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spk11: Welcome to the Quarterly Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. All participants are in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session of today's call. At that time, you may press star 1 on your phone to ask a question. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman of Kinder Morgan. You may begin.
spk00: Thank you, Jordan. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you, as we always do, that KMI's earnings released today and this call include forward-looking statements. within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation and 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 disclosures on forward-looking statements and use of non-GAAP financial measures sent 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. About the most important thing a board of directors does is to structure and implement orderly succession planning, and I'm proud of the job we've done at Kinder Morgan. In our 26-year history, we've only had two CEOs, and we'll welcome our third on August 1st. This will be Steve Koehn's last investment call as CEO And I want to thank him for all his dedication and hard work in that position for the last eight years and for his service to the company over the past two decades. He's been a fine leader of the organization with the ability to understand the big picture and still pay attention to the details. And I can assure you that's a unique combination. We're happy that Steve will stay on our board, and I'm sure he will continue to contribute to our success in that role. As all of you know, Kim Dang, our current president, will succeed Steve, and Tom Martin, the long-term president of our natural gas segment, will replace Kim as president. Kim, Tom, and I will constitute the office of the chair. We announced all this back in January, and the transition has proceeded very smoothly. Kim joined Kinder Morgan in 2001 and Tom in 2003, so they both have long experience at the company and in the midstream energy business. They've both been outstanding contributors to our success, and I know they'll be great leaders of the company in the coming months and years. In short, the board and I are very comfortable that we will march forward without missing a beat. Now, as we make this change, it's important, again, to emphasize why we're bullish about the long-term future of Kendra Morgan. The single most important reason for optimism is the role natural gas will play in this country and around the world in the coming decades. We forecast U.S. natural gas demand will grow by about 20 BCF a day between 2023 and 2028 to about 121 BCF a day, and that's a 20% increase. We expect 13.5 BCF a day of that growth to come from LNG and Mexico exports with moderate growth in the power, residential, and commercial sectors. Almost all of that LNG and Mexico growth will occur in Texas and the Gulf Coast, where we have a superb and multifaceted pipeline system. That's why we believe that growth in demand, combined with the strategic location of our network, will drive expansion and extension opportunities for our network and significant bottom line growth for years to come. And with that, for the last time, I'll turn it over to Steve.
spk08: Thank you, Rich. Thanks for the kind words. It's been an honor. to work for you, for the board, for our shareholders, and to work with this great management team that we have around the table. And I can only double down on what you said about Kim and Tom. They work extremely well together and with the rest of the management team. And this is going to be very good for the company. And so we had a good quarter and a solid year so far. We beat our budget for the second quarter. And although our outlook predicts slight underperformance on a full year basis, That is all more than explained, more than explained by commodity prices coming in lower than our budget year to date and according to the forward curve for the balance of the year. Put another way, our business is performing better and that is partially offsetting the lower commodity prices. We also continue to see a strong market from our business development standpoint. While our backlog is roughly even with the first quarter update at $3.75 billion, That's the net result of having placed about $450 million of projects in service during the quarter, while adding roughly $500 million of new projects to the backlog during the quarter. As we have noted many times, these projects are getting done at attractive returns well above our cost of capital. Notable among the projects brought into service was the first of our Wabash Valley RNG projects. Those projects were part of our Connetrix acquisition from 2021. The first one went into service on June 27. The project was later than planned and a little more expensive, but still a nice return, and we expect the whole portfolio of Connetrix projects to yield a very attractive return on our overall investment, even with the delays we've experienced. I'll note also on our RNG business that we got a favorable outcome from the EPA. Those are four or five words that you don't often hear from an energy executive. favorable outcome from the EPA on its June order establishing the renewable volume obligation for the next three years. That pushed D3 RINs, those are the RINs values that matter most to us, up over $3. And we held off on selling RINs until after that ruling came out. More significantly, our natural gas and terminals businesses are leading the way without performance versus plan. One other performance highlight to note Our CO2 business is beating plan on production. Kim and David will give you the percentages there, but we're actually up year over year. Now, that's more than offset by lower commodity prices, as I mentioned, but it's a significant accomplishment given the significant outage that we had at our SACROC, our largest field, in the first quarter. That's very strong work by our EOR team. Other than that, the song remains the same. We're maintaining a strong balance sheet originating new projects and attractive returns, and returning value to our shareholders through a well-covered dividend and opportunistic share repurchases. And now I'll turn it over to our president, soon to be CEO, Jim Dang.
spk09: All right. And let me say that I've enjoyed very much working with Steve for the last eight years. He has been selfless in his transition. And he's really helped put me in a position to do this role. And as Rich said, and Tom and I are also very excited about the future of this company, and we're grateful for the opportunity to lead it. So with that, I'll start with the natural gas business unit as always. Here, our transport volumes increased by 5% versus the second quarter of last year. And that was driven by EP&G's line 2000 return to service. We also saw increased power demand, which was up 6%, increased LDC demand, which was up 6%, and increased industrial demand, which was up 5%. These increases were offset by reduced LNG volumes, and that was due to maintenance of several export facilities and decreased exports to Mexico. Natural gas gathering volumes were up 19% in the quarter compared to the second quarter of last year, driven by Hainesville volumes, which were up 29%, Bakken volumes up 26%, and Eagleford volumes up 21%. Sequentially, gathering volumes were up 7% with all three basins I just mentioned contributing to the increase. For the year, we expect gathering volumes to be up nicely, about 16%. That's about 4% below our budget, driven by egress project delays and an asset sale. So largely what we're seeing is that we're not seeing much of a volume decline from our big producers. Where we're seeing some price sensitivity is on some of our smaller producers. And so that's why we still expect that we'll be up 16% per the year. As you can see from the volume increases that I just mentioned, despite a brief lull in new export LNG demand and lower prices in the quarter versus the second quarter of 2022, the natural gas markets continue to be robust. In our product pipeline segment, refined products were flat for the quarter versus the second quarter of last year. Road fuels were down about 2%. Our gasoline volumes were impacted by refinery maintenance during the quarter. Diesel volumes were down, as renewable diesel volumes in California are currently being transported by other methods than pipelines. And that's replaced some of the conventional diesel that previously moved on our pipe. However, the reduction in conventional diesel volumes doesn't really reflect the true economic picture as the RD volumes and projects we placed in service earlier this year are largely underpinned with take or pay contracts. So even though the volumes may not be moving on our pipeline yet, we get paid most of the revenue from those projects. Jet fuel volumes increased 9%. Crude and condensate volumes were up about 4%. and that was driven primarily by higher Bakken volumes. Sequential volumes were up about 8% and that was primarily driven by the Eagleford. In terminals, our liquid lease capacity remains high at about 94%. Excluding the tanks out of service for required inspection, approximately 96% of our capacity is leased. Although we were down financially in the quarter, Utilization at our key hubs, Houston Ship Channel and the New York Harbor, strengthened in the quarter, and we saw nice increases on our New York Harbor contract renewables that were negotiated during the quarter. Rates on our renewals in the Houston Ship Channel were slightly positive, and our Jones Act tankers were 97% leased through 2024, assuming likely options for exercise. On the bulk side, overall volumes were flat, with increases in coal, fertilizer, and salt offset by reduction in grain. The grain volumes have a minimal impact on our financial results, and so excluding grain, bulk volumes were up 5.5%, and we also benefited financially from rate escalation. On the CO2 segment, lower prices on NGLs and CO2 more than offset the increase in oil production. Overall, oil production increased 7%, and that was driven by SACROC volumes, where our projects have performed much better than we expected. And we've also seen strong volumes post the January outage. For the year, we still expect net oil volumes to exceed our plan, which helps offset some of the price weakness. With that, I'll turn it over to David.
spk03: OK, thank you, Kim. All right, so over the second quarter of 2023, we're declaring a dividend of $0.2825 per share, which is $1.13 annualized, up 2% from last year. I'll start with a few highlights before getting into the quarterly performance. We ended the second quarter of 2023 with a net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 4.1 times ratio, leaving us with a good amount of capacity under our leverage target of around 4.5 times. We also had almost $500 million of cash at the end of the quarter and nothing drawn on our $4 billion revolving credit facility. We also repurchased over $203 million worth of shares in the quarter, which brings our total share repurchases for the year to almost 20 million shares repurchased at an average price of $16.61, creating what we think is very good value for our shareholders. While we were forecasting to be slightly below budget for the full year, more than all of that can be explained by the lower than budgeted commodity prices. We're seeing better than budgeted performance in both our natural gas and in our terminals segments. In quarterly performance, we generated revenue of $3.5 billion. That is down $1.65 billion from the second quarter of 2022. But our cost of sales were also down, down $1.7 billion. These were both due to the large decline in commodity prices from last year. As you will recall, we enter into offsetting purchase and sales positions in our Texas Intrastate natural gas pipeline system. Those arrangements result in an effective take-or-pay transportation service, and while that leaves our revenue and our cost of sales exposed to price fluctuations, our margin from that activity is not impacted by price. In fact, netting the revenue and the offsetting cost of sales impacts gross margin grew. Interest expense was higher versus 2022 as expected, which is driven by the short term interest rates impacting our floating rate swaps. And we generated net income of $586 million, down 8% from the second quarter of last year. Adjusted earnings was $540 million, down 13% compared to the second quarter of 22. Excluding the impact from commodity prices and interest expense, we would have been favorable to last year's performance. Our share count was down $28 million or 1% this quarter versus the second quarter of last year due to our share repurchase efforts. Onto our business segment performance, Improvements in our natural gas and terminal segments, which were both up, were partially offset by our performance in our products and our CO2 segments. In natural gas, the largest driver of the outperformance came from greater sales margin in our Texas intrastate system and favorable rates on recontracting at our Mid-Continent Express pipeline, as well as contributions from EPNG due to a pipeline returning to service and higher value capacity sales on Stagecoach and our Tennessee gas pipeline. And those were partially offset by an unfavorable recontracting impacts on our South Texas assets. Our product pipeline segment was down mostly due to unfavorable pricing impacts impacting our TransMix business and unfavorable recontracting on our KMCC assets. Our terminal segment was up, mainly due to improved contributions from our Jones Act tanker business, expansion project contributions, and rate escalations, which were all partially offset by lower truck rack volumes and some higher operating costs. Our CO2 segment was down due to our CO2, NGL, and oil prices, partially offset by, as Stephen Kimball mentioned, higher oil production volumes. Our adjusted EBITDA was $1.8 billion for the quarter, which is down 1% from last year. DCF was $1.76 billion, down 9% from last year. And our DCF per share was $0.48, down 8% from last year. On these non-GAAP measures, just like on our GAAP measures, excluding interest expense and commodity price headwinds, we were favorable to last year. Moving on to the balance sheet. We ended the second quarter with $30,800,000,000 of net debt and a net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio of 4.1 times, as I mentioned. A net debt decreased $139,000,000 since the beginning of the year. And I'll provide a high level reconciliation. We generated cash flow from operations of $2.883 billion. We've paid out dividends of $1.265 billion. We've spent capital, growth, sustaining, and contributions to our joint ventures of $1.18 billion, and we've had stock share repurchases through the end of the quarter of $317 million, and that gets you pretty close to the reconciliation with year-to-date net debt change. Back to Steve.
spk08: Okay, we're going to take your questions now, and as usual, we have a good chunk of our management team around the table. We'll try to make sure that you hear from them as well. Jordan, if you would, please open up the line for questions.
spk11: Thank you. We will now begin our question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question over the phone lines, please press star 1 from your phone. Our first question comes from Brian Reynolds with UBS. Your line is open.
spk15: Hi. Good morning, everyone. My first question is just around the guidance. We've seen 1Q and 2Q come roughly in line with the original quarterly guidance outlined at the analyst day. But in their prepared remarks, you talked about how commodity ahead wins have been, you know, really offset by base business outperformance. So kind of looking ahead to second half, should we expect continued outperformance in kind of the nat gas and terminal lean segment? Or could we see a recovery in products in the back half as well? Thanks.
spk03: Yeah, good question, Brian. I think part of the outperformance year to date has been our ability to take advantage of some of the volatility that we've experienced, particularly in our natural gas assets. And we saw some outperformance there in our intrastate business, like I've mentioned. Our storage is a bit full, which might limit our ability to take advantage of that going into the end of the year. But there might be some additional ability to take advantage of that if prices and storage capacity becomes more available. Go ahead.
spk09: And so we haven't assumed that same level of outperformance in the back half of the year. as what we experienced in the first part of the year. And therefore, that's why we're saying that we will be slightly down versus planned to the extent that we see some of that outperformance in the back half of the year, then that could improve the outlook that we've given you here today.
spk15: Great. I really appreciate that, Culler. As a follow-up, just wanted to talk RIN pricing. It's been very volatile year to date. based on the RVO outlook. So just curious if you could help sensitize perhaps the ability for Kinder to utilize its RINs on the balance sheet that were held on the first half and then monetize in the back half of second half 23. Thanks.
spk08: Yeah. So as I mentioned, and I'll let Anthony expand on it, we did, we knew that there was another round coming from the EPA in June. And we expected that based on all the comments and the feedback and the data, that they were going to increase the renewable volume obligation, which they did, on the order of 30% for each this year and the following two years. There was 33% this year and the next two years. And so anticipating that we'd see some positive news, rather than selling at $1.95, we held on and sold at $2.90 and above.
spk14: You know, I think we, as Steve said, have taken advantage of the increase in pricing i think part of the reason why and i mentioned this a little bit i think on the first quarter call uh why it was trading so low uh in the first half of the year is everybody had a similar strategy as we or there was really no liquidity in the market which was holding prices down um i know i think um the rvos that came out are very supportive for wins pricing uh moving forward as i said we've taken advantage i think of the of the uptick already with regards to the majority of our inventory levels. But we'll be obviously generating additional wins for the remainder of the year. And our anticipation is that, as far as we can see, there's no reason for win prices to diminish in the remainder of the year.
spk15: Great. Thanks. I'll leave it there.
spk11: Our next question comes from Colton Bean with TPH and Company. Your line is open.
spk05: Good afternoon. Steve, you mentioned the incremental $500 million was added to the backlog. Can you provide a bit more detail on the nature of those projects and then safe to assume those are additive to mostly 24 and 25 so the runway is extending a bit here?
spk08: I think we had some additions in our EOR business. We had some additions in our natural gas sector as well. I think those were the two primary contributors. David?
spk03: I think those are a little bit later in the backlog than most of our backlog, so it is adding some length to the backlog overall.
spk05: Maybe a question for Anthony on the landfill RNG development. I think we're tracking a bit slower than expected at time of acquisition. Could you just update us on what some of those delays may be attributable to, whether it's permitting, supply chain, construction, just generally curious as to the build-out there?
spk14: Yeah, sure. We have seen multi-month delays on the three RNG projects that are in construction this year. Those have been primarily, I would say, supply chain, weather, and then most recently we've had some commissioning issues, which have pushed back the in-service of some of the facilities. The good news is we do have our first facility in service, Twin Bridges, and I think we have good line of sight for in-service for the next two projects as well. Great, thank you.
spk11: Our next question comes from Theresa Chen with Barclays. Your line is open.
spk12: Hi. I'd like to follow up on the line of thought related to RNG and D3 RINs. Just looking beyond this year, I'd love to hear about your outlook for D3 RIN pricing over time that underlies the returns of these projects. you know, how do you take into account the supply of additional D3 RINs if and when an E-RIN pathway eventually becomes available, even if it's on pause for now?
spk14: Yeah, good question. So, you know, I think we obviously have the forecast for our D3 RINs. When we're looking at it from an investment standpoint, we do sensitize it down to where we feel like it's sort of a – low-case or worst-case type of situation and to make sure that we're satisfied with the types of returns we're getting. We do assume in some cases that we sell also into transportation market. Some percentage is the voluntary market, which is more of a fixed-price environment, and we do have some price points that we use there as well. But I think, as I was saying earlier, with the RVO targets that just came out, and they came out for the first time for three consecutive years. So normally it's just an annual process. And they, I think, are very supportive for RIMS prices moving forward with roughly a 30% increase for each consecutive year. So that compounds upon itself. And so I think that's supportive. I think, obviously, you mentioned ERINs as well, which has been delayed or postponed. I think our long-term view on ERINs is that, you know, that provides another avenue for demand growth for our projects, right? So that's supportive as well for long-term for pricing as well. You know, we'll have to see when that actually comes into play. It was postponed in June, and that's for, we think, probably good reasons around sort of the mechanics and logistics of how it might actually be implemented. But, you know, long term, I think it's a good thing for us if it comes into play.
spk12: Thank you. And in relation to your project backlog, so excluding CO2 and GMP, the remaining $2.6 billion in project, can you talk about why the average EBITDA multiple is now 4.2 times versus 3.9 previously, and what's driving that upward pressure and lower returns?
spk03: Sure, Theresa. The change there is just a mix of the backlog, what went in service during the quarter versus what we added in the quarter. What went in service were lower multiple, so stronger returning G and P type projects. And what came into the backlog mostly were very attractive returning projects, but had a little bit of a higher multiple, more in line with our longer haul pipeline type opportunities. And so that was the biggest driver of it.
spk11: Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Bloom with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.
spk17: Thanks. Maybe I want to stay on this topic. I guess the decision to exclude the CO2 and GNP projects from the backlog multiples, I'm wondering if you could just expand on your thinking there. And because you say that the cash flow streams are a little less predictable, does this change at all how you think about making those type of investments and anything around minimum hurdle rates to allocate capital there?
spk09: Yeah, no, Michael, it doesn't. So I think the reason to exclude those projects is because the other projects that we have on natural gas and products and terminals, they typically have a very consistent cash flow. And so, you know, people, a lot of the cell sites, like you are using the backlog and they're looking at the multiple and they're saying, okay, well, that's the level of EBITDA that I should have sent from these projects. Well, as you know, you know, when some of the CO2 projects come on or some of the GMT projects come on, they can come on at higher multiples, but then they ultimately decline over time. And in many cases, that cash flow is replacing other cash flows which are declining. And so, all we were trying to do is give people a better proxy for estimating what cash flow is incremental and stably recurring. It does not change the way that we think about the CO2 or GMP projects. Those projects they have more variability and therefore we require a higher return on those projects. And so as you know, when we're doing CO2 projects, we're typically requiring 20% or higher return. So we think those are very attractive returns and we should do those projects. And GMP are typically in the high teens and those are very attractive returns and so we'll continue to do those. But we were just trying to help people in their modeling.
spk17: Okay, got it. No, that makes sense. Thanks for that. I also wanted to ask about Mid-Continent Express. You've had a really nice uptick there the last couple of quarters, and I think you mentioned in the prepared remarks some favorable recontracting on MEP. So I was wondering if you could just maybe just clarify just how sustainable this new kind of run rate is for MEP, and then, you know, how much of the capacity is now contracted and duration of contracts? Thanks.
spk18: Yeah, Michael, so, you know, when we take a step back and look at MEP, over the past, you know, couple of years, we've seen, you know, a lot of the Oklahoma basin drilling driving some of that basis. But as we move forward, really, we see that basis strengthening, you know, as all the LNG facilities come on that Louisiana Gulf Coast corridor. as well as some of our Southeast markets competing for supply. So we do see that basis continuing to sustain, if not grow. We've got, you know, incremental LNG facilities coming on in 2024. As you know, Golden Pass, you know, first up. So nothing but support, we think, for the basis. You know, we've been opportunistic in terms of how we're selling that capacity, trying to capture the highest margins. And so we'll continue to do so. You know, probably... In the two to three-year tranche, we've been selling out the capacity, waiting for that spread to widen a little bit.
spk17: Got it. Thank you very much.
spk11: Our next question comes from Tristan Richardson with Scotiabank. Your line is open.
spk04: Hey, good evening, guys. Just a question on the midstream side. Obviously, seeing very strong year-over-year growth rates across your three primary basins. Maybe You also mentioned in the prepared comments, though, that you are seeing at the margin maybe some smaller producers being a little bit more price sensitive. I'd be curious about maybe regionally where you're seeing that most across the three basins and midstream.
spk18: Yeah, so good question. Across the three basins, really in Haynesville, we have some of our smaller producers that, given the current pricing environment, that have kind of tapered off some of their drilling plans. Obviously, our big producers, our larger producers there, I think you know who they are. But, I mean, those guys still anticipate the LNG demand coming on at the back half of the year, as well as Europe's potential volatility that may arise. So our sense is they're going to continue to keep these rigs up in the Bakken. We've continued to see growth in the Bakken. And then in the Eagle Forge, here's a data point for you. We're ahead of our volumes pre-COVID. even in this price environment. So all those systems are pretty well, all systems go.
spk04: That's great. And then just a quick follow-up on the Gulf Coast storage expansion. You guys announced, I think, the Markham project. Can you maybe give some context around relative magnitude versus your overall storage portfolio, and then maybe just some of the logistics. Are we assuming third-party contracts, or is this all considered perhaps new storage that would be available to new customers? Maybe just curious to touch on that one.
spk18: Yeah, so, you know, that basically, you're referring to our Markham expansion. That's a six BCF incremental expansion to our Markham facility. We're adding about 650,000 of incremental withdrawal capacity And at this point, you know, our plan is to offer it up to our customer base. In fact, we sold most of it at rates really higher than we sanctioned the project with, so our returns are even better than we anticipated. Did I answer your question there?
spk04: Yep, that's very helpful. Thank you, guys.
spk11: Our next question comes from Keith Stanley with Wolf Research. Your line is open.
spk16: Hi, thank you. The first question, kind of a random one, but how is the company thinking about gas marketing, which I think some of your peers are more active in? Is that a business that you could try to grow in to increase margins? It just seems like if your view is gas is going to be more volatile, you have a lot of storage and other physical asset positions. Is marketing something that's becoming more interesting given the direction that gas is going in?
spk08: Yes, it is, but with an important note of caution there. We have done a fair amount of enhancement in our crude pipeline assets by picking up capacity that would otherwise not be utilized by third-party shippers and making use of it and attracting additional volumes to the system in order to recover additional tariffs. And so we've done very well with that. We are extending that a bit into the gas marketing arena. But very much sticking to our knitting there and doing it in a non-speculative and kind of lagging into it gradually. But we do expect we'll be able to build on that as we go. There's another part of the business which is larger than that right now, which is in our Texas intrastate business, where we buy and sell natural gas. As David pointed out in his comments about revenue versus cost of goods sold, that is often done with reference to the same Houston Ship Channel price. purchase at Houston Ship Channel minus, sell it at Houston Ship Channel or Houston Ship Channel plus, and pull out a transport margin in between. But we have storage and we often find that we have excess storage that we can optimize and make money on it in the state of Texas. And we've done very well with that. And that shows up in some of the optimization numbers that David was going through. So it's an activity that we're already in, in kind of a limited way in Texas. And we're looking to pick up additional and have picked up additional bits of capacity here and there around our system in order to expand on that business. But doing it in a very, I would say, very conservative and careful way.
spk16: Makes sense. Thanks. And second question on the buybacks. So you've done a lot year to date now. And the press release referenced 200 million of unbudgeted buybacks during Q2. Can you Can you clarify what you mean by unbudgeted buybacks and then how you think about buyback capacity for the company over the balance of the year versus other priorities?
spk03: Thanks. The unbudgeted comment just meant that we didn't budget for those. And we don't budget for share repurchase. And we don't budget for share repurchase because we take an opportunistic approach. It's share price dependent. We don't take a program. or generally don't take a programmatic approach to share repurchases. We think that's the right way to run this program. Going forward, I think what we'd like to do is take a balanced approach. We will use balance sheet capacity for share repurchases if it makes sense, if the price makes sense for us to repurchase, but we want to do so in a way that's measured. We've worked really hard to
spk07: improve our balance sheet we've got it in a really good spot and we don't want to do anything to damage that but we also want to take advantage of good share repurchase opportunities thank you our next question comes from neil dingman with true securities your line is open good afternoon guys um just a maybe quick broad one first not surprising you all mentioned just how your lower than budget commodity prices impacted results i'm just wondering Kind of a go forward now, have you reset or how you're thinking about sort of the remainder of the year and into 24, how much differently now, just maybe in broad strokes?
spk09: So, yes, so the forecast that we gave you today has the gas prices and the crude prices at the roughly the current forward curve. So, yes, we've reset it for 2023. And in 2024, we don't really get into that until we do our budget process later in the year.
spk07: Okay, great answer. And then just lastly, again, also not surprising, you all mentioned just in the release how the crude and condensate business was impacted by the lower recontracting rates. Specifically, just looking, what I was looking in was in the Eagleford, and I'm just wondering, could you speak to degree of rates also in the same basin going forward, again, maybe the remainder of the year, that will need to be recontracted there.
spk06: Yeah, Dax Sanders? Yeah, so we did. We rolled one contract there. There's still a, you know, we've gone through over the last couple years the original legacy contracts from back in, you know, 2013, 2014, and not surprising the rates that they're rolling at are lower than that. Right now on KMCC we've got about 84 a day, 85 a day, of capacity held by third parties. We've got about 75 held by our intercompany marketing affiliate that Steve spoke about. Of that 85, that rolls over the next kind of call it two to three years. And we would expect, I mean, those contracts have largely already rolled from the high legacy rates of, you know, 10 years ago. So they'll roll, but we wouldn't expect that there would be any massive changes like you've seen over the past couple of years.
spk07: Thanks, Dan.
spk11: Our next question comes from Jean Ann Salisbury with Bernstein. Your line is open.
spk01: Hi. I think that you were just addressing crude in the last question, but I think I have sort of a similar question, which is that Eagleford volumes for gas were up year-on-year pretty materially, but it sounds like Eagleford contribution is down. I think that that's pretty much all because of the Copeno roll-off. Is that right, and has that fully rolled off now?
spk18: Gene, yes, that's right. 2023 was the last year of those roll-offs, and so now we should see, you know, as we contract. We've already done our recontracting through the 2023 period, and so as we increase these volumes now, we're just going to focus on increasing our margins.
spk01: Okay, that makes sense. And then as a follow-up, a lot of people are forecasting a widening of Texas and Louisiana gas differentials. as not all Permian gas is able to get to Louisiana LNG. Do you agree with this, and does it change how you're thinking about your next Permian gas takeaway solution offering?
spk18: Well, you know, one, we do see a need to get some infrastructure across to the eastern Louisiana side. We are, you know, looking at some opportunities on our interstate networks to complement that or to accomplish that. As we look at the next Permian project, we are having discussions not only with Gulf Coast LNG facilities, but also with the Louisiana facilities. All of that will be taken into context, but I do see a physical need to get across from the western side to the eastern side.
spk01: Great. Thanks. That's all for me.
spk11: Our next question comes from Neil Mitra with Bank of America. Your line is open.
spk02: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to follow up on LNG demand, specifically in the Corpus Christi area. Now that we have the Rio Grande project sanctioned, do you see any incremental interest in expanding GCX, given that there's more demand in the Corpus Christi area and the last two pipes have been built to the Houston area?
spk18: Yes, so first, congratulations to the Next Decade team on getting that project across to the FID. At the outset, you know, it's good for the network, period. But yes, there is incremental interest, not only in a, you know, Permian project, but also you've noticed we've sanctioned our Freer to Sinton project. You know, we've also got interest, renewed interest in GCX. Those conversations are happening. But as you know, we're in a very competitive environment, and returns are going to determine whether or not we proceed with the next project.
spk08: So the reference to next decade was separate and apart from GCX. We're not attributing that to any particular shipper. I think the main update there is we had told you before that those discussions had gone cold, and they are now active again. That's the change.
spk02: Got it. And then the second follow-up on GCX. the contract structure maybe for your Texas Interstate Network. We had pretty weak basis in the second quarter. I think it averaged about 60 cents between Waha and Henry Hub because of the heat. So do you have marketing contracts or short-term contracts? How were you able to increase your earnings off of that with a narrow basis there this quarter?
spk09: I just want to clarify a couple of things. First, what Steve was talking about on the Texas intrastate business and the purchase and sales there, typically we're locking in those purchase and sales over a year or two years or three years. It's real supply and it's real demand on the other end. And so it's not as affected by changing basis differentials. There's a market for what that transport spread is worth. And because there's demand on the other end, it doesn't necessarily move as much as the forward spreads move all the time. So that's with respect to the Texas intrastate market. With respect to the spread between Waha and Houston, We do have a little bit of capacity between Waha and Houston. We've hedged that capacity for this year and into next, and so we don't have much exposure there to what's happening, good or bad, with those basis differentials.
spk02: Okay, great. Thank you very much.
spk11: Our next question comes from Jeremy Tonette with JP Morgan. Your line is open.
spk13: Hi, good afternoon. Good afternoon. Steve Bush here, the best of luck in retirement here. And just want to start off, I guess, in the past, I think calls, you talked about, you know, four or five as kind of a leverage level that the company thought about. And just wondering, is that still the level that you guys are kind of seeing as appropriate for Kindle over time here? And if it is, what's the path to getting there, given that leverage sits lower right now? Would it be more buybacks? Would it be acquisitions? Or would it be growth projects? And just wondering, you know, what type of multiples are you seeing on new growth projects, given that there was a little bit of a shift, as you guys talked about, with the backlog update?
spk09: Okay, let me make a couple of points on that. Okay, well, first one is we are very comfortable with the four and a half times leverage target given the breadth and the scope of our assets. And, you know, we have looked at whether it makes sense to bring that down, and we don't think it does. We think that where we are rated, BBB Plus is a good place for a company like ours and our ability to raise the debt that we need at reasonable rates and that it would cost a lot of money to take our leverage much lower and there's not much benefit in our cost of capital. And so we're leaving our leverage target at four and a half times. Right now, as David told you, we're running at 4.1 times. It's not burning a hole in our pocket. Right? I mean, so we like having some flexibility on our balance sheet. And so we don't feel some type of pressure to go from 4.1 to 4.5. When we see nice opportunities, we have flexibility there because we have that capacity. But if we don't see opportunities, you know, we're not going to stretch for anything to use that leverage capacity. So we're not changing any of our return targets because we have leverage With respect to the multiple going up on the backlog, what I would say about that is we target on average 15% unlevered after-tax projects. That can in some cases result in a going in multiple of seven or eight times. And just because our existing backlog is less than a seven or eight times multiple, we're still going to do that project. It's a 15% unlevered after tax return. So we're going to do it even though it might increase the multiple on our backlog. So we're not, as we look at projects, we're not saying, oh, what happens to our backlog multiple? That determines whether we do the project. No. Is it a good return project? We go lower than 15% on levered tax return for a project with long-term contracts. But we're not going to drop into single digits. So that's how I would think about it. Think about it more. We're out there. We're looking for projects. We're trying to earn the maximum return that we can. We have a return threshold. And even though that might cause our backlog return to change, we'll still do that project. Another question? Oh, sorry. I said BBB+. I should have said we're happy with BBB. Sorry.
spk13: Got it. That's very helpful there. And just one last one, if I could. In regards to the CCS, we've seen some action recently in the industry. Projects continue to move forward and other items developing there. Just wondering, is there anything new to share? from Kinder Morgan's perspective with regards to CCS potential. Carbon capture, yeah.
spk14: Just there's been some actions out there in the CCS industry projects, bigger projects moving forward in the Midwest.
spk13: and other actions out there in the industry at large and just wondering if there's any updated thoughts from Kinder Morgan with regards to potential CCS efforts.
spk14: Yeah, no, we continue to be very busy on the CCS front. I would say both around our existing infrastructure that we have in West Texas. We talked about our Red Cedar project in January that continues to progress well. We're talking to a number of other folks in West Texas as well. And then we're very active in conversations in the Gulf Coast as well, I would say, both on the transportation and sequestration side of things as well as just for potential transportation opportunities. And so these are long development cycle opportunities. And I think when it's appropriate for us to talk to you guys about that, we'll talk about those projects. There's a lot of activity, especially post IRA in that world.
spk00: And we're definitely looking at it. And of course, what we bring to the table is the expertise to move it and sequester it. And we've done that in West Texas and we can do that in the Gulf Coast if the opportunities are correct and the returns are correct.
spk13: Got it. Makes sense. I'll leave it there. Thank you.
spk11: There are no further questions in the queue.
spk00: Okay, thank you everybody. Have a good evening.
spk11: Thank you for your participation in today's conference. You may disconnect at this time.
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