the realm of our predictable timeframe, specifically on renewable natural gas.
spk09: Wondering if you can talk about whether it's something you're already participating in and something where you see a growth opportunity right now and being able to utilize your existing footprint to take advantage of it. Tim, go ahead.
spk14: Okay. Sure, snare, you know, renewable natural gas right now is relatively small market. It's probably about 100 million cubic feet a day. And you know, the potential issues are that typically the supply sources, which are, you know, landfills, dairy farms, wastewater treatment plants, those types of things are have, you know, you can only get a small supply from those sources. And then it's also very expensive. You know, the cost estimates I've seen on it are $15 to $30 per decaderm. So, you know, those are the issues that would have to be overcome. But it is certainly something that we're looking at and that can be shipped on our pipelines.
spk09: And we are transporting a little bit today to your question about are we doing it today. It's very small. But, Kim, you might also talk about On the other hand, the size and how we define it for responsible natural gas.
spk14: Yeah, responsible natural gas, you know, right now, that supplier, 2019, that supply was probably 11 BCF a day. So roughly 11% of the U.S. supply. And the way we think about it is, you know, that's gas that is, you know, produced, processed, transported with the commitment to reduce methane emissions still less than 1% by 2025. And so we're part of a group, obviously, that has made that commitment. And, you know, the less than 1% midstream has an allocation of that less than 1%, and the midstream allocation is 0.31. And we are well, well below that 0.31% and have been for a couple of years. And so... We have had some customers talk to us about responsible natural gas. These customers are marketing gas to international customers. And so it has been important to them and important to their customers. And so I think there is, you know, we haven't seen a large acceptance of responsibly sourced gas. But we've had more recent conversations on this, and it seems like it could be gaining in importance.
spk09: Cool. Really appreciate the update on it. Thank you, guys. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you. Our next question will come from Ishwal Pradhan with Bank of America. Your line is open.
spk08: Thanks for taking my follow-up here. Again, just a quick one on Permian Highway. It appears the pipeline's progress based on the completion level. It could be placed early into service next year. So if you're able to do so in early Jan, do the contracts kick in right away?
spk09: Yeah, they kick in after we have done our commissioning work, which is a you know, a gradual and somewhat unpredictable process. I mean, it's a big pipe. We've got a lot of compressor stations on it. We've got to make sure everything works, et cetera. But we would expect to be in service and have those contracts go into effect, as we said, in early 2021.
spk08: Guy, that's it for me. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you. And we are showing no further questions at this time.
spk00: All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate your attendance. Thanks all.
spk05: Thank you. That does conclude today's conference. Thank you again for your participation. You may disconnect at this time.
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