TC Energy Corporation

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the TC Energy 4th Quarter 2022 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there'll be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star then 0. I would now like to turn the conference over to Gavin Wiley, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to TC Energy's 2022 fourth quarter conference call. Joining me today are Francois Poirier, President and Chief Executive Officer, Joel Hunter, Chief Financial Officer, along with other members of our senior leadership team. Francois and Joel will begin today with some comments on our financial results and operational highlights. Copy of the slide presentation that will accompany the remarks is available on our website under the investors section. Following their remarks, we will take questions from the investment community. We ask that you limit yourself to two questions. And if you're a member of the media, please contact Jamie Harding. Before Francois begins, I'll remind you that remarks today will include forward-looking statements that are subject to important risks and uncertainties. For more information, please see the reports filed by TC Energy with Canadian Securities Regulators. and with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission. Finally, during the presentation, we referred to certain non-GAAP measures that may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other entities. These measures are used to provide additional information on TC's operating performance, liquidity, and its ability to generate funds to finance its operations. A reconciliation of various GAAP and non-GAAP measures is contained in the appendix of the presentation materials. With that, I'll now turn it over to Francois.

Morning, everyone. In the fourth quarter of 2022, we continue to deliver strong utilization and availability across our system when people need energy most, setting multiple records along the way. And by extension, we also achieve record financial results in 2022, including a 6% year-over-year increase in comparable EBITDA. We see this positive momentum continuing into 2023 and expect our industry-leading $34 billion secured capital program and portfolio of high-quality utility-like assets will continue to deliver sustainable cash flow growth. We are reaffirming our 2023 financial outlook with comparable EBITDA expected to be 5% to 7% higher than in 2022, and we've increased our dividend for the 23rd consecutive year. We are advancing our $5-plus billion asset divestiture program that will provide funding for our portfolio of high-quality growth opportunities while at the same time accelerating our deleveraging. While 2022 was a record-setting year in many ways, we were faced with challenges. On December 7th, we activated our emergency response protocols after detecting an oil release on our Keystone system. Our priorities are clear. Keep people, the environment, and our assets safe every day. Serious events such as this are never acceptable. From the initial detection to valve isolation, it only took seven minutes to shut down the pipeline. The response from our front line was nothing short of exceptional, and I want to thank our team for their incredible preparation, training, and decisive action. And I also want to thank the community of Washington County, Kansas, who welcomed and cared for our teams on the ground. The collective response allowed us to safely return the majority of the system back into service within seven days, and we replaced, repaired, and restarted the remaining Cushing segment within three weeks. We continue to diligently restore the area to its original condition and have recovered 90% of the release volume. We continue to investigate the root cause of the incident, and we are committed to apply those learnings going forward. While our primary focus remains safe resumption of operations, we do expect to continue to fulfill our Keystone Pipeline contractual commitments, and we do not anticipate a material financial impact on our 2023 comparable EBITDA outlook. The value of our liquids business remains high, reflecting its significant free cash flow generation, direct link between critical markets, and additional in-corridor growth opportunities. As an example, the Port Neches Link project is expected to be in service in the first quarter and will provide last-mile connectivity to North America's largest refinery. In our U.S. natural gas business, we achieved an all-time delivery record of 36.6 BCF on December 23rd. And in 2022, our average daily volumes increased 5% year over year. In 2022, we placed approximately 2.1 billion U.S. of projects into service. The majority of those were aligned with increasing our share of U.S. LNG feed gas deliveries from 25% to about 30%, and we plan to increase our market share to 35% in a growing market over the next five years. This month, as evidence of that, we used our competitive footprint to sanction the 1.4 BCF per day extension of our Gillis Access project to further connect the Hainesville Basin to Louisiana markets, including the rapidly expanding LNG market. In Mexico, our first-of-its-kind strategic alliance with the CFE allowed us to resolve arbitrations and integrate multiple pipeline systems into one. The addition of the Southeast Gateway Pipeline also provides an opportunity to increase our total return on invested capital once it's in service. And I'm pleased to update that we are tracking to both schedule and cost on Southeast Gateway. We recently completed a critical path milestone by executing the main land acquisition agreements required for landfalls and compressor stations in Veracruz and Tabasco. We will continue to provide progress updates throughout the year for this strategic pipeline that will support delivering vital natural gas supply to the growing central and southeast regions of Mexico. In Canada, our NGTL system continued to perform very well, with average deliveries up 6% to 13.4 BCF a day compared to 2021. In 2022, we placed $3.2 billion of capacity projects into service, growing our NGTL investment base by 12% year over year. And we expect to place approximately $3 billion of additional facilities into service in 2023. Earlier this month, we had announced our revised cost estimates for the Coastal GasLink project at approximately $14.5 billion. The project has now reached 84% overall progress, and we have line of sight to our mechanical completion target of year-end 2023. While we have faced significant challenges, our teams in the field are working tirelessly to complete the project in the highest safety and quality standards in the pipeline industry while executing the remaining scope at the lowest possible cost. In our power and energy solutions segment, we produced exceptional results with 2022 comparable EBITDA up 36% year over year. And this segment continues to play a greater role in our diversified portfolio of energy assets. From an operational excellence standpoint, our co-gen operations had strong performance that resulted in peak power plant availability during the coldest days in December. where Alberta saw record power pool prices. Bruce Power achieved 87% availability in the fourth quarter, while the Unit 4 planned outage was completed 22 days ahead of schedule. We expect to place Unit 6 back into service in late 2023 following completion of its MCR program, while Unit 3 MCR is expected to commence next month. Unit 4, the third unit in the MCR program, is expected to reach its final investment decision in the fourth quarter of 2023. Bruce Power remains the largest emissionless investment in our portfolio. Its capital requirements are largely funded from Bruce Distributions. and we expect it to deliver significant free cash flow following the completion of the MCR program, as well as our Project 2030. Thank you. I'll now turn the time over to Joel for a few comments.