Western Midstream Partners Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 6, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Record results and raised guidance: Second-quarter adjusted EBITDA reached a record $737 million, up 8% sequentially and 19% year over year. Western Midstream raised the 2026 adjusted EBITDA midpoint by $250 million to $2.85 billion, while increasing DCF and free cash flow midpoints by $200 million each.
  • Positive Sentiment: Brazos acquisition integration is progressing well: The $1.6 billion Delaware II acquisition is expected to contribute approximately $100 million of adjusted EBITDA in the second half of 2026, with $15 million-$20 million of anticipated cost synergies. Earlier-than-expected customer activity could also drive throughput above the original underwriting assumptions.
  • Positive Sentiment: Improving volume outlook and new Powder River contracts: Customer activity is accelerating in the Delaware Basin, while new long-term agreements added approximately 270,000 dedicated Powder River Basin acres, more than 1,000 drilling locations, and substantial minimum volume commitments. Produced water throughput is now expected to rise approximately 85% year over year in 2026.
  • Negative Sentiment: Costs and near-term margins are expected to rise and soften: Third-quarter operating and maintenance expense is expected to increase in the high-single-digit percentage range due to Brazos, maintenance work, and utility costs. Management also expects third-quarter per-unit margins to decline modestly as commodity prices have moderated, while 2026 capital spending is projected near the high end of the $850 million-$1 billion range.
  • Positive Sentiment: Balance sheet and future growth projects remain solid: The partnership ended the quarter with more than $1.8 billion of liquidity and pro forma net leverage of approximately 3.15 times. Pathfinder and North Loving II remain on schedule for service in early 2027, while the JIP2 water-reuse facility is producing roughly 1,000 barrels per day and supports potential future commercial-scale beneficial reuse projects.
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Earnings Conference Call
Western Midstream Partners Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning. My name is Tina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Western Midstream Partners second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Daniel Jenkins, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Daniel Jenkins
Daniel Jenkins
Director of Investor Relations at Western Midstream Partners

Thank you. Good morning. Welcome to Western Midstream second quarter 2026 conference call. Today's call, the accompanying slide deck, last night's press release contain important disclosures regarding forward-looking statements and non-GAAP reconciliations. Please reference Western Midstream's most recent Form 10-K and 10-Q, other public filings for a description of risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements we discuss today. Relevant reference materials are posted on our website. With me today are Oscar Brown, our Chief Executive Officer, Danny Holderman, our Chief Operating Officer, Kristen Shults, our Chief Financial Officer. I'll now turn the call over to Oscar.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

Thank you, Daniel. Good morning, everyone. Yesterday, we reported record adjusted EBITDA of $737 million, an increase of 8% sequentially, 19% compared to the prior year period. Our strong second quarter results reflect record throughput from our natural gas and produced water businesses in the Delaware Basin, approximately two and a half weeks of contribution from the Brazos acquisition, the benefit of our fixed-recovery natural gas processing contracts in conjunction with higher overall commodity pricing. In mid-June, we closed the $1.6 billion acquisition of Brazos Delaware II, funded with approximately $800 million in cash and $800 million of West common units based on the volume-weighted average unit price at the time the acquisition agreement was signed. The Brazos acquisition expands our gathering and processing footprint in the Delaware Basin, reflects our discipline of only deploying capital that sustains or grows the distribution over time.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

It is accretive to per-unit metrics, protects the partnership's balance sheet, investment-grade credit ratings, diversifies our customer base and ownership. The integration is off to a strong start. Our teams are focused on optimizing the legacy Brazos system, connecting it to the legacy West system, which we expect to be completed by year-end. This will enable us to direct more volumes to Brazos's processing plants that have spare capacity, enabling us to process more volumes internally, offload fewer volumes, thus creating more value for West unit holders. We also expect to capture approximately $15 million-$20 million of cost synergies over the coming quarters in connection with the Brazos acquisition, primarily through general and administrative cost elimination, reduced operation and maintenance expense from supply chain efficiencies.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

Additionally, we have recently seen a number of wells previously planned for 2027 move into the second half of 2026 from several customers on the Brazos acreage. We will continue to remain in close contact with these new customers regarding their near-term plans, but we would expect these developments to result in increased throughput relative to our initial underwriting assumptions when we consummated the deal. For the remainder of the year, higher commodity prices continue to incentivize our customers to increase activity, particularly in the Delaware and Powder River Basins, positioning us for incremental throughput growth in 2027. In the Delaware Basin, multiple customers have communicated that they intend to accelerate activity into the second half of the year, which should drive throughput growth as we exit 2026 and into 2027.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

We also recently entered into new gathering and processing agreements with two of the most active producers in the Powder River Basin. These long-term agreements increased dedications to West by approximately 270,000 acres, which contain over 1,000 remaining drilling locations and are backed by substantial minimum volume commitments. These agreements, plus the associated volume commitments, demonstrate producers' increasing focus on the Powder River Basin as they begin to more fully develop their vast acreage positions in the basin. Based on the strength of our first half results, continued elevated commodity prices, and the Brazos acquisition, we are raising the midpoints of our full year 2026 adjusted EBITDA, distributable cash flow, and free cash flow guidance ranges by 10%, 10%, and 20% respectively.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

We now expect 2026 adjusted EBITDA to be between $2.75 billion and $2.95 billion, implying a midpoint of $2.85 billion, an increase of $250 million compared to our original guidance range. Additionally, we now expect 2026 distributable cash flow to be between $2.05 billion and $2.25 billion, and 2026 free cash flow between $1.1 billion and $1.3 billion, which represents increases of $200 million at the midpoints. Kristen will provide more detail on our updated guidance ranges shortly. Finally, as we announced in mid-June, JIP2, our second produced water treatment demonstration facility near Red Bluff Reservoir in Reeves County, Texas, was placed into service during the second quarter. It is now delivering approximately 1,000 barrels per day of reclaimed fresh water, roughly 10x the volume of JIP1.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

The facility is designed to refine operating cost, evaluate reliability, and demonstrate consistent reclaimed fresh water recovery for fit-for-purpose applications, including industrial cooling, surface discharge, and non-consumptive agriculture irrigation, while protecting existing water sources for surrounding communities. We view JIP2 as a critical step towards sanctioning our first commercial-scale facility. In the Permian, crude oil and natural gas flow assurance does not happen without a solution for produced water, and each step forward on beneficial reuse deepens what we can offer producers across all three streams. Over the past few quarters, produced water handling has been our fastest-growing product line, and we believe that beneficial reuse provides another path for growth as water-to-oil ratios continue to increase and as produced water continues to outpace natural gas, crude oil, and NGL throughput growth.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

With that, I'll turn the call over to our Chief Operating Officer, Danny Holderman, to discuss our operational performance in the second quarter. Danny?

Danny Holderman
Danny Holderman
COO at Western Midstream Partners

Thank you, Oscar, good morning, everyone. Second quarter natural gas throughput increased 3% sequentially, driven by two and a half weeks of contribution from the Brazos acquisition and another quarter of record natural gas throughput from the DJ Basin. Additionally, our crude oil and NGLs throughput increased slightly, and our produced water throughput increased by approximately 5% on a sequential quarter basis. Our second quarter per Mcf adjusted gross margin for natural gas assets increased by $0.03 compared to the prior quarter, primarily driven by higher overall commodity pricing on excess natural gas liquids volumes under our fixed recovery contracts and by two and a half weeks of contribution from the Brazos acquisition.

Danny Holderman
Danny Holderman
COO at Western Midstream Partners

We expect third quarter per Mcf adjusted gross margin to be slightly lower than the second quarter as commodity prices have moderated, we now expect our full year 2026 adjusted gross margin to average approximately $1.30 per Mcf. Our second quarter per barrel adjusted gross margin for crude oil and NGLs assets increased by $0.14 compared to the prior quarter, primarily driven by higher deficiency fees in the Delaware Basin. We expect our third quarter per barrel adjusted gross margin to be slightly lower than the second quarter, we still expect our full year 2026 to range between $3.10 and $3.15 per barrel for 2026. Our second quarter per barrel adjusted gross margin for produced water assets increased by $0.06 compared to the prior quarter, primarily driven by higher throughput.

Danny Holderman
Danny Holderman
COO at Western Midstream Partners

We expect our third quarter per barrel adjusted gross margin to be slightly lower than the second quarter, we still expect our full year 2026 to average approximately $0.91, especially if the crude oil strip for 2026 remains elevated. For the remainder of the year, we now expect portfolio-wide average year-over-year throughput to increase by mid-single digits for natural gas and to decline by low double digits for crude oil and NGLs, reflecting six and a half months of Brazos contribution and higher customer activity in the back half of the year. Additionally, we now expect average produced water throughput to increase by approximately 85% year-over-year, driven by the Aris acquisition and strong performance from our legacy water business, which is slightly higher than our original expectation of approximately 80% growth coming into the year.

Danny Holderman
Danny Holderman
COO at Western Midstream Partners

In the Delaware Basin, we now expect average year-over-year throughput to increase by low- to mid-teens percentage growth for natural gas and for crude oil and NGLs to increase by low single-digits percentage growth in 2026, with the Brazos acquisition being the primary driver of the improved forecast. During the second quarter, we again saw certain customers curtail Delaware Basin throughput due to negative Waha natural gas pricing, but we exited the quarter with no curtailments as certain long-haul pipes returned from maintenance and the GCX expansion and the Hugh Rinson pipeline entered service. We expect Waha pricing to be less volatile through the remainder of the year, particularly as the Latcom pipeline comes online later this year. In the DJ Basin, throughput outperformed in the first half of the year, primarily driven by strong well performance and higher on loads from other midstream companies.

Danny Holderman
Danny Holderman
COO at Western Midstream Partners

This outperformance improves our full-year outlook for both natural gas and crude oil and NGLs throughput, we now expect a low single-digit decline for natural gas and a mid-single-digits decline for crude oil and NGLs on average year-over-year. In the Powder River Basin, we now expect throughput to decline by mid- to high single-digits on average year-over-year. As Oscar previously mentioned, we recently signed long-term gathering and processing agreements with two large producers in the basin that add approximately 270,000 dedicated acres to WES's footprint, support years of development drilling, and are backed by multiyear minimum volume commitments. These customers plan to increase activity in the back half of this year, driving volume growth as we exit 2026 and again in 2027.

Danny Holderman
Danny Holderman
COO at Western Midstream Partners

Finally, regional natural gas pricing has improved in the Rocky Mountains, we continue to expect mid-single-digits percentage throughput growth from our other natural gas assets, driven by a full year's contribution from Williams MountainWest pipeline expansion, the tie-in of Kinder Morgan's Ultima pipeline and our Chipeta processing plant in Utah in 2025, and steady throughput at our Brasada plant in South Texas. With that, I'll turn the call over to Kristen to discuss our financial performance.

Kristen Shults
Kristen Shults
CFO at Western Midstream Partners

Thank you, Danny, and good morning, everyone. During the second quarter, we generated net income attributable to limited partners of $395 million, record adjusted EBITDA of $737 million and distributable cash flow of $537 million. Relative to the first quarter of 2026, adjusted gross margin increased by $84 million, driven primarily by strong throughput growth from our produced water business, approximately two and a half weeks of throughput from the Brazos Delaware acquisition, and higher commodity prices on excess natural gas liquids volumes. Operation and maintenance expense increased approximately 8% quarter-over-quarter, mostly driven by higher disposal and land fees associated with the increased produced water throughput and higher chemicals and treating expense.

Kristen Shults
Kristen Shults
CFO at Western Midstream Partners

Inclusive of both the legacy Aris and Brazos assets, we now expect our full year 2026 operation and maintenance expense to increase by approximately 20%-25% year-over-year, which is still a meaningful reduction on a combined company basis as we execute on synergy capture and operational cost reduction efforts. For the third quarter specifically, we expect operation and maintenance expense to increase in the high single digits percentage range

Kristen Shults
Kristen Shults
CFO at Western Midstream Partners

Driven by the full quarterly run rate from Brazos, the increased asset maintenance and repair work that's typical during the third quarter, and higher expected utility costs. Pro forma, the Brazos acquisition, we now estimate reimbursements of approximately 60% of our portfolio-wide utility costs from our customers. Turning to cash flow, our second quarter cash flow from operating activities totaled $535 million, an increase of $65 million over the first quarter of 2026. Our operating cash flow resulted in $264 million of free cash flow generation, and free cash flow after our first quarter 2026 distribution that was paid on May 15th was a use of cash of $111 million. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with more than $1.8 billion of total liquidity and a trailing 12-month net leverage ratio pro forma for a full year of Brazos contribution of approximately 3.15x.

Kristen Shults
Kristen Shults
CFO at Western Midstream Partners

In June, we issued $700 million of 10-year senior notes to refinance the commercial paper and revolver borrowings used to fund the Brazos acquisition. The 123 basis point spread to U.S. Treasuries was the tightest 10-year spread for any WES senior note issuance in the partnership's history. On July 20th, we declared a quarterly distribution of $0.93 per unit, unchanged from the prior quarter, and it will be paid on August 14th to unit holders of record as of July 31st. Turning to guidance, as Oscar mentioned, we are raising our 2026 adjusted EBIT range to be between $2.75 billion and $2.95 billion, implying a new midpoint of $2.85 billion, an increase of $250 million at the midpoint relative to our initial guidance announced in late February.

Kristen Shults
Kristen Shults
CFO at Western Midstream Partners

This reflects the contribution from the Brazos acquisition, the strong commodity price environment in the first half of 2026, and a higher commodity price forecast for the second half, as well as increased customer activity levels in the second half of the year in both the Delaware and Powder River Basins, as both Oscar and Danny previously mentioned. While second half 2026 commodity prices remain above what we modeled coming into the year, they have recently moderated, causing us to use an average oil price of $71 per barrel for the second half of the year and resulting in a full year average price of approximately $77 per barrel. On capital, we are maintaining our 2026 capital expenditure range of $850 million to $1 billion, though we now expect to be toward the high end of the guidance range.

Kristen Shults
Kristen Shults
CFO at Western Midstream Partners

This is primarily driven by new expansion opportunities in the Delaware and Powder River Basins that were not contemplated in our prior forecast. In particular, the new long-term gathering and processing agreements in the Powder River Basin will require incremental growth capital for expanded gathering facilities and additional compression, a portion of which will be spent in 2026. Over half of our 2026 capital program remains directed toward the construction of the Pathfinder Pipeline and the North Loving II natural gas processing train. We continue to expect capital spending to remain elevated through the third quarter before moderating in the fourth as we approach Pathfinder's and North Loving II's expected in-service dates in the first and second quarters of 2027, respectively.

Kristen Shults
Kristen Shults
CFO at Western Midstream Partners

We are increasing our distributable cash flow or DCF guidance to a range of $2.05 billion-$2.25 billion, implying a midpoint of $2.15 billion, an increase of $200 million at the midpoint. This again mostly reflects the Brazos acquisition and higher commodity price environment through 2026. We are also raising our free cash flow guidance to a range of $1.1 billion-$1.3 billion, implying a midpoint of $1.2 billion, also an increase of $200 million at the midpoint. We continue to view free cash flow as a key indicator of the partnership's financial strength, while DCF provides investors an additional measure of our capacity to fund the distribution and a substantial portion of our expansion capital program. Turning to the distribution, our target of at least $3.70 per unit paid in 2026 remains unchanged.

Kristen Shults
Kristen Shults
CFO at Western Midstream Partners

Our annualized run rate of $3.72 reflects the increased distribution rate of $0.93 per unit that commenced with the first quarter 2026 distribution, and that will be paid again on August 14th for the second quarter distribution. I will now turn the call over to Oscar for closing remarks.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

Thanks, Kristen. Before we open the call for questions, I want to leave you with a few closing thoughts. West has multiple ways to win and grow across the portfolio and across all three product lines: natural gas, crude oil and NGLs, and produced water. Higher customer activity in the Delaware Basin, combined with new commercial agreements and increasing rig count in the Powder River Basin, positions West for increasing natural gas throughput as we exit this year and again in 2027. The Brazos acquisition adds further momentum, and we continue to expect it to generate approximately $100 million of adjusted EBITDA in the second half of 2026. The Pathfinder Produced Water Pipeline and the North Loving II natural gas processing train will provide growth and financial uplift when both of those projects come online early in the first and second quarters of 2027, respectively.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

Second, beneficial reuse remains an important longer-term extension of our produced water strategy. With JIP 2 now in service and producing roughly 10 times the reclaimed fresh water of JIP 1, we continue to progress our goal of sanctioning our first commercial scale facility, adding another path for future growth. Third, our growth is supported by our strong balance sheet and ample liquidity. We ended the quarter with more than $1.8 billion of total liquidity and a trailing 12-month net leverage ratio pro forma for a full year's contribution from Brazos of approximately 3.15x. This financial strength gives us the flexibility to fund organic expansion while returning capital to unit holders and pursuing additional strategic M&A as we did with Brazos and Aris. Finally, West continues to offer one of the most compelling equity return profiles in the midstream sector.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

Our 12%-14% potential total annual equity return is underpinned by a 7%-9% current cash yield and a 4%-5% long-term adjusted EBITDA growth rate, driving further upside over time. We exceeded that long-term growth rate in both 2024 and 2025, and we expect continued outperformance in 2026, generating expected total returns well above 14%. Combined with our strong balance sheet, investment-grade credit ratings, and ample liquidity, our compelling returns continue to differentiate West within the midstream sector. In closing, West enters the second half of 2026 from a position of strength. We delivered record adjusted EBITDA this quarter, raised full-year guidance, and made significant progress integrating the Brazos acquisition. Looking ahead, we have multiple paths to continued growth.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

Pathfinder and North Loving II are progressing on schedule, rising activity across most of our core basins, and several recent commercial successes that will strengthen our growth profile for years to come. I am confident in our team's ability to execute and continue creating value for our unit holders. I also want to say thank you to our entire Western Midstream workforce for their continued hard work, engagement, and dedication to our partnership. We lead with our core values of partnership, customer focus, resourcefulness, and performance to deliver on our mission of improving lives through safe, sustainable, and efficient energy delivery. With that, we'll open the call for questions.

Operator

As a reminder, to ask a question, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Gabe Moreen with Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Gabe Moreen
Gabe Moreen
Analyst at Mizuho

Hey, good morning, team. I just had a quick question, I guess on with the acceleration of activity from some of your customers into the back half of this year. Can you just talk about any revised expectations for filling up the spare processing capacity you've got for Brazos? Also at North Loving and expansion there and what it may mean also for potential future processing expansions.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

Sure. Thanks, Gabe. It's Oscar. I think we are increasingly bullish on some of the outlook for gas, as probably no surprise. We do have excess capacity at Brazos. It'll probably take us towards the end of the year to connect the systems, so we won't really be taking advantage of that significantly, until that time. We expect to move a lot of volumes, especially volumes we've been offloading onto the plant. That said, the customer base there is much more active than we expected and we underwrote in the transaction. We're probably going to see that plant head towards being full pretty quickly, never mind us shifting over uploaded volumes. I guess with respect to additional capacity, we continue to review our processing stack. I think we are definitely in the mode of trying to understand the outlook.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

We'll know more as we progress through the year. We're probably at capacity in terms of space at North Loving, so our next plan would maybe be somewhere else. We're certainly in that mode now, considering where to move site capacity next. It's a pretty good outlook.

Gabe Moreen
Gabe Moreen
Analyst at Mizuho

Great. Thanks, Oscar. Maybe if I can ask again on a follow-up on Pathfinder. You mentioned the project's progressing according to plan. Can you talk about contracting strategy there? There's been a lot of discussion on your call here in the remarks about water and how that's your fastest growing area. Just how that may translate to Pathfinder beyond your anchor customer with Oxy. Sorry, your contract with Oxy.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

Yeah. No, thanks, Gabe. Pathfinder's going extremely well. I would say it's going better than planned. We've done a lot of work to bring down the total capital costs from the original budget, that's gone well. We've also done, you'll remember, we announced some land work where we've gained some excess horse space capacity and did a little reroute in part of the system. That helped with capital costs and returns as well. With the base Oxy contract, that takes a little less than a third of the capacity of the pipe. With some of the work we've done around the commercial side, that team has been successful in winning incremental gathering and disposal opportunities that will ultimately, over the long term, need to utilize Pathfinder. We priced that in accordingly. We're seeing that chip away at the excess capacity.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

Right now we're looking at returns have moved up about our expected returns, by about 500 basis points from high single digits, 10% on this asset to closer to 15%, which you'd expect with all the work we've done. As we continue to fill that pipe into the next year or so, once it comes online, we'd expect returns to get into the 20% range. Everything fundamentally about the water business, quite honestly from our perspective, is much better than we thought and has improved more quickly than we anticipated when we sanctioned this project. I think Pathfinder becomes kind of like a header system or a loop in terms of our entire integrated water system in New Mexico and Texas. We probably will see another big contractor too.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

I think as well, we're going to see the utilization of that pipe in more integrated expansion of our overall gathering disposal system. It's evolving. No change in our bullishness on filling the pipe and that timeline. Perhaps a change in the mix of what the contracts look like as a result of the changing environment here. The final point on that one too is we're responding to

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

It's sort of changing customer outlooks on how they want to handle their water and what they want out of their water service providers. Our largest customers are getting very specific on where they want the water disposed, where they want it moved to, how they want to sort of manage it and track it, which I think creates us in particular, as sort of a signal that this is a growing challenge for our customers. It's critical to overall oil and gas flow assurance. They want to deal with counter-parties that are investment grade and can move water all over the system. We could find ourselves sometimes moving water north and east and sometimes moving it to the south. A lot of flexibility in that pipe and sort of the integrated footprint we now have.

Gabe Moreen
Gabe Moreen
Analyst at Mizuho

Appreciate the color. Thanks, Oscar.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

Thank you.

Operator

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

Francina Kolluri
Francina Kolluri
Analyst at JPMorgan

Good morning. Thank you for taking questions. This is Francina on for Jeremy. Just wanted to touch a bit on kind of the guide update here with the $200 million range provided between that, and a couple of levers that we've identified on our end being the 2QB Brazos giving us $100 million in the second half, commodity prices and then throughput outlook being improved. Is that a fair characterization of kind of the main levers that we're looking to in the second half to kind of drive us toward the higher end of the range versus the lower end? Can you talk a little bit about that? Maybe just thinking about shaping results through the end of the year.

Francina Kolluri
Francina Kolluri
Analyst at JPMorgan

Can we kind of expect a linear step up from Q2 into 4Q, or how will that O&M increase really play at the end of the year? That'd be helpful. Thank you.

Kristen Shults
Kristen Shults
CFO at Western Midstream Partners

Yes. I think you are thinking about it correctly. When we revised guidance, the thought processes that came in for establishing the new midpoint had to do with Brazos, the $100 million you referenced. If you're using our commodity price sensitivity that we've got within our deck, we've had about a $20 change in WTI from when we first set budget. That's about $80 million of incremental commodities that we're seeing through all of 2026. The remainder, as you mentioned, we are seeing increased throughput on the system, and we also are doing just a great job on the asset side and the recovery side at our plants. That's all contributed to the $250 move in adjusted EBITDA up to that new midpoint.

Kristen Shults
Kristen Shults
CFO at Western Midstream Partners

As we go through the rest of the year, we do expect OpEx to increase slightly. Obviously, we've got Brazos in the mix now. You only had about a half a month of Brazos in the second quarter. As we get that all mixed in, we'd expect that to raise a little bit more. We're obviously seeing the increased throughput just on the system as we talked about some of the rigs coming from 2027 and pushing it to 2026. We do still expect to see the DJ declining in the back half of this year. That's going to play into the adjusted EBITDA and the curve that we see there.

Francina Kolluri
Francina Kolluri
Analyst at JPMorgan

Thank you. That's very helpful. Wanted to dig a bit deeper just on the inorganic growth opportunity set at hand. Brazos seemed to be kind of a nice adder to the overall portfolio. I'm sure that there are many other opportunities here. If you could maybe just describe that opportunity set and then maybe the strategy that you're taking with these opportunities. Is it going to be kind of a higher mix of bolt-ons is what you're looking for? A kind of larger acquisition to reinvent the strategy?

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

Sure. Our M&A strategy is sort of unchanged. We like to talk about programmatic M&A, all that really means is just staying vigilant in the market and looking for opportunities that fit our ideal parameters. For us, that's sustaining or growing the distribution. It's protecting the balance sheet and our investment-grade ratings, diversifying our customer and ownership profile. We don't always get all those, but the key ones that are critical we measure in terms of per unit metrics, so accretive on per unit metrics. With that discipline, there's still opportunities certainly out there. Our strong preference is always to grow organically where we can deploy capital, generally at higher returns with less risk in terms of execution. We're certainly seeing that in our two big projects that we've been executing well on here recently. All that's pretty unchanged.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

We'll try to continue to be opportunistic and look for ways to improve our footprint, improve the diversity of assets that we have and how we optimize those going forward.

Francina Kolluri
Francina Kolluri
Analyst at JPMorgan

I'll leave it there. Thank you so much, team.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

Thank you.

Operator

If you would like to ask a question, simply press star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question is from Burke Sansiviero with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Burke Sansiviero
Burke Sansiviero
Analyst at Wolfe Research

Hi. Good morning. Just piggybacking off the last M&A question there. Just how focused are you on the Permian Basin for bolt-on M&A relative to other basins? Would you say going outside the Permian is a higher bar?

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

Yeah, I guess what we've seen is we certainly love the Permian, all the data says it continues to be sort of the best long-term basin in the United States. We continue to be super fans there and like transactions there. There are opportunities in other basins for sure. Again, if an opportunity checks all the boxes I just mentioned, we'll certainly consider it. Importantly, our evangelizing, our ability to leverage the footprints that we have. If there's something out there that sort of fits our parameters, we'll certainly look at it. We also tend to see outside the Permian valuations are just more reasonable, in terms of short-term metrics. We think about that as well. Again, the Permian's sort of our key basin. We like the other footprints we have, and we'll continue to look for opportunities there.

Burke Sansiviero
Burke Sansiviero
Analyst at Wolfe Research

Thanks for that. Can you just speak more on the water treating plans and how soon you could sanction a standalone WES project? How much capital do you think the company could deploy to this opportunity, so over time?

Kristen Shults
Kristen Shults
CFO at Western Midstream Partners

You're asking about the water reuse, is that right?

Burke Sansiviero
Burke Sansiviero
Analyst at Wolfe Research

Yes, the beneficial reuse.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

Yeah, definitely. Again, all the things we've discussed so far in the call have been the sort of real-time growth opportunities that we have at this very moment. Beneficial reuse, water treatment, and the like, are a key component of the next stage of our growth and driving that as well. Hopefully, frankly, adding on to our base growth rates that we've been talking about. It's a key strategy for us. Our entire water business sort of sets up well for that. One is really large footprint across two states. The Pathfinder pipe itself gives us a lot of optionality for scale projects at its terminus. Given today, it'll have an 800,000-barrel-a-day capacity on the pipe and easily expandable to over 1 million barrels a day. We've got all the pieces in place.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

With our Aris acquisition, we inherited a great team that has given us a great, frankly, technical advantage in terms of beneficial reuse. While we're technology agnostic, we think we've got an edge in that case. We're working hard to sanction a commercial scale plant. I know you're responding to our disclosure about a joint industry project, JIP2, where we've got a second demonstration plant at 10x the capacity of the first, really to continue to work out the kinks, do R&D, and look for the scaling opportunities to bring costs down for beneficial reuse.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

It plays into everything happening right now in the Permian, from an excess of produced water and the challenges there, to the needs of the region, including just generally offsetting aquifer and other water use that should be used for humans, and using instead treated produced water ideally for industrial processes, non-consumable irrigation, all those things. We're super excited about it. We've got great partners and we're moving that technology along. We hope to be announcing something in the not-too-distant future in terms of commercializing that piece of the puzzle.

Burke Sansiviero
Burke Sansiviero
Analyst at Wolfe Research

Thank you.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

Thank you.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Oscar Brown, I turn the call back over to you.

Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
CEO at Western Midstream Partners

Well, great. Well, thanks again for everyone's interest and participation on the call, really to all our stakeholders for their support of WES and our mission. We're especially grateful for our customers who've entrusted us with their energy flow assurance, our employees and teammates whose engagement and daily demonstration of our core values allows us to safely deliver on our mission, which is so critical to America's quality of life. We look forward to seeing everybody, including the investment committee at upcoming investor and industry conferences, really as soon as next week. We'll see everybody soon. With that, we'll conclude the call.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Daniel Jenkins
      Daniel Jenkins
      Director of Investor Relations
    • Oscar Brown
      Oscar Brown
      CEO
    • Danny Holderman
      Danny Holderman
      COO
    • Kristen Shults
      Kristen Shults
      CFO
Analysts
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