Williams Companies, Inc. (The)

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Williams First Quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would now like to turn the call over to Danilo Giovanni, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Antoine, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us and for your interest in the Williams Company. and our Chief Financial Officer, John Porter, who we'll speak to this morning. Also joining us on the call today are Larry Larson, our Chief Operating Officer, and Rob Wingo, our Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategic Development. In our presentation materials, you'll find a disclaimer related to forward-looking savings. This disclaimer is important and integral to our remarks, and you should review it. Also included in the presentation materials are non-GAAP measures that we would practice on generally accepted accounting principles, And these reconciliation schedules appear at the back of today's presentation materials. So with that, I'll turn it over to Chad.

Thanks, Danilo. And thank you all for joining us today. We're off to a great start in 2026. Our teams delivered another quarter of growth. We advanced our critical pipe and power projects in execution. And we commercialized three new major projects and upsized a fourth. First quarter earnings per share grew by 22%. and adjusted EBITDA grew 13% to a record $2.25 billion. Our momentum continues to build, demonstrating the scalability of our strategy, the ongoing strength of our assets, and the growing contribution from our expansion projects. Our teams continue to execute high-return expansions at a steady pace while adding new projects to our robust backlog, and during the quarter, we made consistent progress across our projects and executions. Most notably, we placed the Naughton Coal Conversion Project into service, a critical milestone that again demonstrates how we help customers transition to cleaner burning natural gas while maintaining affordability and grid reliability. We also kicked off construction on NETSE, the Northeast Supply Enhancement Project, and SESI, the Southeast Supply Enhancement Project. Moving these large-scale pipeline projects into the construction phase is a testament to our team's ability to navigate complex permitting to deliver the infrastructure our country so desperately needs. I'm also excited to report that we have now placed on foundation all of the turbines at our Socrates Plato South location. In addition, we've completed construction on the first phase of the Aristotle pipeline, which will serve as a natural gas energy artery for several of our power innovation projects in Ohio, including Socrates. And we aren't slowing down. We continue to sign new deals at attractive multiples that will drive growth through the end of the decade and beyond and help us achieve the 10 plus percent earnings CAGR we set out at Analyst Day. Based on the strong start to the year and our visibility into the remainder of the year, we are currently pointing toward the upper half of our full year EBITDA guidance, as John will detail shortly. Looking forward, we continue to find new ways to solve the energy challenges of today, including the massive power needs of next-generation data centers. Today, we're announcing three new major projects that further advance our strategy. The first project, NEO, is our fifth commercialized behind-the-meter power innovation project with a high-quality hyperscaler counterpart. NEO is the largest power project Williams has announced to date, consisting of 682 megawatts of installed capacity, a 12-and-a-half-year contract, and an in-service date in the second half of 2028. Like our other power innovation projects, we expect to execute NEO at an attractive five times build multiple, and the project is expected to represent an investment of approximately $2.3 billion. Our second new project is Atlas. which consists of a gas infrastructure agreement to provide up to 164 million cubic feet per day of pipeline capacity to serve a large investment-grade customer data center in the Northeast. This project has a 13-year term, and we expect it to be in service by the end of this year. While relatively modest in CapEx, Atlas demonstrates our ability to deliver an efficient natural gas solution generation. Our third new project is Silver Spur, which is a significant expansion of our Northwest Pipeline system and includes the installation of compression and the construction of a 90-mile transmission pipeline into the Idaho market that will add 275 million cubic feet per day of natural gas pipeline capacity. Silver Spur represents the first phase of our previously discussed Rockies Columbia Connector project and is one of the first major expansions of pipeline infrastructure in the Pacific Northwest in over two decades. We are targeting an in-service date of early 2030 for Silver Spur. Beyond the three new major projects, we are also announcing an upsizing of the Transco Power Express project in response to the continually growing need for natural gas to power data centers and market growth in Virginia. With the addition of a new customer and the upsizing of an existing commitment Power Express has been increased to 750 million cubic feet per day of new transco capacity that is scheduled to come online in 2030. And as we continue to see very strong demand for natural gas translating into new projects and a growing backlog, we are also seeing the supply response across our footprint. In the first quarter alone, we sanctioned roughly 700 million cubic feet per day of new expansion projects across our gathering and processing portfolio. Collectively, the first quarter results further highlight our position at the intersection of incredible potential and the energy required to achieve it. By achieving another quarter of record results while commercializing and progressing key growth projects, the strategic direction is clear. Natural gas demand is rising, our contracted project backlog is growing, and we are staying laser focused on execution and value creation. That combination will continue to drive the higher earnings and cash flow that will deliver strong long-term return for our shareholders. And with that, I'll now turn it over to John for a deeper dive into the financials.