Kinder Morgan, Inc. (NYSE:KMI) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Brian Reynolds: Great. Thanks. Appreciate that. Maybe as a follow-up to Permian Natural Gas egress looking forward. It seemed to be — appear to be short natural gas in the Agua Dulce market going forward with LNG demand coming online in the back half of the decade. So, kind of just curious if you could talk about potential new projects including GCX expansion, what are the updates there and/or the potential for a new-build longer-term? Thanks.

Kim Dang: Sure. I can talk about both of those, and then I’ll ask people to add. And so, yes, we think there is going to be a need for further Permian egress in the back half of the decade. I think that’s consistent with the — with what we have been saying. We think we are well-positioned for that. We’ve got — we’ve built multiple pipelines successfully. They’ve been generally very close to being on time. We also have an existing system that we can interconnect with, and so we can offer the shippers on a Permian egress pipeline storage services and other downstream services that I think some of our competitors can’t. So, I think it’s a project we are very interested in, but we will be disciplined in how we approach it and make sure that the returns are attractive to our shareholders.

I think GCX, some of the same dynamics around GCX. GCX obviously because it’s a compression and expansion of an existing system, we’ll get to market with it much quicker. We’ve continued to have conversations with shippers on that capacity. Not quite there yet. But some — yeah, I mean, if we did one, if we participated in the new-build on the GCX expansion, there also could be further downstream expansions of our existing systems. And so, that’s something that we’re also looking at as part of this.

Brian Reynolds: Great. Makes sense. I’ll leave it there. See you next week.

David Michels: Yeah. Just — I’ll follow up there, just so you get a little sense. When we think about the need for the capacity, we say back half of the decade, but what we’re hearing from our customers is probably late ’26, early ’27, so clearly we’re in a competitive environment here, so I won’t go through a lot of details, but, something probably needs to be actioned here in the next couple of quarters to be able to meet that timeline and the question is, really is it just one pipe or two, when you think about the incremental demand that’s coming on.

Brian Reynolds: Great. Makes sense. Appreciate that extra color. Have a great rest of your day.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question will come from Jean Ann Salisbury with Bernstein. Your line is open.

Jean Ann Salisbury: Hi. There is a lot of differing reports around Haynesville production trajectory and whether it’s in decline and kind of has been in decline for a couple of months. It seems like your fourth quarter was up quite a lot from your third quarter Haynesville volumes, but I was wondering if you could just talk about what you’ve been seeing on your acreage there over the last month or two, I guess towards the end of the fourth quarter?

Kim Dang: Yeah. So, if you look at our Haynesville volumes, they were I think, Tom didn’t say this, but in the 14% quarter-over quarter, Haynesville was up over 30%. So, we’ve continued to see increase in our Haynesville volumes. And so, David, will you comment?

David Michels: Yeah. I mean, so, look, we — the team has done a wonderful job with our acreage. We’re — look, our acreage is positioned in prime Tier 1 acreage. Our largest customer there is planning for the upcoming LNG wave. And so, while we have seen some of the smaller producers kind of pull back, I think everyone is getting ready for the upcoming demand that’s coming our way. And so, if you ask me, I think some of the pullback has helped us. We’ve had a little bit — we’re trying to keep up with the demand in terms of physical capacity. And so, this year, hopefully, we’ll get the rest of that capacity on and be primed and ready to support our customers when they are ready to take. It’s been a good ride. We’ve pretty much doubled our volumes over the last couple of years.

Jean Ann Salisbury: Great. That’s helpful. Thank you. And then, I have a follow-up. Do you see any risk this year that gas infrastructure out of the Bakken might limit your growth out of that basin this year?

David Michels: Well, no. I think — look, I think we’ve got — I think we talked about the last quarter. We had our — we have two projects that we’re looking at bringing incremental gas out of the Bakken, one which was, we just put into service this past November. We call it our Bakken Express. We had a Phase 1 and Phase 2. That first wave is already in service and flowing full, 92,000 a day coming into the Cheyenne hub out of the Bakken. So, we don’t think gas will be the limiting factor anymore, especially once we get the second phase out. I think we’re in pretty good shape there.

Jean Ann Salisbury: Great. That’s all for me. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question will come from John Mackay with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.