8/10/2023

speaker
Lara
Conference Operator

Good morning. My name is Lara, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Kiara Court's second quarter 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, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, followed by the number two. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Calvin Locke, Manager of Investor Relations. You may go ahead, sir.

speaker
Calvin Locke
Manager of Investor Relations

Thank you and good morning. Joining me today will be Dean Settiguchi, President and CEO, Eileen Maricar, Senior Vice President and CFO, Jamie Urquhart, Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, and Jared Bistilny, Senior Vice President, Operations and Engineering. We will begin with some prepared remarks from Dean and Eileen, after which we will open the call to questions. I would like to remind listeners that some of the comments and answers that we will give you today relate to future events. These forward-looking statements are given as of today's date and reflect events or outcomes that management currently expects. In addition, we will refer to some non-GAAP financial measures. For additional information on non-GAAP measures and forward-looking statements, please refer to Kiara's public filings available on CDAR and on our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dean.

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

Thanks, Calvin, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to announce that our Board of Directors have approved a 4.2% dividend increase, returning Kiara to its long history of sustainable dividend growth. The increase is supported by the growth of Kiera's fee-for-service business segments. Over the last five years, we've been investing significantly to create a fully integrated service offering from the Montney and Duvernay place through to our core liquids infrastructure in Edmonton and Fort Saskatchewan. These strategic investments continue to deliver volume and cash flow growth. We remain on track to reach our targeted annual 6-7% fee-for-service EBITDA growth out to 2025. A liquid infrastructure segment delivered 21% year over year growth, reaching a new quarterly record of 119 million. CAPS is now fully in service with the second of two pipelines shipping its first volumes in June. CAPS integrates our value chain, making us more competitive and enhances our ability to track new volumes. Our platform offers customers a much needed competitive alternative from wellhead to end market. In our GMP segment, we delivered 84 million in realized margin. This result was achieved despite the impact of Alberta's wildfires. Again, we'd like to thank all emergency responders and care personnel who ensure that everyone remains safe and that our assets were largely unimpacted. remains strong for our G&P business. We foresee continued filling of available capacity, particularly at Wapiti and Simonette, as producer activity ramps up. The expansion of the Pipestone gas plant is on track for completion in the first quarter of 2024. Our G&P customers are in a strong financial position and have multi-year growth plans. This is driving continued growth of the segment while at the same time increasing the length of contracts and improving cash flow stability. Our marketing segment had another strong quarter supported by the strength of our iso-octane and con-state businesses. This segment delivered $134 million of realized margin in the quarter and $251 million year-to-date. We're increasing our 2023 guidance for this segment to range between $380 to $410 million of realized margin. With the major investments of the last five years behind us, we expect growth spending to be lower going forward. This means we'll have more free cash flow to allocate. Our capital allocation priorities are unchanged. They're first to ensure financial strength and then the balance between increasing returns to shareholders and disciplined capital investments. Our debt leverage metrics are well within our targeted range. and now we increased our dividend. In terms of future growth investments, they will be primarily focused on projects that leverage and enhance our existing core asset position in Western Canada. This could include a de-bottleneck of existing FRAC, a new FRAC expansion, and a potential CAPS Zone 4 extension. Any incremental investments need to generate a strong return underpinned by long-term contracts. I'll now turn it over to Eileen to provide an update on CURE's financial performance for the quarter.

speaker
Eileen Maricar
Senior Vice President and CFO

Thanks, Dean. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $293 million compared to $316 million for the same period last year. Distributable cash flow was $207 million or $0.90 per share compared to $209 million or $0.94 per share for the same period in 2022. Net earnings were $159 million compared to $173 million for the same period last year. These results were driven by record performance from our liquids infrastructure segment and the third best ever quarterly marketing segment margin. CARE continues to maintain a strong financial position, ending the quarter with net debt to adjusted EBITDA at 2.6 times, at the lower end of our targeted range of 2.5 to 3 times. Moving to our guidance for 2023. As Dean mentioned, we now expect our marketing segment to contribute between $380 million and $410 million of realized margin in 2023. This is up from our previous guidance of $330 million to $370 million. The revised guidance takes into account financial hedges currently in place and assumes AEF runs at capacity. There are no significant logistics for transportation curtailments and current forward commodity pricing for any unhedged volumes for the remainder of the year. Growth capital guidance remains unchanged at between $200 million to $240 million. Maintenance capital guidance is now expected to be between $95 million and $105 million, up from the previous range of $75 million to $85 million. About half the increase is due to the completion of work that was already prepaid. The balance of increase includes additional maintenance costs, the Pipestone Gas Plant, which is expected to be recovered through increased future revenue. Cash tax expense is expected to be new. I'll turn it back to Steve.

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

Thanks, Eileen. Macro outlook for our business environment remains very positive. Canada's energy resources will be essential in meeting the world's growing energy demand. Our basin continues to grow and set new records for both natural gas and crude oil production. LNG Canada and the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion will unlock future growth. We're excited to contribute to this growth by being an essential infrastructure service provider. On behalf of CIRA's board of directors and management team, I want to thank our employees, contractors, Indigenous rights holders, and other stakeholders for the continued support. With that, I'll turn it back to the operator for Q&A.

speaker
Lara
Conference Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the number one on your touchstone phone. Again, that's star followed by the number one. If you would like to withdraw your request, please press star followed by the number two. Your first question comes from the line of Rob Hope from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

speaker
Rob Hope
Analyst, Scotiabank

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. First off, I want to maybe get a little bit of an update on CAPS. How have volumes ramped relative to your kind of base expectations, just given – I guess it's early days, but just given some dynamics out in the basin, as well as now that the pipeline is in service, have – Have discussions with customers accelerated? Have any additional contracts been signed?

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

Good morning, Rob. It's Dean Setaguchi. And glad you're participating here in our call in the middle of August. So hopefully I didn't defer your vacation. Listen, it's a great question that you have on caps, and I would have expected that. First of all, we're very pleased that the pipeline is fully in service with the second pipeline, again, delivering volumes in June. So, again, it's like any asset when you bring it up. Everything doesn't just turn on all at once. But I would say that that process works very, very smoothly. We work very closely with our customers. And now that it's in service, and certainly there's a lot more visibility to growth in the basin, We have a lot of great discussions with our producers. And, again, you know, I want to emphasize that, you know, first of all, we have a fully integrated system now, so we can offer that bundled service. Again, I always like to use an analogy of your Internet cable and cell phone and the security, home security provider. I'd say almost everybody uses a bundled service because it's more efficient. And, obviously, you know, our bundle package is the same way. So I think that's a great advantage. What we're seeing is that our volumes are a little bit ahead of where we would have expected to start up. But again, it's still early days yet. We've always guided to the market that this would be a slow ramp up and we still expect that. But as of where we are today, we're a bit ahead of schedule. But I would reiterate that as a final note that we did guide six to 7% fee-for-service EBITDA growth out to 2025. A lot of that is coming from our GMP business and filling our white space there. But part of it as well is caps and the caps wrap up to 2025. The great thing about caps is that, especially with the base and growth that we're seeing, we expected to continue to grow in terms of volumes and cash flow right through the end of the decade.

speaker
Rob Hope
Analyst, Scotiabank

All right. Appreciate that. And then as a follow-up, just take I want to dive a little bit deeper into the comments you made on capital allocation, specifically with how you'll take a look at outperformance in marketing. So, you know, good to see another sustainable or a sustainable dividend increase. But when you take a look at moving forward, how do you balance dividend increases versus growth capital? And in an environment where you can see outside marketing margins like 2023, You know, could you look to return those to shareholders via buybacks?

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

Yeah, listen, that's a great question. And before I turn that over to Eileen, I just say that we're very pleased with the position that we're in today. You know, we have, we've undergone a number of years of very significant capital for the last, you know, five, six years. And we built a very strong Montney position, fully integrated Montney position over that period of time. And we have those expenditures behind us. We have a very strong balance sheet and we have growing cash flows. So that puts us in a great spot where now we have options as to where we allocate capital to add the most value for our investors. But with that, I'll turn it over to Eileen.

speaker
Eileen Maricar
Senior Vice President and CFO

Hi, Rob. Yeah, that is a great question. I think it is important to take it back to our overall priorities. You know, our first priority will always be to maintain our balance sheet strength and we're certainly there today. For this year, we are prioritizing paying down short-term debt from the higher marketing contribution. But beyond the balance sheet, our objective really is to grow distributable cash flow on a per share basis so that we can continue to grow the dividend. And this can really be achieved in two ways. One, buying back shares or reinvesting in the business. As we look out to next year, it will be a competition for capital between these two options. Our preference would be to do smaller size but impactful growth projects that meet our investment criteria. And really by small, I mean smaller relative to the large-scale projects that we've undertaken over the past few years.

speaker
Rob

Thank you.

speaker
Lara
Conference Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Robert Kwan from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

speaker
Robert Kwan
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Great. Thank you. If I can maybe just continue on the capital allocation topic. And Eileen, clearly you're prioritizing the balance sheet. I'm just kind of wondering, you know, the low debt diva does partly a function here of strong marketing. So do you introduce a third priority and even just the fiscal dividend of reducing leverage? Like how are you looking at that leverage range? Is it on the long-term marketing number? Are you, you know, even though you have the long-term number, are you kind of just planning for something that's closer to what you're doing? Because the other way you can grow GCF for shares is to just continue to repay debt and save the interest as well.

speaker
Eileen Maricar
Senior Vice President and CFO

Thanks, Robert. Yeah, that's a great question. And when we plan leverage, I mean, that two and a half to three times is very conservative and And certainly through various cycles, it has protected us from taking any drastic measures like, for example, cutting the dividend during COVID. We never had to do that. So we're very, very much, you know, we want to stick to those principles. And when it comes to those marketing cash flows, you're absolutely right. We don't take into account nor plan for outsized marketing as we think about leverage going forward. We're really more to that base marketing guidance.

speaker
Robert Kwan
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Okay, so is the bias then whether you can get the growth cash excess raised, but is the bias into 2024 to maybe continue to repay debt versus direct to share buybacks?

speaker
Eileen Maricar
Senior Vice President and CFO

I think this year, like I said, you know, that it really is to repay, use those strong marketing cash flows to reduce our short-term debt. In terms of, you know, the rest of our debt profile, we don't have anything material that's coming due for the next, you know, until 2025. And so as we look at next year, it is, if we have some great projects or if it's returning cash through buybacks, we will look at both options going into next year.

speaker
Robert Kwan
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Okay, that's great. If I can just finish with a couple of questions here on caps. The first is, are you able to disclose what the actual contribution was in the quarter and also confirmed that what was booked into liquids infrastructure was all third party, um, margin. The second is just, um, you know, with your new partner here, has there been anything just stone peak, you know, having a fresh set of eyes, uh, on caps, whether it's the contracting or, or expansion potential that you've been able to get out of the partnership so far.

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

Maybe, uh, Thanks for the questions, Robert. You know, maybe just the last question with our new partner, they've been really great to work with. They're very engaged, and our team has worked, Jamie's team has worked very closely with them. So, yes, we think that they've been very positive in terms of attracting new business. So, you know, we're going to continue to build that relationship, and we're very aligned in terms of what we want to accomplish with this pipeline. So that's all been great. You know, your first question, oh, disclosing amount. Yeah, we're not going to disclose the amount of how much caps contributed in the second quarter. I would say it was pretty modest just because, again, you know, it came on middle of the sort of mid-quarter. But also, you know, there's a wrap-up profile. Like each customer sort of come on sequentially. So it wasn't like everything came on at once, the volumes that we do have. So I would say it was modest in the second quarter.

speaker
Robert Kwan
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Okay. And was it all third-party revenue or are you booking inter-corporate as well?

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

Yes, third-party. Third-party. Okay. And as you know, we have a note. I can't remember off the top of my head of any sort of inter-company revenue allocations, but I can confirm it was third party revenue in the second quarter. That's great. Thank you.

speaker
Lara
Conference Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Robert Cattelier from CIDC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

speaker
Robert Cattelier
Analyst, CIDC Capital Markets

Hey, I'd have some interest in knowing what the contribution is and also the schedule of the ramp up over the next couple of years, but looks like that might not be forthcoming today. So Maybe, Dean, you can talk about the actual physical operating performance of the asset since it's been placed into service. And second, you know, just the zone four, where you stand with that today and what's your vision for a reasonable timeline for making a decision there?

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

Yeah, thanks for the question, Rob. Great to get the three Rob questions right off the bat in sequence. You know what, you know, first of all, just maybe add more color to the ramp of caps is that obviously a lot of the discussions we have with customers is very commercially sensitive. So we have to be mindful of that. There are confidentiality provisions put in place and, you know, it will update at the right time when it's, when it's good for our shareholders, but also respecting the confidentiality and sensitivity of those discussions. With respect to Zone 4, you know what, we remain optimistic on Zone 4, you know, and especially as, you know, we see Canada LNG, it's not that far away now. And once that gets put into service, that's going to be another couple of BCF of demand. And we certainly see our base in growing to fulfill that demand. So I think that's going to be great for our whole NGL value chain. So with that, some of that's going to be in B.C. We've obviously seen a lot of progress with the Blueberry First Nations Group and also the Treaty 8. So with that, there's more overall optimism in B.C. And so we continue to have a lot of engaging discussions with customers in Zone 4 in Alberta and also into B.C., to track their volumes right through the caps and then to Fort Saskatchewan. So timing on that, you know, I think that we would probably expect more in the first half of next year. But we do, you know, we do have really great conversations on that perspective. And again, you know, the whole rationale for, you know, why producers are really interested is, A, they want to have a competitive alternative. They're investing in billions of dollars along that mountain fairway. And, you know, from a reliability perspective, it's nice to have two systems to get your volumes into Fort Saskatchewan where the market hub is. And second of all, commercially, it's always nice to have, you know, two parties that you can negotiate with for your service. So, you know, we're happy to be that competitive alternative. And I'd also maybe say the third point is that we have a brand new pipe So from a reliability perspective, we think we will have really stellar run performance over the next several years. Maybe just on the operating performance on CAPS, I'll turn that over to Jared here. But I do commend the group for the great job they did in commissioning and bringing that project out there. It went as seamless as one could hope for.

speaker
Jared Bistilny
Senior Vice President, Operations and Engineering

Yeah, good morning, Robert. It's Jared here. Yeah, we're really pleased with how that project came online and ramped up. And, you know, as Dean described, it was really a staged approach with the various customers and really on both lines rather than kind of one shot at a time. And really pleased with how our ops and business teams worked with the customers and worked with each other to really bring all those up smoothly. And we've been very pleased with the operational performance of that line so far. So, you know, it's allowed us to be a bit ahead of volumes, as you heard, but it's early days in that ramp up and that operational performance is really key for us in giving our existing customers confidence and or ability to attract new customers. And again, really, really pleased out of the gate.

speaker
Robert Cattelier
Analyst, CIDC Capital Markets

Okay. Thanks for that answer. I have a similar question on frack capacity. It looks like, you know, you're pretty high in terms of your utilization and that's not uncommon in the industry right now. So it leads me to believe that maybe the deep bottlenecking is, although it's capital efficient. I'm just curious if it's really enough capacity. And related to that, I'm curious about your appetite for being in the market for a new frack, more significant expansion at the same time that Amina is in the market with theirs.

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, obviously frack capacity is tight. And when you look at the forecast for nat gas volume growth in the basin over the next three or four years, it's very significant. And with that, we're going to see a lot more liquids that get stripped out of the gas stream as well. So we think that's a great opportunity for our frack complex at KFS. You know, again, we're very pleased that we're able to add capacity in a very tight market with our acquisition, 21% acquisition of interest at KFS earlier this year. So that helps us out. You're right. I mean, we've been telling everyone that we've certainly been doing the engineering on a D bottleneck, which is, you know, I think likely going to be a great opportunity for us. But we certainly have our eyes set on a potential frack expansion in the future as well, because more capacity will be required. And you know what, we provide a great service out of our KFS site. It's very, very well connected from a pipe perspective and for all commodities, but also for rail and truck egress as well. Jamie, is there anything else you wanted to add on that?

speaker
Jamie Urquhart
Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer

Yeah, Dean, I think you hit the high points. I think the only thing I'd add as well is that, you know, the opportunity exists and that we're making really good progress on actually recontrasting our existing FRAC as well. So you made note that we've stepped into the other 21% at KFS, but, you know, the opportunity is now to be able to recontract and extend existing agreements out into the future. And that's been our first focus. We're being very happy with the success on that front. And then, as Dean alluded to, we're looking at opportunities to either de-bottleneck or expand on our site.

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

I think, I mean, obviously with the fully integrated system out of the Montney with caps in place, we're looking for those full bundled package deals where, you know, we can offer GMP services, you know, NGL transportation, fractionation, and marketing services. So trying to provide that full service, and obviously that helps boost our corporate profits overall.

speaker
Robert Cattelier
Analyst, CIDC Capital Markets

Okay, last question for me is related. You know, I'm happy to see the 2023 marketing guidance increase, but as you've heard me say before, I've been expecting directionally a long-term increase at some point. Is frack capacity the bottleneck for for being able to do that? Or is there something else you need to see? To take a second look at the long term marketing guidance? Thank you.

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

Yeah, I mean, that's a great question regarding our marketing guidance. Obviously, we have a very good track record with our with our marketing business. And, and, you know, I do want to emphasize that our marketing business is really leveraging off of the physical assets that we own and the volumes that we have in our system. So it's a way to really maximize profitability across our entire value chain. But maybe with respect to the guidance and a potential increase, I'll turn that over to Eileen.

speaker
Eileen Maricar
Senior Vice President and CFO

Sure. Thanks, Robert. Yes, I know this is a great question because we have consistently outperformed that guidance. Maybe just a little context on the base guidance. It's meant to represent a level of contribution that we have a high degree of achieving within certain normal or typical assumptions. So, And those are laid out in the MD&A. But the record margins that we saw last year and the increase in guidance this year is largely driven by exceptionally strong iso-octane premiums that cannot be hedged, as well as RBOC pricing that's well above the five-year average. But that said, we do plan to revisit our base guidance later this year in light of having access to more volumes now that CAPS is online, and with the additional FRAC capacity that we just acquired. So, more to come on this.

speaker
Robert Cattelier
Analyst, CIDC Capital Markets

Okay. Thanks, everyone. Thank you.

speaker
Lara
Conference Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Linda Evagalis from TD Securities. Please go ahead.

speaker
Linda Evagalis
Analyst, TD Securities

Thank you. Recognizing that it's a board decision on a dividend increase, Beyond your 50% to 70% payout ratio guardrails, how might we think of the frequency and growth rate of future dividend increases? Would kind of the default be typically once a year, or maybe prospectively we might see as new accretive assets, whether they're built or acquired, come in and contribute maybe a bit more of a bump then?

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

Good morning, Linda, and great question on the dividend. First of all, I want to reiterate that we're very pleased to return to dividend growth again. And you would know as well as anybody that that's really the legacy of our company. We started out as a trust 20 years ago. This is our 20th year as a public company. And we've distributed and dividend out a lot of money over that period of time. we took a bit of a hiatus after 2019. And part of that was we hit the COVID period, but we also had a heavy capital spend with caps. And so, but I do want to reiterate though, during that time, we shut off our drip. So we actually self-funded caps during that period of time. We didn't increase our dividend, but you know, now the caps is behind us. We're able to do that now. And we've never had a, We've never reduced our dividends, so anytime we increase our dividend, it's got to be sustainable. But let me just turn it over to Eileen, and she can maybe speak about our philosophy on dividends going forward.

speaker
Eileen Maricar
Senior Vice President and CFO

Thanks, Dean. Yeah, Linda, it's really tied to growing that distributable cash flow on a per share basis. So EBITDA, but after taking into account interest taxes and maintenance expenses, and it has to be supported by growth in our fee-for-service business. So we're on track. to achieve that 6% to 7% EBITDA growth out to 2025 that comes from our fee-for-service business. And that does support then growth in a DCF per share. But ultimately the timing and the amount of future increases will be a board decision. But that's the framework that we use.

speaker
Linda Evagalis
Analyst, TD Securities

Okay, thank you. And just as a follow-up, the 6% to 7% growth, what is, I mean, I'm assuming it's a high confidence that you can achieve that. But what element of that, if any, might be coming from future capital investments, even if they're small bolt-on projects versus the white space that you already have or the projects that are under construction?

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

Yeah, that's a great question. The great thing is that most of that 6% to 7% increase is capital that has already been invested already and we've spent the money. So it's really our GNP business and filling up white space there. There is some capital associated with the Pipestone expansion. So that's in the $50 to $60 million range, but we've disclosed that. Some of that is tied to our acquisition, the 21% acquisition of KFS. And then obviously we see contribution from our CAPS pipeline that's going to wrap up over time. And as I said, you know, that's going to contribute to our EBITDA growth well into the end of the decade. So that will continue to grow. So, you know, we'll enhance that. I mean, obviously, new projects will have a lead time in terms of build and being able to generate a return off of that. But we do see some good projects to build to add future growth for the future as well.

speaker
Linda Evagalis
Analyst, TD Securities

Thank you. And just another quick follow-up. as it relates to cash flows, recognizing that there is some below the line moving parts below EBITDA. Can you talk about the current medium and longer term outlook for your cash taxes as your capital expenditures kind of lighten up in terms of your tax pools and how they're depleting and how we might think of the cash taxes ramping up over the next five years.

speaker
Eileen Maricar
Senior Vice President and CFO

Thanks, Linda. Yeah, cash taxes, I mean, really, we don't provide specific guidance on that. We will in the third quarter for next year. But as you think about our pools, certainly the KFS acquisition gave us significant pools, as well as the large capital projects that we've undertaken that will help for certainly a period of time. But you're absolutely right that there comes a point where taxes is something that is definite and will come. And so that's just something that we will continue to manage.

speaker
Linda Evagalis
Analyst, TD Securities

Thank you.

speaker
Lara
Conference Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Patrick Kenny from National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

speaker
Patrick Kenny
Analyst, National Bank Financial

Thank you. Good morning. Just to follow up on the liquids infrastructure segment, just wanted to confirm that you see this higher demand for your storage and fractionation services as being repeatable, I guess, under current commodity prices. And if so, what opportunities there might be to exceed that 6% to 7% adjusted EBITDA growth outlook simply from sweating the assets either through optimizing your commercial framework at KFS or perhaps looking at new ways to maximize throughput and NGO handling capacity at RIMBY?

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

Right. Well, listen, I mean, we still have white space in our system, so we're not forecasting 100% utilization of all of our assets. So, you know, is there a possibility to exceed our 6% to 7% growth? I would say that the best opportunities are still their G&P business and also in our CAPS pipeline. where we'd have the most capacity to do that. But, you know, we'll have to see in timing of when those volumes show up, but we do believe that we're going to help enable the basin to grow, and we'll see more volumes to their system over time. In terms of higher demand for liquids infrastructure assets, you know, maybe I can turn that over to Jamie, and he can provide a bit more color on that.

speaker
Jamie Urquhart
Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer

Yeah, so thanks for the question, Pat. You know, like, I mean, I think – What your, you know, your question points to is something that we've always done in our organization is trying to either optimize our existing assets physically, and we've been able to do that over the years and continue to look to do that around our KFS asset, but also with AEF as well. You know, we've gotten, you know, a few extra percents of capacity coming on over turnaround last fall, and we've got other ideas to – you know, increment up the capacity at AEF, not in a, you know, tens of percents, but, you know, in single-digit percents, so over the next few years. And then, you know, as you were alluding to at KFS, so physically we can do it. And then, as you alluded to, you know, my group's mandate is to obviously optimize commercially, you know, how we can sweat the assets, as you said. So, you know, that I think there's opportunities, but as Dean says, I think the more impactful opportunities will lie in the Wapiti Pipestones, the CAPS capacity that we have. That's what's driving our target around EBITDA growth.

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

Maybe just to add to what Jamie said, Pat, is that we always talk about the 21% interest that we acquired at KFS, and we always talk about the frack, but With it also came storage capacity and also the pipeline capacity and our FSPL system between Edmonton and Fort Saskatchewan. So as volumes grow, we think that there's going to be certainly more demand for that storage, our pipeline capacity, and also more volumes also translates to likely more business through our terminals as well. So I think it's a pretty positive outlook.

speaker
Patrick Kenny
Analyst, National Bank Financial

And then I guess with respect to throughput in the south region, you mentioned in the MD&A that you expect deep basin volumes to remain relatively strong just given the financial strength of producers. But just curious if there's any other optimization or consolidation opportunities across the asset base in the south as you look into, say, 2024.

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

Yeah, you know what? We're We always talk about our Montney business, which, you know, that's where the majority of our GMP margins are generated. But, you know, we shouldn't forget about the deep basin because the deep basin is still an attractive place. The geology is still very strong, not just with some of the conventional plays that have been developed over time and applying, you know, better technologies to drilling and completing them. But, you know, we're seeing more emergence of the DuVernay. That's, you know, that's starting to become an emerging play down there, which I think could be exciting for us. So we see opportunities, but we still have a lot of, we still have white space down in our south portfolio. So our primary focus is going to be to fill that and make it as profitable as possible. But at the same time, you know, maybe Jamie can comment too, I mean, I think we're starting to see opportunities to recontract some of the volumes that we have going through our facilities there, and that's been looking good as well.

speaker
Jamie Urquhart
Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer

Yeah, just to give a little bit more flavor, and I alluded to this, I can't remember if it was last quarter or the quarter before, is that we are seeing relatively high utilization in our Shrek and Nordic Brazzo complex that's connected with pipe, and as Dean alluded to, is that we You know, we've been in the last six months in the process of recontracting with customers around those assets and based on the fact that there is limited capacity available, you know, we're pleased with the results of that recontracting. You know, the white space that Dean alludes to is probably more in the Rimby area, but as Dean alluded to is that that is where we're starting to see some pretty encouraging results from the DuVernay. And, you know, we're optimistic with respect to, you know, being able to support those producers' growth, you know, at the Rimby gas plant. And that gas plant is fully integrated into our value chain, pipeline connected all the way into for Saskatchewan, so that's a key, key asset for us in the South GMP asset base.

speaker
Patrick Kenny
Analyst, National Bank Financial

All right, that's great, guys. I'll leave it there. Thanks. Thanks, Pat.

speaker
Lara
Conference Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Fen Huang from BMO. Please go ahead.

speaker
Fen Huang
Analyst, BMO

Hi, thanks. Good morning. A couple questions on... on key or new ventures. I'm wondering perhaps maybe a commercial update on, on your key projects in new ventures and thinking more about potential sanctioning. I'm also curious around any thoughts around the draft legislation and tax credits last week, and maybe comment on how you think about your balance sheet and into these potential opportunities.

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

Yeah. Good morning, Finn. And, and Really great questions. And we're excited about our new ventures opportunities. Certainly, I would say they're more longer term, looking at the back half of the decade. But again, we think that we're very well positioned to capture more opportunity there. As I said before, as an infrastructure company, we provide essential services to conventional hydrocarbon business, mainly on the gases and NGL side. But for the... you know, enablement of low carbon products, you need the same kind of services. You need pipelines, you need storage above ground below ground storage, you need truck and rail logistics. And you also need to have processing capabilities as well, all things that we have a lot of strengths. And so we see a great opportunity there to maybe repurpose some of the assets that we have in in the greater Edmonton, Fort Saskatchewan area. And specifically, we have a really great undeveloped land block there that we want to develop a low-carbon industrial park. But with that, I mean, this is all under Jamie's group, and maybe I'll turn it over to him to provide more color on that.

speaker
Jamie Urquhart
Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer

Yeah. So, you know, I think I can provide a little bit more flavor around, you know, some of the things that we've announced previously with respect to, you know, relationships that we have with CN around rail, I can share with you that, you know, we've gotten a lot of interest and uptake with respect to customers, with respect to the unit train opportunity that we see with CN on our co-joining lands up in the Fort Saskatchewan area. So, you know, we are progressing with understanding those opportunities a little bit more. We're spending some money on engineering to forward that opportunity. Similarly, we're in conversations with other entities around carbon capture, sequestration, to really make our lands the preferred location for some of the opportunities that others are looking at. Specific with respect to tax credits, not exactly sure where you're leaning with respect to that question, and perhaps you can you know, just reach out to our investor relations group to maybe pose that question and get the answers you're looking for.

speaker
Fen Huang
Analyst, BMO

Okay, thanks for that. And yeah, I was more curious if the legislation is anything different than you were expecting. I'm probably not the most checking of that. And can you also talk about, are you, did anything with these parties projects related to the ammonia project? value chain? And could you comment also, are these more in the context of multi-billion dollars of capital opportunity?

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

Maybe just from a general macro perspective, we are seeing general interest in ammonia. And I think Japan, they're expressing an interest for ammonia and they have incentives in place. How real that is, I guess only time will tell, but there's certainly a lot of interest. You've heard different projects that have been out there. We've been approached for citing some opportunities on our lands, but again, it's still very early days. The great thing is, is that if this is a real opportunity, we have, I'd say one of the best locations, if not the best locations to develop ammonia project. And again, it's just because of our connectivity in the area, We have industrial zone land, we have underground cavern capacity, we have the potential for our rail terminal with CN to egress ammonia to the West Coast. But again, it's still early days and I think there's got to be a lot of work even from a transportation perspective and the safety of transporting ammonia through communities all the way to the West Coast. Maybe the last advantage we have is we're very close to, you know, where you would connect to a carbon capture line. So, again, all things that you would need for an ammonia project. But, you know, early days, but we're certainly seeing interest there.

speaker
Fen Huang
Analyst, BMO

Okay. Maybe lastly, anything on wild horse changes on Outlook there?

speaker
Jamie Urquhart
Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer

Yeah, great question. We haven't talked about Wild Horse in a while. That asset, you know, just based on where Crude was trading, given the fact that, you know, the backwardization that we've seen over the last couple of years, when it started up, you know, we had an existing customer base, contracted the facility. We haven't seen a ton of... volumes moving through the terminal, but that has actually started to change in the last quarter. And we're really optimistic now based on the unique characteristics of that terminal and the capabilities of that terminal and getting familiar with the entities that do new commerce in Cushing, that that asset is starting to perform the way we envisioned when we originally sanctioned that asset. So a timely question. I would have probably had a less rosy outlook to share if you'd posed that question a year ago or even six months ago.

speaker
Rob

Okay, great. Thanks for that update.

speaker
Dean Settiguchi
President and CEO

Thank you.

speaker
Lara
Conference Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Calvin Locke for any closing remarks.

speaker
Calvin Locke
Manager of Investor Relations

Thank you all once again for joining us today. And please feel free to reach out to Kiara's investor relations team with any additional questions you may have. Thank you.

speaker
Lara
Conference Operator

Thank you, presenters. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.

Disclaimer

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