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

Tom Martin: Still exploring that. And I think that is a potential opportunity as we move through 2023.

Spiro Dounis: Got it. Perfect. Thanks for the color on that. Second question, maybe for David. Just maybe an update on how you’re thinking about maturities and the overall interest rate exposure for 2023 and beyond. Just kind of curious what options are available to you to perhaps maybe exceed the DCF budget by outperforming on interest expense?

David Michels: We’ll continue to evaluate different alternatives. We’ll talk more about this next week, but we’ve locked in some of our floating rate exposure for 2023 in order to reduce some of the downside risk for the year. But with regard to the overall maturities, we do expect to access the debt capital markets during the year 2023 in order to refinance the large amount of maturities that are coming due this year. The $745 million of cash on the balance sheet coming into the year certainly helps with that. And we’ve got our $4 billion worth of revolver capacity. So, as I said last quarter, and this is still the case, we will await for favorable market conditions before we access the market, and we have the luxury of being patient.

Operator: Next question in the queue is from Michael Blum with Wells Fargo.

Michael Blum: Thank you. Congratulations, everyone. Steve, we will miss you, and I’m glad you came to our conference here. So, thank you for that. I wanted to ask back on the Red Cedar CCS project. Just wanted to see if you could talk about what type of return you expect to generate on a project like that, and just to confirm that this will be entirely fee-based from your perspective?

Dax Sanders: Yes. I mean the — we’re not going to talk specifics on returns, but I would say they were very comparable with our traditional businesses. So, we’re doing the right things from a return standpoint. And I’m sorry…

Kim Dang: The commodity exposure.

Dax Sanders: Yes. And this is primarily on the ETV side of things, and maybe Tom wants to talk about the Red Cedar JV part of it. But ETV will have minimum volume commitments in place on that transaction.

Tom Martin: And on the Red Cedar, it’s G&P volumes. So there is a variable component to that, but their volumes have been growing and expect them to continue to grow, so.

Steve Kean: This is a good opportunity, for CCUS, it’s going to have to be part of the solution over the long term, and we have the capability to transport it put it in the ground and keep it in the ground. And so, there’s a good longer-term opportunity there, and this is a highlight that you can do these things and you can do them economically. And so, we’re happy about this transaction. It’s the first we hope of many — but there are a number of things that have to be worked out. I think, the biggest is getting Title VI permitting for the sequestration through the EPA or having that authority delegated in Texas and Louisiana and other places, so that we can speed up the permitting process. Anthony and the team have found a way to use a different kind of permit in a different kind of well situation to enable us to do this.

And there may be more of those to do as well. But this is a sign of things to come we hope and believe, but it is dependent upon an accelerated permitting process from the EPA.

Michael Blum: Got it. I appreciate all that. Second question, I just wanted to ask was on the lower gasoline and diesel volumes year-over-year. Can you just maybe just talk to what you’re seeing there? I know your overall volumes, I think, were a little better than overall industry averages. But just kind of what’s driving that? And do you think this is sort of a recurring pattern that we’re going to see throughout the year? Thanks.