TC Energy Corporation

Welcome to the TC Energy third quarter 2024 financial results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Gavin Wiley, Vice President in Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thanks very much and good morning. I'd like to welcome you to TC Energy's 2024 Third Quarter Conference Call. Joining me are Francois Poirier, President and Chief Executive Officer, Sean O'Donnell, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, along with other members of our senior leadership team. Francois and Sean will begin today with some comments on our financial results and operational highlights. A copy of the slide presentation that will accompany their remarks is available on our website under the Investors section. Following their remarks, we'll 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 our media team. If you have questions regarding the liquids pipeline's business or Southbow beyond what is included in our third quarter reporting, please contact the Southbow team. 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 the Canadian Securities Regulators and with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission. Finally, during our presentation, we'll refer to non-GAAP measures that provide additional information on TC Energy's operational and financial performance, however, may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other entities. A reconciliation of various GAAP and non-GAAP measures is contained in the appendix of the presentation. With that, I'll turn it over to Press Hall.

Thanks, Gavin, and good morning, everyone. Our focus on a clear set of priorities for 2024 that includes safety, operational excellence, and project execution has again delivered strong operational and financial results. In the third quarter, comparable EBITDA is up 6% compared to the third quarter of last year. This positions us extremely well for the rest of 2024, where we now expect comparable EBITDA to be at the upper end of the range of our full-year outlook. We've advanced multiple strategic initiatives aimed at maximizing the long-term value of our assets, including successfully completing the spin-off of our liquids pipelines business into Southbow on October 1st. I'd like to take a moment to recognize our teams for the months of dedication, focus, and collaboration from every corner of our organization to make this milestone possible. This marks the beginning of a new era for TC Energy, and I'm excited to share with you our renewed vision at our upcoming Investor Day on November 19th. Next, our focus on project execution is delivering meaningful results. We're making significant progress on our major projects, including Bruce Power Unit 3 MCR and Southeast Gateway, which I'll discuss in more detail on the next slide. We've placed $1.2 billion of projects in service year-to-date and expect to place approximately $7 billion of assets into service in 2024, which includes Coastal GasLink, with another $8.5 billion coming online in 2025. Now, given our strong project execution and optimization efforts, we now expect 2024 net capital expenditures to be between $7.4 and $7.7 billion, which represents a midpoint reduction of approximately 8% versus our initial outlook of $8 to $8.5 billion, further enhancing our financial strength and flexibility. In combination with our strong year-to-date EBITDA performance, our revised outlook for capital expenditures, and completed asset sales in 2024, totaling $1.6 billion, we are on track to achieve our year-end debt to EBITDA target of 4.75 times. As to Southeast Gateway, this is our marine pipeline project that will supply up to 1.3 BCF a day of natural gas to meet the growing need for reliable and affordable energy in the Southeast region of Mexico. Importantly, Our strong execution and safety record have resulted in an updated estimated capital cost for the project to be between 3.9 and 4.1 billion US dollars, which is approximately 11% lower than our initial cost estimate of $4.5 billion and a significant driver behind our overall reduction in our 2024 capital program. We've now achieved mechanical completion on all major onshore facilities, which includes both compressor stations as well as a delivery meter station at Paraiso. Both the deepwater and onshore pipe installation has been complete, and we've hydrotested approximately 500 kilometers of the offshore section. Only 1.4 kilometers of shallow water pipe installation remains, and we expect to complete that work during the fourth quarter. We continue to anticipate reaching mechanical completion in late 2024 or very early in 2025 and are on track to achieve our commercial in service no later than mid 2025. Now the outlook for our business has never been stronger. Underpinned by wide scale electrification, demand for natural gas and reliable power generation, continues to reach record highs. North American natural gas will play a critical role in increasing global access to reliable and sustainable energy. Our forecast highlights North America's natural gas demand will rise by about 40 BCF a day by 2035. And this surge in demand is driven by LNG exports, coal plant retirements, utility reliability needs, and of course, growing electricity consumption from AI and data centers. Rising demand will necessitate connections to new supply and demand centers and the maintenance and modernization of existing infrastructure to ensure its ongoing safety and reliability. Collectively, this growing demand is creating an environment that is rich with opportunities for the incremental build-out of natural gas infrastructure. Now we'll be walking through these opportunities in more detail at our upcoming Investor Day on November 19th. But suffice it to say, TC Energy is the only energy infrastructure company with incumbency in all three geographies in North America. And we believe that the strength of our base business, combined with the vast opportunity set and disciplined capital allocation, will allow us to deliver solid growth low risk, and repeatable performance. Safety and operational excellence form the foundation of everything we do at TC Energy. The third quarter was no exception. Our team's focus on these core principles, combined with the demand for our vital energy assets, ensured continued high utilization and availability across our asset base, including, for example, achieving 98% availability at Bruce Power. This, in turn, leads to increased year-over-year financial performance, as illustrated on this slide. We will look to maintain this positive momentum through the end of 2024, and our focus remains on achieving our strategic priorities while continuing to deliver long-term shareholder value. And now I'll turn the call over to Sean.