Marathon Petroleum Corporation

conference is being recorded. And I would now like to turn the call over to Christina Kazarian. Christina, you may begin.

Welcome to Marathon Petroleum Corporation's first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. The slides that accompany this call can be found on our website at marathonpetroleum.com under the investor tab. Joining me on the call today are Mike Hennigan, CEO, Marianne Mannin, CFO, and other members of the executive team. We invite you to read the Safe Harbor Statements on slide two. We will be making forward-looking statements today. Actual results may differ, and factors that could cause actual results to differ are included there as well as in our SEC filings. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike.

Thanks, Christina. Before we get into our results for the quarter, we wanted to provide a brief update on the macro environment. Year over year, demand trends have been, for the most part, positive, and the market seems to have reached a post-COVID point of stability. Distillate remains stable, jet continues to recover, and gasoline has been more resilient than we would have expected given normal seasonality and recent geopolitical events. The biggest factor outside of our control is changes in global supply and demand. At the end of 2021, global light product inventories were already tight. Sanctions and boycotts following the Russian invasion of Ukraine have increased supply uncertainties. Product margins have risen to cover the higher cost structure of marginal supply, particularly in European regions where there's a high reliance on Russian natural gas. We expect continued volatility in 2022 with an advantage for safe, reliable, and low-cost operators. We are focused on optimizing our maintenance schedules to maximize uptime and allow us to do what we can to produce volumes to meet the market demand. As we do this, we remain steadfast in our commitment to safely operate our assets, protect the health and safety of our employees, and support the communities in which we operate. With this in mind, we anticipate the U.S. refining system running at higher utilization rates in the coming quarters to meet rising demand. MPC's first quarter results reflect the continued recovery for our products and services, which supported higher margins and higher throughput across our regions. We delivered adjusted EBITDA of $2.6 billion. We repurchased $2.8 billion in shares in the quarter, and since our last earnings call, we have repurchased $2.5 billion of shares. Through today, we've completed 80% of our initial $10 billion capital return commitment. I would also like to highlight the strength of MPLX in our portfolio. Last year, MPC received $2.2 billion of distributions from MPLX. As MPLX continues to generate free cash flow, we believe it will have the capacity to return significant cash to MPC and its public unit holders. Another milestone in our sustainability objectives was the joint venture agreement with Neste for the Martinez Renewable Fuels Project. This strategic partnership with Neste enhances our Martinez project by leveraging our complementary strengths and expertise. The project will utilize existing process infrastructure, diverse inbound and outbound logistics, and is optimally located to support California's LCFS goals while strengthening MPC's footprint in renewable fuels. Our intensive partnership with Neste also creates a platform for additional collaboration within renewables. We believe there will be opportunities to leverage this partnership between two industry leaders as we pursue our shared commitment to the energy evolution and the goal of leading in sustainable energy. MPC will manage project execution and operate the facility once construction is complete. Additionally, MPLX logistics assets support Martinez will remain owned and operated by MPLX. We are progressing through the permit process. Contra Costa County certified the environmental impact report for the Martinez project, and we're hopeful that the county will shortly provide final approval. We remain excited about the prospects of the project and its ability to deliver low carbon intensity fuels to support California's climate goals. Shifting to slide five, we focus on challenging ourselves to lead in sustainable energy. In February, we became the first among our peers to establish a 2030 target to reduce absolute Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent below 2019 levels. The new Scope 3 target further enhances MPC's disclosures in addition to our existing Scope 1 and 2 reduction targets. MPLX also established a new 2030 target to reduce methane emissions intensity from natural gas gathering and processing operations by 75 percent below 2016 levels. In the second quarter, we will publish our annual sustainability and perspectives on climate-related scenarios reports and provide updates on the progress on the goals we have previously set. At this point, I'd like to turn the call over to Mary Ann to review the first quarter results.