Kinder Morgan, Inc. (NYSE:KMI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jean Ann Salisbury: Hi. Can you remind us where Kinder Morgan is on rate case settlements? Which ones have been settled and are incorporated into 2023 guidance? And which pipes, if any, could still see rate case this year or next?

Tom Martin: Really, we’re past the big ones for now. I mean, we’ve got the NGPL, EPNG, those are the big ones and all the Rockies pipes and I’m saying this over the context of the last year. Those are the big ones that have been addressed. And so, we’re pretty clear now for 2023. And that’s all been baked into our budget for 2023.

Jean Ann Salisbury: Okay. Thank you. And then what’s the latest on El Paso restart? I think you had a release that noted some positive progress last week.

Steve Kean: Yes. And so, our information on this is going to be consistent with and stick closely with what we post on the EPNG electronic bulletin board. And so, we did post an update there. And what it says is that we anticipate completing the physical work on Line 2000 before the end of January. And then we will submit a request to FEMSA on behalf of EPNG to lift the pressure restriction and return to normal commercial service. So as FEMSA will need time to review the information that we provide, but our work we expect to be completed by month end.

Jean Ann Salisbury: Great. That’s all for me, and congrats to you, Kim, and thank you, Steve, for all the time and thoughtful answers over the years. Best of luck.

Operator: Next question is from Spiro Dounis with Citi.

Spiro Dounis: Congrats all around. And Steve, I can’t believe you’re willing to walk away from the dollar a year salary…

Steve Kean: It was a hard choice.

Spiro Dounis: Congrats. Two-part question, and my first one here is just along the Permian pipeline. First part, just between GCX and Permian Pass. Curious if one of those is kind of in the front of the queue and if maybe it would make more sense to kind of bring Permian Pass back up to the front. And second quarter, I believe last quarter — or sorry, last quarter, you mentioned the possibility of maybe phasing the Permian Highway expansion in over time. I think you needed to do more engineering work to figure out if that was feasible. Just curious if there’s an update you can share on that.

Tom Martin: Yes. So I think you mean Permian Pass, right, not Permian Highway? So, the Permian Highway expansion is under construction and expect that expansion to go into service in November. We’re really working on two other opportunities, as you’ve noted. One is GCX expansion. That hasn’t been very active, although with lower gas prices now, there may be some opportunities there. As you recall, fuel cost was a bit of a headwind for us on that expansion project. So again, as gas prices are lower, that may bring that one more into an actionable opportunity. But as far as Permian Pass, really, I think what we are hearing from our customers is that the next need for incremental capacity out of the basin is sometime in late 2026, maybe early €˜27.

And so, as we work with our producer customers and also align them with their desired customer, which I think largely are going to be LNG related along the Gulf Coast, it helps — we need to figure out exactly where and when those volumes need to be there. So I think that’s still out there. The overall market still needs that capacity. But nothing really new to announce as far as anything that we’re going to accelerate at this time.

Steve Kean: I think the PHP, there was some discussion last time about when we put our compression in, once we get pretty close to the end, is there any channel. A little bit of capacity that’s available before the November in-service date. And so, I assume that it’s late in the going.