Enbridge Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
July 31, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Enbridge reaffirmed its 2026 guidance after adjusted EBITDA rose by more than CAD 130 million year over year in Q2, supported by high utilization, stronger liquids volumes, favorable gas transmission rate outcomes and lower maintenance capital. DCF per share increased, although EPS declined slightly due to higher depreciation and interest expense.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company has sanctioned approximately CAD 9 billion of projects in 2026 and is targeting up to CAD 20 billion of new sanctions through 2027, backed by a CAD 41 billion secured backlog and roughly CAD 50 billion of organic opportunities through 2030.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Mainline Optimization Phase 2 is being resequenced because Canadian producers and governments need more time to finalize production policies and commitments. Enbridge will prioritize downstream Chicago South, Flanagan South and Southern Access opportunities, while retaining several options for a future Mainline expansion.
  • Positive Sentiment: Gas Transmission demand remains robust across LNG exports, power generation, data centers and industrial growth. Project Beacon attracted significantly more interest than expected, while Blackcomb is being commissioned, Bay Runner Twin has been sanctioned and the CAD 4 billion Sunrise expansion has begun construction.
  • Positive Sentiment: Utilities are forecast to deliver more than 8% rate-base growth, led by U.S. operations, and Renewable Power is constructing more than 2 gigawatts of generation with blue-chip counterparties including Meta. Management also expects to maintain its leverage within the 4.5x–5.0x target range, despite elevated near-term debt tied to growth investment.
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Earnings Conference Call
Enbridge Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Marlon Samuel
Marlon Samuel
VP of Investor Relations and Insurance at Enbridge

Good morning, and welcome to the Enbridge Inc. Second Quarter 2026 conference call. My name is Marlon Samuel, and I am the Vice President of Investor Relations and Insurance. Joining me this morning are Greg Ebel, President and CEO, Pat Murray, EVP and Chief Financial Officer, and the heads of each of our business units. Colin Gruending, Liquids Pipelines, Matthew Akman, Gas Transmission, Michele Harradence, Gas Distribution and Storage, and Allen Capps, Renewable Power. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session for the investment community. Please note this conference call is being recorded. As per usual, this call is being webcast, and I encourage those listening to follow along with the supporting slides.

Marlon Samuel
Marlon Samuel
VP of Investor Relations and Insurance at Enbridge

We will try to keep the call to roughly one hour, and in order to answer as many questions as possible, we will be limiting questions to one plus a single follow-up if necessary. We will be prioritizing questions from the investment community. If you are a member of the media, please direct your inquiries to our communications team who will be happy to respond. As always, our investor relations teams will be available after the call for any follow-up questions. On to slide two, where I will remind you that we will be referring to forward-looking information on today's presentation and Q&A. By its nature, this information contains forecast assumptions and expectations about future outcomes, which are subject to the risks and uncertainties outlined here and discussed more fully in our public disclosure filings. We will also be referring to non-GAAP measures summarized below.

Marlon Samuel
Marlon Samuel
VP of Investor Relations and Insurance at Enbridge

With that, I'll turn it over to Greg Ebel.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Well, thanks very much, Marlon, and good morning everyone, and thanks for joining us on the call today. We finished the first half of the year with a solid quarter two, reflecting strong financial performance and setting us up to achieve our 2026 guidance. Utilization remained high across all four businesses, including strong Q2 Mainline volumes averaging 3.1 MMbpd. Alongside our partners in the Gulf, we began commissioning the Blackcomb Pipeline during the quarter and are on track to bring it online by year-end. We also brought the Enbridge Houston Oil Terminal into service during the quarter, and within Liquids Pipelines, we sanctioned the Wisconsin Line 5 relocation project. In Gas Transmission, we signed an exclusive option agreement allowing Enbridge to acquire the TTC Connector pipeline along the Gulf Coast, which connects Tres Palacios Gas Storage to Freeport LNG.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

In the Permian, we sanctioned the Bay Runner Twin project, which alongside the initial Bay Runner pipeline, will serve Rio Grande LNG facility along the U.S. Gulf Coast. All said, we are well on track to secure up to CAD 20 billion in new projects in the 2026-2027 timeframe. Now let's dive right into the quarter's presentation. As we outlined here, it is truly an exciting time to be in the energy industry. There is a widening array of opportunities in front of all four core franchises at Enbridge, reflecting possibly the best environment for growth that we've had in recent memory. That is visible in our CAD 50 billion of organic growth capital opportunities through 2030, and the fact that we've already sanctioned approximately CAD 9 billion of capital in 2026. On the Gas Transmission front, we're hearing from customers in all regions of our footprint, including the U.S. Northeast, Midwest, and Southeast.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

All are looking for additional capacity to support unprecedented power and LNG demand. In liquids, we're evaluating a suite of optimizations across our systems to enable the wave of growth being discussed in both Canada and the United States. Energy policy is shifting, and with the right implementation by governments, we expect real tailwinds across the continent, enabling project FIDs of critical liquids infrastructure investment. At our utilities, a combination of population growth, power needs, while maintaining affordability, are driving very strong rate-based growth, particularly in the higher-returning U.S. markets we serve. And finally, in our power business, we're continuing to leverage our core partnerships with hyperscalers like Meta to secure long-term, quick-cycle projects. Our secured growth backlog has grown consistently these past two years alongside a continuous improvement in project returns.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

We're leveraging our scale, experience, and incumbency to improve build multiples, creating value for our customers and shareholders in ways that differentiate us from peers. Now let's dive into the business units. What is becoming increasingly clear is that the energy industry has re-entered a growth phase somewhat reminiscent of the 2012 to 2015 time period. As producers' confidence improves and the policy environment becomes increasingly supportive of growing production, new infrastructure will be required to support future growth across the continent. In the WCSB, Enbridge is uniquely positioned across both the regional oil sands system and our Mainline and market access network to help meet that infrastructure demand.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Within the oil sands region, our network of 30 gathering lateral and Mainline pipelines serves approximately 50% of all oil sands production in Alberta. We also have some latent capacity on those assets that can be optimized to support new and existing customers, leveraging our significant infrastructure to move product to both Edmonton and Hardisty hubs. On the condensate front, Southern Lights imports some 200,000 bpd into Canada, and the Norlite system can distribute well over 200,000 bpd of diluent further within Alberta for our WCSB customers and has additional capacity. We expect those systems to play an increasingly important and expanding role as production grows through the next decade. Beyond our regional assets, construction is advancing on Mainline Optimization Phase I and the Southern Illinois Connector as we advance 180,000 bpd of incremental capacity.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Notably, these represent the first Canadian liquids U.S. egress expansions to reach FID since 2017. We are also adding reliability and extending the useful life of our super system through our CAD 2 billion Mainline capital investment program that goes right through 2028. PADD 3 continues to be the premier market for incremental Canadian production. We see this in the recent successful recontracting of the majority of volumes on both Spearhead and Flanagan South, extending those commitments into the 2030s and 2040s respectively. Recent alignment between producers and governments continues to improve the outlook for future WCSB production growth. As our customers work with governments to finalize and implement fiscal, regulatory, and emissions frameworks, which in turn will help frame their long-term development plans, we expect MLO2 and our broader opportunity set to evolve to meet industry needs.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

In the near term, we're focused on advancing expansions on Flanagan South and Southern Access extensions as the next phase of sequenced growth across our Mainline and market access system. This quarter, we sanctioned the Line 5 relocation project in Wisconsin. This CAD 1 billion investment supports critical energy infrastructure serving the Great Lakes region. Construction is well underway with a quick cycle in-service date expected in early 2027. Today, we are connected to approximately 75% of North America's refining capacity and continue to provide the lowest cost, most reliable market access solutions for our customers. Taken together, our established footprint provides us with the depth of opportunity embedded within our liquids franchise today. Whether production growth requires additional local or long-haul takeaway capacity, diluent transportation, storage, or gathering, Enbridge is uniquely positioned to customize and provide the infrastructure solutions needed to support the next phase of oil sands development.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

The same could be said for our natural gas business, which we'll take a look at right now. Gas Transmission continues to benefit from strong fundamentals across LNG exports, utility demand, industrial development, and of course, growing power generation and data center requirements. This involves brownfield projects all across our footprint, including Valley Crossing, Texas Eastern, the Vector Pipeline, and our systems in the U.S. Southeast. In the U.S. Northeast, we're pleased to announce that our open season on Project Beacon significantly exceeded our initial expectations. We're working with utility, power, and data center customers to advance the project to binding commitments while also progressing permitting activities and will share further updates later in the year. We signed an exclusive option to acquire TTC Connector, which expands our Gulf Coast presence, connecting Enbridge's Tres Palacios natural gas storage operation to Freeport LNG.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

The project is fully underpinned by long-term take-or-pay contracts with BP. Our intention is to execute that option upon the facility entering service, which is expected around year-end. Alongside our Whistler joint venture partners, we also sanctioned Bay Runner Twin to serve additional liquefaction capacity for the Rio Grande LNG facility. The Blackcomb Pipeline continues to progress well, and we have started commissioning the pipeline as we work towards a full ISD in the second half of the year. In Canada, we began construction on the CAD 4 billion Sunrise expansion of our BC Pipeline system, providing capacity to serve residential, commercial, power generation, and LNG export demand. Now let's move into our utility franchises. Supportive regulatory jurisdictions give us confidence, stable, predictable returns, and growth at the utilities.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Whether it's capital investment riders, revenue decoupling, or performance-based rates, all four of our utility franchises have a mix of supportive attributes that help provide customers with affordable energy, at the same time, allows us to quickly realize a return on capital. As we continue to expand our rate base and serve more customers, timely recovery of capital is critical to supporting continued investment in the system. We believe all four jurisdictions in which we operate provide constructive regulatory mechanisms that support that objective. We have one active rate case, which is Enbridge Gas Ohio, and earlier this month, we received a staff response from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. The report was a constructive starting point as we're working towards a settlement for new rates expected to take effect in early 2027. Now I'll move on to the renewables segment.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Our Renewable Power business continues to grow through high-quality projects supported by strong counterparties and long-term contracted cash flows. We are currently constructing over 2 GW of power generation across North America and Europe, including the Sequoia Solar project that is on track to fully enter service by year-end. Through our partnership with Meta, which now spans four projects, we are on track to construct over 1.4 GW of solar and onshore wind power generation and provide 1.6 GWh of battery storage. We're continuing to advance over 1.5 GW of additional safe harbored opportunities with blue-chip partners. With that, I'll pass it on to Pat to go over our financial performance through the start of the year.

Pat Murray
Pat Murray
EVP and CFO at Enbridge

Thanks, Greg. Good morning, everyone. High utilization across all four business units drove another strong quarter, despite continued geopolitical tensions and commodity price volatility. Compared to the second quarter of 2025, adjusted EBITDA increased over CAD 130 million. In Liquids, higher spot volumes on the Seaway Pipeline and stronger volumes on our Mainline and Line 9, in addition to various optimization initiatives, drove an increase in year-over-year EBITDA. This was partially offset by lower tolls on Line 9. In Gas Transmission, a constructive rate case outcome at East Tennessee and a phased step-up from our previously announced rate settlement in Texas Eastern drove higher EBITDA. Gas Distribution benefited from higher base rates following the recent rate cases for Enbridge Gas Utah and North Carolina. These operating results, along with lower maintenance capital, supported the increase in DCF per share.

Pat Murray
Pat Murray
EVP and CFO at Enbridge

Earnings per share was slightly down versus prior year due to higher depreciation from assets placed into service and increased interest expense on higher debt principal. Based on our continued momentum and outlook, I'm pleased to reaffirm the 2026 guidance established last December. Our resilient business model continues to deliver strong and predictable results across a wide range of market conditions, as demonstrated by our performance amid ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty, commodity price volatility, and evolving global trade dynamics. Favorable contracting in our Gas Transmission assets and recent strong performance at our Seaway assets provide tailwinds for 2026, while lower market access contributions in LP and higher U.S. interest rates act as headwinds for the full year. Moving on to our capital allocation priorities, which remain unchanged. We continue to equity self-fund our growth, and our balance sheet remains strong.

Pat Murray
Pat Murray
EVP and CFO at Enbridge

We exited the second quarter of 2026 at 5.1x debt to EBITDA, primarily due to the quarter-end CAD-U.S. spot rate increasing to 142, compared to the average for the quarter of 138. Adjusting for this FX impact, debt to EBITDA would be within our target range for the quarter. Growing our dividend remains central to our strategy. Over the past five years, we've returned CAD 38 billion to shareholders and expect to return between CAD 40 billion to CAD 45 billion over the next five years. Our CAD 41 billion backlog provides a clear runway for growth through the decade, supported by a disciplined focus on low-risk, accretive brownfield investments. I'll hand it back to Greg to conclude the presentation.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Thank you, Pat. As we step back and look across the business today, I believe the Enbridge investment proposition has never been stronger. At its foundation is stability, delivered through low-risk, utility-like business model and our diversified asset base. This strength is reinforced by predictable cash flows, a disciplined balance sheet, and a proven capital allocation framework. Consistency remains a defining characteristic of our company, demonstrated by 31 consecutive years of dividend increases and a long history of delivering on our commitments to you. Looking forward, the company's growth is supported by our CAD 41 billion secured capital backlog and an even larger growth opportunity set across Liquids, Gas Transmission, Gas Utilities, and Renewable Power. Perhaps most importantly, we maintain significant optionality.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Few companies have the ability to allocate capital across four complementary energy infrastructure franchises while leveraging the scale, customer relationships, and market positions that Enbridge has built over decades. Taken together, those advantages position us to capture growing demand for reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy while continuing to generate attractive returns for shareholders in ever-changing market conditions. With that, I'd like to thank you all for listening. We'll now open the line for your questions.

Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Robert Hope with Scotiabank. Robert, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Robert Hope
Robert Hope
Analyst at Scotiabank

Good morning, everyone. If we can dive a little bit into the MLO2. In your prepared remarks, you mentioned that it's evolving into a broader set of opportunities. Can you add some color on what drove this outcome as well as when could we expect to see incremental clarity on the timing as well as the shape of any opportunities there?

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Let me hand this to Colin, but let's recognize first and foremost the real possibility that we really are in what is a generational change for the positive for the WCSB oil and gas production enhanced infrastructure. After a couple of decades of producers, frankly, having their hands tied behind their back by governments, the changes proposed by the Canadian Alberta government to free up production growth are really dramatic. That said, until producers see all those proposed changes and implemented, they really are sequencing or resequencing what they think their pipeline needs are going to need. It's really about us customizing solutions for them. Colin, I'll turn it to you to go deeper into MLO2.

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

Happy to. We are quite excited about the coming policy environment. We've been advocating it for years on behalf of industry and Canadians and frankly, all North Americans. It should be a huge tailwind to the incumbent super system we've already built and plumbed into it, which you're familiar with. However, producers and governments are still in a non-binding MOU stage, which is fine. It'll take likely some quarters to flush that out, to negotiate it, to convert it, to implement it into law. Therefore, we don't expect producers to start meaningfully FID-ing production growth yet. The companion point is nor do we expect producers to be making binding FID-able commitments to new pipelines until then. There's an order of operation, right? Production policy, production pipelines.

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

We've talked about that for many quarters now, that order of operation will be respected it looks like. Our competitive response to that is that we are on MLO2, Rob, to your point, specifically, we're disaggregating and resequencing segments of our MLO2 path, and we'll be now focusing on the Chicago South market access segments first. This will effectively move existing egress barrels further south to lower PADD 2, PADD 3 refining centers, and multiple U.S. Gulf Coast export options. We'll be expanding the downstream sections. This will still require significant capital, the scope is simpler and will yield better economics for us here initially. The downstream section going before the upstream section, if you like, simply will create a small imbalance in the system. We expect this to be temporary until the Mainline portion is optimized or expanded later.

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

We think this will be manageable for everyone. We've got lots of options. We have lots of Mainline Optimization designs and scopes and numbers as we've talked about. If there is a tightness in 2028 resulting from this slight delay, we'll solve that with either MLO2 or another MLO design and scope for industry.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

I think it's actually, Rob, a better customized fit for the producers and I would say for investors in many respects, too. I think you'll see that in the coming quarters and as Colin says, create something with that resequencing or pivoting some of that tightness in the Mainline, we'll be ready to solve that bottleneck issue for our customers as that comes into focus as well.

Robert Hope
Robert Hope
Analyst at Scotiabank

Great. Appreciate the color. Maybe just moving a little bit more north from the Mainline. You did highlight the regional oilsands franchise, which does have a number of pipes going north and south there. If we do see a renewed production growth out of the oilsands, can you remind us just how much latent capacity you do have on the oilsands pipeline network, as well as what some optimization or expansion opportunities could come?

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

Sure. I appreciate the question. A rising tide should lift all boats, and we've got circa CAD 130 billion of enterprise value already pre-plumbed into this. We do have some latent capacity in the regional area, as you pointed out, although there will be some bottlenecks in certain parts of that network. Consider we have seven trunk lines that feed from McMurray down to Edmonton and Hardisty. As a reminder, we've got indigenous partners for 11% of that. There will be some immediate investment opportunities. We're in active conversations with a number of producers on that basis and expect to take some FIDs on some incremental capital in the near term. There also is some operating leverage in the system, Rob, to your question and point.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Yeah, it's a really good point, Rob. Don't forget, obviously Norlite, Southern Lights, the diluent facilities up there, too, that we'll see how this all goes out. That's going to be an opportunity for us interconnected with that.

Robert Catellier
Analyst at CIBC Capital Markets

Thank you. I'll hop back with you.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Thanks, Rob.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Spiro Dounis with Citi. Spiro, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Spiro Dounis
Spiro Dounis
Analyst at Citi

Thanks, operator. Good morning, everybody. I want to start with return on capital here. Greg, you mentioned this being the best environment for growth in over a decade, that's clearly manifesting itself in the opportunity set moving higher. Curious what that's translating to when we start to think about returns. I guess the last data point we got from you on 2025 is projects that year were crossing at a ROC around 11%. I guess we can see here customers are now finally sort of recognizing the value of infrastructure in the ground more than before. Curious what you're seeing on your end, if we can expect maybe some upward pressure on that return threshold.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

I think it depends on where you are. Obviously, in the Liquids Pipelines business, we see the best returns on our capital, just given the size of the footprint, if you will, the ability, as Colin just mentioned, to use some operating leverage there. On the Gas Transmission side as well. It's different between Canada and the U.S. Look, on the entire base, we're trying to move it up, if we can add 100 basis points on a return on capital employed. That's the target, we're making good progress on that. That's incredibly valuable. It's not just revenue, it's also build multiples. Obviously, that feeds into that, given our size, our ability to buy pipe, our ability to buy compressors. Our ability even on that Gas Distribution and Storage side to buy meters, given the size. It's not a one thing.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

It's on all of those fronts, and I think the nature of most of the projects you see us build are brownfield that help that as well. 100 basis points on the enterprise value obviously creates some real opportunity. That's harder to do in the pure regulated elements of it, like the Gas Distribution and Storage company, making sure that we actually earn our regulated rate of return in each of those areas. I know Michele and her team have done a nice job of moving that up to make sure you fully get that. That may in investors' minds be, "Well, of course you're going to do that," that actually just doesn't fall out. All of those pieces, given the size of the base, that 100 basis point move, extremely valuable to us.

Spiro Dounis
Spiro Dounis
Analyst at Citi

Got it. That's great to hear. Second question quickly, maybe just going to Project Beacon. As you noted, received significantly more interest than you all expected. I realize maybe there's more updates to come, just curious, can you talk about your ability to maybe expand the scope or maybe even potentially sort of develop a second phase of the project to accommodate all that demand?

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Matthew's here. I'll turn that to Matthew.

Matthew Akman
Matthew Akman
EVP and President of Gas Transmission at Enbridge

Thanks for the question. This is really a great example of how we're seeing, as Greg talked about, gas demand across all of our footprint in Gas Transmission right now for all kinds of requirements. I mean, some of that is obviously power and data centers, and some of it's just catch-up in terms of being behind in building infrastructure. I think Beacon and New England is probably the best example of that, where everyone knows we've needed more gas pipeline capacity into there for quite a while. We are right now working on Algonquin Gas Transmission there, which is a 70,000 a day project based on the interest we got for Beacon, which would be another phase, as you alluded to. We would expect that to be multiple times of that size that we're currently working on, actually in a phase. You talked about different phases.

Matthew Akman
Matthew Akman
EVP and President of Gas Transmission at Enbridge

There's a real recognition we found in the response to the open season of the need for that capacity, for affordability and reliability to reduce emissions from oil-burning power, as well, and energy costs generally. We've got studies that suggest, depending on how big this project is, it could save over CAD 1 billion for utility customers a year in New England. It's very compelling, and we're really pleased that our customers and all the stakeholders there are recognizing the importance of it. It's something we're definitely going to pursue commercially here, as the need is very strong. Of course, there's a lot of hurdles to pass. As you all know, permitting is the number 1 thing there. We'll obviously maintain our discipline as we pursue this and ensure that the permitting risk is very manageable.

Matthew Akman
Matthew Akman
EVP and President of Gas Transmission at Enbridge

We see this as a very promising project, one of many across our entire systems here going forward.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Hey, Spiro, I think Matthew outlined it well, but his last point is that to your first question as well, us having good regulatory excellence in the way we do these things and making sure we're not taking on inordinate risk and quickly get through regulatory hearings and filings. That also goes to improving our returns too, right? The quicker we can get from contracts to regulatory to actually getting that cash to work is critical. We're seeing that right across our entire businesses. This project, that'll be very important for us.

Spiro Dounis
Spiro Dounis
Analyst at Citi

Got it. That's great color. I'll leave it there. Thanks, everyone.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Manav Gupta with UBS. Manav, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Manav Gupta
Manav Gupta
Analyst at UBS

Good morning. I wanted to go back a little, and two or three years ago, you guys were barely present in the Permian gas. Now you're kind of one of those people who is leading the charge, two big pipes coming on, and then other opportunities which we are seeing, this twin for the Bay Runner. Can you talk about your Permian gas strategy and what's going in the basin and all the ways Enbridge can benefit from it?

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Sure. Go to Matthew. You're right. First of all, thanks for the compliment. I think the teams successively in Gas Transmission have made a real move there through WhiteWater, which I think you're talking about. I'm sure Matthew will want to touch on the LNG and storage strategy there, because all that is very much tied back into the Permian.

Matthew Akman
Matthew Akman
EVP and President of Gas Transmission at Enbridge

Thanks a lot for the question. It's something that we've looked at strategically and advanced very intentionally in the last few years. Obviously, our position in the WhiteWater assets and now the sanctioning of this Phase II at Bay Runner, which is great. There's a lot more to do there just in those assets in terms of expansion. It's not just in the main pipelines, there's also potential storage expansion, for example, in that footprint. Downstream as well, that's probably the next big opportunity is just when that gas hits kind of the Corpus or mainly the Houston market, where does it go from there?

Matthew Akman
Matthew Akman
EVP and President of Gas Transmission at Enbridge

We have the ability to move that gas around with our Texas Eastern footprint in and through the Gulf Coast area, that gas is going to want to continue to move further east for various purposes, industrial and, as Greg mentioned, LNG. We're pursuing a whole bunch of stuff on that front. Finally on the storage front, we've talked about our storage expansion, last quarter we announced the expansion of Tres Palacios, which receives a lot of that gas. We've got almost 50 BCF a day of expansion across our own wholly-owned Gulf Coast storage facilities. Lots of opportunity there, we recognize, appreciate you raising that.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Hey, Manav. It's a great question. You will not be surprised that this is a replication strategy that Matthew and before him, Cynthia and Allen here, who's running the power business now, have built for a long time. It's a replication of Colin and his team's strategy as we built up from the water in Ingleside, then back in on the oil side for Gray Oak and those pipes, continue to look at those opportunities. This has worked well. This is what a good super system looks like, we're going to keep doing it both on the oil and gas side. I think the coming quarters will have some exciting elements to that on both fronts.

Manav Gupta
Manav Gupta
Analyst at UBS

Perfect. My quick follow-up here is because so many good things are going on in the company, sometimes the one part of the portfolio which doesn't get enough credit, in our opinion, is your Renewable Power portfolio. I don't think there are that many companies out there that have 1.4 GW partnership with Meta. I think the tax credits it gives you. Can you talk a little bit more about your Renewable Power portfolio and all the good things that are happening over there?

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

I think absolutely. Since Enbridge day in just about 14, 15 months ago, we've actually FID 3.5, CAD 3.4 billion worth of renewables. I know, Allen, you got lots of other plans too.

Allen Capps
Allen Capps
SVP of Corporate Strategy and President of Power at Enbridge

Manav, thanks for the question. A lot of credit, too, goes to Matthew, who really built this business up. Right now we've got, as you can see from the slide, over 1.5 GW just under construction. A lot of that is with Meta, as you mentioned, also AT&T, Toyota, and others. Real blue-chip customers that we're really getting. I think you can attribute that to the Enbridge brand, our size and scale at the end of the day. Also, on the safe harbor side, we got about another, call it 1.5 GW of opportunity there, which gives us a lot of time as I think this tax credit thing gets sorted out.

Allen Capps
Allen Capps
SVP of Corporate Strategy and President of Power at Enbridge

I do believe that, I've talked to a lot of others in the industry that have the same opinion, that even once you move past the safe harbor tax opportunities, that there are ways to make these projects economic without the tax credits, even in a tariff environment. Frankly, they're needed. In order to meet the electricity demand that we have out there, that you're going to need renewables to supplement what's probably going to be mostly natural gas that's really going to end up doing most of the supplying a lot of that demand. Renewables are going to play a big part as well. That's why we're so excited about this business and why it's a part of the portfolio.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

It also speaks to that all-of-above strategy. I appreciate your comments on the renewables, but let's not forget, this company, Enbridge, since again, Investor Day, we are either constructing or have sanctioned 10.5 GW of power infrastructure. What I mean by that is you got the renewable piece that we just talked about, but let's not forget at the utility, we're building the T15 line, which supports about 2.5 GW of power in North Carolina. The SESH project we announced, AGT first round, Tennessee Ridgeline, which will come in at the end of the year. Line 31 at Louisiana. Vector, which we own 60% of. Those projects, all told, those all account for 10.5 GW, largely supporting power. It's all of the above. People are less interested in what color your electrons on or your molecules.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

They need it from an affordability perspective, from an industrial growth perspective, I think we're delivering on that with more to come.

Manav Gupta
Manav Gupta
Analyst at UBS

Thank you so much, congrats on a great quarter.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Thanks, Manav.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Maurice Choy with RBC Capital Markets. Maurice, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Maurice Choy
Maurice Choy
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Thank you, good morning, everyone. Just wanted to come back to MLO2. It sounds like the upstream project has been postponed for the time being. I wonder if you could just dive a little bit deeper as to what has changed in recent months, whether that be a cost or a customer demand thing, or other elements.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

I don't think it's either one of those, as I said, I think about this as the geopolitics of volatility and the psychology of sanctioning projects, right. Just think of the last six months, we've seen WTI go from CAD 63-CAD 113 back to CAD 69, then to CAD 92. In the last 30 days, it's gone from below CAD 70 to above CAD 90, back below CAD 80, and now I think I've checked this morning, but a little over CAD 80. The Strait of Hormuz has gone from being an open to closed, to maybe it's open to maybe 20% or 80% open. Then you've seen governments made pretty dramatic moves in terms of their policy stance, et cetera. Then throw in a little Venezuela there.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

I think you can see there's a fair bit of a challenging backdrop for producers, refiners, exporters, and pipelines to fully commit to large scale projects. Let's make no mistake, that is coming because the needs are there. Titus, look at the refineries. Refineries in North America are running at the high 90s. All this says they need more capacity. They're going to need more pipeline capacity. Then, of course, North American export. It's just until we get through that volatility piece, people are going to be focused on give me customized solutions that I can utilize, and I'll deal with the bigger solutions as we go forward. Colin, you might want to add to that.

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

Yeah. I think what's changed, just the pace of policy implementation. It's taking a little longer. It's all positive and like we said, we've been advocating for it, but it just does take a little time to get fleshed out and put into paper. Producers are behaving with discipline, which I respect. I think they'll get there. We were just a little too quick off the line here, but we've started those conversations and there's a lot of support for Mainline egress.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

I think you're going to see more opportunities attached to this. Think about the Gulf Coast too. The great thing is, what are the two best places to be in North America when you've got this environment? It's the Permian and the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. Where is Enbridge Oil business? Right there, serving PADD 2 and PADD 3, and 75% of the refining capacity in North America. Yeah, I don't think it's so much of a change as just getting, as Colin says, the gun to go off for the race and getting to the finish line.

Maurice Choy
Maurice Choy
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Understood. That makes sense. Thanks for the color. If I could just finish off with a question on the balance sheet. Pat, I think you mentioned that the debt to EBITDA is a little bit over 5x, but after you adjust for FX, it'll be within your target range. If I look at one of your slides in your pack where the CAD 41 billion of secure capital program, I'm guessing about 40% of that is coming to service in 2027 with CapEx being spent today and the coming quarters. I wonder if you could just give us a little bit of a trajectory as to how you think that the EBITDA metric will progress through the end of 2027.

Pat Murray
Pat Murray
EVP and CFO at Enbridge

Yeah. I think we're pretty comfortable with our leverage levels, as you noted, at 5.1 at the end of the quarter, but if you adjust for FX, within that 4.5-5. You're right in that we'll have actually a fair decent number of projects coming into service near the end of this year, then a big chunk of them kind of called the back half of next year. I think we'll stay near the top of that range during that period of time. We're comfortable that with the levers we've got, whether that be just cash flow we're generating, whether that be we got some hybrid capacity, potential asset sales, monetization, things like that we should be able to manage well within that range. We're excited to continue to build out this portfolio.

Pat Murray
Pat Murray
EVP and CFO at Enbridge

The other thing I'd say, mention about that portfolio we've talked a lot about is that it's right down our fairway from a risk-reward perspective. Right in our core business, which is fantastic. We feel really comfortable with the leverage that we've got and the tools we have to manage that as we go.

Maurice Choy
Maurice Choy
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

As those assets come into service in the back half of 2027, presumably on a run rate basis, you're probably on the lower to mid part of that 4.5x to 5x range?

Pat Murray
Pat Murray
EVP and CFO at Enbridge

I guess that partly will be determined by what other opportunities we secure in that window. If we start securing larger projects over the next little while, there probably won't be a lot of capital in 2026, but there could be some capital in the back part of 2027. I'm not sure we'll be in the lower part, but it should naturally come down as cash flows come on. That'll be a bit determined by the amount of capital that we see, and the truth is, we're seeing a lot of opportunities. We'll see how those evolve over the next little while, but we're really comfortable that we can maintain that as we go forward.

Maurice Choy
Maurice Choy
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

It's great to hear. Thank you very much.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan. Jeremy, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Jeremy Tonet
Jeremy Tonet
Analyst at JPMorgan

Hi, good morning.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Morning, Jeremy.

Jeremy Tonet
Jeremy Tonet
Analyst at JPMorgan

Just wanted to drill in a little bit, if we could. The CAD 20 billion project sanctioning target for 2026, 2027, already CAD 9 billion in the bank, so a good portion there. Just was wondering, specific number there putting out this quarter, just wondering if you might be able to dive in a little bit more on specifically the types of projects, the areas. Is this largely natural gas logistics to service power, or are there other elements to this CAD 20 billion target we should think about?

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Yeah. Well, it's a good question, and maybe the one slide I think that's in there is a good one to look at for investors. That number four slide, which as you say, we've sanctioned CAD 9 billion year to date, which is a great start to our up to CAD 20 billion through 2027. If you could look on that other chart, I would expect you're going to start to see more on the Gas Transmission side, and obviously the liquid side. A good jump on renewables and gas distribution, maybe those are a little bit ahead, but some of the projects on the gas side take a little bit longer. And yes, as Matthew talked about, like Project Beacon is going to serve, yes, customers up there, but important for power producers up there.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

He may have mentioned, but I think we've said to folks, even the governor of Massachusetts suggested independent power producers sign up for projects like Enbridge's. In the Southeast, you'll see opportunities down there. As you know, a lot of growth in that neck of the woods tied to power, but also just industrial growth and data centers. It's right across the whole board. I would expect to see a significant portion of the go forward coming on the gas side to serve not just power, not just LNG, not just storage, but also industrial onshoring. It's all of the above opportunity for gas. I don't know, Matthew, whether you want to add to that.

Matthew Akman
Matthew Akman
EVP and President of Gas Transmission at Enbridge

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Jeremy. It is a very exciting time for the Gas Transmission business. As you know, Enbridge, we don't announce projects until they're fully baked, but there's a lot of activity going on across our entire footprint. Some of it is power, but not necessarily data center power. A lot of it is within utility footprints. Some of our favorite customers is the big regulated utilities. When you look at what's happening across our footprint, Greg did mention the Southeast, and you look at what's happening in Florida, for example, and we've got big interest in two out of three pipes there. We talked about the Northeast, Texas Eastern across the entire Gulf Coast. We do see it across all pieces. We do expect to punch above our weight in Gas Transmission.

Matthew Akman
Matthew Akman
EVP and President of Gas Transmission at Enbridge

Some of that could be chunky, of course, because some of the projects, as Greg said, it'll depend on the customer timing, but very active conversations going on. We're optimistic that we're going to be contributing more than our fair share over the next 6-12 months in Gas Transmission. Great outlook there.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Michele, sometimes I think we forget the distribution company and just how much its rate base is growing, serving all those. Do you want to speak to that, particularly in the U.S.?

Michele Harradence
Michele Harradence
EVP and President of Gas Distribution and Storage at Enbridge

Sure. We're very happy with the U.S. utilities. We have been very pleased with the growth that we're seeing out of them. In fact, we're forecasting well above 8% rate base growth in the utilities. That's ranging anywhere from 5%+ in Ohio, where we really saw it as more of just a stability kind of market. Now we're seeing a lot of growth tied to data centers and things like that, all the way up to 19% in North Carolina. We've talked about a few of the big projects like our Moriah Energy Center T15 project to serve Duke Energy and coal to gas conversions. Just like Greg alluded to, we're seeing industrial reshoring, manufacturing growth. Residential growth has remained strong across the board.

Michele Harradence
Michele Harradence
EVP and President of Gas Distribution and Storage at Enbridge

I can't pass over Utah as well, where we see about 8% rate base growth. That's where we've already connected to several data centers.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Good. As you can see, Jeremy, right across, definitely gas a big focus, we've already talked about liquids and renewables.

Jeremy Tonet
Jeremy Tonet
Analyst at JPMorgan

Got it. Very helpful. Then just a smaller detail question for myself. I was wondering, as it relates to Blackcomb, when you say it's commissioning now, does that mean it's blowing a quarter of the gas and it will be full by year-end? How should we think about that ramp?

Matthew Akman
Matthew Akman
EVP and President of Gas Transmission at Enbridge

I think that's probably fair. We can get back to you on the details on that, Jeremy. It's just ramping up now through year-end.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

As you know, as we introduce gas, you want to make sure things are running right, compression right. It's just the general ramp up. You'll be at full tilt, I think, by end of the year, Matthew. As we know, there's plenty of gas to move out of the Permian, we saw that coming and that's going to continue to be the case here. I would argue the second these things are fully turned on, they're full. Really what it's going to speak to, ask us that question as we get to the end of the year, how full it is, I think the response will be full, hence, here's what else we got going on.

Jeremy Tonet
Jeremy Tonet
Analyst at JPMorgan

Got it. That makes sense. Thank you.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Thanks, Jeremy.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Robert Catellier with CIBC Capital Markets. Robert, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Robert Catellier
Analyst at CIBC Capital Markets

Hey, good morning, everyone. I just wanted to go back to the WCSB and the liquids outlook, understanding that there's still work on the policy side. It does feel like we're going to get to a place that will promote production growth. In that context, we're likely going to need additional condensate. I was wondering if you could speak to the outlook for your condensate tolls there, and specifically Southern Lights. What type of ability you have to expand capacity there, both with and without looping?

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

Yep. Robert, great call-out. Indeed, as the basin grows by a million, CAD 2, CAD 3, CAD 4million bbl a day, which is the ambition, it's quite a game changer here. Diluent will be needed to enable that. You're acutely on it.

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

The good news is Enbridge has a full value chain to import condensate on Southern Lights and Norlite, and there is meaningful headroom on both those assets prior to looping. Right? We'll continue to commercialize those and even look at other solutions to come in behind that in a batting order kind of context. We've got a full strategic playbook for that as well, and we're a leader in that space.

Robert Catellier
Analyst at CIBC Capital Markets

Okay, then maybe a question for Michele here related to Ohio. Obviously, there was a very good support from the staff on your rate case, but I can't help but notice there was also some legislation tabled suggesting a utility rate freeze for a year. Maybe you could walk through that and your regulatory strategy in Ohio to address that. It just seems a little bit reminiscent of Enbridge Gas New Brunswick.

Michele Harradence
Michele Harradence
EVP and President of Gas Distribution and Storage at Enbridge

Yeah, you bet. First of all, you're right. We received the staff report at the beginning of July, and we're very pleased with their position. It's constructive. We're going to enter into settlement discussions here. There is a hearing scheduled for the end of September, but we're pretty optimistic that we can land in a good place on settlement. The particular legislation you're referring to, when we had a look at it, I think it's very indicative of folks' concern around affordability, and I'll touch on that in a second. The legislation itself, the way it was brought forward, it missed some particularly relevant deadlines in order to be able to get through. We don't see it as a specific threat, but I do think we need to stay very focused on the affordability side of things, whether that's in Ohio or any of our jurisdictions.

Michele Harradence
Michele Harradence
EVP and President of Gas Distribution and Storage at Enbridge

In Ohio, we are the lowest cost to serve, as we've talked about many times. Next to the three other LDCs, we're anywhere between 40% and 70% lower, especially once you've included the commodity cost because we've invested so much in making sure they have access to the commodity. As Enbridge Gas writ large, we're really looking at, and Greg alluded to this earlier, how can we leverage our scale, our size, our buying power to continue to drive affordability for our customers? There's no question. We've done some polling across our franchise areas, both in Canada and the U.S., and the residents of those regions describe themselves not just as frustrated, but angry about the cost of things. 80%+ are angry about the cost of things. It's on us as utilities that are in service to our communities to focus on that.

Michele Harradence
Michele Harradence
EVP and President of Gas Distribution and Storage at Enbridge

It's also through things we've talked about, and I think at the last earnings call, we talked about our investment in storage as an example. Ontario's storage this winter saved our customers, the fact of that storage, CAD 200 million. In Ohio, it saved them CAD 100 million in avoided cost because they didn't have to buy at the peak of the season. We're extremely focused on that. Even in the regions where we're growing, like North Carolina, we really believe in that principle of growth, financing growth, and we're seeing that. I don't mean to be in any way, shape, or form dismissive of that legislation, but that particular piece, we don't see it gaining traction, but the overall affordability concerns that we're seeing is definitely something we're focused on.

Robert Catellier
Analyst at CIBC Capital Markets

Yeah, there's a lot more to affordability than just that piece of legislation. Thank you.

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

Thanks, Rob.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Aaron MacNeil with TD Cowen. Aaron, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Aaron MacNeil
Aaron MacNeil
Analyst at TD Cowen

Hey, morning, all. Thanks for taking my questions.

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

Morning.

Aaron MacNeil
Aaron MacNeil
Analyst at TD Cowen

I wanted to follow up on Rob's question on Southern Lights. Can you give us a sense of sort of the range or quantum of different capacities you could potentially bring on with an expansion, and what would the potential timelines be for those range of solutions to come into service?

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

Yeah. Like I said, we have headroom on both those pipes and without twinning. This is just compression or pumping. So like the rest of the playbook, we intend to bring that on in pieces as needed. You'll see in our disclosures here, we've recently moved Southern Lights from a kind of a cost to service model to a contract model with an upward kind of tilted return, if I can borrow a term from the past, with inflators. We'll bring on capacity as needed. Likewise on Norlite. We'll work with our partner on that. The delivery conversation often folds into the regional kind of gathering conversation with shippers. They often want to procure both those solutions together. We can bundle those packages for them if that's kind of helpful in the commercialization outlook.

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

In fairness, it kind of goes back to the other issues we've talked about. Production's going to drive when that comes on. As we see greater clarity on policy, legislation, actual implementation, and then our customers taking decisions on actual investments in production growth, that'll drive that. We're not trying to be.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

We're not trying to push off your question, Aaron. I think that's the next milestone to watch for.

Aaron MacNeil
Aaron MacNeil
Analyst at TD Cowen

I guess what I'm trying to get at is, if you think that domestic production can't keep up with the demand, do you think Enbridge will be able to deliver that condensate that the industry needs under the range of potential outcomes here? How do we think about that?

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

Yes and yes. Domestic supply will be insufficient as this ambition is realized, and there's a number of parties leaning into this ambition now. Domestic supply condensate will be insufficient, and we'll need to import more. Even beyond that, we think there, like I alluded to earlier, there will be additional import solutions required. If you recall back to Northern Gateway 12 years ago, we had contemplated a companion diluent import line. We've been thinking about this equation and problem for a long time. We're on it.

Aaron MacNeil
Aaron MacNeil
Analyst at TD Cowen

Okay, great. Maybe just one more. As it relates to the standalone Flanagan South and Southern Access expansion opportunities, are you at a stage where you can better quantify either the improved initial economics, as you refer to it, or the capital scope of those projects?

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

Not quite yet. We'll reserve that for an FID disclosure, it is significant. It's not as big as MLO2, to be fair, the capital, I mean, the return output is disproportionately attractive.

Aaron MacNeil
Aaron MacNeil
Analyst at TD Cowen

Okay, thanks. I'll turn it back.

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

Thanks, Aaron.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Sam Burwell with Jefferies. Sam, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Sam Burwell
Sam Burwell
Analyst at Jefferies

Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for squeezing me in at the end. One more on MLO2. Should we assume a very short time lag between these downstream expansions and then ultimately an upstream expansion of the Mainline? Just, is the expiration of the Mainline tolling settlement any consideration in this in terms of when you would want to push through the Mainline expansion?

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

TBD. It could be any of those, honestly. But I think you surface an important distinction, which is, does it have to be the exact same scope as MLO2 as the solution? It does not. It could be a different version of it. We have lots of MLOs designed. We can manage in the interim with that imbalance. But to your other point, we could also scope into the next Mainline negotiation a capital expansion. Anything's possible here. I think to Greg's point earlier, we have a number of solutions. We'll remain agile. We want to be customer-led on this. There will be a solution at some point. It's not a question of if, it's when. The Mainline will most probably be expanded for 136th time at some point.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Yeah.

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

We may have a label for it, we may not have a label for it. Maybe there's a digital solution. There's seven pipelines in the right of way, 36 in-48 in. There's potential to crossover pipe. There's all kinds of solutions here. I just ask everyone to remain patient and agile here, and we'll continue to serve the basin.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Yeah. Let's not forget we're adding 180,000 bbl a day with our MLO1 and the Southern Illinois Connector Project, which I believe is the only FID egress out of the basin in a decade. Let's not forget the further south as well. Our producers are always looking for how else can they get to market. Yes, Mainline and the market-facing pipes, but we also have Ingleside as well too. If you can find a way to get producers to different markets, and they're not just price takers, we're looking at that too.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

I think all of this is tied up back into that whole geopolitical volatility and the psychology of sanctioning projects, which I think is a winner for the Enbridges of the world when you have multiple different I know you used to speak about it as a Swiss Army knife, but we actually have several Swiss Army knives as it's turning out, whether it's on the north or the south of liquid side, on the gas side, and even the distribution side as well now too. Yeah, stay tuned, Sam.

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

Can I start from one point?

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Go ahead.

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

Supply push here quite a bit on this thread on egress. One of the ahas, I think, the market's observing through this Iranian conflict and Hormuz bottleneck is on the demand side.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Yeah.

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

Product shortages globally, refineries, which were plumbed to 75% of the U.S. refining capacity. Refineries are being pushed really hard to supply that product, not just for the U.S., but globally. It's our emerging belief that the U.S. refining kit is likely to rerate upwards. That is a positive

Colin Gruending
Colin Gruending
EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines at Enbridge

I think emergence in the supply-demand equation on the continent.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Yeah, it's a good call. You take CAD 5 or CAD 6million bbl a day of refining capacity out through Hormuz and then the Russian situation, which people thought that war was going to last for weeks, it's now lasted longer than World War I. That stuff may not come back very fast, and even when it does, yeah, North American refining capacity's got an opportunity to be out of the fray, if you will, and have multiple great basins to pull upon. Yeah, I think that macro backdrop's excellent as well.

Sam Burwell
Sam Burwell
Analyst at Jefferies

For sure. Thanks for the extra color, guys.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Thanks, Sam.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Benjamin Pham with BMO. Benjamin, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Benjamin Pham
Benjamin Pham
Analyst at BMO

Hi, thanks. Good morning. You mentioned the favorable recontracting environment, especially on the gas side, and you have a number of projects here moving forward, what we've been seeing better returns. How does an investor think about the return profile on existing assets, the trend on returns, where it's going? Just on that CAD 20 billion of opportunity, does that effectively fill up your white space through the end of the decade? Because from what we can quickly see, it seems like it does fill up a big chunk of it.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Yeah, I think that's fair. On recontracted projects, well, again, you're looking at, I think S&P Global just updated their gas demand outlook for North America right through 2040 that moves it up significantly. Infrastructure's still hard to build, so whenever we go to recontracting, the rates are as good if not better. Texas Eastern, the kind of granddaddy of the U.S. pipelines we have, we always have 100% recontracting. I think once in the last 10 years I've seen us go down to 99, we sold that additional percentage of boatload. Capacity, getting people to re-sign is not an issue. When we can do it for better returns. You see that on storage, Ben. Our storage returns have gone up quite nicely in the last three, four years.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Anything that comes up for renewal now, we're seeing higher rates on that than what we would originally contracted for. Now, with respect to your filling up to the end of the decade, yeah, we'll see. Again, we expect to FID through 2026 and 2027 up to the CAD 20 billion. The opportunity set is more like CAD 50 billion. Yeah, that's what gives us confidence in that 5% growth through the end of the decade. I don't think we're going to be lack of opportunity. It's going to be which ones provide the best returns for our shareholders, and the best results for our customers. There's not too much white space left to fill. I would totally agree with that.

Pat Murray
Pat Murray
EVP and CFO at Enbridge

Yeah, maybe I'd just add, Ben, a couple things. One is, yeah, we talk a lot on these calls about new opportunities, and that's positive. We want to talk about all those, you should definitely be focused on the fact that management is always focused on optimizing the returns of our base assets, whether that's Michele getting the returns we need on the utilities, whether that's the renewals of various rate cases that we have. It's a big focus to continue. In a market where our assets are required and needed, I think we're in a good position when that happens. On the white space question, I think it's fair to say that, remember, as we add EBITDA to the business, our capacity also goes up.

Pat Murray
Pat Murray
EVP and CFO at Enbridge

You've seen us move from, I think maybe three or four years ago, of CAD 7 billion or CAD 8 billion of capital in a year. Now we're up to CAD 10 billion to CAD 11 billion. If we put the right projects in at the right returns, on budget, on time, that will continue to increase, which will continue to almost increase that white space that we have and that we look to fill into the back part of the decade. 2026 and 2027 are pretty full up from a capital perspective. To be frank, the projects that we're going to FID over the next little while probably have spent maybe some in 2027, then 2028, 2029, the goal here is to continue to add clarity into that growth and extend it further on. We feel very good about the growth and the base assets.

Benjamin Pham
Benjamin Pham
Analyst at BMO

Okay. Got it. Thanks for that. Could you update us on your T-North, T-South outlook and just in the context of rising production? I'm not sure it's totally related to you specifically, is FortisBC's announced this expansion of their Tilbury LNG facility and marine bunkering, and maybe there's an expansion on Woodfibre LNG around the corner. I'm just curious, anything notably change? I appreciate the Sunrise Expansion Program is going on in construction, but would love an update on outlook.

Matthew Akman
Matthew Akman
EVP and President of Gas Transmission at Enbridge

Yeah, thanks, Ben. It's Matthew. That's another positive area we haven't mentioned, so appreciate you raising it. As you did recognize, we just started construction and just broke ground on the CAD 4 billion Sunrise Expansion Program there, which is a great project. What we're seeing generally on a macro basis, beyond that and around that, is just renewed support at a level we haven't seen in a long time for natural gas across Canada and of course, in British Columbia. Also a drive to export more gas off the coast of British Columbia, which we're really well-positioned for, whether that's expansions on, as you mentioned, T-North and T-South, or as you probably are aware, we have a fully permitted LNG pipeline in British Columbia.

Matthew Akman
Matthew Akman
EVP and President of Gas Transmission at Enbridge

With the right commercial construct, the right returns, we're seeing tremendous renewed commercial interest in that, as I said, stakeholder support for that. There's more possibility of that kind of attractive project in Western Canada as well. Yeah, we're seeing definitely an upswing in the opportunity set there.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Hey, Ben, just to add, don't forget, we're also adding a big expansion on our Aitken Creek storage, the only storage facility that exists in British Columbia. As that gets contracted up, seeing very positive upside there as well. I think beyond what Matthew said, I think we're actually at CAD 8 billion of projects. If you look down the West Coast, there's only one pipeline that goes north-south all the way, and that's us. Then last but not least, particularly in the current environment in Canada, we have thought about this a long time, and we're on it early. In British Columbia, we have some 38 nations that own a piece of that west coast pipeline. That ability to involve indigenous and private sector projects is a really critical component in British Columbia, and we've already got that set up. Yeah, BC's great.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

I'd like better returns there. That's up for our regulatory folks to figure that one out.

Benjamin Pham
Benjamin Pham
Analyst at BMO

Okay, got it. Good context. Thank you.

Greg Ebel
Greg Ebel
President and CEO at Enbridge

Thanks, Ben.

Operator

This concludes the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Marlon Samuel for closing remarks.

Marlon Samuel
Marlon Samuel
VP of Investor Relations and Insurance at Enbridge

Great. Thank you. We appreciate your ongoing interest in Enbridge. As always, our investor relations team is available following the call for any additional questions that you may have. Once again, thank you and have a great day.

Executives
    • Marlon Samuel
      Marlon Samuel
      VP of Investor Relations and Insurance
    • Greg Ebel
      Greg Ebel
      President and CEO
    • Pat Murray
      Pat Murray
      EVP and CFO
    • Colin Gruending
      Colin Gruending
      EVP and President of Liquids Pipelines
    • Matthew Akman
      Matthew Akman
      EVP and President of Gas Transmission
    • Allen Capps
      Allen Capps
      SVP of Corporate Strategy and President of Power
    • Michele Harradence
      Michele Harradence
      EVP and President of Gas Distribution and Storage
Analysts
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