Gibson Energy Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
July 28, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Record infrastructure performance: Infrastructure adjusted EBITDA reached CAD 169 million, up CAD 17 million year over year, supported by higher utilization, Chauvin contributions and approximately 8 million additional barrels of throughput.
  • Positive Sentiment: Growth opportunities are expanding: Gibson sees increased customer interest in tankage, pipelines, producer partnerships and optimization projects as Canadian egress improves. The company expects a final investment decision by year-end on a Chauvin expansion that would increase capacity 50% to 45,000 barrels per day.
  • Positive Sentiment: Marketing earnings strengthened: Second-quarter marketing adjusted EBITDA rose to CAD 15 million from CAD 8 million a year earlier, driven by strong refined-products crack spreads and improved product mix. Management expects full-year marketing results toward the upper end of its CAD 0 million to CAD 40 million range, with continued strength anticipated in the third quarter.
  • Positive Sentiment: Cost and financial flexibility initiatives advanced: Gibson expects approximately CAD 10 million in sustainable annualized savings in 2027 and recently extended its CAD 1 billion revolving credit facility to 2031 and issued CAD 400 million of senior unsecured notes.
  • Negative Sentiment: Leverage remains elevated: Reported net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 4.2 times at quarter-end, above the company’s 3.0-to-3.5-times long-term target, although management expects leverage to return to range in early 2027. U.S. export volumes also remain exposed to volatile freight rates, vessel availability and shifting trade flows, while corporate expenses are still expected at CAD 17 million to CAD 18 million per quarter for the remainder of 2026.
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Earnings Conference Call
Gibson Energy Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

There are 11 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Gibson Energy second quarter 2026 conference call. Please be advised that this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Beth Pollock, Vice President, Capital Markets and Corporate Development. Ms. Pollock, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today to discuss Gibson's second quarter 2026 results. Joining me are Curtis Philippon, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Riley Hicks, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Other members of our senior leadership team are also with us and will be available during the Q&A should any additional questions come up. Before we begin, I'd like to remind listeners that today's call will include references to non-GAAP financial measures and forward-looking information, which are subject to certain assumptions and risks. Additional information, including reconciliations of these measures and related disclosures, are available in our investor presentation and our continuous disclosure documents on SEDAR+, as well as on our website. With that, Curtis, over to you.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Beth, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today as we review Gibson's second quarter 2026 results. This was a significant quarter for Gibson, and I would like to begin by recognizing our team. Their hard work, disciplined execution, and commitment made these results possible. Most importantly, we achieved a notable safety milestone in the quarter, surpassing one full year without a recordable injury, inclusive of both employees and contractors. This milestone reflects the strength of our safety culture, the experience and commitment of our teams, the quality of our program, and the relentless focus on continuous improvement across the organization. Turning to the quarter, I'd like to start with the macro backdrop because it has changed meaningfully over the past several months. Looking at the environment today, I see a more constructive backdrop for North American energy infrastructure than even a quarter ago.

Speaker 2

While this created opportunities which benefited our second quarter results, what gives me the greatest confidence is the long-term opportunity it creates for Gibson. The strategic importance of secure, reliable North American energy has never been more clear. Gibson is well-positioned to support our customers with our infrastructure strategically located at critical hubs across the global energy supply chain. In Canada, recent market and access announcements and pipeline developments have created positive momentum for the energy infrastructure sector. This reinforces our long-term growth strategy and has already accelerated commercial discussions with our customers. Historically, every new barrel of pipeline egress has required approximately four barrels of storage capacity. Over the past decade, Gibson has developed a significant share of the new merchant crude oil storage in Canada. Today, approximately half of TMX heavy crude volumes move through our Edmonton terminal, underscoring the scale and relevance of our platform.

Speaker 2

With strategic terminals and land positions in Hardisty, Edmonton, and Bruderheim, along with our customer relationships and operating expertise, Gibson is very well-positioned to support our customers' evolving infrastructure needs. The broader market backdrop is also shaping our U.S. business, where geopolitical uncertainty has continued to drive commodity volatility, elevated freight rates, shifting global trade flows, and constrained vessel availability, all of which have had temporary impacts on gateway volumes. Following a softer first quarter, market conditions strengthened meaningfully in the second quarter. We have now set year-to-date volume records at the terminal. Looking ahead, we are monitoring freight rates, vessel availability, and commodity volatility closely. Our commercial team is continuing to work with customers to ensure we can meet their needs and capture opportunities together as market conditions remain volatile. Against this backdrop, Gibson continued to advance our growth strategy and delivered a strong second quarter.

Speaker 2

We achieved a new record for infrastructure adjusted EBITDA, had our strongest marketing quarter since the second quarter of 2024. Nearly set a new record for overall adjusted EBITDA. The marketing performance was notable in the quarter. The team did an outstanding job capitalizing on opportunities created by crude volatility. The investments we made last year to expand our refined products capability and diversify our customer base are also delivering results in today's stronger crack spread environment. Year-to-date marketing has contributed CAD 18 million of adjusted EBITDA, and it is trending towards the upper end of the CAD 40 million full-year range we provided at our Investor Day. Turning to infrastructure growth, we closed our acquisition of the Chauvin Pipeline system on May 1st. This pipeline extends our core position at Hardisty and adds stable contracted cash flows underpinned by long-term agreements with TGE.

Speaker 2

Since closing, we have started work on the Hardisty connection project, which will directly connect the Chauvin assets into our core Hardisty terminal, providing customers with improved access to market. We continue to expect this project to be completed in the first half of 2027. We are also advancing the next phase of growth at Chauvin. Engineering work is underway on the planned expansion project to increase effective capacity by 50%, from 30,000 barrels per day to 45,000 barrels per day. We remain on track towards a final investment decision by year-end. In the U.S., the Wink to Gateway integration project is on track to be placed in service by the end of the third quarter. The first phase of the pipeline twinning work is complete, enhancing our ability to move supply concurrently from the Eagle Ford and Permian basins into Gateway.

Speaker 2

These growth projects enhance our connectivity, improve network efficiency. Support additional capital deployment around our core assets, with the objective of delivering sustainable long-term value and attractive per-share growth for shareholders. With that, I've covered our safety milestone, the macro environment, marketing performance, and the continued execution of our infrastructure growth strategy. I'll now turn the call over to Riley. He'll walk you through our second quarter financial results and balance sheet, which continue to provide financial strength and flexibility to support the strategy I've outlined today.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Curtis. As Curtis highlighted, we delivered a strong second quarter, supported by the continued strength of our infrastructure business, improved marketing performance, and disciplined execution across the organization. This quarter demonstrated the strength of our infrastructure business and the benefits of the strategy that we continue to execute. Our infrastructure business delivered a record CAD 169 million of adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter, a CAD 17 million increase from the second quarter of 2025, and CAD 9 million higher than the previous record set in the fourth quarter of 2025. What stands out to me isn't simply the record EBITDA, but where it came from. We saw stronger utilization across the network, contribution from our newly acquired Chauvin asset, and the continued benefits from optimization initiatives, reflected in an increase of approximately 8 million barrels of throughput across our portfolio as compared to the same period last year.

Speaker 3

Together, these results reinforce our confidence in the quality of our infrastructure business, supported by increasingly resilient cash flows and a stronger long-term growth profile. In addition to the record infrastructure results, what impressed me this quarter was how quickly the marketing team responded when opportunities emerged. Their execution helped deliver adjusted EBITDA of CAD 15 million in the second quarter, compared with CAD 8 million in the second quarter of 2025. More important than the earnings themselves is what they tell us about the business. These results demonstrate that the investments that we've made in people, technology, and commercial capabilities are translating into better execution. This quarter's performance was largely driven by our refined products business, with strong crack spreads driving increased margins on our distillate sales, offset by slightly weaker than expected asphalt demand.

Speaker 3

From a capital investment standpoint, operational enhancements that were placed into service during our 2025 turnaround enhanced our product diversity while supporting stronger commercial execution and improved margins on our asphalt sales. Our investments in technology have helped us streamline processes, supporting faster real-time decision-making, enabling our people to respond quickly as opportunities arise. From a cost perspective, the second quarter G&A expense of CAD 16 million was below the previous guidance of CAD 17 million-CAD 18 million, benefiting from the implementation of certain one-time cost savings initiatives. I am very encouraged by the progress we're making to structurally improve our cost base. Our organizational restructuring and broader efficiency initiatives are simplifying our business, improving decision-making, and creating operating leverage that will support long-term earnings growth. We continue to expect these initiatives to deliver approximately CAD 10 million of sustainable annualized savings in 2027.

Speaker 3

Perhaps the most important takeaway from our quarterly results is the strength of our overall performance. On a consolidated basis, adjusted EBITDA of CAD 169 million was in line with our previous quarterly record and represented a substantial increase of CAD 22 million from the same period last year, underscoring the momentum we are seeing across our business. Distributable cash flow of CAD 96 million in the quarter, an increase of CAD 15 million compared to the second quarter of 2025, was supported by record infrastructure EBITDA and partially offset by higher financing costs and current income taxes. These strong financial results reflect the disciplined approach to capital allocation and balance sheet management that we've maintained over many years. This focus was recently reinforced by the reaffirmation of our investment-grade credit ratings and stable outlooks by both DBRS and S&P.

Speaker 3

This reflects the strength of our financial profile and the confidence in our long-term strategy. Maintaining investment-grade credit metrics is a core financial principle as it ensures we have the financial flexibility and access to markets we need to pursue high-quality infrastructure growth opportunities. Looking ahead, we expect leverage to return to our long-term target range of 3 to 3.5 times in early 2027. At quarter end, our reported net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio was 4.2 times, while infrastructure leverage was 4.4 times. To put this in perspective, when considering a full 12 months of contribution from the Chauvin acquisition, our overall leverage was 3.9 times and our infrastructure-only leverage was 4.1 times. These metrics are within rating agency thresholds, and we are well capitalized and positioned to meet our customers' growing needs.

Speaker 3

Looking at our dividend payout ratio, we exited the quarter with a sustainable payout ratio of 88%. This was temporarily elevated due to the impact of the shares issued to fund our Chauvin acquisition not yet being offset by a full 12 months of trailing cash flow contribution. On an infrastructure-only basis, our payout ratio was 83%, well below our target of 100%. This reinforces our confidence in both our financial position and our long-term dividend philosophy. Since our last call, we further strengthened our financial position and enhanced our financial flexibility by extending our CAD 1 billion revolving credit facility to June 2031. We also issued CAD 400 million of senior unsecured notes, improving our liquidity position. Collectively, these actions reinforce the strength of Gibson's balance sheet.

Speaker 3

We were able to complete a strategic acquisition, refinance our debt on attractive terms, and continue to support our dividend, all while preserving the financial flexibility and investment-grade credit profile that will allow us to fund our long-term growth plans. With that, I'll turn the call back to Curtis to bring it all together.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Riley. To close, we are pleased with our performance during the second quarter, and year-to-date, we remain on track with our plan. Our team's ability to execute in a dynamic market environment is impressive. We delivered record infrastructure results, capitalized on opportunities in marketing, successfully closed the Chauvin acquisition, advanced key infrastructure growth projects, and maintained our industry-leading safety performance. The progress we have made this year reinforces our confidence in the long-term strategy and the financial objectives we outlined at Investor Day. We remain focused on executing that plan and creating sustainable value for our shareholders. I'd like to thank the Gibson team for their continued commitment to safe and reliable operations, and I'd also like to thank our shareholders for their continued support. Before I wrap up, maybe one last shout-out.

Speaker 2

Two weekends ago, there was a Tour Alberta for Cancer that Gibson was proud to be a Northern Light sponsor for that event. It's a great event in Alberta that raised over CAD 12.5 million for cancer research. It's quite an impressive event. Gibson was proud to be one of the top five fundraising groups in that event. We had over 45 riders participating. Riley and myself included, were suffering along with everybody. The Gibson team alone raised over CAD 410,000. I believe the highest amount of fundraising raised per rider for any team in the ride. It's just a spectacular event, a great success story for cancer research and just quite impressive to see what the team did. Thank you to everybody who participated. With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator to open the line for questions.

Operator

Thank you, Curtis. At this time, we will conduct the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Aaron MacNeil with TD Cowen. Aaron, your line is now open.

Speaker 4

Hey, morning all. Thanks for taking my questions. Curtis, you mentioned a meaningful change in the macro backdrop in your prepared remarks and highlighted the potential for new tankage. New tanks were among the handful of different growth opportunities that you outlined at the Investor Day. Has incremental tankage become the highest likelihood growth opportunity in your view, or are you also seeing opportunities across those sort of other buckets like producer partnerships, pipelines, DRU expansions, as well as optimization? Has your view changed in terms of your goal to deploy CAD 1 billion of growth capital over the next five years, or does recent momentum just improve the visibility for you to reach that goal?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Aaron. Good morning. Hey, when I look across those buckets we outlined of over CAD 1 billion of growth capital and that we see in front of us, the tank side, obviously, there's some direct implications for more pipeline egress requiring additional tankage. That looks very promising, and we're not quite ready to predict that we're gonna be increasing what we projected in that page, but that looks much more probable and feeling very confident on that. I'd also note that just in general, excellent egress out of the basin drives all types of growth and as our customers grow and activity increases, it really enhances every one of these buckets, with perhaps the exception of the DRU.

Speaker 2

On all the other buckets, pipelines in particular, there's all kinds of opportunities as producers are increasing their production, that they need additional infrastructure solutions to get their barrels to market and tanks are part of that, but pipes and producer partnerships and various optimization projects we can do, all will be necessary to feed the type of production growth they're going to see out of Western Canada. As I said, the one that perhaps takes a bit of a back seat is the DRU side of things, I think we've seen discussions quiet on that until you see some more clarity on some of these pipeline egress options.

Speaker 4

That's a great segue into my next question. This one's a bit of an oddball question, apologies if it doesn't apply, access to condensate is emerging as a potential impediment to crude oil production growth in Canada. Obviously, the DRU prevents condensate from being exported. Have you looked at how you might participate in helping facilitate incremental condensate imports? If so, what would that look like?

Speaker 2

I think you hit on the one that's very much an actionable thing for us, that the DRU can play a role in keeping condensate in Alberta. There's a role for that to sort of play an increasing role over the next number of years. Beyond that, I wouldn't comment quite yet. I made one comment in my notes in the script that we've seen an acceleration of commercial discussions with customers, whether it's condensate or additional crude infrastructure requirements, we've seen a lot more interest from our customers on all these fronts.

Speaker 4

Fair enough. Thanks, Curtis. I'll turn it back.

Operator

Thank you, Aaron. Our next call comes from Robert Hope with Scotiabank. Please go, Robert.

Speaker 5

Morning, everyone. How have moving pricing diffs, tanker rates, as well as the availability of ships, impacted contracting discussions at South Texas? Are you seeing strong demand there, having your customers actually sign longer term contracts is a bit more challenging just given the dynamics, or can you maybe just walk us through kind of the near and medium term dynamics?

Speaker 2

Good morning, Rob. That's a good shout-out. The crude export market is a volatile place right now. I don't think it's a surprise for anybody. All these factors are playing into all of our customers seeing their supply chains regularly disrupted and plans they thought they had one day are changing the next. In this volatile market, we've been more focused on the near term with our customers. It's difficult for customers to be making long-term commitments and decisions in this type of volatile market. Where I've been really pleased with our team is that this sort of chaotic environment creates an opportunity for us to really grow some new relationships with customers. We saw over the last quarter that we added five new customers on short-term opportunities into Gateway and actually delivered volume onto ships for those customers.

Speaker 2

That's a really big deal for us that we've probably, in our history, there hasn't been much more than 12 customers that have come through Gateway. To have five new customers, including some super majors, experiencing Gateway and the team and the quality of that assets, and being able to help them out as they're facing a jam in sort of this chaotic market, I think will pay dividends in time. Right now, today, I think it's a fair comment to say that people are just seeing so much volatility that it's difficult for them to make long-term decisions in the near term.

Speaker 5

All right. Appreciate that. Maybe just as a follow-up to one of your prior answers. In your prepared remarks, you mentioned that you are seeing accelerated commercial discussions for new infrastructure. Can I ask, in what specific areas are you seeing the most incremental demand, and could we see some project announcements by your end?

Speaker 2

Yeah. As I just mentioned, I think we've seen good activity on all fronts, with perhaps the DRU being the one in the back burner right now, but we've seen good discussions on all other types of projects with customers. The most likely thing you'll hear us talking about for an FID between now and the end of the year is the work around the Chauvin Pipeline. That we've got good expansion work that's being engineered right now, and we expect that we'll FID that before the end of the year. We've also got a number of different projects that we're working on with customers to extend additional laterals off the Chauvin Pipeline that we're working through some of that. I think the one I'd watch for FID this year would be the expansion work.

Speaker 5

All right. Appreciate that. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, Maurice. Our next question comes from Maurice Choy. Maurice is with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Speaker 6

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Maybe I'll want to continue our discussion into the capital allocation side of things. It sounds like there's a lot of opportunities, yet you are on a deleveraging journey at least through to early 2027 when you get back into your debt to EBITDA range. If I take the assumption that many of these opportunities are coming at you faster now than before, any early thoughts as to how you reconfigure how you allocate your distributable cash flows and how you raise funds?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Thanks, Mo. I think when we think about capital allocation, we're very comfortable with where our balance sheet is, and we're very comfortable with what our capital allocation priorities are. I would say there's no material change to how we approach funding our business. As we look out over the growth profile of the business, we think we can continue to fund it through distributable cash flow and a mix of debt and stay within our target leverage range. As these projects come to surface and as market conditions change, we'll always evaluate other financing alternatives to see what makes the most sense for our shareholders. As we stand today, there's no change to our capital allocation priorities.

Speaker 6

Thanks for that. Just finishing up on marketing. Clearly, the performance is better than you had expected when you provided guidance to us at the last conference call. Can you break down a little bit more as to what transpired? I know you mentioned topics about refined products and crack spreads in your prepared remarks. Whether or not you see some of these trends continuing and maybe even outperforming the new guidance that you gave us today about being in the upper end of the CAD 40 million range.

Speaker 2

I think the story of the quarter on marketing is really a refined product story, and you saw over the quarter that Crack spreads just continued to be strong and get stronger to just some outstanding levels. That was one part of the story, and then the second part of the story was really on what the mix was out of the Moose Jaw facility. We had a really nice success story over this quarter, and we expect that'll continue, in particular in next quarter, on that sort of continued strong mix. We made some changes back at our turnaround last year and did some work with a couple of customers to expand our ability to provide some different products to them.

Speaker 2

that's proved out to be a great move, we're seeing strong demand out of those customers and also some improved margins out of being able to provide that product mix. That, combined with the improved crack spread market, really drove stronger than what we initially anticipated for the quarter. I think you'll see that continue to progress into Q3.

Speaker 6

Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Sam Burwell with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Speaker 7

Hey, guys. Good morning. You've alluded several times to the volatility in exports, which I think we can all understand. Just looking back a little bit, can you provide us just some kind of commentary as to how exports progressed from May to June and then into July, and then any expectations you could share for the rest of the quarter, at least as far out as you have any reasonable visibility?

Speaker 2

Morning, Sam. It is a volatile market, so I'd love to be able to say I can tell you exactly what crude exports look like out of the U.S. for the remainder of the year. It is definitely changing on a daily basis on what customers are doing with their crude, what vessels are available, what path vessels need to take around the world to get to markets. All those things are playing into just what vessels are available to coming in and that's having some volume impacts. We think Q3 looks similar to Q2 from a volume perspective, but that's what it is from a contracting perspective, and it's really up to our customers on whether the vessels arrive and we actually load those vessels.

Speaker 2

Our actual volumes are still to be determined whether we're above or below what we saw for Q2, but from a contracted and what we've got locked in, we expect that we're going to be at a similar range to Q2 and Q3.

Speaker 7

Great. On the corporate expense, it's a small difference, but still showing improvement is obviously a good thing. Is CAD 16 million a quarter the right number to assume until we get to that sustained CAD 10 million annualized savings in 2027? Are we still thinking about the CAD 17 million, CAD 18 million of corporate drag per quarter?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Sam. I think right now we're still CAD 17 million to CAD 18 million per quarter for the rest of the year. You'll see us continue to be laser-focused on trying to bring that down with savings initiatives. I would point you back to the business and some of the investments we're making that are dragging on our G&A. We're seeing those returns within our business, and specifically I'd point to the marketing group where we've spent quite a bit of money on technology to improve processes, and it's truly having an impact on the EBITDA in that sector. Despite G&A being higher, we are seeing the positive impacts throughout the business. We're going to continue to be laser-focused on bringing our costs down and driving that sustainable cost savings.

Speaker 7

All righty. Thank you guys, much appreciated.

Speaker 2

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next call comes from Patrick Kenny with National Bank Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Maybe just back on the potential for new tankage at Edmonton and Hardisty and that 4:1 historical storage to production ratio. Just wondering if maybe customers are now thinking about the benefits of having excess storage capacity in terms of helping to keep differentials relatively tight as well as having more optionality with respect to moving spot barrels westbound versus southbound, depending on where the best net back might be. Just wondering if these dynamics might be pushing up industry demand more towards, say, a 5:1 or 6:1 ratio for that next wave of storage, and how you might be able to capitalize on that trend at either Edmonton or Hardisty.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I think as you look at what is the good rule of thumb to use, I think when you also add in the fact that a West Coast pipe is going to the water, and just by the nature of going to the water, you're going to require probably more than that 4:1 ratio on tankage to supply that sort of pipeline. I think there's some good arguments on why the tankage build-out could be larger as these projects progress. I'd say we're still really early. We're sort of early stage of pipes getting announced, and we still need FIDs to see how all this progresses. What we have seen early on is some increasing activity. There's definitely more calls on tanks than we've had at any time in the last two years since I've been here.

Speaker 2

We've seen some good activity on contracting up some spare capacity over the last few months as people are trying to get ahead of that. We've been cautious on that to sort of keep that relatively short term in nature as we see how this all shapes up. It's been a good environment for tanks getting locked up in recent months. I would also say, though, that when you look across North America, tanks are effectively at bottoms, and you still got a very backward dated market. I think there's still not quite a rush on tanks in that environment. Let's see how this plays out over the next few years.

Speaker 8

You mentioned tanks being effectively at bottoms there, especially, PADD 2 and Cushing. I guess, just wondering if this could open up some new location-based opportunities for the marketing team, through the back half of the year. I guess, looking back at Investor Day, the top end of your CAD 40 million guidance, crack spreads weren't anywhere near where they are today. Just wondering if you might have any sensitivities you could provide to the upside should, crack spreads and again, storage levels remain where they are over the next, say, six to nine months.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Pat. It's Riley here. I think when we think about the forecast being at the upper end of the zero to CAD 40 million range, it really reflects the seasonality of our refined products business. We would agree that the refined products crack spreads are strong, and we would expect Q3 to remain strong. As we get into Q4, you'll see the impact of seasonality on that business. In this backward data market, we're seeing less opportunities for our crude marketing team. We still think that zero to CAD 40 million range is the right range, just the higher end of it. In terms of some of the questions around additional location and time-based opportunities down in Cushing or PADD 2, we're always evaluating those opportunities. We're ready to take advantage of them when they exist. We're going to do that within our risk profile.

Speaker 3

We have a team that's ready to execute, and we're confident that they will, if that opportunity arises.

Speaker 8

Sorry, last one, if I could, Riley. You just started to build out your U.S. marketing initiatives, appreciating it might still be early days, just given this constructive backdrop, wondering if you've been able to accelerate and perhaps start to capture any new marketing opportunities south of the border.

Speaker 2

We're pretty happy about what our U.S. marketing team's been able to do. Relatively early days with that team getting built out. I think the most meaningful thing that you're seeing that team doing right now is really helping in this volatile market to provide additional liquidity and additional access to barrels for our customers at Gateway. You saw that volume number increase fairly substantially in Q2. A lot of that in the background was actually very good work by our U.S. marketing team to help source barrels for customers in this sort of volatile market. Maybe not directly driving EBITDA with those activities through the marketing group, but absolutely playing a big role in supporting the infrastructure side of the business.

Speaker 8

Okay. That's great. I appreciate all the color. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder to everyone, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Our next question comes from Benjamin Pham from BMO. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Speaker 9

Thanks. Good morning. I can appreciate you have the EBITDA infrastructure growth guidance somewhat locked up for this year, and it looks like based on math, next year as well. You have potential sanctioning of a project late this year. How are you thinking about the 2028 delivery of guidance? You think it's more organic driven or you need to tuck in an acquisition here and there?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Morning, Ben. I think as you get into 2028, what gets really interesting is you start seeing more of these pipe projects becoming more reality, and I think you're getting closer to the time where people are actually building out tankage and doing things like that. Definitely, we would view that this is an organic path to go achieve what we laid out at Investor Day, that there's good organic growth projects that'll come. If anything, I think you're going to see more of those growth capital projects starting to get deployed in a bigger way as you get into that 2028 time period. On top of that, I think it's a good call on the acquisition side of things. Not required to go achieve that over 7% infrastructure growth rate.

Speaker 2

As we saw with Chauvin, we're out there hunting for good opportunities to go bolt on around the Gibson base, and we think there's other ones out there, and we'll see how that plays out. I think the team's done a good job in integrating that asset and already driving some good returns out of that. We're going to keep looking for other things like that we can keep on bolting on to this crown jewel set of assets.

Speaker 9

Got it. On your balance sheet, the references around early next year normalization. Are you in a situation where you can continue to add organic growth, hit your growth guidance, still get that balance sheet down, or is it more of that target could potentially move forward as you add more CapEx to your budget?

Speaker 2

Yeah. I think as we think about getting our leverage back down to range, if we continue to have strong marketing quarters, it will come down very quickly. We look at our growth profile, we factored in into that estimate of coming down in early 2027. We factored in the growth that we see coming forward. We're quite confident we're going to bring that down early 2027.

Speaker 9

Okay. Got it. Maybe the last one, a couple questions on the tankage position. You're strategically well-positioned to benefit as the egress potentially comes on. Can you maybe talk about, is it better for you to see more egress benefiting your tanks, or is it better for production to exceed egress and differentials widen? If that makes sense to you.

Speaker 2

I think in general, we're an infrastructure company, so we love it when it's sort of a healthy environment for our customers, that there's lots of egress for our customers to grow production into, and healthy growing customers drives great infrastructure projects. That's plan A. As this moves out, that's the best-case scenario for our customers and ultimately drives the most infrastructure growth for Gibson. It is a good call-out. As you go look at the amount of growth that will happen in Canada over the next number of years and all these various pipe projects and all this production coming online, it will create a challenge for people to time that perfectly on when does that production come online versus when does that pipe come into service.

Speaker 2

Inevitably, that'll create situations where we have inefficiencies that create a stronger need for more terminaling capacity to help create buffers in that system and will ultimately also create interesting opportunities for our marketing group in some of those inefficient moments as you have these inevitable mismatches between timing, between production, and egress coming online.

Speaker 9

Okay, got it. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our final question today comes from Robert Catellier with CIBC Capital Markets. Go ahead, Robert.

Speaker 10

Good morning, everyone. I just wanted to follow up on the tank question again. There's no doubt that more tanks will be required over time as the egress develops. A lot of those options are sort of longer-dated. What I'd like for you to address here, you sort of touched on it in the last answer, but the tension between renewals when there's ample storage and tanks are near their bottoms versus the need to develop more over longer term. Can you walk us through that? I'm just curious if you see any air pockets, maybe where there's perhaps less demand in the short term and maybe pressures rates or renewals, and then compare that to what you're seeing in terms of what you said, I think earlier, was accelerating demand.

Speaker 10

Just sort of give us the glide path you see from here on storage before things really pick up and the egress options hit the market.

Speaker 2

Sure. Good morning, Rob. When you look at the Canadian business right now, outside of all these recent egress announcements, already, if you look at oil sands producers, it's a positive market right now. There's a lot of very good capital projects that are already in flight, and that production's coming online. We're seeing increased throughput already through our facilities. We're seeing more production that's sort of on the cusp of coming. All of those things will drive more competitive tension in the terminals, but I'd still say, yeah, we're at tank bottoms, a backwardated market, so it's still early on that, but it has been quite noteworthy the amount of tank inbounds and some of the sort of contracting up we've been able to do on spare capacity in the recent months.

Speaker 2

I think producers and ourselves see that there's more volume coming, and people need to have tanks built to land that in and help get that to market. We're seeing an increasing amount of competitive tension over the quarter already and expect that'll continue to play out. When we look at the timing of that production coming online versus pipes coming online over the next couple of years, we see that tension growing in Canada.

Speaker 10

Okay, that's helpful. Does that tension, is that leading to any customer willingness to sign longer duration agreements?

Speaker 2

We saw a pretty significant announcement from us back at Investor Day with a very long-term, significant re-up of contracting in our Edmonton facility, we did a couple other sort of 10-year type deals around that. I don't think there was no accident behind that. Those are some good long-term customers that know the basin very well, that saw some of this coming and wanted to make sure they secured their position ahead of some of this additional tension coming into the market. I think you're seeing some of that. Then on the other side, I would say, to a certain extent, the volatility that we're seeing on the crude export business in the U.S., you're also seeing some of that in Canada.

Speaker 2

There's a lot of volatility in the market right now, and that's causing, I think, boardrooms around all over the place to be a little bit cautious on how long-term they're committing before they see things settle down a little bit.

Speaker 10

Okay, that makes sense. Last one from me. I noticed, as is your custom, you amended and extended the credit facility. Can you let us know if there's any material changes in terms of the amendments to the credit facility?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Thanks, Rob. Yeah, there was no material changes at all to the amendment. We did that as a standard, like you said, and nothing new.

Speaker 10

Thanks. Okay, that's it for me. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. I would now like to turn it back to Ms. Pollock for closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Thank you, and thank you for joining us today. Supplemental materials are available on our website at gibsonenergy.com. If you have any additional questions, please contact our investor relations team. Have a great day.

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

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