Kinder Morgan Q2 2023 Earnings Report

Kinder Morgan EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.24
• Consensus EPS: $0.24
• Beat/Miss: Met Expectations
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.27

Kinder Morgan Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $3.50 billion
• Expected Revenue: $4.55 billion
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$1.05 billion
• YoY Revenue Growth: -32.00%

Kinder Morgan Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2023
• Date: 7/19/2023
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, July 19, 2023
• Conference Call Time: 4:30PM ET

Kinder Morgan (NYSE:KMI) (NYSE: KMI) is a large energy infrastructure company that owns and operates an extensive network of pipelines and terminals across North America. Its core activities center on the transportation, storage and handling of energy products, including natural gas, natural gas liquids (NGLs), crude oil, refined petroleum products and carbon dioxide. The company’s assets include long-haul and gathering pipelines, storage facilities, and multi-modal terminals that serve producers, refiners, utilities and industrial customers.

Kinder Morgan’s operations deliver midstream services such as pipeline transportation, terminaling, storage and related logistics and maintenance. Its terminals support marine, rail and truck distribution, while pipeline assets move product between production basins, processing facilities, refineries and export points. The business model emphasizes infrastructure that facilitates reliable physical delivery and long-term commercial contracts with shippers and end-users.

The company was co-founded by Richard D. Kinder, who has played a prominent role in its executive leadership. Over time Kinder Morgan has expanded through a combination of organic project development and acquisitions to broaden its footprint and service offerings. The company primarily serves markets in the United States and Canada, operating assets that connect key production, refining and demand centers across the region.

Kinder Morgan Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Leadership transition underway as Steve Cain retires August 1 and is succeeded by current President Kim Dang, with Tom Martin joining the office of the chair to ensure seamless continuity.
• Strong long-term gas outlook with U.S. demand projected to rise 20% (20 Bcf/d) by 2028, driven by LNG and Mexico exports concentrated on the Gulf Coast network.
• Second-quarter results beat budget as core natural gas and terminal segments outperformed, offsetting lower commodity prices, and backlog held steady at $3.75 billion with $500 million of new attractive‐return projects added.
• Renewable natural gas business gained traction with first Wabash Valley RNG project in service despite delays and a favorable EPA ruling lifting D3 RIN values above $3 to bolster returns.
• Balance sheet remains strong with net debt/EBITDA at 4.1×, $500 million of cash, $203 million of share repurchases in Q2 and a 2% dividend increase to $0.2825 per share.

Presentation

[Operator]

Welcome to the quarterly earnings conference call. Today's call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. All participants are in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session of today's call. At that time, you may press star one on your phone to ask a question. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman of Kinder Morgan. You may begin.

[Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman at Kinder Morgan]

Thank you, Jordan. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you, as we always do, that KMI's earnings release today, and this call include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as well as certain non-GAAP financial measures. Before making any investment decisions, we strongly encourage you to read our full disclosures on forward-looking statements and use of non-GAAP financial measures set forth at the end of our earnings release, as well as review our latest filings with the SEC for important material assumptions, expectations, and risk factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated and described in such forward-looking statements.

[Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman at Kinder Morgan]

About the most important thing a board of directors does is to structure and implement orderly succession planning. I'm proud of the job we've done at Kinder Morgan. In our 26-year history, we've only had two CEOs. We'll welcome our third on August 1st. This will be Steve Kean's last investment call as CEO. I want to thank him for all his dedication and hard work in that position for the last eight years and for his service to the company over the past two decades. He's been a fine leader of the organization with the ability to understand the big picture and still pay attention to details. I can assure you that's a unique combination. We're happy that Steve will stay on our board. I'm sure he will continue to contribute to our success in that role.

[Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman at Kinder Morgan]

As all of you know, Kim Dang, our current President, will succeed Steve, Tom Martin, the long-term President of our natural gas segment, will replace Kim as President. Kim, Tom, and I will constitute the office of the Chair. We announced all this back in January, the transition has proceeded very smoothly. Kim joined Kinder Morgan in 2001, Tom in 2003, they both have long experience with the company and in the midstream energy business. They've both been outstanding contributors to our success, I know they'll be great leaders of the company in the coming months and years. In short, the board and I are very comfortable that we will march forward without missing a beat.

[Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman at Kinder Morgan]

As we make this change, it's important to again emphasize why we're bullish about the long-term future of Kinder Morgan. The single most important reason for optimism is the role natural gas will play in this country and around the world in the coming decades. We forecast U.S. natural gas demand will grow by about 20 Bcf a day between 2023 and 2028 to about 121 Bcf a day, and that's a 20% increase. We expect a 13.5 Bcf a day of that growth to come from LNG and Mexico exports, with moderate growth in the power, residential, and commercial sectors. Almost all of that LNG and Mexico growth will occur in Texas and the Gulf Coast, where we have a superb and multifaceted pipeline system.

[Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman at Kinder Morgan]

That's why we believe that growth and demand, combined with the strategic location of our network, will drive expansion and extension opportunities for our network and significant bottom line growth for years to come. With that, for the last time, I'll turn it over to Steve.

[Steve Kean, CEO at Kinder Morgan]

Thank you, Rich. Thanks for the kind words. It's been an honor to work for you, for the board, for our shareholders, and to work with this great management team that we have around the table. I can only double down on what you said about Kim and Tom. They work extremely well together and with the rest of the management team, and this is going to be very good for the company. We had a good quarter and a solid year so far. We beat our budget for the second quarter, and although our outlook predicts slight underperformance on a full year basis, that is all more than explained by commodity prices coming in lower than our budget year to date and according to the forward curve for the balance of the year.

[Steve Kean, CEO at Kinder Morgan]

Put another way, our business is performing better, and that is partially offsetting the lower commodity prices. We also continue to see a strong market from our business development standpoint. While our backlog is roughly even with the first quarter update at $3.75 billion, that's the net result of having placed about $450 million of projects in service during the quarter, while adding roughly $500 million of new projects to the backlog during the quarter. As we have noted many times, these projects are getting done at attractive returns well above our cost of capital. Notable among the projects brought into service was the first of our Wabash Valley RNG projects. Those projects were part of our Kinetrex acquisition from 2021. The first one went into service on June 27.

[Steve Kean, CEO at Kinder Morgan]

The project was later than planned and a little more expensive, but still a nice return. We expect the whole portfolio of Kinetrex projects to yield a very attractive return on our overall investment, even with the delays we've experienced. I'll note also on our RNG business that we got a favorable outcome from the EPA. Those are four or five words that you don't often hear from an energy executive. Favorable outcome from the EPA on its June order, establishing the renewable volume obligation for the next three years. That pushed D3 RINs, those are the RINs values that matter most to us, up over $3, and we held off on selling RINs until after that ruling came out. More significantly, our natural gas and terminals businesses are leading the way without performance versus plan.

[Steve Kean, CEO at Kinder Morgan]

One other performance highlight to note, our CO2 business is beating plan on production. Kim and David will give you the percentages there, we're actually up year-over-year. That's more than offset by lower commodity prices, as I mentioned, it's a significant accomplishment given the significant outage that we had at our SACROC, our largest field, in the first quarter. That's very strong work by our EOR team. Other than that, the song remains the same. We're maintaining a strong balance sheet, originating new projects at attractive returns, and returning value to our shareholders through a well-covered dividend and opportunistic share repurchases. I'll turn it over to our President, soon to be CEO, Kimberly Dang.

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

All right. Let me say that I've enjoyed very much working with Steve Kean for the last eight years. He has been selfless in his transition, and he's really put me in a position to do this role. As Rich Kinder said, you know, Tom Martin and I are also very excited about the future of this company, and we're grateful for the opportunity to lead it. With that, I'll start with the natural gas business unit, as always. Here, our transport volumes increased by 5% versus the second quarter of last year. That was driven by EPNG's Line 2000 return to service. We also saw increased power demand, which was up 6%, increased LDC demand, which was up 6%, and increased industrial demand, which was up 5%.

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

These increases were offset by reduced LNG volumes, and that was due to maintenance of several export facilities and decreased exports to Mexico. Natural gas gathering volumes were up 19% in the quarter compared to the second quarter of last year, driven by Haynesville volumes, which were up 29%, Bakken volumes up 26%, and Eagle Ford volumes up 21%. Sequentially, gathering volumes were up 7%, with all three basins I just mentioned contributing to the increase. For the year, we expect gathering volumes to be up nicely, about 16%. That's about 4% below our budget, driven by egress project delays and an asset sale. Largely, what we're seeing is that we're not seeing much of a volume decline from our big producers.

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

Where we're seeing some price sensitivity is on some of our smaller producers, that's why we still expect that we'll be up 16% for the year. As you can see from the volume increases that I just mentioned, despite a brief lull in new export LNG demand and lower prices in the quarter versus the second quarter of 2022, the natural gas markets continue to be robust. In our products pipeline segment, refined products were flat for the quarter versus the second quarter of last year. Road fuels were down about 2%. Our gasoline volumes were impacted by refinery maintenance during the quarter. Diesel volumes were down, as renewable diesel volumes in California are currently being transported by other methods than pipeline, and that's replaced some of the conventional diesel that previously moved on our pipe.

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

The reduction in conventional diesel volumes doesn't really reflect the true economic picture, as the RD volumes and projects we placed in service earlier this year are largely underpinned with take-or-pay contracts. Even though the volumes may not be moving on our pipeline yet, we get paid most of the revenue from those projects. Jet fuel volumes increased 9%. Crude and condensate volumes were up about 4%, and that was driven primarily by higher Bakken volumes. Sequential volumes were up about 8%, and that was primarily driven by the Eagle Ford. In terminals, our liquids lease capacity remained high at about 94%, excluding the tanks out of service for required inspections, approximately 96% of our capacity is leased.

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

Although we were down financially in the quarter, utilization at our key hubs, Houston Ship Channel and the New York Harbor, strengthened in the quarter, and we saw nice increases on our New York Harbor contract renewables that were negotiated during the quarter. Rates on our renewals in the Houston Ship Channel were slightly positive, and our Jones Act tankers were 97% leased through 2024, assuming likely options are exercised. On the bulk side, overall volumes were flat, with increases in coal, fertilizer, and salt offset by a reduction in grain. The grain volumes have a minimal impact on our financial results, and so excluding grain, bulk volumes were up 5.5%, and we also benefited financially from rate escalation.

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

On the CO2 segment, lower prices on NGLs and CO2 more than offset the increase in oil production. Overall, oil production increased 7%, that was driven by SACROC volumes, where our projects have performed much better than we expected. We've also seen strong volumes post the January outage. For the year, we still expect net oil volumes to exceed our plan, which helps to offset some of the price weakness. With that, I'll turn it over to David.

[David Michels, VP and CFO at Kinder Morgan]

Okay. Thank you, Kim.

[David Michels, VP and CFO at Kinder Morgan]

All right, for the second quarter of 2023, we're declaring a dividend of $0.2825 per share, which is $1.13 annualized, up 2% from last year. I'll start with a few highlights before getting into the quarterly performance. We ended the second quarter of 2023 with a net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 4.1x ratio, leaving us with a good amount of capacity under our leverage target of around 4.5x. We also had almost $500 million of cash at the end of the quarter, and nothing drawn on our $4 billion revolving credit facility.

[David Michels, VP and CFO at Kinder Morgan]

We also repurchased over $203 million worth of shares in the quarter, which brings our total share repurchases for the year to almost 20 million shares repurchased at an average price of $16.61, creating what we think is very good value for our shareholders. While we are forecasting to be slightly below budget for the full year, more than all of that can be explained by the lower than budgeted commodity prices. We're seeing better than budgeted performance in both our natural gas and in our terminals segments. For the quarterly performance, we generated revenue of $3.5 billion. That is down $1.65 billion from the second quarter of 2022, but our cost of sales were also down $1.7 billion.

[David Michels, VP and CFO at Kinder Morgan]

These were both due to the large decline in commodity prices from last year. As you will recall, we enter into offsetting purchase and sales positions in our Texas intrastate natural gas pipeline system. Those arrangements result in an effective take-or-pay transportation service, and while that leaves our revenue and our cost of sales exposed to price fluctuations, our margin from that activity is not impacted by price. In fact, netting the revenue and the offsetting cost of sales impacts gross margin grew. Interest expense was higher versus 2022 as expected, which is driven by the short-term interest rates impacting our floating rate swaps. We generated net income of $586 million, down 8% from the second quarter of last year.

[David Michels, VP and CFO at Kinder Morgan]

Adjusted earnings was $540 million, down 13% compared to the second quarter of 2022. Excluding the impact from commodity prices and interest expense, we would have been favorable to last year's performance. Our share count was down $28 million, or 1% this quarter versus the second quarter of last year, due to our share repurchase efforts. On to our business segment performance. Improvements in our natural gas and terminal segments, which were both up, were partially offset by our performance in our products and our CO2 segments.

[David Michels, VP and CFO at Kinder Morgan]

In natural gas, the largest driver of the outperformance came from greater sales margin in our Texas intrastate system, and favorable rates on recontracting at our Midcontinent Express pipelines, as well as contributions from EPNG, due to a pipeline returning to service, and higher value capacity sales on Stagecoach and our Tennessee Gas Pipeline. Those were partially offset by an unfavorable recontracting impacts on our South Texas assets. Our product pipeline segment was down mostly due to unfavorable pricing impacts, impacting our Transmix business and unfavorable recontracting on our KMCC asset. Our terminal segment was up, mainly due to improved contributions from our Jones Act tanker business, expansion project contributions, and rate escalations, which were all partially offset by lower truck rack volumes and some higher operating costs.

[David Michels, VP and CFO at Kinder Morgan]

Our CO2 segment was down due to our CO2, NGL, and oil prices, partially offset by, as Steve and Kim both mentioned, higher oil production volume. Our adjusted EBITDA was $1.8 billion for the quarter, which is down 1% from last year. DCF was $1.076 billion, down 9% from last year, and our DCF per share was $0.48, down 8% from last year. On these non-GAAP measures, just like on our GAAP measures, excluding interest expense and commodity price headwinds, we were favorable to last year. Moving on to the balance sheet. We ended the second quarter with $30.8 billion of net debt, and a net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio of 4.1x, as I mentioned.

[David Michels, VP and CFO at Kinder Morgan]

Our net debt decreased $139 million since the beginning of the year. I'll provide a high-level reconciliation. We generated cash flow from operations of $2.883 billion. We've paid out dividends of $1.265 billion. We've spent capital growth, sustaining, and contributions to our joint ventures of $1.18 billion. We had stock share repurchases through the end of the quarter of $317 million. That gets you pretty close to the reconciliation with year-to-date net debt change. Back to Steve.

[Steve Kean, CEO at Kinder Morgan]

Okay, we're going to take your questions now, and as usual, we have a good chunk of our management team around the table. We'll try to make sure that you hear from them as well. Jordan, if you would, please open up the line for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. We will now begin our question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question over the phone lines, please press star one from your phone. Our first question comes from Brian Reynolds with UBS. Your line is open.

[Brian Reynolds, Senior VP at UBS]

Hi, good morning, everyone. My first question is just around the guidance. We've seen 1Q and 2Q come roughly in line with the original quarterly guidance outlined at the Investor Day. In the prepared remarks, you talked about how commodity headwinds have been, you know, really offset by base business outperformance. Kind of looking ahead to second half, should we expect continued outperformance in kind of the nat gas and terminaling segment, or could we see a recovery in products in the back half as well? Thanks.

[David Michels, VP and CFO at Kinder Morgan]

Yeah, good question, Brian. I think part of the outperformance year-to-date has been our ability to take advantage of some of the volatility that we've experienced, particularly in our natural gas assets. We saw some outperformance there in our intrastate business, like I've mentioned. Our storage is a bit full, which might limit our ability to take advantage of that going into the end of the year. There might be some additional ability to take advantage of that if prices and storage capacity becomes more available.

[Steve Kean, CEO at Kinder Morgan]

Yeah.

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

And so-

[Steve Kean, CEO at Kinder Morgan]

Go ahead.

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

You know, we haven't assumed that same level of outperformance in the back half of the year as what we experienced in the first part of the year. That's why we're saying that we will be slightly down versus plan. To the extent that we see some of that outperformance in the back half of the year, that could improve the outlook that we've given you here today.

[Brian Reynolds, Senior VP at UBS]

Great. I really appreciate that color. As a follow-up, just wanted to talk RIN pricing. It's been very volatile year to date based on the RVO outlook. Just curious if you could help sensitize perhaps the ability for Kinder to utilize its RINs on the balance sheet that were held on the first half and then monetize in the back half of second half 2023. Thanks.

[Steve Kean, CEO at Kinder Morgan]

As I mentioned, and then I'll let Anthony expand on it, we knew that there was another round coming from the EPA in June. We expected that based on all the comments and the feedback and the data, that they were going to increase their Renewable Volume Obligation, which they did, on the order of 30% for each this year and the following two years. There was 33% this year, then the next two years. Anticipating that we'd see some positive news, rather than selling at $1.95, we held on and sold at $2.90 and above.

[Anthony Ashley, President of CO2 and Energy Transition Ventures at Kinder Morgan]

You know, I think, we as we have taken advantage of the increase in pricing. I think part of the reason why, and I mentioned this a little bit, I think on the first quarter call, why it was trading so low, in the first half of the year, is everybody had a similar strategy as we are. There was really no liquidity in the market, which was holding prices down. I know I think, the RVOs that came out are very supportive for RINs pricing, moving forward. As I said, we've taken advantage, I think, of the uptick already with regards to the majority of our inventory levels. We'll be obviously generating additional RINs for the remainder of the year. Our anticipation is that the, as far as we can see, there's no reason for RIN prices to diminish for the remainder of the year.

[Brian Reynolds, Senior VP at UBS]

Great, thanks. I'll leave it there.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Colton Bean with TPH&Co. Your line is open.

[Colton Bean, Managing Director of Global Energy Infrastructure Equity Research at TPH & Co.]

Good afternoon. Steve, you mentioned the incremental $500 million was added to the backlog. Can you provide a bit more detail on the nature of those projects? Safe to assume those are additive to mostly 2024 and 2025, so the runway is extending a bit here?

[Steve Kean, CEO at Kinder Morgan]

Yeah. I think we had some additions in our EOR business. We had some additions in our natural gas sector as well. I think those were the two primary contributors. David?

[David Michels, VP and CFO at Kinder Morgan]

I think those were, those are on the back half. Those are a little bit later in the backlog than most of our backlog. It is adding some length to the backlog overall.

[Colton Bean, Managing Director of Global Energy Infrastructure Equity Research at TPH & Co.]

Got it. Maybe a question for Anthony on the landfill RNG development. I think we're tracking a bit slower than expected at time of acquisition. Could you just update us on what some of those delays may be attributable to, whether it's permitting, you know, supply chain, construction? Just generally curious as to the build out there.

[Anthony Ashley, President of CO2 and Energy Transition Ventures at Kinder Morgan]

Yeah, sure. We have seen multi-month delays on the three RNG projects that we've been that are in construction this year. Those have been primarily, I would say, supply chain, weather, and then most recently, we've had some commissioning issues, which have pushed back the in-service of some of the facilities. The good news is, we do have our first facility in service, Twin Bridges, and I think we have good line of sight for in-service for the next two projects as well.

[Colton Bean, Managing Director of Global Energy Infrastructure Equity Research at TPH & Co.]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Theresa Chen with Barclays. Your line is open.

[Theresa Chen, Managing Director of Midstream and Refining Equity Research and Senior Analyst at Barclays]

Hi. I'd like to follow up on the line of thought related to RNG and D3 RINs. Just looking beyond this year, I'd love to hear about your outlook for D3 RIN pricing over time that underlies the returns of these projects. You know, how do you take into account the supply of additional D3 RINs if and when an eRIN pathway eventually becomes available, even if it's on pause for now?

[Anthony Ashley, President of CO2 and Energy Transition Ventures at Kinder Morgan]

Yeah, good question. You know, I think we obviously have the forecast for our D3 RINs. When we're looking at it from an investment standpoint, we do sensitize it down to where we feel like it is sort of a, you know, a low case or a worst case type of situation, and to make sure that we're satisfied with, you know, the types of returns we're getting. We know we do assume, in some cases that we sell also into transportation market, some percentages of the transportation market-- I'm sorry, the voluntary market, which is more of a fixed price environment. We do have some, you know, price points that we use there as well.

[Anthony Ashley, President of CO2 and Energy Transition Ventures at Kinder Morgan]

You know, I think as I was saying earlier with the RVO targets that just came out, you know, and they came out for the first time for three consecutive years, right? Normally it's just an annual process. You know, they, I think, are very supportive for RINs prices moving forward with, you know, roughly a 30% increase for, you know, each consecutive year. That compounds upon itself. I think that's supportive. I think obviously, you mentioned eRINs as well, which has been delayed or postponed. I think our long-term view on eRINs is that, you know, that provides another avenue for demand growth for our projects, right? That's supportive as well for long term for pricing as well.

[Anthony Ashley, President of CO2 and Energy Transition Ventures at Kinder Morgan]

You know, we'll have to see when that actually comes into play. It was postponed in June, and that's, you know, for, we think, probably good reasons around sort of the mechanics or logistics of how it will might actually be implemented. You know, long term, I think it's a good thing for us if it, if it comes into play.

[Theresa Chen, Managing Director of Midstream and Refining Equity Research and Senior Analyst at Barclays]

Thank you. In relation to your project backlog, so excluding CO2 and G&P, the remaining $2.6 billion in project, can you talk about why the average EBITDA multiple is now 4.2x versus 3.9x previously? What's driving that upward pressure and lower returns?

[David Michels, VP and CFO at Kinder Morgan]

Sure, Theresa. The change there is just a mix of the, of the backlog. What went in service during the quarter versus what we added in the quarter. What went in service were lower multiple, so stronger returning G&P type projects. What came into the backlog mostly were very attractive returning projects, but at a little bit of a higher multiple, more in line with our longer haul pipeline type opportunities. So that was the biggest driver of it.

[Theresa Chen, Managing Director of Midstream and Refining Equity Research and Senior Analyst at Barclays]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Michael Blum with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

[Michael Blum, Managing Director at Wells Fargo]

Thanks. Maybe I want to stay on this topic. I guess, the decision to exclude the CO2 and G&P projects from the, from the backlog multiples, I'm wondering if you could just expand on your thinking there? Because you say that the cash flow streams are a little less predictable, does this change at all how you think about making those type of investments and anything around minimum hurdle rates to allocate capital there?

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

Yeah. No, Michael, it doesn't. I think the reason to exclude those projects is because the other projects that we have on natural gas and products and terminals, they typically have a very consistent cash flow. you know, people, a lot of the sell side, like you are using the backlog and they're looking at the multiple and they're saying, "Okay, well, that's the level of EBITDA that I should assume from these projects." As you know, you know, when some of the CO2 projects come on or some of the G&P projects come on, they can come on at higher multiples, they ultimately decline over time. In many cases, you know, that cash flow is replacing other cash flows, which are declining.

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

All we were trying to do is give people a better proxy for estimating, you know, what cash flow is incremental and stably recurring. It does not change the way that we think about the CO2 or G&P projects. You know, those projects, they have more variability, and therefore we require a higher return on those projects. As you know, when we're doing CO2 projects, we're typically requiring 20% or higher returns, so we think those are very attractive returns, and we should do those projects. G&P are typically in the high teens, and those are very attractive returns, and so we'll continue to do those. We were just trying to help people in their modeling.

[Michael Blum, Managing Director at Wells Fargo]

Okay, got it. No, that makes sense. Thanks for that. I also wanted to ask about Midcontinent Express. You've had a really nice uptick there the last couple of quarters, and I think you mentioned in the prepared remarks, some favorable recontracting on MEP. I was wondering if you could just maybe just clarify just how sustainable this new kind of run rate is for MEP, and then, you know, how much of the capacity is now contracted and duration of contracts? Thanks.

[Anthony Ashley, President of CO2 and Energy Transition Ventures at Kinder Morgan]

Yeah. Michael, you know, when we take a step back and look at MEP, over the past, you know, couple of years, we've seen, you know, a lot of the Oklahoma Basin drilling, driving some of that basis. As we move forward, really, we see that basis strengthening, not only, you know, as all the LNG facilities come on that Louisiana, Gulf Coast corridor, as well as some of our Southeast markets, competing for supply. We do see that basis continuing to sustain, if not grow. We've got, you know, incremental LNG facilities coming on in 2024. As you know, Golden Pass, you know, first up, nothing but support, we think, for the basis.

[Anthony Ashley, President of CO2 and Energy Transition Ventures at Kinder Morgan]

You know, we've been opportunistic in terms of how we're selling that capacity, trying to capture the highest margins, and so we'll continue to do so. you know, probably, you know, in the two- to three-year tranche, we've been selling out the capacity, waiting for that spread to widen a little bit.

[Michael Blum, Managing Director at Wells Fargo]

Got it. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Tristan Richardson with Scotiabank. Your line is open.

[Tristan Richardson, Managing Director at Scotiabank]

Hey, good evening, guys. Just a question on the midstream side. Obviously, seeing very strong year-over-year growth rates across your three primary basins. Maybe you also mentioned in the prepared comments, though, that you are seeing at the margin, maybe some smaller producers being a little bit more price sensitive. I'd be curious about maybe regionally, where you're seeing that most, across the three basins in midstream?

[Steve Kean, CEO at Kinder Morgan]

Diesel. Yeah. Good question. You know, across the three basins, really on the, at the, in the, you know, Haynesville, we have some of our smaller producers that, you know, given the current pricing environment, that have kind of tapered off some of their drilling plans. Obviously, our big producers or larger producers there, I think you know who they are, but I mean, I, you know, those guys still anticipate the LNG demand coming on at the back half of the year, as well as, you know, Europe's potential volatility that may arise. You know, our sense is they're going to continue to keep these rigs up in the Bakken. You know, we've continued to see growth in the Bakken. In the Eagle Ford, here's a data point for you.

[Steve Kean, CEO at Kinder Morgan]

We're ahead of our volumes, pre-COVID, even in this price environment. We're, you know, all those systems are pretty well, all systems go.

[Tristan Richardson, Managing Director at Scotiabank]

That's great. Just a quick follow-up on the Gulf Coast storage expansion you guys announced, I think the Markham project. Can you maybe give some context around relative magnitude versus your overall storage portfolio? Maybe just some of the logistics. Are we assuming third-party contracts, or is this all considered perhaps new storage that would be available to new customers? Maybe just curious to touch on that one.

[Steve Kean, CEO at Kinder Morgan]

Yeah. you know, that basically, you're referring to our Markham expansion, that's a 6 Bcf incremental expansion to our Markham facility. We're adding about 650,000 of incremental withdrawal capacity. At this point, you know, our plan is to offer it up to our customer base. In fact, we sold most of it at rates really higher than we sanctioned the project with. Our returns are even better than we anticipated. Well, did I answer your question there?

[Tristan Richardson, Managing Director at Scotiabank]

Yep. That's very helpful. Thank you, guys.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Keith Stanley with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

[Keith Stanley, Director at Wolfe Research]

Hi, thank you. first question, kind of a random one, but how is the company thinking about gas marketing, which I think some of your peers are more active in? Is that a business that you could try to grow in to increase margins? It just seems like if your view is gas is going to be more volatile, you have a lot of storage and other physical asset positions. Is marketing something that's becoming more interesting given the direction that gas is going in?

[Steve Kean, CEO at Kinder Morgan]

Yes, it is, with an important note of caution there. We, you know, we have done a fair amount of enhancement in our crude pipeline assets by picking up capacity that would otherwise not be utilized by third-party shippers, and making use of it and attracting additional volumes to the system in order to recover additional tariffs. We've done very well with that. We are extending that a bit into the gas marketing arena, but very much sticking to our knitting there and doing it in a non-speculative and kind of legging into it gradually. We do expect we'll be able to build on that as we go. There's another part of the business which is larger than that right now, which is in our Texas intrastate business, where we buy and sell natural gas.

[Steve Kean, CEO at Kinder Morgan]

As David pointed out in his comments about revenue versus cost of gas, goods sold, that is often done with reference to the same Houston Ship Channel price purchase at Houston Ship Channel minus, sell it at Houston Ship Channel or Houston Ship Channel plus, and pull out a transport margin in between. We have storage, and we often find that we have excess storage that we can optimize and make money on it in the state of Texas, and we've done very well with that, and that shows up in some of the optimization numbers that David was going through.

[Steve Kean, CEO at Kinder Morgan]

It's an activity that we're already in kind of a limited way in Texas, and we're looking to pick up additional and have picked up additional bits of capacity here and there around our system in order to expand on that business, but doing it in a very, I would say, very conservative and careful way.

[Keith Stanley, Director at Wolfe Research]

Makes sense. Thanks. Second question on the buybacks. You've done a lot year to date now, and the press release referenced $200 million of unbudgeted buybacks during Q2. Can you clarify what you mean by unbudgeted buybacks, and then how you think about buyback capacity for the company over the balance of the year versus other priorities? Thanks.

[David Michels, VP and CFO at Kinder Morgan]

Yeah. The, the unbudgeted comment just meant that we didn't budget for those.

[Steve Kean, CEO at Kinder Morgan]

We don't budget for share repurchase.

[David Michels, VP and CFO at Kinder Morgan]

We don't budget for share repurchases because we take an opportunistic approach. It's share price dependent. We don't take a program or, you know, in general, we don't take a programmatic approach to share repurchases. We think that's the right way to run this program. Going forward, I think we'd like to do is take a balanced approach. You know, we do, we will use balance sheet capacity for share repurchases if it makes sense, if the price makes sense for us to repurchase, but we want to do so in a way that's measured. We've worked really hard to improve our balance sheet.

[David Michels, VP and CFO at Kinder Morgan]

We've got it in a really good spot, and we don't want to do anything to damage that, but we also want to take advantage of good share repurchase opportunities.

[Keith Stanley, Director at Wolfe Research]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Neal Dingmann with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

[Neal Dingmann, Managing Director at Truist Securities]

Good morning, guys. Just a maybe quick broad one first. Not surprising, you all mentioned just how your lower-than-budget commodity prices impacted results. I'm just wondering, kind of a go forward now, have you reset or how you're thinking about sort of the remainder of the year and into 2024, how much differently now, just maybe in broad strokes?

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

Yes. The forecast that we gave you today has the gas prices and the crude prices roughly the current forward curve. Yes, we've reset it for 2023. In 2024, we don't really get into that till we do our budget process later in the year.

[Neal Dingmann, Managing Director at Truist Securities]

Okay. Great answer. Just lastly, again, also not surprising, you all mentioned just in the release how the crude and condensate business was impacted by the lower recontracting rates. Specifically what I was looking in was in the Eagle Ford, and I'm just wondering, could you speak to degree of rates also in the same basin going forward? Maybe the remainder of the year need to be recontracted there.

[Steve Kean, CEO at Kinder Morgan]

Yeah. Dax Sanders?

[Dax Sanders, President at Kinder Morgan]

We did, we rolled one contract there. There's still, you know, we've gone through over the last couple of years, the original legacy contracts from back in, you know, 2013, 2014, and not surprising, the rates that they're rolling out are lower than that. Right now, on KMCC, we've got about 84 a day, 85 a day capacity held by third parties. We've got about 75 held by our intercompany marketing affiliate that Steve spoke about. Of that 85 that rolls over the next, kind of, call it two to three years. We would expect, I mean, those contracts have largely already rolled from the high legacy rates of, you know, 10 years ago.

[Dax Sanders, President at Kinder Morgan]

They'll roll, but we wouldn't expect that there would be any massive changes like you've seen over the past couple of years.

[Neal Dingmann, Managing Director at Truist Securities]

Helpful. Thanks, Dax.

[Tom Martin, President of Natural Gas Pipelines at Kinder Morgan]

Yep.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Jean Ann Salisbury with Bernstein. Your line is open.

[Jean Ann Salisbury, Senior Analyst at Bank of America]

Hi. I think that you were just addressing crude in the last question, but I think I have sort of a similar question, which is that Eagle Ford volumes for gas were up year-on-year pretty materially, but it sounds like Eagle Ford contribution is down. I think that that's pretty much all because of the Copano roll-off. Is that right? Has that fully rolled off now?

[Tom Martin, President of Natural Gas Pipelines at Kinder Morgan]

Jean, yes, that's right. 2023 was the last year of those roll-offs. Now we should see, you know, as we recontract. We've already done our recontracting through the 2023 period. As we increase these volumes now, we're just gonna focus on increasing our margins.

[Jean Ann Salisbury, Senior Analyst at Bank of America]

Okay, that makes sense. Then as a follow-up, a lot of people are forecasting a widening of Texas and Louisiana gas differentials, as not all Permian Gas is able to get to Louisiana LNG. Do you agree with this, and does it change how you're thinking about your next Permian Gas takeaway solution offering?

[Tom Martin, President of Natural Gas Pipelines at Kinder Morgan]

Well, you know, one, we do see a need to get some infrastructure across to the Eastern Louisiana side. We are, you know, looking at some opportunities on our interstate networks to complement that or to accomplish that. You know, as we look at the next Permian project, we are having discussions, you know, not only with Gulf Coast LNG facilities, but also with the Louisiana facilities. So all of that will be taken into context, but I do see a physical need to get across from the western side to the eastern side.

[Jean Ann Salisbury, Senior Analyst at Bank of America]

Great. Thanks. That's all for me.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Neel Mitra with Bank of America. Your line is open.

[Neel Mitra, Senior Analyst at Bank of America]

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to follow up on LNG demand, specifically in the Corpus Christi area. Now that we have the Rio Grande project sanctioned, do you see any incremental interest in expanding GCX, given that there's more demand in the Corpus Christi area and the last two pipes have been built to the Houston area?

[Tom Martin, President of Natural Gas Pipelines at Kinder Morgan]

Yes. First, congratulations to the NextDecade team on getting that project across to the FID. At the outset, you know, it's good for the network, period. Yes, there is incremental interest, not only in a, you know, a Permian project, but also you've noticed we've sanctioned our Freer to Sinton project. You know, we've also got interest, renewed interest in GCX. Those conversations are happening, but as you know, we're in a very competitive environment, and all, you know, returns are gonna determine whether or not we proceed with the next project.

[Dax Sanders, President at Kinder Morgan]

That the reference to NextDecade was separate and apart from, GCX. We're not attributing that to any.

[Tom Martin, President of Natural Gas Pipelines at Kinder Morgan]

That's right.

[Dax Sanders, President at Kinder Morgan]

I think the main update there is, we had told you before that those discussions had gone cold, and they are now active again.

[Tom Martin, President of Natural Gas Pipelines at Kinder Morgan]

That's right.

[Dax Sanders, President at Kinder Morgan]

That's the change.

[Neel Mitra, Senior Analyst at Bank of America]

Got it. Then the second follow-up on the contract structure, maybe for your Texas intrastate network. We had pretty weak basis in the second quarter. I think it averaged about $0.60 between Waha and Henry Hub because of the heat. Do you have marketing contracts or short-term contracts? How were you able to increase your earnings off of that, with the narrow basis there this quarter?

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

I just want to clarify a couple of things. First, you know, what Steve was talking about on the Texas intrastate business, and the purchase and sales there, you know, typically, we're locking in those purchase and sales, you know, over one year or two years or three years. It's, you know, it's real supply, and it's real demand on the other end. You know, it's not as affected by, you know, changing basis differentials. You know, there's a market for what that transport spread is worth, and because there's demand on the other end, it doesn't necessarily move as much as the forward spreads move all the time. That's with respect to the Texas intrastate market.

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

With respect to the spread between Waha and Houston, we do have a little bit of capacity between Waha and Houston. We've hedged that capacity for this year and into next, and so we don't have much exposure there to what's happening, good or bad, with those basis differentials.

[Neel Mitra, Senior Analyst at Bank of America]

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

[Jeremy Tonet, Managing Director and Utilities and Midstream Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan]

Hi, good afternoon.

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

Good afternoon.

[Jeremy Tonet, Managing Director and Utilities and Midstream Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan]

Steve, wish you the best of luck in retirement here. Just want to start off, I guess. In the past, I think, calls, you talked about, you know, four or five as kind of a leverage level that the company thought about. I'm just wondering, is that still the level that you guys are kind of seeing, as appropriate for Kinder over time here? If it is, what's the path to getting there, given that leverage sits lower right now? Would it be more buybacks? Would it be acquisitions, or would it be growth projects? Just wondering, you know, what type of multiples are you seeing on new growth projects, given that there was a little bit of shift, as you guys talked about, with the backlog update?

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

Okay. Let me make a couple of points on that. Okay. Well, first one is, we are very comfortable with the 4.5x leverage target, given the breadth and the scope of our assets. You know, we have looked at whether it makes sense to bring that down, and we don't think it does. We think that where we are rated, BBB+, is a good place for a company like ours, and our ability to raise the debt that we need at reasonable rates, and that it would cost a lot of money to take our leverage much lower, and there's not much benefit in our cost to capital. We're leaving our leverage target at 4.5x.

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

Right now, as David told you, we're running at 4.1x. It's not burning a hole in our pocket, right? I mean, we like having some flexibility on our balance sheet, we don't feel some type of pressure to go from 4.1x to 4.5x. When we see nice opportunities, we have flexibility there because we have that capacity. If we don't see opportunities, you know, we're not going to stretch for anything to use that leverage capacity. We're not changing any of our return targets because we have leverage capability. With respect to the multiple going up on the backlog, what I would say about that is, you know, we target on average, you know, 15% unlevered after-tax projects.

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

You know, that can be, I mean, that can, in some cases, result in a going-in multiple of 7x or 8x. Just because, our, you know, our existing backlog is less than a 7x or 8x multiple, we're still gonna do that project. It's a 15% unlevered after-tax return, we're gonna do it even though it might increase the multiple on our backlog. As we look at projects, we're not saying, "Oh, what happens to our backlog multiple?" That, you know, that determines whether we do the project. No. Is it a good return project? We go lower than 15% unlevered tax return for a project with long-term contracts. You know, we're not gonna drop into single digits. That's how I would think about it.

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

Think about it more, you know, we're out there, we're looking for projects. We're trying to earn the maximum return that we can. We have a return threshold, and even though that might cause our backlog, return to change, we'll still do that project. Are there other questions? Oh, sorry. I said BBB+. I should have said, we're happy with BBB. Sorry.

[Jeremy Tonet, Managing Director and Utilities and Midstream Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan]

Got it. That's very helpful there. Just one last one, if I could. It regards to the CCS. We've seen some action recently in the industry, projects continuing to move forward and other items developing there. Just wondering, is there anything new to share from Kinder Morgan's perspective with regards to CCS potential?

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

CCS?

[Anthony Ashley, President of CO2 and Energy Transition Ventures at Kinder Morgan]

Sorry, say again?

[Jeremy Tonet, Managing Director and Utilities and Midstream Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan]

Carbon capture, yeah.

[Tom Martin, President of Natural Gas Pipelines at Kinder Morgan]

Carbon capture. Okay.

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry, what was the rest of the question, Tom? I didn't hear the CCS part of it.

[Jeremy Tonet, Managing Director and Utilities and Midstream Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan]

Just there's been some actions out there in the CCS industry projects, bigger projects moving forward in the Midwest and other actions out there in the industry at large. Just wondering if there's any updated thoughts from Kinder Morgan with regards to potential CCS efforts.

[Anthony Ashley, President of CO2 and Energy Transition Ventures at Kinder Morgan]

No, I mean, we continue to be very busy on the CCS front. I would say both around our existing infrastructure that we have in West Texas. We talked about our Red Cedar project in January. That continues to progress well. We're talking to a number of other folks in West Texas as well. We're very active, kind of, in conversations in the Gulf Coast as well, I would say, both on sort of the transportation and sequestration side of things, as well as just for potential transportation opportunities. These are long development cycle opportunities. I think when it's appropriate for us to talk to you guys about that, we'll talk about those projects.

[Anthony Ashley, President of CO2 and Energy Transition Ventures at Kinder Morgan]

There is a lot of activity, especially post-IRA, in that world.

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

We're definitely looking at it, and of course, what we bring to the table is the expertise to move it and sequester it, and we've done that in West Texas, and we can do that in the Gulf Coast, if the opportunities are correct and the returns are correct.

[Jeremy Tonet, Managing Director and Utilities and Midstream Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan]

Got it. Makes sense. I'll leave it there. Thank you.

[Operator]

There are no further questions in the queue.

[Kim Dang, President at Kinder Morgan]

Okay. Thank you, everybody. Have a good evening.

[Operator]

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. You may disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Anthony Ashley, President of CO2 and Energy Transition Ventures
• David Michels, VP and CFO
• Dax Sanders, President
• Kim Dang, President
• Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman
• Steve Kean, CEO
• Tom Martin, President of Natural Gas Pipelines

Analysts

• Brian Reynolds, Senior VP at UBS
• Colton Bean, Managing Director of Global Energy Infrastructure Equity Research at TPH & Co.
• Jean Ann Salisbury, Senior Analyst at Bank of America
• Jeremy Tonet, Managing Director and Utilities and Midstream Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan
• Keith Stanley, Director at Wolfe Research
• Michael Blum, Managing Director at Wells Fargo
• Neal Dingmann, Managing Director at Truist Securities
• Neel Mitra, Senior Analyst at Bank of America
• Theresa Chen, Managing Director of Midstream and Refining Equity Research and Senior Analyst at Barclays
• Tristan Richardson, Managing Director at Scotiabank