Kinder Morgan, Inc.

Welcome to Kinder Morgan's second quarter 2026 earnings results conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman of Kinder Morgan.

Thank you, Ted. Before we begin, as we usually 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 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. My remarks for this investor call can really be summed up in four sentences. First, the second quarter was another strong quarter for KMI as both our EBITDA and EPS continued to exceed both prior year and our own budget for 2026 by significant margins. Second, the natural gas growth story remains very positive as demand for LNG export volumes and gas for electric generation continues to grow. Third, this growth is leading to numerous additional opportunities to build new midstream infrastructure supported by long-term contracts with creditworthy customers and we expect to FID very substantial additional CapEx projects during the remainder of this year. Finally, and very importantly, We can fund these projects almost completely with our internally generated cash flow while still continuing to pay a solid and growing dividend and maintaining a debt to EBITDA ratio at the lower end of our targeted range. Now, for some of you, those four sentences may not make a compelling case for investing in Kinder Morgan. Not an exciting enough story. But I will remind you that this unexcited company has over the last 29 years of its existence grown its enterprise value at a compound annual rate of approximately 22% while also paying out over $40 billion in dividends. Now just maybe that gives us what we say a little bit of credibility. And with that, I'll turn it over to Kim and the team.

All right. Thank you, Rich. We're extremely pleased with our second quarter results. Another fantastic quarter for Kinder Morgan, one that reflects both the strength of our underlying business and the outstanding execution of our employees across the company. We significantly outperformed both last year and our budget expectations. Adjusted EBITDA increased 12% compared to the second quarter of 25, while adjusted earnings per share increased 32%. Importantly, growth was broad-based, with every one of our business segments contributing positively to the quarter's strong performance. Given our results through the first half of the year and our confidence in the outlook for the remainder of 2026, we are increasing our guidance. We now expect full-year adjusted EBITDA to be at least 5% above our 2026 budget and adjusted EPS to be at least 12% above our original budget. Turning to gross capital, our backlog remains one of the strongest in our history. During the quarter, our backlog decreased from approximately 10.1 billion to 9.6 billion. This decline was primarily the result of successfully placing more than 650 million of projects into service, partially offset by the approximately 200 million of new project additions. While our sanctioned backlog was down modestly this quarter, today the Board contingently approved almost $400 million of projects, which are in advanced contract negotiations and will be added to the backlog upon contract execution, virtually offsetting this quarter's decline. In addition, we anticipate, as Rich said, adding significant projects from our over $10 billion opportunity set before year end. likely more than offsetting the approximately $1 billion of projects we expect to place into service during the second half of 2026. Our three largest natural gas expansion projects that are underway continue to make excellent progress. Mississippi Crossing, South System Expansion 4, and Trident are each progressing on schedule and on budget. These projects represent critical infrastructure supporting increasing electric power generation, Growing LNG exports and broader natural gas demand across North America. For Mississippi Crossing and South System 4, we received our final FERC environmental impact statement in June and expect to receive our FERC certificates by the end of this month, an important milestone as both projects move towards construction. Trident continues to advance well and is now approximately 60% complete. Financially, we remain in an exceptionally strong position. Our balance sheet ended the quarter at approximately 3.6 times leverage, providing significant flexibility to fund attractive growth opportunities while continuing to maintain our disciplined capital allocation framework. Finally, I'd like to spend a moment on the broader market backdrop. The fundamentals supporting our natural gas business have never been stronger. According to Wood Mackenzie's most recent outlook, U.S. natural gas demand is expected to exceed 160 billion cubic feet per day by 2035. That represents approximately 46 billion cubic feet per day of incremental demand growth compared to 2025. The primary drivers continue to be increased LNG export capacity and rapidly growing power demand. The scale of this projected demand growth underscores the critical need for the infrastructure we own and the projects we are developing. With one of the largest natural gas transmission systems in North America, a premier portfolio of expansion opportunities, a strong balance sheet, and a highly experienced management team, we believe Kinder Morgan is exceptionally well positioned to continue delivering value for our customers and shareholders for many years to come. With that, I'll turn it over to Dax.