Kinder Morgan, Inc.

It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman of Kinder Morgan. Sir, you may begin.

Hey, thank you, Michelle. And before we begin, as we always do, I'd like to remind you that KMI's earnings released 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. I usually kick off these earnings calls with an overview of developments present and future in the midstream energy space, with special emphasis on the various growth drivers for natural gas demand. These drivers are creating enormous opportunities for expansion of the natural gas pipeline and storage system across America, and especially in the Gulf Coast and Southeast regions. At the beginning of this new calendar year, I thought it might be appropriate to be a little more specific about Kendra Morgan's response to those opportunities. In the last few months, we have announced the FID of four new major projects, the expansion of our GCX system out of the Permian Basin, our SS4 expansion on our southern natural gas system, our Mississippi crossing line, which will serve SS4 and other increased demand in the southeast, and our Trident Line, which we announced today, which will serve growing demand in the Southeast Texas region, including the new Golden Pass LNG facility. Altogether, these new projects will entail capital expenditures net to us in excess of $5 billion and will have the capacity to transport over 5 BCF a day of natural gas. And all of these projects, I would point out, are supported by long-term contracts with creditworthy customers almost entirely on the demand side. While for obvious reasons we're not disclosing specific IRR targets for these projects, I know you realize our board would not have approved without returns that are significantly above our cost of capital. In addition to these projects, we're seeing other sizable opportunities to grow our business. as exemplified by our recently announced outriggers transaction, which will expand our position in the Bakken. In fact, this is the most exciting time to be in the midstream natural gas market that I've seen in my long decades in this business. We believe that our investments, as they come online, will drive growth in EBITDA and EPS for years to come. With that, I'll turn it over to Kim.

Okay. Thanks, Rich. 2024 was a very good year in terms of our financial performance. We grew EBITDA and EPS, and we improved our leverage metrics. And we set the company up for future success, securing commercial contracts to underpin $6.3 billion in new expansion projects that will add growth for the future. Today, we announced we're proceeding with the $1.7 billion Trident project, as Rich just said. And we also announced today that we successfully secured contracts to upsize our previously announced MSX project by 300 million cubic feet a day to 1.8 BCF a day. For the quarter, we added $3.5 billion in expansion projects to the backlog, which is primarily comprised of Trident and MSX. For the year, we have added $6.3 billion in projects to the backlog and placed $1.2 billion of projects in service, growing the backlog from $3 billion at the end of last year to $8.1 billion today. These projects will pay benefits for many years to come. As a result of the projects added to the backlog, we now expect to spend approximately $2.5 billion per year in expansion CapEx for the next several years up from our prior estimate of approximately $2 billion per year. During the quarter, we also agreed to purchase a natural gas gathering and processing system in the Bakken, which is complementary to our existing Bakken assets for $640 million. The system is backed by long-term contracts from creditworthy counterparties. On a gap basis, the purchase price translates into an eight times multiple. But based on the cash we receive in 2025, the multiple is approximately six times. In addition, in the future, we expect the acquisition to reduce CapEx that we would have otherwise had to spend to expand for our customers. As we look to the future, we continue to see additional growth opportunities in natural gas between LNG exports to Mexico, power, and industrial growth. Our internal number for growth in the overall natural gas business is roughly 28 BCF a day of growth between now and 2030. Our assets are well positioned to serve this growth. We currently serve approximately 45% of the export LNG demand, 50% of the exports to Mexico, and 45% of the power demand in the combined region of the desert southwest, Texas, and the southeast. 2024 was a successful year that brought numerous opportunities and nice growth, and we're looking forward to further growth and capitalizing on additional opportunities in 2025. And with that, I'll turn it over to Tom to give you more details on the business performance.