Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Mackie McCrea: Yes, Jeremy, this is Mackie. What an exciting area. You look at the consolidation that’s going on upstream, a lot of that, of course, is around the bigger deals in the Permian Basin. And as you know and most on this call, nobody is better positioned to capitalize that than Energy Transfer, from every standpoint, from gathering, processing, NGL takeaway, intra-interstate pipeline takeaway, crude takeaway. And so, it all kind of begins upstream with our G&P group and our NGL team working to purchase not only those barrels from our affiliate, but also barrels from others out in that basin. And we couldn’t be more excited and well-positioned to meet the growth there. And it feeds into our partnership revenue stream when you take all that downstream, and then ultimately frac it, and a lot it is, of course, hitting our export markets now. So, what an incredible area of the world that we’ve heavily invested in and we see it paying off for many years to come.

Jeremy Tonet: And if I could just follow up real quick on that, I guess on the other side of the NGL equation, just how much demand do you see materializing? How that impacts pricing for NGLs, do you see the LPGs continuing to price to export or just any broader thoughts on the NGL supply-demand dynamics and impact on NGL pricing?

Mackie McCrea: It’s hard to overexaggerate the ethane and, more importantly, the LPG growth. Assets cannot be built quick enough in the U.S. to meet the international demand or by [indiscernible] PDHs that are being built in Asia, and especially in China. There’s a lot of ethane crackers that are being built. So, you really can’t build quick enough. But we’re being very prudent. We’ve announced our Flexport project that’s under budget, on track. So, we expect to have that in service by the third quarter of ’25. We’re close to fully filling that out. And we’re analyzing another expansion, it would be a much less expensive expansion, and a much less cost per barrel to expand more. So, we’re going to continue to make sure that all of the gas that we’re gathering and processing, that we have a home for all those liquids.

So, we’re looking ahead, and we see significant growth in our NGL business, especially our export business, both on the Gulf Coast and Marcus Hook, once again, for many years to come.

Jeremy Tonet: Got it, makes sense, seems to certainly build momentum for your Panama initiatives there. Thank you for the color. I’ll leave it there.

Mackie McCrea: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Next question will be from Spiro Dounis of Citi. Please go ahead.

Spiro Dounis: Thanks, operator. Afternoon, guys. Just want to go back one of Jeremy’s questions actually. And Tom, fully respect that you’re not in a position to provide ’24 guidance yet, but maybe just looking at the S4 filing from Crestwood as we look to 2024. I know it’s not guidance, but some of those pro forma numbers seem to indicate you guys will be approaching $15 billion in EBITDA next year, on a combined basis. And so, pretty meaningful step up from 2023. So, just wondering, qualitatively or however you see fit, could you help us bridge from 2023 to those S4 numbers, what parts of the business could be driving that upside?

Tom Long: Yes. No, listen, it’s great to be talking about a number that has a 15 handle on it. So, let’s start with that. When you look at that S4, remember that those were estimates. We take our estimates very seriously when we file these things, obviously. And we are still in the process of finishing up the 2024 budget numbers, et cetera, which all go into the guidance. And that’s the reason we’ll always wait till that fourth quarter to come out with the very best numbers that we can. But listen, Spiro, we sure hope we hit these numbers. It would be great even if we came out with something more. But let us get through that before we put out any type of official guidance on that. We’re so excited about everything we’re seeing at this stage with closing on the transaction on Friday, it’s going to give us now the opportunity even start digging deeper into the other synergies that we didn’t make in any of the estimates especially the commercial synergies.