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Western Midstream Partners, LP Common Units Representing Limited Partner Interests
Q2 2022 Earnings Conference Call
8/4/2022
spk05: Good afternoon. My name is Rex, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the 2Q22 Western Midstream Partners Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one once again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Daniel Jenkins, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
spk02: Thank you. I'm glad you could join us today for Western Midstream's second quarter 2022 conference call. I'd like to remind you that today's call, the accompanying slide deck, and last night's earnings release contain important disclosures regarding forward-looking statements and non-GAAP reconciliations. Please reference Western Midstream's most recent form 10-Q and and other public filings for a description of risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we discussed today. Relevant reference materials are posted on our website. With me today are Michael Ure, our Chief Executive Officer, Kristen Schultz, our Chief Financial Officer, and Craig Collins, our Chief Operating Officer. I'll now turn the call over to Michael.
spk04: Thank you, Daniel, and good afternoon, everyone. Yesterday, we reported another quarter of strong operational and financial performance at Western Midstream. Our second quarter financial success was primarily driven by increased throughput across all three products in the Delaware Basin and higher distributions from equity investments, partially offset by higher operation and maintenance expense. We also achieved several records in the quarter, including record natural gas throughput in the Delaware Basin, processing 1.5 BCF of gas per day, record produced water throughput in the Delaware Basin, gathering 864,000 barrels per day, and record adjusted EBITDA for the second straight quarter, generating substantial free cash flow. We have also delivered on our plan to accelerate the return of capital to our stakeholders. Specifically, through July 29th, we have repurchased approximately 7.1 million units in the open market and 10 million units from Occidental under our $1 billion unit buyback program. Since announcing this program in February, we have repurchased $425 million of units at an average price of approximately $24.85 per unit. Additionally, through our unit buyback programs and including the Anadarko Note Exchange, we have now retired 59 million units or approximately 13.2% of the unaffected common unit count since becoming a standalone organization at the beginning of 2020. We also retired $504 million of senior notes during the quarter. Inclusive of the previously mentioned unit repurchases, we've reduced our debt to trailing 12 month adjusted EBITDA ratio below our year end leverage threshold of 3.4 times. And we have now retired just over $1.65 billion of senior notes or 20% of the aggregate debt balance since our January, 2020 senior notes issuance. As of July 29th on a per unit basis, We have now returned $6.53 through debt retirement and unit repurchases and $3.97 in distributions for a total of $10.50 returned to unit holders since our January 2020 senior notes issuance, which excludes any market-driven appreciation in our current unit price. We are very pleased with our recent efforts to accelerate the return of capital to our stakeholders through debt retirement, unit repurchases, and maintaining a strong base distribution Considering our debt to EBITDA leverage ratio is already below our year-end net leverage threshold of 3.4 times, gives us financial flexibility to evaluate other opportunities to return additional capital to our unit holders, whether through additional buybacks or an enhanced distribution. The decision to pay an enhanced distribution will partially depend on our financial performance in the second half of 2022. Additionally, to the extent we fund unit repurchases with revolver borrowings, or if we refinance those borrowings with more permanent debt capital, Those transactions would be excluded from the computation to potentially pay an enhanced distribution. Said differently, we only intend for permanent reductions in outstanding debt and equity in the aggregate to be considered in the enhanced distribution calculation. Turning to ESG, we released our annual sustainability report this week. The report details how we are working to support sustainable environments, focus on people, and operate responsibly. We are very proud of the unique culture we have built at West. Our people have worked tirelessly to focus on minimizing our environmental footprint and to work with others to find creative solutions to some of today's energy and climate challenges. This approach to advancing energy and our expertise in handling and transporting natural gas are reasons why we feel we are playing a key role in the energy transition. We will talk more about our ESG efforts later in the call. The work of our people, health of our balance sheet, and our strong operational execution all give us confidence that West is well positioned for continued success, even in light of the recent market volatility and economic concerns. Over the past few years, the midstream sector has been focused on utilizing existing capacity, prudent capital allocation, and improving the health of its respective balance sheets. This discipline has made our sector increasingly more attractive to investors. West has been a leader amongst our peers by being the first in the industry to focus on free cash flow. meaningfully de-risking the enterprise and creating value for our unit holders through the return of capital. The actions we have taken have increased our financial flexibility, and we are well positioned to capitalize on these market dynamics and to continue returning capital to our stakeholders. With that, I will now turn the call over to Kristen to discuss our second quarter financial performance. Kristen?
spk01: Thank you, Michael, and good afternoon, everyone. During the second quarter, we generated net income available to limited partners of $300 million and another record-breaking quarter of adjusted EBITDA that totals to $548 million. The sequential quarter increase in adjusted EBITDA was driven by increased adjusted gross margin partially offset by increased operation and maintenance expense. Our adjusted gross margin increased by approximately $51 million on a sequential quarter basis due to increased throughput across all three products in the Delaware Basin and increased natural gas throughput in the DJ Basin. Distributions from equity investments also increased on a sequential quarter basis, which we do not expect to reoccur in the third quarter. Additionally, our strong plant performance in the second quarter and elevated commodity prices resulted in incremental gross margin associated with the retained excess natural gas liquid volumes under our fixed recovery contracts. Our operation and maintenance expense increased by approximately $39 million on a sequential quarter basis, primarily due to increased costs associated with higher utility expenses and increased maintenance and repair. We expect O&M to further increase in the third quarter as we perform expected plant maintenance and complete a one-time $10 million field-level project to support our transformation efforts. After the third quarter, we expect O&M expense to be more in line with our second quarter results. While utility costs should decrease as prices and usage declines during the winter months, we expect to incur additional surface use fees as our produced water throughput increases. Turning to cash flow, our second quarter cash flow from operations totaled $467 million, which was a material increase compared to the prior quarter due to our strong adjusted EBITDA performance and positive working capital changes from normal course of business. Free cash flow totaled $372 million, and free cash flow after the increased first quarter distribution payment in May totaled approximately $166 million. Finally, we recently declared a second quarter cash distribution of $0.50 per unit, payable on August 12th. The distribution is equal to the prior quarter's distribution and is consistent with the previously announced annualized base distribution target of $2 per unit. Looking to the second half of the year, we expect throughput to continue to increase throughout the year and into 2023 due to continued strong producer activity levels. With that said, as throughput increases in the Delaware Basin, we expect to experience slight compression in our natural gas adjusted gross margin per NCF as we further utilize our recently executed offload arrangements. Despite the headwinds associated with expected lower distributions from equity investments and higher O&M expense, We remain comfortable with our previously announced 2022 guidance ranges for adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. Finally, our remaining capital budget focuses on the organic expansion of our existing asset base and the construction of Mentone Train 3, so we can provide flow assurance for our customers' volumes in 2023 and beyond. In the meantime, we're utilizing excess capacity in the Delaware Basin through offload arrangements that will bridge us to the expected completion of Mentone 3 in the fourth quarter of 2023. I'll now turn the call over to Craig to discuss our operational performance. Craig?
spk03: Thank you, Kristen. On a sequential quarter basis, natural gas throughput increased by 5%. This increase was primarily driven by increased volumes in the Delaware Basin and increased volumes in the DJ Basin, attributable to new processing onload volumes. We also saw an increase in natural gas throughput from our equity investments. Our crude oil and natural gas liquids throughput decreased by 1% compared to the prior quarter. Expected declines in the DJ basin and reduced liquids throughput from our equity investments were partially offset by increased throughput in the Delaware basin. Produced water throughput increased by 15% compared to the prior quarter due to increased volumes at the DVM water system. Our per MCF adjusted gross margin for our natural gas assets increased by 2 cents compared to the prior quarter. primarily due to changes in our contract mix and increased throughput at our West Texas complex, which has a higher per MCF margin as compared to our other natural gas assets. In addition, continued strong plant performance coupled with higher commodity prices benefited our margin in the second quarter. Our per barrel adjusted gross margin for our crude oil and natural gas liquids assets increased by 13 cents compared to the prior quarter. This was primarily driven by two factors. increased throughput at the DBM oil system, which has a higher per barrel margin as compared to our other crude oil and NGO assets, and higher distributions despite lower throughput from equity investments. Our per barrel adjusted gross margin for our produced water assets decreased by 10 cents compared to the prior quarter, primarily due to decreased efficiency fees and changes in our contract mix as throughput increased. We expect that the anticipated increase in throughput in the Delaware Basin in the back half of the year will be partially offset by expected volume declines in the DJ Basin. Regardless, we're maintaining our previous 2022 throughput exit rate expectations of mid single digit percentage growth in natural gas volumes, low single digit growth in crude oil and NGL volumes, and low 20s percentage growth in produced water volumes. In the Delaware, we expect 202 wells to come online in the basin during the second half of this year, which is approximately 65% of the total 2022 expected well count. In the DJ, we expect our natural gas decline rate to slow down as we enter into 2023 as legacy wells enter a more mature phase of the production type curve. Third-party onload volumes continue to flow onto our system and through continued activity in the Watkins area of the basin. From an oil standpoint, we would expect the current decline rates to continue until additional rigs return to the acreage we service. We are also encouraged by some positive momentum in the permitting process with the COGCC. Several permits that contain multiple pad sites each in Weld County have recently been approved, and it appears that producer optimism is growing as they gain clarity on the permit approval process. Finally, from a supply chain and inflation standpoint, prices for most parts and services remain relatively consistent for those in the prior quarter. This year we will benefit from pre-ordering a large portion of the steel pipe needed for organic expansion and well connects, but we have seen price increases for steel and other major items such as chemicals and lubricants. Despite these recent challenges, we continue to actively manage our supply chains and inflationary cost pressures, all of which were already contemplated in our revised 2022 guidance from last quarter. I'll now turn the call back over to Michael. Thanks, Greg.
spk04: As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we released our annual sustainability report this week. I will highlight a few of our achievements here, but I encourage you to take some time to read the report. We are very proud of our accomplishments addressing ESG issues since becoming a standalone organization. This year, these achievements include a reduction in scope one and two gross GHG in 2020, installation of new technologies to enhance leak detection efforts, further reduce emissions and expand electrical compression in the field. The expansion of our diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, which include 56% of our senior leadership and 30% of other managers who are female or racial or ethnic minorities and an extremely successful first year of our volunteer program, which saw 62% of our employees volunteer in the community and donations to nearly 200 causes. For such a young organization, the heart of our people is such an awesome quality of West, one of which I'm personally most proud. Thank you to all of our dedicated employees who have played such an integral role in reducing emissions and giving back to the community. Our track record and under three years of operating as a standalone organization is further evidence of our commitment to reducing our overall carbon footprint and developing a great culture at West. We look forward to building on this momentum in the years ahead as we continue to advance energy by enhancing the sustainability of our operations. To recap, we're very confident that West is well positioned to service the growing needs of our customers. We're pleased with the sustainability of our operations thus far, as well as our financial track record of prudent capital allocation, operational efficiency, and strong returns to unit holders. I'm also proud to say that West has been a leader in returning capital to stakeholders amongst our publicly traded midstream peers. West maintains one of the lowest debt to EBITDA leverage ratios and continues to be a leader in proportional debt reduction and total units repurchased since early 2020 relative to our publicly traded midstream peers. As all of our peer group reports second quarter earnings, we will post an updated slide deck, which we believe will continue to demonstrate West's comparative leadership in these regards. Thanks to the hard work of our employees and contractors, our operational and financial performance through the first half of the year has been excellent. And we look forward to what's ahead in the second half of 2022. With that, we'll open the line for questions.
spk05: At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. Pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Gabe Marine. Your line is open.
spk06: Hey, good afternoon, everyone. I got a phone person. I have a question just in terms of the unit repurchases. It seems like you were pretty aggressive and opportunistic around things when the unit price pulled back here in the last couple of weeks. Can you just talk about kind of, I guess, what you feel like your gating factor is at this point? I think you've talked about 3.4 being your year-end leverage target. And you're basically close to 3.2 on an LTN basis right now. I just want to confirm. that you still feel you're going to be opportunistic for the rest of the year, considering kind of where your leverage targets are right now when it comes to unit product?
spk04: Thanks for the question, Gabe. Yes, we definitely will continue to utilize that program as we see opportunities to do so. You know, again, as we think about the leverage target as it relates to an enhanced distribution program, The construct for that was whether or not we had other opportunities to utilize that excess free cash flow and to try and do that in a prudent way. We still have a half a billion dollars left or a little over a half a billion dollars left in the buyback program. And if there's opportunities to do that, then we will intentionally utilize the buyback program in order to repurchase units, you know, opportunistically in that regard. And we'd certainly like to be in a place to be able to pay an enhanced distribution, but if there are other opportunities, including other opportunities to buy back additional units, then we'll continue to utilize that program for sure.
spk06: Thanks, Michael. And then maybe I can ask a follow-up to that. I'm just curious to what extent, you know, getting that one extra notch to get to investment grade is really is a factor in terms of the unit buybacks or not. I know a little bit. Getting to IG is quite a bit out of your control, but I'm just curious from a capital return standpoint how you balance those things.
spk04: Yeah, as it relates to leverage, we're certainly, from a metric standpoint, well within the ranges that have been established from the agencies in order to be in investment-grade territory, with, frankly, a fair amount of leeway relative to the metrics provided. And so, you know, we would still have a comfort level to be able to do that from a rating agency perspective. as you noted, the constraint from that standpoint isn't necessarily the metrics that we're currently working under. Kristen, if there's anything else to add there.
spk01: No, I think just in general, the conversations we've had with the rating agencies have been really positive of where we put our balance sheet. I don't see anything changing in that regard either.
spk06: Great. And then maybe, Kristen, if I can follow up just on some of your O&M commentary, just trying to understand here exactly what is seasonal versus structural versus maybe inflationary, if that all makes sense. So maybe you can just kind of recap what you're seeing on O&M. It sounds like it's going a little bit higher, but it's scaling back also a little bit in Q2 and beyond.
spk01: That's right. So just to take a step back, our Q1 O&M was a little bit lower. There is some seasonality on the utility side. We used more from a utility perspective during the summer months. We've also seen increased pricing on the utility side, so that's coming out in the second quarter, and we expect that to continue into the third quarter as well. The second quarter is probably a better run rate going forward, with the exception that in the third quarter we're expecting to spend around $10 million on a field-level project that's working with our transformation efforts. allowing us to be more efficient and proactive on the maintenance and repair side. So expect a little bit of an uptick in the third quarter and then returning back to the second quarter level when we get into Q4. Great.
spk06: Thank you.
spk05: Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy tonight. Your line is open.
spk09: Hi. Good afternoon. Hey, Jeremy, how are you? Good, good. Just wanted to slice the buyback question slightly differently, if I could. And I was just wondering, when you guys think about unit repurchases, is it more driven by kind of unit price at a point in time or balance sheet capacity or other considerations such as trying to maximize or hit a certain level of free cash flow return to unit holders?
spk04: Jeremy, all of those factors come into consideration as we execute on the buyback program. Again, so when we talk about opportunistic, those are definitely many of the factors that are under consideration. Are we seeing weakness out there and therefore seeing an opportunity to be able to repurchase You know, balance sheet, free cash flow, and ability to potentially pay and enhance distribution, all of those certainly are factors. And we definitely saw in the second and into the third quarter a meaningful opportunity in that regard to be able to utilize that program.
spk09: Got it. Thanks for that. And then just wanted to touch base on the CCS side, and Oxy obviously has big plans there. And just wondering your thoughts if Aira, you know, kind of changes things a bit. And is there a role for Wes to play here alongside Oxy in these initiatives?
spk04: Yeah, it's a great question. We have frequent and active dialogue with Oxy with regards to opportunities there. The legislation that's currently being proposed obviously does provide incremental opportunities for everyone out there. And I'd argue that Oxy is clearly a leader in that regard. And so our close relationship with them has resulted in frequent and active dialogue around ways that Wes would be able to participate.
spk09: Got it. That's helpful. I'll leave it there. Thanks. Thanks, Jeremy.
spk05: Your next question comes from the line of Neil Mitra. Your line is open.
spk08: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just wanted to bridge the guidance raise given on the last quarter and where we are now, so maybe what's changed. Regarding O&M versus when you put out the guidance in Q1, what was expected and what was unexpected going forward, you know, structural versus inflation. And then second, it was mentioned that the G&P rates will decline going forward as you use offtake agreements. Was that anticipated, and how long will that persist? Will it be until Mentone 3 comes online?
spk01: Yeah, I saw a couple of pieces in there. When we announced the revised guidance last quarter, it took into account everything that you're seeing in Q2, and then it's still, we're maintaining that right now. The GMP rates that you're discussing and the impact to the gross margin per unit, that's as expected and was part of that revised guidance and still holds true today. The O&M expense and the uptake that we were seeing, that was also part of that and expected as well. So I think most of what we were expecting from an inflation standpoint, from just activity standpoint, spending standpoint, is right in line. when we're seeing actuals right now and when we're looking into the second half of 2022. Okay, great.
spk08: And then as a follow-up, just with the activity from the EMPs and the Delaware and the announcements of new processing capacity by your peers, Are you looking past Mentone 3, and when do you think you would need a new processing plant beyond that, given just the increasing volumes in the Delaware? And then on the other side, how do you see DJ volumes trending over the next year or so?
spk04: Yeah, so we are absolutely constantly monitoring, you know, growth in the near-term, medium-term, and long-term to assess whether or not there's additional capacity necessary from our standpoint. You know, that went into consideration of authorizing the incremental capacity at MedZone. Last quarter, it's been, frankly, continues to be just as positive, if not stronger, in terms of expectations going forward. I probably, you know, keyed on the announcement that Oxy mentioned yesterday with regards to the Echo Patrol JV that will be transitioning onto West Acreage. that will likely increase activity levels in a pretty meaningful way for us going into 2023 and beyond. And so as we take a look at our capacity constraints, all those factors we'll continue to take into consideration as we look at potential incremental capacity. But as it sits right now, there's nothing that we look at and see would be required as we sit here today. Craig, I don't know if you want to reiterate the commentary on DJ as it relates to bonds or anything to add there on the capacity side.
spk03: Yeah, I mean, we obviously continue to have more than sufficient capacity in the DJ. We've done a really good job, I think, at bringing additional gas onto the system, both from producers as well as from some of our peers, and we'll continue to look for those opportunities. You know, I As to the trajectory of the volumes in the DJ, I think we're getting to a point here pretty quickly where the rate of decline of those volumes is going to start to flatten out a lot more than where it's been, just based on where the base production is on the type curves up there. And so we see that starting to slow down in terms of the rate of decline going forward, but still be on decline consistently. and, you know, continue to look for opportunities up there in the DJ. But nothing further to add to Michael's comments on the Delaware. I think that summed it up well.
spk08: Okay, great. Thank you very much.
spk05: Your next question comes from the line of Michael Kusamana. Your line is open.
spk07: Hi, good afternoon, everyone. How much of your margin goes through the cost of service adjustments that you're in? Maybe hoping you can frame out either by basin or by commodity. We've gotten feedback where some investors assume all of your fee goes through that adjustment, and I think you've broken it out somewhat before in the past.
spk04: yeah so we actually talked about the percentage of our contracts that are covered by by either cost of service or minimum volume commitments and it's around the 81% gas, 96% oil, and 100% water that at least has some coverage from that perspective. We don't actually break out what proportion of that is cost of service versus fixed fee or minimum bond commitment. But to be very clear, there is most definitely a portion of that that is fixed fee oriented, and not all is cost of service.
spk07: Got it. Okay. And does it depend by commodity stream as well, or is it across all three where you maybe reset rates every year?
spk04: We do have cost-of-service contracts on all three commodities, gas, oil, and water. Again, different proportions of each of those. But there are cost-of-service elements on all three commodities.
spk07: Okay. And then to follow up on that, I believe into this year, the DJ rates had some downward pressure because the expectation was a steep volume ramp that, you know, may not materialize with some of the permit issues that Oxy has been having. So I guess I'm wondering, is it wrong to think that DJ rates could possibly improve year over year with that not materializing?
spk04: It's too early to tell at this stage. It's a great question, but it's too early to tell what the potential impact on rates are going to be. As Craig mentioned in his prepared remarks, we're starting to feel a little bit more optimistic as it relates to activity levels on the DJ side as more producers have continued to work through that process and gotten a little bit more familiar with the needs necessary in order to achieve permits. And so a lot of that obviously will depend on, you know, what our rates will be, expectation of when and at what time and to what extent volumes would come through the system out in the DJ.
spk07: Okay. Got it. That's all for me. Appreciate the help. Thanks, Michael.
spk05: There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Ure, I turn the call back over to you.
spk04: Thank you, everyone, for joining. Look forward to the future. Appreciate your time.
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