ONEOK Q3 2022 Earnings Results & Report

ONEOK EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.96
• Consensus EPS: $0.93
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.03
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A
• EPS Beat Rate: 6 of last 8 quarters

ONEOK Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $5.91 billion
• Expected Revenue: $6.52 billion
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$605.17 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

ONEOK (NYSE:OKE) is an energy infrastructure company that operates midstream assets across the United States. Its business includes the gathering, processing, storage and transportation of natural gas, as well as the gathering, fractionation, storage and transportation of natural gas liquids (NGLs). The company also provides transportation and storage services for refined petroleum products, crude oil and other related commodities.

ONEOK serves major producing and consuming regions, including the Mid-Continent, Rocky Mountain, Permian and Gulf Coast areas. Its infrastructure connects producers with processing facilities, storage sites, fractionation plants, refineries, export facilities and other end markets. The company’s operations are primarily fee-based, with services provided under a range of contractual arrangements.

ONEOK traces its history to the Oklahoma Natural Gas Company, founded in 1906, and adopted the ONEOK name in 1980. In 2023, the company completed its acquisition of Magellan Midstream Partners, expanding its refined products, crude oil and marine terminal operations. ONEOK is headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is led by President and Chief Executive Officer Pierce H. Norton II.

ONEOK Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• ONEOK reported Q3 2022 net income of $432 million ($0.96/share), up 10% YoY, with adjusted EBITDA of $902 million (up 4% YoY); the company affirmed its 2022 guidance and expects to exceed $4 billion in adjusted EBITDA for 2023.
• Under the Medford fractionator incident, ONEOK has a $5 million deductible and faced ~$30 million of waiting‐period losses but received $45 million of a $100 million insurance first installment and expects the remainder by year‐end, with no net income impact due to receivables offsets.
• Volumes remain strong across segments: Rocky Mountain NGL volumes rose 17% YoY, natural gas processing hit a record 1.4 Bcf/d, and the pipeline/storage business is fully subscribed—pushing that segment above its high‐end guidance.
• Capital expenditures for 2022 were raised to $1.2 billion to accelerate the MB5 fractionator and smaller expansions; following the completion of MB5 and Demicks Lake III, 2023 CapEx is expected to moderate absent new project approvals.
• Financial strength remains solid with net debt/EBITDA at 3.8x (aspiring to 3.5x), no material floating‐rate exposure, and no significant debt maturities until September 2023.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, and welcome to the ONEOK third quarter 2022 earnings conference call and webcast. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Andrew Ziola, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Andrew Ziola, VP of Investor Relations at ONEOK]

Thank you, Betsy, and welcome to ONEOK's third quarter 2022 earnings call. We issued our earnings release and presentation after the markets closed yesterday, and those materials are on our website. After our prepared remarks, management will be available to take your questions. Statements made during this call that might include ONEOK's expectations or predictions should be considered forward-looking statements and are covered by the Safe Harbor provision of the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in forward-looking statements. For a discussion of factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to our SEC filings. Just a reminder for Q&A, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one quick follow-up in order to fit in as many of you as we can.

[Andrew Ziola, VP of Investor Relations at ONEOK]

With that, I'll turn the call over to Pierce Norton, President and Chief Executive Officer. Pierce?

[Pierce Norton, President and CEO at ONEOK]

Thanks, Andrew. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our call this morning. We appreciate your interest and investment in our company. On the call today is Walt Hulse, the Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Development, and Kevin Burdick, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer. Also available to answer your questions are Sheridan Swords, our Senior Vice President of Natural Gas Liquids and Natural Gas Gathering and Processing, and Chuck Kelly, our Senior Vice President of Natural Gas Pipelines. Yesterday, we announced strong third quarter 2022 earnings, affirmed our 2022 financial guidance midpoints, and provided our 2023 growth outlook to exceed $4 billion of adjusted EBITDA.

[Pierce Norton, President and CEO at ONEOK]

Our third quarter results demonstrate the resiliency of our strategic and integrated assets in some of the most highly productive U.S. shale basins, and our employees who have dedicated themselves to the safety and reliability and sustainability of our operations. Looking forward, we expect continued strength in producer activity, in increased volumes, and higher earnings from our fee-based services in all of our business segments in a favorable commodity price and increasing demand backdrop. With that, I will turn the call over to Walt for a discussion of our financial performance and the expectations and our insurance update. Walt?

[Walter Hulse, CFO, Treasurer, and EVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at ONEOK]

Thank you, Pierce. ONEOK's third quarter 2022 net income totaled $432 million or $0.96 per share, a 10% increase compared with the third quarter 2021, and a 4% increase compared with the second quarter. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA was $902 million, a 4% year-over-year increase, and an increase from the second quarter. Higher results benefited from increased Rocky Mountain region NGL and natural gas volumes, higher realized commodity prices net of hedging, and higher average fee rates. Additionally, we had lower interest expense due to our lower debt balances and increased capitalized interest. Third quarter 2022 results reflected our $5 million property insurance deductible related to the Medford incident, and approximately $30 million of losses related to the 45-day business interruption waiting period under the terms of our insurance policy.

[Walter Hulse, CFO, Treasurer, and EVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at ONEOK]

We received notice in September that our Medford property insurers agreed to pay $100 million unallocated first installment of insurance proceeds. As of today, we received $45 million of that amount, and expect to receive the remaining amount before year-end. We've applied this cash receipts to our outstanding insurance receivables. After the waiting period ended, we incurred costs subsequent to the 45-day business interruption waiting period of $21.7 million, primarily related to third-party fractionation agreements, and recorded a partial impairment charge of $6.7 million, representing the value associated with certain Medford facility property based on the limited assessments completed to date. There is no income statement impact of these incurred business interruption costs or impairment charges as they are fully offset by insurance receivables.

[Walter Hulse, CFO, Treasurer, and EVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at ONEOK]

We continue sharing information with our insurance carriers to refine ongoing business interruption insurance coverage and to determine the ultimate path to replacement of this temporary loss of fractionation capacity. We will provide additional updates as we move forward in this process when material information is available. Lastly, for the third quarter, we ended with higher NGL inventory levels that have since been sold forward, and we will realize $17 million earnings benefit from those sales in the fourth quarter and first quarter of 2023. As of September 30, our net debt-to-EBITDA on an annualized run rate basis was 3.8x, and we continue to view 3.5x or lower as our long-term aspirational goal.

[Walter Hulse, CFO, Treasurer, and EVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at ONEOK]

We currently have no long-term debt maturities until September of 2023, and we have no material exposure to floating interest rates through our current outstanding long-term debt. Yesterday, we affirmed our 2022 guidance midpoints of $1.69 billion for net income and $3.62 billion for adjusted EBITDA. We now expect total capital expenditures of $1.2 billion, driven by our acceleration of spending on the MB-5 fractionator and smaller scale expansion projects that were not previously planned for 2022 across our three business segments that will contribute to growth in 2023.

[Walter Hulse, CFO, Treasurer, and EVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at ONEOK]

Key drivers for our 2023 outlook of a more than 10% increase compared with our 2022 midpoints to exceed $4 billion in adjusted EBITDA include continued strength in fee-based earnings and rates, stable to growing producer activity, providing higher natural gas and natural gas liquids volumes in our system, and expected higher realized commodity prices due to higher hedges. These tailwinds into 2023 from our base business, additional insurance recoveries related to Medford, and our strong financial position provide us confidence in our double-digit earnings growth outlook for next year. I'll now turn the call over to Kevin for a commercial update.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

Thank you, Walt. Let's start with our natural gas liquids segment. Rocky Mountain region NGL volumes increased 17% year-over-year and 12% compared with the second quarter of 2022, driven by volume recovery following the April severe weather and overall volume growth, including higher incentivized ethane on our system. Volumes have remained strong in the region, with September averaging more than 380,000 barrels per day. Third quarter Mid-Continent NGL volumes decreased year-over-year and compared with the second quarter, due primarily to lower ethane recovery on our system. In the Permian Basin, NGL volumes were unchanged year-over-year and compared with the prior quarter. With a recent third-party plant connection in October, we expect volumes from this region to increase through the remainder of this year and into 2023.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

We also continue to see interest from customers seeking additional NGL takeaway out of the Permian, so we will continue to evaluate future low-cost expansions on our system. From a 2022 NGL volume guidance perspective, we expect to be near the midpoint of our guidance range, due mostly to the ethane rejection we have been seeing in the Mid-Continent and the impact of the April storms.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

Regarding ethane, beginning in September, we started to see lower demand for ethane from the petchems, leading to more ethane rejection across most regions. The decrease in utilization has been driven by lower NGL demand globally, especially in China and Europe, along with some petchem outages. We expect ethane demand to remain muted somewhat in the fourth quarter and into early 2023, and this has been factored into our 2022 and 2023 expectations.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

As we sit today, we are seeing ethane and ethylene inventories starting to get worked off, which we believe will lead to increasing demand in 2023. As for ONEOK, it is typical that we don't incentivize as much ethane out of the Bakken during the winter season due to higher natural gas prices and natural gas demand. We will continue to be opportunistic. As it relates to our 2023 outlook, we expect the Permian to be in full ethane recovery, the Midcontinent to be in partial recovery, and the Rockies continuing to provide opportunities to incentivize recovery. Construction continues on our 125,000 barrel per day MB-5 fractionator in Mont Belvieu, which we still expect to be completed early in the second quarter of 2023 and is reflected in our updated 2022 capital guidance.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

Moving on to the natural gas gathering and processing segment. Producer activity remains strong in the Rocky Mountain region, with third quarter processed volumes averaging 1.4 billion cu ft per day, a record quarter for us. Our average fee rate also increased, reflecting the impact of contract escalators, higher volumes on higher fee component contracts, and a larger percentage of our total volumes from the Rockies. On a go-forward basis, we expect this average rate to range between $1.10 and $1.20.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

Year to date, we've connected 244 wells in the region. We now expect to complete approximately 375 well connections near or at the low end of our guidance due to the impact of the April storms, timing of some wells coming on, and availability of completion crews and materials. Activity still remains high, just some timing elements that we now expect will push a few large pad completions into next year. These same factors also led us adjusting our volume expectations for 2022 to be near or slightly below the guidance range. There are currently more than 40 rigs and 18 completion crews operating in the basin, with more than 20 rigs and approximately 1/2 the completion crews on our dedicated acreage.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

As we've said before, approximately 15 rigs on our acreage can maintain natural gas production at current levels, but with more than 20 currently on our acreage, we expect to see higher well connections and volumes in 2023 compared with 2022. The 200 million cu ft per day Demicks Lake III processing plant under construction remains on schedule to be completed in the first quarter, and will bring needed capacity to the region.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

The basin-wide DUC inventory remains stable at around 500, considering the increasing rig count and activity, with 1/2 of those on our dedicated acreage. In the Mid-Continent region, we continue to see increased activity with four rigs now operating on our acreage and more than 50 rigs basin-wide. We expect steady to increasing activity and volumes through the remainder of the year and into next year, with the majority of rigs basin-wide driving additional NGLs to our system.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

In the natural gas pipeline segment, with strong year-to-date results benefiting from the continued increasing demand for natural gas storage and transportation services, we now expect this segment to exceed the high end of its guidance range of $400 million-$430 million. We are highly subscribed for our storage services in Oklahoma and Texas at higher rates and for longer terms, including our recent expansion of our Texas storage facilities, which is now fully subscribed through 2032. Additionally, we are expanding our storage capabilities in Oklahoma, enabling an additional 4 billion cu ft of storage capacity to be contracted.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

This project is expected to be complete in April 2023 and is nearly 90% subscribed through 2029, and we are also evaluating an additional expansion of our Texas storage assets. Lastly, before I turn the call back to Pierce, we began a compression electrification project on our interstate Viking Gas Transmission pipeline to improve operational reliability and provide future greenhouse gas emissions reductions on the system. The project is expected to cost $95 million and be completed in the third quarter of 2023, and is included in our outlook. Pierce, that concludes my remarks.

[Pierce Norton, President and CEO at ONEOK]

Thank you, Walt and Kevin. As we enter the last couple of months of 2022 and look forward to the next year, I'm proud of our employees, and wanna thank them for their hard work and contributions to continue to focus on operating safely, sustainably and environmentally responsible, and are key to our success as a midstream operator. How we operate is important, but also how we engage with our employees, communities and other stakeholders is equally as important. Also important for ONEOK is to remain focused on meeting the growing energy demand for today, even as it looks forward to helping drive the energy transformation needs for the future.

[Pierce Norton, President and CEO at ONEOK]

We also recently announced that ONEOK joined with two other large publicly-traded companies based in Oklahoma and a venture capital firm to fund an effort to transform Oklahoma into a hub of energy technology startups and redefine a sector that has shaped the region's economy for more than a century. We believe this partnership aligns to our long-term business strategy, which includes potential low carbon investments that contribute to long-term growth and business diversification. ONEOK has been building the right teams and resources to better participate in the innovative practices and technologies that it sees now and those that may play a role in the future. Before I turn the call over for Q&A, I wanted to highlight an important ESG item we mentioned in our earnings release.

[Pierce Norton, President and CEO at ONEOK]

ONEOK's MSCI ESG rating was recently reviewed and updated by MSCI to AAA from AA, and we maintained our industry leader status. As I previously said, our ESG efforts are a source of pride for ONEOK, and we are committed to continuing to make progress in these important areas. With that, operator, we're now ready for questions.

[Operator]

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster.

[Operator]

The first question today comes from Brian Reynolds with UBS. Please go ahead.

[Brian Reynolds, VP and Global Head of Investor Relations Intelligence at UBS]

Hi, good morning, everyone.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

Morning.

[Brian Reynolds, VP and Global Head of Investor Relations Intelligence at UBS]

Maybe to revisit some of the re-assumptions in your prepared remarks around 2023 earnings growth. It seems like we should see some tailwinds on volumes and hedges rolling higher. I was curious if we could just dive a little bit further into the ethane recovery assumptions for 2023. You know, historically, you guys have been pretty conservative on this assumption, but curious of how we should think about how BTU concerns plateauing ethane demand for the next three years and Permian nat gas tightness impacted some of your assumptions as it relates to Rockies recovery into 2023 and that 10% earnings growth. Thanks.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

Hey, Brian, this is Kevin. I'll start and then Sheridan can add in. Think about the overall 2023 growth outlook. We expect our volumes are gonna be up, both NGL and gathering and processing in all of our basins, with the tailwinds, with the existing rigs we're seeing today, as those carry over into 2023. Volume growth is gonna be the primary driver. You know, you've also got--you're gonna have a full year of the contract fee escalations. We'll see a full year of that. You've got a step up in our hedging. If you look at the hedged prices we have in 2023 compared to 2022, that's gonna be a significant step up there. The ethane recovery assumptions are pretty similar to what we had going into 2022.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

As we mentioned, full recovery we expect out of the Permian, partial in the Mid-Continent, and we'll continue to incentivize ethane out of the Bakken, where appropriate.

[Sheridan Swords, SVP of Natural Gas Liquids and Natural Gas Gathering and Processing at ONEOK]

What I'd add on that is when we look at 2023, as we looked in 2022, we have limited incentivized ethane coming out of the Bakken factored in. We really see that as an opportunistic opportunity going forward.

[Brian Reynolds, VP and Global Head of Investor Relations Intelligence at UBS]

Great. Appreciate that color. Maybe just to pivot towards capital allocation for a minute. ONEOK is trending towards its leverage targets and payout ratio targets. Obviously, there are some concerns that were, you know, partially alleviated, you know, with earnings around the insurance proceeds. Was curious of how we should think about the return of capital framework looking into 2023, given that, you know, you've had the same dividend level since 2019, but that said, net rec at the same time. Any color there, appreciate it. Thanks.

[Pierce Norton, President and CEO at ONEOK]

Brian, this is Pierce. You know, with our positive earnings growth indications for 2023, you know, our payout ratio and our debt-to-EBITDA metrics are indicating that we are gonna have more flexibility to execute on one or more of the capital allocation levers that are gonna be available to us, you know, to create that value for our shareholders, as we progress through 2023. That's the way I'd answer your question there.

[Brian Reynolds, VP and Global Head of Investor Relations Intelligence at UBS]

Great. Fair enough. I'll leave it there. Have a great rest of your morning.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

Thank you, Brian.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Michael Blum with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

[Michael Blum, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Wanted to ask the latest on Northern Border. Where does it stand in terms of gas coming from Canada versus the Bakken? Is there any more room there? Related to that, any updates on a potential expansion project on Northern Border?

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

Yeah, Michael, it's Kevin. For your first question, you know, we estimate there's still probably 300-400 million a day of gas coming from Canada. That will continue to get displaced from Bakken as Bakken grows. You've got some opportunities there. We're in active discussions with multiple parties on various residue takeaway and demand projects, actually some demand projects in basin. We have secured about 100 million a day of takeaway solution on WBI that's going out south. It doesn't go to Northern Border, so that's gonna help. We don't think there's one single solution that's gonna provide that. We do believe that we'll be able to find and there will be the necessary capacity out of the basin as we move forward.

[Michael Blum, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Okay. Thanks for that. I guess second question, just wanted to ask, I know you haven't really made a decision yet about whether you're going to rebuild Medford or build maybe something else at Mont Belvieu or otherwise. Just, curious if you could talk through the dynamics. If you do choose to not rebuild Medford, does that change anything in terms of the market dynamics between Conway and Mont Belvieu for you as it relates to Sterling?

[Sheridan Swords, SVP of Natural Gas Liquids and Natural Gas Gathering and Processing at ONEOK]

No. I mean, there will be a little bit of impact on that if we build down at Mont Belvieu because you put more down in there. Today, or when Medford was up, most of our liquids was transported down Sterling anyway to the Mont Belvieu market. We think overall the market dynamics are not gonna be impacted that much, whether we build it at Medford or at Mont Belvieu.

[Michael Blum, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Great. Thanks so much.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Jean Ann Salisbury with Bernstein. Please go ahead.

[Jean Ann Salisbury, Senior Analyst of Natural Gas and Midstream at Bernstein]

Hi, good morning. In the third quarter, there was more ethane recovered from the Rockies and less from the Mid-Con than I would've expected. Is it fair to say that, most of the time, you would recover marginal ethane from the Mid-Con before the Rockies, and that maybe it was specifically due to AECO price blowouts in the quarter, that it was a little flipped from usual?

[Walter Hulse, CFO, Treasurer, and EVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at ONEOK]

Yes, we look at the gas basis as really what kind of drives us on which basin we're gonna incentivize. Yeah, AECO pricing versus what's going on in the Mid-Continent will drive where we incentivize ethane coming out of there. We did see a lot of benefit in the third quarter coming out of the Rockies due to the basis and what we could secure gas prices for and sell them for ethane. We see that as a great opportunistic two basins that we can incentivize at times and kind of play that gas basis between the two. We think that's a big advantage to our system.

[Jean Ann Salisbury, Senior Analyst of Natural Gas and Midstream at Bernstein]

Okay, that's helpful. Assuming that Bakken does go back to higher rejection in the next couple quarters, I think the Northern Border BTU spec would, at that receipt point, is probably gonna exceed the 1,100 BTU, which I think Northern Border has said is kind of the max that they really want. Does anything happen then, or is that just all kind of a whole FERC process to put an actual cap in?

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

Jean Ann, this is Kevin. Yes, as you reject more ethane, that will raise the BTU content on Northern Border. If we're back to about where we were pre-COVID, that number was north of 1,100 BTU. Right now, there is not a spec on the pipe. The Northern Border, it's our understanding, they'll watch it. They've got some levers to pull if it gets too high and downstream markets start to have concerns. They continue to work with shippers and all the relevant stakeholders to potentially go back to FERC for a spec. We don't have an exact timing on that. We'll watch it.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

If it gets to the point where the BTU level gets too high and downstream markets start raising issues, then we always have the option to recover ethane to lower it back. If we do that, if it's required at that point, then that would be at full rates, I mean, not at an incentivized rate.

[Jean Ann Salisbury, Senior Analyst of Natural Gas and Midstream at Bernstein]

Great. That's all for me. Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

[Steve McGee, Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan]

Hi, good morning. This is Steve McGee, on for Jeremy. Just starting along the insurance line as far as business interruption insurance goes. Just trying to get an idea of what's covered under that. Does that include optimization, marketing in there as well? For 2023, does that include the business insurance as well?

[Walter Hulse, CFO, Treasurer, and EVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at ONEOK]

Well, as we said on the last call, the coverage that we have is that we are entitled to receive coverage so that we get returned to what we would have made, but for this event. It's system wide, so if that does impact other parts of the business, like optimization and marketing, that gets factored into our BI calculation. The money that we received in September, or that we booked in September, I wouldn't necessarily look at as a run rate, because there still are some moving parts that we're working with the insurance companies to refine how we look at BI going forward. You know, those costs were predominantly the third-party frack costs.

[Walter Hulse, CFO, Treasurer, and EVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at ONEOK]

As we work with them and refine how much optimization and marketing, we do expect to receive some benefit from that going forward. In 2023, we expect BI coverage to continue and at that point be on a pretty regular month to month you know catch up so that we're hoping that you really don't see any real variation from the BI insurance going forward.

[Steve McGee, Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan]

Understood. Thank you. I guess flipping over to CapEx, you pulled some forward. Well connects kind of towards the lower end of the guide, but still up a little bit this year. I'm guessing most of the uptick this year is the MB-5. Should we expect a little bit less CapEx into 2023 now because of that? Just if you could walk us through, I guess that raise this year and then what that looks like into next year as well.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

Yes, Steve, this is Kevin. Yeah, MB-5 was a significant mover in moving some of that capital forward into 2022. We also had a compressor station up north in the Bakken that we moved forward with that will add to our growth in 2023. We referenced the Viking compression project in our opening remarks. We just had a handful of smaller routine growth type projects that typically have extremely strong multiple or strong earnings power from them, and that'll contribute in 2023 as well. Just a combination of those factors are what led into the increase in 2022. You're thinking about 2023 correctly.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

If you know, once we complete MB-5 and Demicks Lake III, you know, that would lead you probably to a little step down in capital, barring other projects that we continue to work on that could be approved. That's the unknown at this point is, you know, we're constantly working on new projects that, and as they reach FID, we'll announce them. But absent those, then, yeah, you would expect CapEx to maybe come down a little bit in 2023.

[Steve McGee, Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan]

All right, great. Thank you. I'll leave it there.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Theresa Chen with Barclays. Please go ahead.

[Theresa Chen, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Barclays]

Hi there. Thank you for taking my question. First, I would love to touch on the 2023 guidance and delve into some of the assumptions here. Namely, if you could provide some color on your price deck assumption, and then in terms of Bakken activity in particular, any color you can share on assumptions for rig counts, well completions, exit to exit growth in oil or gas. Then, you know, granted that the ethane recovery dynamic remains, you know, in development and can be volatile, but any sort of color you can give on the recovery assumption in 2023 versus the level that you just reported for third quarter 2022.

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

Theresa, this is Kevin. We're not gonna get into the detailed guidance specifics again that we'll release probably sometime early next year. I would tell you as we think about price decks and activity levels, there's probably more rigs. If you just look at today, there's more activity in the basins that we're looking at, that we're talking about than we have in that outlook. The activity levels we're seeing today are plenty strong to help us achieve that exceedance of $4 billion.

[Theresa Chen, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Barclays]

Got it. In the gathering processing segment that, you know, $16 average fee rate, quite a step up from the previous run rate. I understand the color you shared on the fee escalators and the composition of it. Just trying to, you know, think about the trajectory of growth here. Was there anything in particular driving this? As we think about fee escalators in 2023 and beyond, should we assume similar magnitudes of step ups or, you know, generally speaking, how should we think about this line?

[Sheridan Swords, SVP of Natural Gas Liquids and Natural Gas Gathering and Processing at ONEOK]

Theresa, this is Sheridan. When you think about that margin, what's the driver in that increased step up? A lot of it was on escalation, is where it came from. Some on the contract mix being on, we got volume on higher contracts or more margin contracts than on others as we go forward. The big thing that's gonna drive as we get into 2023, achieving that trajectory is what the inflationary escalators are gonna be, and we'll have to see how inflation comes out and how the, you know, we go against CPI most of the time on that. How CPI reacts in 2023 versus 2022 is gonna be a big driver on where we land on that and going forward. It's really gonna be based on inflation, be the biggest piece.

[Theresa Chen, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Barclays]

Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Michael Cusimano with Pickering Energy Partners. Please go ahead.

[Michael Cusimano, VP and Lead Midstream Analyst at Pickering Energy Partners]

Hi, good morning, everyone. I wanted to first focus on the natural gas liquids optimization and marketing number. I think you all noted a $44 million decrease sequentially. Was any of that a result of Medford at all, or was it just other, you know, I think you all mentioned some price differentials and timing on the NGLs.

[Sheridan Swords, SVP of Natural Gas Liquids and Natural Gas Gathering and Processing at ONEOK]

Michael, this is Sheridan. Yeah, Medford did have an impact on those numbers, and that's factored in there in that 45-day waiting period. We did take some hits in optimization and marketing is there. As you mentioned, the other things we have is, you know, spreads were a little bit narrow during that time. We have forward sales due to Medford that we pushed forward sales forward that we will receive some of that money, or $17 million of that money in the first quarter. I'm sorry, fourth quarter and first quarter as we go forward here, we'll get that $17 million back. Those are the three main factors as you see in that drop in optimization and marketing.

[Michael Cusimano, VP and Lead Midstream Analyst at Pickering Energy Partners]

Okay. Just to clarify, you would expect to be like in the future or you would expect to recoup insurance proceeds in the event of any optimization and marketing reductions, like what happened.

[Sheridan Swords, SVP of Natural Gas Liquids and Natural Gas Gathering and Processing at ONEOK]

We do expect to get insurance proceeds, but a lot of that $45 million, part of that is in the 45-day waiting period, which we wouldn't get that, 'cause that's on us. Going forward, we expect to get any losses in marketing and optimization that we would have received if Medford had been up, we expect the insurance to cover that.

[Michael Cusimano, VP and Lead Midstream Analyst at Pickering Energy Partners]

Okay. That is helpful. Previously, you all have given like a current month run rate out of the Bakken for NGL takeaway. I think you gave a September number. Any indication you can have for what October looks like going forward?

[Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at ONEOK]

Michael, we're not gonna provide kind of numbers in Q4. We gave you the number for September. That's a really good run rate, if you think about it. As we move through, we get into the fourth quarter and you start bringing weather into play. That's why we backed off that.

[Michael Cusimano, VP and Lead Midstream Analyst at Pickering Energy Partners]

Okay. Understood. Last one, if I can. If I break up the insurance proceeds from, you know, one allocation for business interruption, the other for property loss, are y'all viewing the property loss as, you know, replacement cost, or is it, you know, getting back the frac capacity to where like MB-5 recovers some of that? Just trying to think of like how that shakes out, from the way you and the insurance company are thinking about it.

[Walter Hulse, CFO, Treasurer, and EVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at ONEOK]

Yeah, we have specific coverage that would cover the replacement or the repair of the facility, to get it back to the point where we would achieve the 210,000 barrels of capacity that we currently have. We have property coverage to put us back in the same position that we were before. We do have the flexibility with those dollars that it would cost to do that, to build it, wherever we want to do that, and that's what we're still considering at this point. Going forward, we would expect to, you know, likely not get unallocated money. This was, you know, it should be allocated out, for the BI on a monthly basis, once we get into kind of a monthly rhythm.

[Walter Hulse, CFO, Treasurer, and EVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at ONEOK]

The property will be what it is as we spend the money for the repair or replacement of the facility.

[Michael Cusimano, VP and Lead Midstream Analyst at Pickering Energy Partners]

Okay. That's helpful. Would MB-5, since it was already undergoing construction, be something that you could allocate any sort of property loss to? Or would it be in-

[Walter Hulse, CFO, Treasurer, and EVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at ONEOK]

No.

[Michael Cusimano, VP and Lead Midstream Analyst at Pickering Energy Partners]

... you know-

[Walter Hulse, CFO, Treasurer, and EVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at ONEOK]

No.

[Michael Cusimano, VP and Lead Midstream Analyst at Pickering Energy Partners]

... MB-6 and beyond, if you wanted to?

[Walter Hulse, CFO, Treasurer, and EVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at ONEOK]

No. MB-5 is its own standalone project that, you know, we built because we needed it. Obviously it'll help us a little bit because it comes on, and we were gonna be in our natural ramp-up phase. That is part of our capital and the proceeds that we receive for the repair or replacement of the Medford facility will be discrete, and it'll cover those costs.

[Michael Cusimano, VP and Lead Midstream Analyst at Pickering Energy Partners]

Okay. This is all really helpful. I appreciate it. That's all for me. Thank you.

[Walter Hulse, CFO, Treasurer, and EVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at ONEOK]

Thank you.

[Operator]

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn this conference back over to Andrew Ziola for any closing remarks.

[Andrew Ziola, VP of Investor Relations at ONEOK]

All right. Thank you, all. Our quiet period for the fourth quarter starts when we close our books in January and extends until we release earnings in late February. We'll provide details for that conference call at a later date. Have a good day, and thank you for joining us.

[Operator]

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Andrew Ziola, VP of Investor Relations
• Kevin Burdick, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer
• Pierce Norton, President and CEO
• Sheridan Swords, SVP of Natural Gas Liquids and Natural Gas Gathering and Processing
• Walter Hulse, CFO, Treasurer, and EVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations

Analysts

• Brian Reynolds, VP and Global Head of Investor Relations Intelligence at UBS
• Jean Ann Salisbury, Senior Analyst of Natural Gas and Midstream at Bernstein
• Michael Blum, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Wells Fargo
• Michael Cusimano, VP and Lead Midstream Analyst at Pickering Energy Partners
• Steve McGee, Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan
• Theresa Chen, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Barclays