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spk01: Welcome to the MPLX First Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. My name is Amber, and I will be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. Press star 1 on your touchtone phone to enter the queue. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Christina Kazarian. Christina, you may begin.
spk00: Thanks so much. Good morning and welcome to the MPLX first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. The slides that accompany this call can be found on our website at MPLX.com under the investor tab. Joining me on the call today are Mike Hennigan, chairman, president, and CEO, Pam Beal, CFO, and other members of the executive team. We invite you to read the safe harbor statements and the non-GAAP disclaimer on slide two. It's a reminder that we will be making forward-looking statements during the call and during the question and answer session that follows. Actual results may differ materially from what we expect today. Factors that could cause actual results to differ are included there as well as in our filings with the SEC. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike.
spk07: Thanks, Christina. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. Earlier today, we reported adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2021 of $1.4 billion. Despite lingering challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic and headwinds in the business environment, we were able to grow earnings on a year-on-year basis. As we mentioned last quarter, we expect an impact to our L&S business from the renewal of the marine contracts and equipment rate adjustments. Additionally, our GMP results also reflect some impacts from the severe winter weather, including higher energy costs and lower volumes. We continue to identify opportunities to structurally lower our costs and drive efficiencies in the business, and our reported operating expenses for the quarter continue to trend down. We are also maintaining strict capital discipline to efficiently execute our growth plans on a high-return portfolio of investments. Our focus on strict capital discipline combined with growing EBITDA has allowed the business to generate excess cash after self-funding our distribution and capital programs. We remain committed to prioritizing the return of capital with over $900 million returned to unit holders this quarter through distributions and unit purchases. Furthermore, we believe our earnings growth combined with the desire to hold debt flat will result in a reduction in leverage over time. As we look ahead for 2021, we expect to generate excess cash after capital investments and distributions as we had planned to do. The availability of COVID-19 vaccines provides hope for the return of global transportation fuel demand and economic recovery. Even though many uncertainties still exist, the world's need for reliable, affordable, and responsibly produced energy remains important. We believe we can continue to meet this need through our strategies that will allow us to successfully adapt to the evolving energy landscape by shaping our asset portfolio to meet the challenges and opportunities created by the energy evolution. If you look at slide four, I'd like to provide some comments on our commitment to ESG. Last quarter, we discussed the importance of setting objectives for the organization to drive continuous improvement on ESG. Our commitment to sustainability positions us to deliver strong results in this space, including lowering the carbon intensity of our operations and products, improving energy efficiency, and conserving natural resources while using innovative technologies to do it. We've established a program to lower methane emissions at our natural gas gathering and processing business that includes a goal of reducing our methane emissions intensity to 50% below 2016 levels by the year 2025. Our broader vision of sustainability emphasizes delivering essential energy products and services to the world in ways that create share value for all our stakeholders. Now let me turn the call over to Pam to discuss our operational and financial results.
spk01: Thanks, Mike. Slide five outlines the first quarter operational and financial highlights for our logistics and storage segment. Segment EBITDA increased 24 million year over year. Despite headwinds from a reduction in our marine transportation fees and lower throughput on some of our pipeline equity method investments, the team's focus on operating expense reductions and business efficiencies provided support for the segment. Additionally, While terminal throughputs were lower compared with the first quarter of 2020, pipeline volumes were in line with the same period last year. We continue to make good progress on our strategies to create an integrated crude oil and natural gas logistics system from the Permian to the Gulf Coast. The Wink to Webster crude oil pipeline, in which MPLX has an equity interest, continues to place segments into service, and we expect this activity to continue throughout the remainder of the year. As segments are placed in service, we expect EBITDA contributions from this project to ramp up throughout 2022. Consistent with our focus on projects with minimal return risk, the pipeline system has 100% of its contractible capacity committed with long-term minimum volume commitments. On the Whistler natural gas pipeline, commissioning activities on certain segments are underway in preparation for the project to start up in the third quarter of this year. Similar to the Wink to Webster project, Whistler is backed by long-term minimum volume commitments, and we expect EBITDA contributions to also ramp up through 2022. Finally, we continue to work towards an in-service date in the fourth quarter for the natural gas liquids takeaway solution, which provides long-haul NGL service from the Permian to Sweeney, Texas. The project will have an initial capacity of 125,000 barrels per day, with the potential to expand up to 350,000 barrels per day. Before we leave the discussions on our L&S segment, I'd like to provide an update on certain contracts between MPC and MPLX. MPLX continues to work alongside MPC as it progresses its portfolio of renewable projects, including potential opportunities to expand our logistics capabilities to deliver renewable diesel feedstocks. Since renewing the marine contract with MPC in January, we continue to receive questions around contracts for pipelines that were dropped into the partnership in 2012 and are coming up for renewal. As we continue to emphasize, many of the assets MPLX operates are fit for purpose for MPC's business and are integral to the MPC refining system. Furthermore, we believe our crude and product pipeline contracts are at market rates. As in the past, we fully expect MPC to renew its contracts with MPLX as they mature over time and for our revenue from these contracts to continue to reflect the strong integrated nature of the underlying business. Now moving on to our gathering and processing business on slide six, we provide first quarter operational and financial highlights for this segment. For the first quarter of 2021, gathered volumes were lower than the same period last year across our footprint. Furthermore, process volumes were down in all regions except the Marcellus. In the Marcellus, Process volumes increased 3 percent and fractionated volumes increased 7 percent relative to the first quarter of 2020. The overall operating statistics include the impacts of severe weather during the quarter in the Southwest. We estimate an approximate $16 million impact to our business from the winter storms, with the majority of that impact reflected in our gathering and processing segment results. This impact included a reduced volume at some of our facilities as well as higher energy costs. Gathering and processing segment EBITDA increased $34 million from the first quarter of 2020. This was supported by higher natural gas liquids prices and lower operating expenses, helping to offset the impact of lower volumes, as well as the costs incurred due to the severe weather. In line with previously announced efforts around portfolio optimization, we did close on the sale of our Javelina plant in Corpus Christi, Texas in mid-February. In the Marcellus, we've begun commissioning activities for our SmithBird 1 processing facility with a targeted in-service date in the third quarter. Now moving to our first quarter financial highlights on slide seven. Total adjusted EBITDA was $1.4 billion and distributable cash flow was $1.1 billion. MPLX grew both EBITDA and distributable cash flow compared to the first quarter of 2020. Our distributable cash flow generation provided strong coverage of 1.5 times for the quarter, and we paid $754 million in distributions. Furthermore, MPLX continues to self-fund all capital investments and distributions to unit holders, with $277 million of excess cash flow remaining after these activities for the quarter. In addition, we've returned $155 million to unit holders through the repurchase of over 6 million publicly held common units under our unit repurchase program. As of March 31st, total repurchases of $180 million have been made since the program inception was launched in the fourth quarter of 2020. Given continued uncertainty facing the economic recovery, we were extremely disciplined in our expense and capital spend for the first quarter. This caution helped to drive the significant amount of excess free cash flow generated during the quarter. Looking forward, we've not changed our guidance on growth capital investment of $800 million for 2021. This implies a higher run rate of capital spend for the remaining quarters. As we increase our growth capital project-related work, it tends to ramp up through summer months. We also expect to see a meaningful increase in the projects that are expensed. Subject to many factors that influence timing of project and maintenance spend, This amount could be sequentially higher by as much as $75 million in the second quarter relative to the first quarter spend. With our continued capital and expense discipline and growth in EBITDA, we expect to continue generating excess cash flow for 2021, providing financial flexibility to pursue value-creating opportunities for our unit holders, including unit repurchases. We intend to remain flexible with our unit repurchase program and expect the pace of unit repurchases to be informed by market conditions, the business environment, the amount of excess cash generated in prior quarters, among other factors. On slide six, we provide a summary of key financial and balance sheet information, and I want to highlight that the inflection to generating excess cash and returning capital to unit holders has not compromised our focus on maintaining a strong balance sheet. We ended the quarter with a leverage ratio of 3.9 times, approximately $2.7 billion available under our $3.5 billion bank-revolving credit facility and $1.5 billion available on our intercompany facility with MPC. We intend to maintain our investment-grade credit profile and, as Mike mentioned earlier, hold our debt flat. With strict capital discipline, growing EBITDA, and stable debt, we believe leverage will decline over time. So now let me turn the call back over to Christina.
spk00: Thanks, Pam. As we open the call for questions, we ask that you limit yourself to one question plus a follow-up. We may reprompt for additional questions as time permits. With that, we will now open the call to questions. Operator? Thank you.
spk01: We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press star, then 1 on your touchtone phone. If you wish to be removed from the queue, please press star, then 2. If you are using a speakerphone, you may need to pick up the handset first before pressing the numbers. Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one on your touchtone phone. Our first question comes from Jeremy Toney with JP Morgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk05: Hey, good morning, guys. This is James on for Jeremy. I just want to start on the buybacks. It seemed like, you know, the strong progress was made through the first quarter. I'm just wondering any color you can share on the cadence for the rest of the year or if there's any bogeys or what factors you look at to allocate capital to buybacks going forward?
spk07: Good morning, James. This is Mike. On buybacks, the best guidance we can give you, I tried to say this a couple times, is it's going to be a dynamic process for us, not a program that we just set and walk away from. We've tried to be transparent that we were driving to excess free cash flow. We achieved that, like we said, back in the latter part of 20 and into 21. So the way we're going to look at it is each quarter as the market moves and we have more intelligence about the market, the unit price, the outlook, et cetera, et cetera, we're going to look at what's the best way to deploy that excess cash. Buybacks is obviously something that we prioritize in the recent terms. especially since we're trading at the yields that we're trading at. But we have all the levers available to us, you know, buybacks, distributions, you know, debt, capital. You know, all of those avenues are available to us. And as a management team, we're going to continue to talk about things through the quarter, you know, and continue to make what I call real-time decisions or a dynamic process that's, you know, trying to be receptive to the market conditions at the time and trying to provide, you know, the best unit holder value. Hope that gives you a better feeling as to how we're thinking about the process.
spk05: No, it doesn't. I appreciate it. I appreciate the color there. Maybe just for my follow-up, shifting over to the renewable side, you mentioned the renewable diesel opportunity set in the period of March. So I was wondering if you can elaborate on how far out on that, if there's any capital allocated to that this year. And then maybe just a second part of the question, looking at carbon capture, if you kind of foresee the 45Q tax credits as being sufficient to incentivize capital allocation there.
spk07: James, I'm going to let Tim jump in with some more detail, but I'm just saying, in general, we're obviously aware of the energy evolution that's occurring. There's a lot of opportunities that people are exploring. Tim and his team are looking at a lot of different things, so I'll let him give some color here.
spk08: Well, Jeremy, on the 45Q credits, I guess it kind of depends. In general, the 45Q, it is the primary incentive for carbon capture and sequestration. And if you've got the right environment, it may drive a competitive project. But if you look at most of those out there, it requires stacking of incentives and sometimes variable costs depending on the capture, transportation, and sequester costs come into play. So if you have projects with low capture costs, minimal transportation, and some favorable geology, well, then that might cover it. But other projects would require things like LCFS, Uplift, for certain products in order to hurdle those higher costs. So, again, it kind of depends. We do expect the government policies will further define the regulatory framework, and, you know, it's possible that there could be additional incentives that come down the pike.
spk05: Got it. That's very helpful. I'll stop there. Appreciate the questions.
spk02: You're welcome.
spk01: Our next question comes from Aga Smigratzka. With UBS, your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk00: Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. So I would like to follow up on that question of renewable investments. Could you maybe provide more color on, you know, the scope and potential returns from the investments that you are looking at, the renewable investments?
spk07: Thank you. So we haven't gotten to a detailed point of disclosures on the things that we're looking at. I think the takeaway that you should think about is, there's a pretty myriad opportunity set in front of us now. Tim just mentioned carbon capture is one thing that we're looking at. Pam mentioned renewable diesel is obviously being advanced by MPC. Lowering the carbon intensity of products is going to continue to be a theme that plays itself out there. So we haven't given any detailed disclosures other than to say that we're cognizant of the environment that we're in, You know, I like to say people are talking a lot about hydrogen at one end of the spectrum. I think that's a little further out in time, but it is something that we're evaluating as we go forward. You know, MPC is in the business of hydrogen, so that's something that we're very close to. You know, at the same time, on the near end, you know, as Pam mentioned, renewable diesel is on the front end. You know, as Tim just mentioned, you know, carbon and any types of activities around there are all front and center for us. However, we're going to make sure that when we advance the ball on there that we have a really strong return. So we are going to maintain capital discipline, not jump at something that just appears to be good. We're going to make sure that at the end of the day it gives us a good return and provides value to the unit holders.
spk01: Pam, I just wanted to jump in and add to Mike's comments there. The other thing that we should talk about is the fact that we're very bullish on the role that natural gas is going to play. even as we go through an energy transition. So we continue to look for opportunities to participate in the natural gas value chain downstream of the operations that we have today. And Tim talked about some of our pipeline activities, and I don't know, Tim, if you wanted to add anything on or mention the natural gas storage investment through our joint venture. So we're looking for those kind of opportunities as well because we think that natural gas is going to be an important part of the energy solution well into the future.
spk00: Thank you. And what has been the latest risk around your footprint in Northeast? The process volumes were down a little bit in 1Q versus 4Q. Do you expect a recovery throughout 2021?
spk06: I'll let Greg take that one.
spk09: This is Greg Flurkey. With regard to the Northeast outlook, NGL prices Uh, and, and more currently gas prices are, are, uh, supportive of, of additional, uh, development in the Northeast. Um, rich, rich gas drilling remains focused primarily in the Marcellus and more of the drier lean gas drilling in the Utica. Um, you know, we do see seasonal, depending on the season and particularly in the wintertime and maintenance schedules, we do see fluctuation in, in volume, uh, quarter over quarter, but, uh, In general, the Northeast is a key basin for us, and we think NGL prices, including the strip price and current inventory levels, are supportive of potentially more rich gas drilling in the region.
spk00: Thank you, and have a great day.
spk07: You're welcome.
spk01: Our next question comes from John McKay with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk06: Hey, good morning. Thanks for the time. Just wanted to circle up on the buybacks. Understand it's a variable number that will move around quarter to quarter depending on how much cash you have or have left over. Just curious if the Javelina proceeds were kind of rolled into that number or if you see the 150-ish you did this quarter as being kind of a healthy number that the base business can generate.
spk01: Yeah, John. Thanks. It's Pam. I'll take that question. So, And we talked about the fact that we actually generated $277 million of excess cash after funding the distributions in our capital program. That surplus cash did include proceeds from the Javelina sale. We did deploy $155 million of that into unit repurchases. But we also highlighted that, you know, the first quarter, we were extremely conservative on all forms of cash that we spent. just given some of the economic uncertainty as we move through the beginning of 2021, not knowing how the pandemic would play out. So we do expect to see higher capital in subsequent quarters and also some increase in expenses related to projects that we do that are expensed. And as I've highlighted in some prior calls, some of our maintenance activities, I'll highlight API 653 tank work. We expense that work. Other companies capitalize it. So as we move through the year and maintain our assets, you know, we'll have some increase in costs related to those activities. So didn't want people to get so focused on, you know, the high amount of excess cash that we generated during the first quarter.
spk06: All right. Thanks. That's helpful. Maybe to follow up on that, Pam, just the last comment you made, I guess that's the 75 million of incremental costs you were referencing earlier. And I guess it sounds like that's not part of, you know, necessarily the you know, overall capex budget. Is that what I think about it?
spk01: Yeah, that's correct, John. Those would be, that would show up in our operating expenses.
spk06: Okay, great. And maybe we can just squeeze in one more. You know, like Utica has been kind of a lot weaker than we've hoped for for the last couple of quarters. Just curious if you can kind of give us any more, you know, specific thoughts on what's going on with those assets. Maybe if there's, you know, been a, you know, I don't know, any one-off that could return there, and then any of your efforts on optimizing that footprint. I think you talked about it a little bit in the last call.
spk09: Yeah, this is Greg. With regard to Utica, as I mentioned, most of the focus there over the last few years has been in drilling the dry Utica areas, and we did see a quick ramp-up in that. And we saw, you know, peak levels probably about a year ago. Um, the, the rich Utica has been on, uh, you know, on a path where, uh, new drilling and new wells have not been sufficient to offset the, uh, uh, the normal decline of existing wells. So we're hopeful that the Utica, um, uh, that the current NGL prices, uh, will actually incent more drilling in the rich area of the Utica. Uh, but the, the larger, um, the impact that you've seen is where we see the largest swings is in the dry gas area. It's the largest volume, and if there's a timing issue on drilling, that shows up, you know, in a larger volume, a larger percentage way. We're still bullish on Utica dry gas drilling, and we're hopeful that, you know, that we'll see – you know, continue to see good progress in terms of growth in the future there.
spk06: That's great. Thank you for the time. You're welcome, John.
spk01: Thank you. We'll now go to Spiro Dunas with Credit Suisse. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk04: Hey, morning team. Mike, Last quarter, you framed 21 EBITDA with one of your banks of the river analogies, and I think you kind of put in a range of $4.9 to $5.3 billion, just annualizing some relevant 2020 quarters. You know, no, you don't give official guidance, but curious, a few months in now, do you still feel like that's a relevant range, and if you're leaning kind of heavily in any direction there?
spk07: Yes, it's Mike. So, You know, the main reason that we don't try to guide to that is, you know, we don't have control of the volumes that come out of the system in general. You know, we make our best guess at it. You know, I think you're referencing, you know, last quarter, Pam gave a little bit of the banks of the river. And that is how we think about it. So, you know, we're obviously happy when, you know, we're seeing the market the same way that the upstream side of the business does. But our biggest challenge is, you know, we just don't control it. So, I'll tell you, we keep a look at those things. We think about scenarios. And then we step back and we concentrate on the things that we do control. So, you know, we've had a lot of emphasis recently on cost reductions. And I think you're seeing that in our earnings year on year. You know, at the same time, you know, we're very cognizant of, you know, what are the scenarios that can play out for cash. And like, you know, a couple of the questions that were asked earlier is, you know, we're evaluating how the capital is going to play itself out through the year. You know, as Pam said, you know, we're still committed to that guidance. You know, Tim and his team are evaluating whether there's economic support for us to, you know, enable some of the projects. At the same time, we're going to keep the discipline pretty high on that. You know, if it stays high and we don't want to execute on those, you know, we'll give that a little bit of time to percolate some more and then use the cash for the other levers that we have. So you're right in that we think about scenarios and we think about what if everything goes our way. And then we also think about what if things don't go our way? I mean, our goal, Spiro, is to try and be as transparent, you know, to the market as we can. You know, we try and talk about not just the good things, but the risks that are out there. You know, we've said, you know, we have two risks that, you know, people are very aware of, you know, DAPL and what's going to play out in that regard. You know, again, we don't control it, but we try and scenario plan around it. The Tesoro High Plains Pipeline is another risk that we have out there that, again, we have our opinion of the way it's going to play itself out, but we don't control it. So that's kind of the process going back to the very first question of how do we think about this excess cash. I think we're in a good position. It's the place we want it to be where we have these choices and levers. And then we try and take our best inputs as to all the information we have at the time. We see how the market plays itself out. Obviously, everybody's pretty excited about you know, the rollout of vaccines and the impact that that's starting to have on the economy. And, you know, we are too, you know, at the same time, we're still, you know, gasoline demand in the U.S. is still less than it was pre-pandemic, you know, roughly 5% somewhere in that range. And then it varies regionally. It's still lower on the West Coast. It was, you know, impacted more by the pandemic than, say, some of the other regions. So, you know, we're just like everybody, you know, have tempered optimism towards recovery. But at the same time, we just got to, you know, be careful about the data. We don't want to get in front of ourselves. And I think you hit it on the head. I've been trying to explain this concept of scenario planning and some probabilities, and then we're just trying to make the best decision as we can, you know, on a real-time basis. So I hope that gives you a little more flavors to how we're thinking about it. We don't control that exact upstream number. We watch it. We trend. We talk to our customers, et cetera, et cetera. And then the reality, just like everybody, those companies are doing the best they can on a quarter-to-quarter basis, just like we are. Does that help you at all?
spk04: No, it does, Mike. Appreciate all the color there. So understood. Second one, just on renewables again. Sorry to keep hitting on this, but just curious how you're – I know it's early days, but curious how you're going to approach cap allocation, I guess, and how you're thinking about the blueprint there. And I guess what I'm wondering is to the extent you've got competing conventional projects versus renewable projects, and they more or less have the same return profile, does tie go to the renewables? Are you looking at those projects through a different risk lens? And I'm curious if this is an area where we could see you do more sort of JV opportunities with established players out there.
spk07: Yeah, I think you hit it on the head. Ties would go that way. We are conscious that over time, renewables are going to be a bigger part of the energy landscape. So there's no doubt that we're conscious of that. The pace that that's going to occur and the economics behind how that occurs is still up in the air. Tim mentioned one specific project that people are spending a lot of time with, but there's many on the horizon right now. You know, I would say that, you know, the list of things that we're looking at is pretty long, you know, but, you know, they're ready to execute today. You know, we're still evaluating some of these things. So I think you hit it on the head, though, as far as, you know, where would we invest? We want to try and put our capital into an area that is going to grow over time. You know, we do believe that the energy evolution will continue to occur over time. Some of the areas, I think, are, you know, a little bit ahead of its time as far as the rhetoric. Some of the areas, I think, are very current. So all those types of things, the way you described it, I think, is exactly the way we think about it. And then, like I said, just like we were saying earlier, is even an individual project, we'll start to talk about some scenarios around it. You had a really important point as well. What are the risks around it, and what's the term of it, and how much support do we have for it, and how many customers, and what's the you know, the credit capabilities behind it. All those things come into play. So, you know, I like to think that our job is to have a very robust process and be very cognizant of capital that we could return the unit holders if we choose to deploy it in a capital spending that we've got to feel really confident that it's going to deliver a lot of value. So that's why, you know, if anything we're trying to leave you with, you know, we've raised the bar on capital discipline and We're trying to be as cognizant as we can of the market as it evolves. And at the same time, you know, we're in a nice position to have some levers to deploy cash in a lot of different ways. Great.
spk04: That's all I had. Thanks, Mike.
spk07: Thanks, Pam. You're welcome, Spiro.
spk01: Our next question comes from Michael Bloom with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
spk02: Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Maybe just to stay on this topic a little longer, so just to understand it a little better, so you've got your sort of big three midstream projects that you outline. Beyond those, it sounds like there's not going to be a whole lot necessarily in terms of larger size projects on the midstream side, and then on the renewable side, you know, it's TBD, but it sounds like all is being equal. Those will take more time to develop, and so therefore... you know, the CapEx should probably trend lower, at least in the near term, looking at 22 and beyond. I just want to know if that's the right way to kind of think about it.
spk07: Yeah, Michael, I'd say, you know, you're in the right church. Whether you turn out to be in the right queue or not, time will tell. I think, you know, we are describing it just very much the way you did. There's a lot of projects that the team are looking at, you know, maybe more bold on, you know, lower capital, higher return. as opposed to, like you said, the big bang that gets a lot of press. But we're very happy with the big projects that we've done. The team, we have NBC protection behind the higher capital deployment ones, and the NGL projects turned out to be a real good project for us. Tim and the team put together a nice lower capital solution for our customers, so that's worked out well. So, yeah, right now we're looking at what's the best return projects. They may be smaller bits of capital. You know, as Pam said, right at the moment, you know, we're still feeling that, you know, that capital guidance that we've given is good. You know, as we progress through the year, if it looks like things are going to take a little longer, then, you know, we'll be a little bit under that. And that's kind of what we said, you know, last quarter as well. So we're trying to give our best transparency, but I think you described it well. It's not that we're opposed to doing something of a larger nature, you know, if it comes to fruition. you know, we're not opposed to that. We're not opposed to looking at anything that creates a lot of value. But in the short term, you know, having capital discipline is a higher priority. Lowering costs is a higher priority. Generating increases in, you know, the amount of earnings that we establish, you know, is kind of where we're putting a lot of our focus.
spk02: Thanks. And then I know that another part of the plan has always been portfolio optimization, particularly on the G&P side of things. And I know that that market has been pretty slow in the last bit of time. I wonder if there's any change there that you're seeing.
spk07: There hasn't been any change to date, Michael. But, you know, you can see gas prices are now, you know, close to $3, you know, on the benchmark. So, you know, things are looking up. Pam said it earlier, you know, probably one of the biggest things that we've debated with, you know, the sell side and the buy side for a while is our natural gas business, you know, Pam mentioned it earlier. We think natural gas will be an important part of this energy evolution over time. We've kind of defended our natural gas position when people have questioned a lot of why are we in this business. I think people are starting to see a little bit more of the stability that we've talked about and some of the resiliency in our cash flows. So I hope people are seeing a little bit of what we've been thinking for a while and And then it's going to take a little bit of time. You know, as mentioned earlier and Greg commented on it, you know, rigs are starting back a little bit more on the oil side now that we're at, you know, $60 oil. So you're seeing rigs start to come back in that area. You know, and natural gas, we'll expect that to occur over time as well, albeit in a new dynamic where, you know, producers are going to be a little bit more stringent about, you know, managing their cash flows. But I think in the long term, you know, we still like the position we're in. You know, we like the business that we have. we're hoping the market has seen the resiliency that we've kind of talked about and haven't had as much of a chance to display it, but the pandemic has given us that opportunity to show, you know, year-on-year earnings growth in 20, and we continue to show that. So hopefully that gives you a picture of what we're trying to do. In the meantime, I've tried to explain, you know, quarter to quarter, we can continue to evaluate the market, evaluate the projects. I think you said it well. You know, we don't have a, you know, a major one that we're ready to announce at this point, but we're looking at everything. So we spend a lot of time looking at the portfolio, you know, right at the moment, you know, there's nothing on the front burner as far as the question that people have been asking us about divestments. So we don't have anything on the front burner. And the main reason I say that is, you know, we like our assets. They're generating free cash. You know, I'm a big believer in our assets have to generate free cash and the assets that we think you know, are challenged, you know, we'll put a little bit more attention there. But in the meantime, while they generate free cash, they're contributing to the partnership. So I think that's a big key. We're not forced to do anything. I use the term, we're not giving any assets away. So if we got a value that we thought was appropriate to, you know, to create value for the unit holders, then we would execute on it. But we haven't seen that to date. We've been very open about, you know, we've run a few processes. And at the end of the day, we have not seen things that that we think would be of value of us holding the assets ourselves. I hope that helps.
spk02: Yep. Thank you very much.
spk07: You're welcome, Michael.
spk01: The last question comes from Keith Stanley with Wolf Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk03: Thanks. Good morning. I just wanted to first clarify the operating cost commentary again. Was it a $75 million increase quarter over quarter in Q2, and that's kind of a good run rate from there, or are costs just a little inflated in Q2? And then, relatedly, you talk in the release again to being committed to lowering the cost structure. You've already done a lot. Should we read that as there's potential for another sort of meaningful round of cost reductions, or is most of the low-hanging fruit already done at this point?
spk01: Yeah, Keith, it's Pam. I'll take that. So just to clarify, that $75 million increase, that was a sequential increase from first quarter to second, and especially around some of the projects that we do that are expensed instead of capitalized. Now, we did make a meaningful reduction in the total costs, operating costs from 2019 to 2020, and those continue into 2021. In fact, we mentioned on one of our previous calls that Some of our workforce reduction activities didn't take place until the fourth quarter. So we had talked about, you know, $200 million commitment that we knew we could deliver on $200 million of operating cost reductions. And then we said the benefit of the lower workforce would be reflected in 2021. So we're definitely seeing some of that as, you know, here in the first quarter, and we'll see that throughout 2021. And as you look at 2021 compared to 2020, you know, our operating expenses will be lower. It's just that sequentially, you know, because we had generated so much cash in the first quarter and our spending was so low. In fact, I haven't seen our capital investment this low on a quarterly basis since 2014, you know, before we acquired the natural gas business. So I just didn't want people to think that it was going to remain every quarter that low. So just try to provide a little more color there. I hope that's helpful, Keith.
spk03: It is, and the second part, just on if there's more to come that's meaningful on cost reductions, just given you guys have already done a lot on that front.
spk01: Yeah, I would just say on the margin work, we're going to continue to focus on managing the business with, as Mike likes to call it, and it's our mantra, strict capital discipline and strict expense management.
spk07: Yeah, Keith, I'll just add a little bit to that. You know, one of the things, you know, your question is very similar to a lot we get. We have the sports analogy, what inning you're in or what quarter of the football game, et cetera. You know, I like to think about it as, you know, every game, if I use the football analogy, every game that we approach, we're going to ask ourselves, you know, is there areas that we can still challenge ourselves more in? But, you know, we're clearly, you know, we played the first half, if you want to use that term. And, you know, we're evaluating, is there other opportunities, you know, As everybody knows, there's diminishing returns, you know, ultimately. There's only so much you can challenge yourself. But I'm hoping that we're leaving the market with, you know, every game plan, every time that we think about this, we're going to be asking ourselves that question. Because, you know, the market continues to evolve. And, you know, our cost structure is something that, you know, we should not, you know, put the playbook down on and say, you know, that's behind us now. It's something we're going to continue to watch, continue to challenge. I do give the team a lot of credit. When I asked everybody to look at this concept of changing the cost structure, I think the team's done a really nice job of looking at it. And there's some areas that we're still questioning. And to be perfectly frank, some areas you go in, you think you can do X, and it turned out to be Y, plus or minus. And then the same thing in some other areas, you might do a little better than you were originally thinking. You might do a little worse. The point being is you keep challenging it. You keep looking at it. keep asking yourself the question of is there an opportunity there? You know, I personally am a cost hawk, you know, in a lot of ways. It's sexy to talk about revenues, but, you know, a dollar of revenue and a dollar of expense get the same dollar to the bottom line. So it's something that is top of mind for me all the time. So hopefully it'll stay in focus for you guys to see how we progress on that.
spk03: Great. That's helpful. Second question, just specifically, You guys have talked and you always do about growing EBITDA in the business. And then you also address just the 2012 pipeline assets and contracts pretty clearly. So when you look out over the next, I don't know, call it two, three years, what are the main levers you think that grow EBITDA of the company? And are there any notable headwinds or things to be mindful of beyond the marine contract this year? Uh, that, that could be headwinds, uh, over the next, call it two to three years.
spk07: Yeah, Keith, I, like I said, one of the things that we hope the market, uh, likes about us is we try and be as transparent as we can, especially on headwinds. So, you know, the, the two that we said, you know, are very much out there that are material is the DAPL situation and the Tesoro High Plains pipeline. You know, Tesoro High Plains, we thought was resolved. It's kind of gotten bounced back now again. So it's back out on the table. So those two issues are material in nature, so those are potential out there. Now, again, people ask us what do we think is going to happen. Again, we don't control that. We watch the court proceedings, et cetera, just like you guys do. But those are out there. I think Pam was very transparent when we said the Marine contract was going to be a significant change to us, roughly $100 million, and I think we gave everybody advance notice on that. So we will continue to be transparent on contracts. I liken it very much to the questions we used to get on the GMP business all the time. People are really worried about that. On the contract side, we don't have anything on the horizon that we need to make people aware of. In fact, if anything, we're trying to make the relationship between MPC and MPLX more of a win-win over time. And the way that we can integrate and try and drive value for both entities is really the main goal. So If we see something that we think is an issue that we need to make you aware of, you know, then we'll certainly disclose that. You know, like I said, Pam, I think has done a nice job of that in the past, and that will continue to be our mantra. So we don't want to surprise the market with anything. How DAPL goes, I think everybody's watching to see how that plays itself out as an example. And, you know, if there's something else that we think is a headwind, we're certainly going to, you know, make you aware of it. Thanks very much. You're welcome.
spk01: That was our last question.
spk00: Perfect. Thank you. So thank you, everyone, for joining us today, and thank you for your interest in MPLX. Should you have additional questions or would like clarification on any of the topics discussed this morning, members of our team will be available to take your calls. Have a great day.
spk01: That concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
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