Kinder Morgan, Inc.

This call includes forward-looking statements within the meeting 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 disclosures 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. As we look at our financial outlook for 2024, we are projecting very healthy growth in EBITDA, EPS, and DCF per share. While there are always headwinds and tailwinds for a company as sizable as Kinder Morgan, it appears that our strategy of expanding our assets through expansion capex and acquisitions primarily in our natural gas segment is delivering real benefits to the bottom line. Kim and the management team will be taking you through our 24 budget in great detail at the investment conference next week. In my remarks on these calls over the last few quarters, I've tried to outline the tremendous growth that we and most energy experts expect in natural gas production and demand over the coming years driven primarily by LNG exports and exports to Mexico. To the obvious relief of all of you on this call, I won't be repeating the details supporting our outlook, but that growth is leading to extensive opportunities to grow our system, which already delivers about 40% of the nation's natural gas throughput. Through selective expansion and extension of our enormous system, we can benefit from this expansion. Thankfully, most of these opportunities are concentrated along the Gulf Coast, where permitting and construction usually moves more quickly than elsewhere. Let me conclude with a bit of humor. Someone recently said, in comparing our growth to that of high-tech companies, that we were like the tortoise in Aesop's fable compared to the hare represented by high-tech. Now, that's probably true, but I like to think that looking at 2024, The tortoise is moving a little faster. And then I would remind you of who won that race in the end. And with that, I'll turn it over to Kim. Thanks, Rich.

I'll make a few overall points and then turn it over to Tom and David to give you the details. We ended 2023 slightly below budget. It was about 1% on DCF per share and about 2% on EBITDA. There are several different moving pieces, but more than all of it can be attributed to lower commodity prices. Just before year-end, we closed the roughly $1.8 billion Nextera South Texas acquisition. These assets fit nicely into our existing Texas system, serving the Gulf Coast and Mexico demand markets. We were excited to be able to get that transaction done a little more quickly than we expected. Looking forward to 2024, as Rich said, we expect really nice growth over 23, with every business unit expected to contribute incremental earnings. We've updated the preliminary budget guidance we released in early December of last year to incorporate the South Texas acquisition. As a result, our final 2024 budget now projects 15% growth in earnings per share versus 2023 and 8% growth in DCF per share. Our commodity assumptions in the final budget are unchanged versus the preliminary budget. We assume WTI of $82 a barrel and $3.50 for Henry Hub natural gas, which was consistent with the forward curve during our annual budget process. While current prices are lower, we did not update prices in our final guidance given their potential to change over the year. However, based on our commodity sensitivity, even at current prices, we would still expect strong growth over 2023 given our relatively modest commodity exposure. For example, at a WTI price of $72 per barrel and Henry Hub of $2.80, earnings per share would grow at 12% versus 23, and DCF per share would grow at 6%. During the fourth quarter, we put $965 million of projects in service and added $344 million to the backlog, which currently stands at approximately $3 billion. Despite the decline versus last quarter, we're still confident in our ability to spend at the high end of the $1 to $2 billion per year discretionary CapEx range for the next few years. Our confidence is supported by the roughly 20% expected growth in the natural gas market between now and 2030, driven by LNG exports, exports to Mexico, and industrial demand. We're looking at multiple expansion projects, some of them significant in size, to supply LNG exports from the Texas coast, the Louisiana coast, and the west coast, to supply Mexico through exports from both Texas and Arizona, to bring incremental supply to the southeast markets for Permian egress, as well as expansions of storage, and for incremental power and industrial demand. We're in a strong position as we exit 2023 and move into 2024. Our balance sheet is the strongest it has been in about a decade. We're projecting nice growth for 2024. And the natural gas business, which is greater than 60% of KMI's EBDA, is underpinned by 20% growth in that market, leading to nice expansion opportunities. We will continue to return significant capital to our investors through dividends and opportunistic share repurchase. Next week at our annual investor conference, we will review in much more detail our 24 budget industry fundamentals and our future opportunity set and answer all your questions. And with that, I'll turn it over to Tom to give you details on the performance for the quarter.

Thanks, Kim. Starting with the natural gas business unit, Transport volumes increased by 5% of 1.9 million decatherms per day for the quarter versus the fourth quarter of 2022, driven primarily from EP&G's Line 2000 return to service, and the Texas Intrastate increased LNG feed gas demand and increased power demand. These increases were partially offset by decreased deliveries to local distribution companies. Our natural gas gathering volumes were up 27% in the quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 22, driven by Hainesville volumes, which were up 59%, Bakken volumes, which were up 14%, and Eeltor volumes up 18%. Gathering volumes grew 14% compared to Q3 2023. For the full year, gathering volumes are up nicely at 19% over 2022, and just slightly below our 2023 plan. We continue to see high demand for and utilization of our natural gas assets, which is driving, in many instances, longer term contracts, higher rates, and increased project opportunities in a growing US market. In our products pipeline segment, refined product volumes were up slightly, about 1% for the quarter versus the fourth quarter of 2022, driven by an increase in jet fuel partially offset by a slight reduction in diesel volumes. Gasoline volumes were flat for the comparable quarter of last year. We continue to see a considerable ramp in renewable diesel volumes flowing in our pipelines serving California. The pipeline volumes from the RD Hub projects we placed into service earlier this year have grown from 700 a day in Q1 to 27,000 a day in Q4, and we're currently extracting well above 30,000 a day in January. As we stated previously, these RD Hub projects are largely underpinned with take-or-pay contracts associated with our terminal facilities, so we get paid most of our revenue even if those volumes do not flow. However, when RD volumes actually flow on our pipelines, we collect the additional tariff on those barrels as well. Food and condensate volumes were up 7% in the quarter versus fourth quarter 2022, driven by higher highland wellhead volumes and favorable double H transportation fundamentals from the Bakken. In our terminals business segment, our liquids lease capacity remains high at 93%, excluding tanks out of service for required inspections, approximately 97% of our capacity is leased. Utilization at our key hubs in the Eastern Ship Channel and New York Harbor strengthened in the quarter versus fourth quarter 2022. We continue to see nice rate increases in those markets, and leasing remains near all-time record levels. Our Jones Act tankers are 100% leased through 2024, assuming likely options are exercised. On the bulk side, overall volumes were up 3% from the fourth quarter 2022, primarily from metals, pet coke, and soda ash tonnage, partially offsets by decreases in grain and aggregate volumes. Grain volumes have minimal impact on our financial results, excluding grain bulk volumes were up 5%. The CO2 segment experienced lower overall volumes on NGL, CO2, and oil production, and lower prices on NGL than CO2 versus the fourth quarter. 2022, overall oil production decreased by 7% from the fourth quarter last year, but was above our plan for this quarter. For the year, net oil volumes slightly exceeded our plan, largely due to better-than-expected performance from projects at Yates and Sac Rock, as well as strong base volumes post the February outage at Sac Rock. These favorable volumes relative to the 2023 plan helps offset some of the price weaknesses that we have experienced. With that, I'll turn it over to David Michaels.