MPLX LP

Welcome to the MPLX Second 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 Kavarian. Christina, you may begin.

Thanks, Amber. Good morning and welcome to the MPLX second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. The slides that accompany this call may be found on our website at MPLX.com under the investor tab. Joining me today on the call are Mike Hennigan, chairman and CEO, Pam Beal, CFO, and other members of the executive team. We invite you to read the safe harbor statements and non-gap 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.

Thanks, Christina. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. This morning, we announced that PAMBIO will be retiring after more than 25 years of service. Pam has played a critical role in many of our milestones and has been an excellent CFO as we transition the partnership into generating free cash flow after distributions and capital. Her financial guidance, strategic input, and solid counsel have been understated, and she will be missed. The Board of Directors and I wish her well in her much-deserved retirement. I would also like to congratulate John Quaid on his appointment. We look forward to continued strategic growth and value creation under his financial leadership. John will hit the ground running as he's been part of the Marathon team for many years and very deserving of this opportunity. With that, let me start by saying that earlier today we reported adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter of 2021 of $1.4 billion. Our operating results this quarter represented 12% increase in EBITDA from the second quarter of last year and a 10% increase in EBITDA from the second quarter of 2019. This performance highlights the resiliency of the business, irrespective of the challenging macroeconomic environment. Furthermore, the company generated excess cash flow beyond our capital and distribution requirements for the third consecutive quarter, enabling the continued return of capital to our unit holders through unit repurchases. In our L&S segment, throughput volumes continued to rebound with higher product demand and increased utilization at MPC's refineries. In our GMP segment, we continue to see high processing and fractionation utilization in the Marcellus. We are maintaining strict capital discipline and efficiently executing our growth plans on high return portfolio of investments. Both the Whistler Natural Gas Pipeline in the Permian and the Smithsburg One processing plant in the Marcellus began service in July. Looking forward to the remainder half of the year, we continue to expect completion of the Wink the Webster crew pipeline and the NGL takeaway system, which are both part of our integrated crude and natural gas logistics systems from the Permian to the U.S. Gulf Coast. In the GMP segment, the Preakness processing plant in the Delaware Basin remains on track to support anticipated incremental volume from producer customers in 2022. Our continued focus on identifying and efficiently executing high-return projects will support further growth for MPLX. As part of our work to advance low-carbon opportunities, we are actively engaged in evaluating new opportunities for the business, especially where we see technologies complementary with our expertise and asset footprint. The MTLX footprint spans a large portfolio of assets, creating a robust list of opportunities we continue to evaluate. We also continue to identify opportunities to structurally lower our costs and drive efficiencies in the business. When we look at our operating expenses, our 2020 controllable costs were more than $200 million lower compared to 2019. We continue to improve on this performance with controllable costs in 2021 expected to be incrementally $100 million lower than 2020 for a total of $300 million lower compared to end 2019. Our focus on strict capital discipline combined with growing EBITDA continues to enable the business to generate excess cash after self-funding our distribution and capital program. We remain committed to prioritizing the return of capital with nearly $900 million returned to unit holders this quarter through distributions and unit repurchases. As we look into the second half of 21, we expect to continue to generate excess cash after all capital investments and distributions. And as we've stated previously, We plan to execute repurchases based on free cash flow, the current, as well as anticipated needs of the business and the market environment. Finally, this quarter, we continue to enhance our ESG commitments and disclosures with the recent publication of both our annual sustainability and perspectives on climate related scenarios reports. Looking at slide four, I want to take a moment to discuss these reports in more detail. Our sustainability and climate report highlights that our approach to sustainability spans the environmental, social, and governance aspects of our business. Within this year's sustainability report, we've included a midstream specific supplement highlighting the specific topics and metrics that are most relevant and impactful to our industry. In our climate report, you will see we adjust our climate scenarios annually to maintain consistency with the latest IEA projections including the sustainable development scenario and the IEA's new net zero emissions by 2050 case. We continue to make progress on our target to reduce midstream methane emissions intensity 50% by 2025 from 2016 levels. Through 2020, we've achieved 44% of this target, a move that further enhances the low carbon profile of our growing natural gas business. In addition, we've achieved 45 percent of our target to reduce freshwater withdrawal intensity 20 percent by 2030 from 2016 levels. In short, we are challenging ourselves to lead in sustainable energy by meeting the needs of today while investing in an energy-diverse future that creates shared value for all of our stakeholders. Now let me turn the call over to Pam to discuss our operational and financial results for the quarter. Ms.