Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Those assets are starting to really pay off for us. We’re hitting kind of record export levels for crude out of Houston. So that’s been a good move to kind of ship those volumes. But anyway, we’re so well positioned with our four pipelines moving ethane, propane, butane and natural gasoline from Mont Belvieu. And we’re very excited about the expansion project that we’ve just got approved and look forward to getting that online in the next couple of years.

Chase Mulvehill: Okay, perfect. Unrelated follow-up on the midstream segment. EBITDA was basically flat sequentially despite lower natural gas prices. So I guess maybe two questions here related to that. Number one, have you mostly hit the fee floors on your natural gas side for your pops? And then number two, if today’s lower NGL prices hold, how should we think about potential further downside for the midstream segment in kind of 2Q and 3Q?

Tom Long: Yes, downside on midstream, the way I describe that is, lower commodity prices. I mean certainly one of the biggest impacts quarter-to-quarter this year on our midstream business was lower commodity prices compared to where they were a year ago. It kind of hard to believe we’ll see natural gas go lower than two. We remain pretty bullish on where oil prices are as well as NGL and the growing demand for NGL. So we remain very bullish. I didn’t mention this a moment ago, but another record we also set three or four days ago is that we were now processing more gas in the Permian Basin than we’ve ever processed. So we are very optimistic about our volumes, about our spreads in the midstream. And so the only challenge to those are commodity prices and we feel like they’ve kind of bottomed out. We feel like with anything we’re more optimistic on commodity price improvements as we go deeper into 2023 than what we’ve seen the first quarter.

Chase Mulvehill: Okay. Perfect. I’ll turn it over. Thanks.

Operator: Thank you. And our next question comes from Gabe Moreen with Mizuho.

Gabe Moreen: Hey, good afternoon everyone. Just sticking on gas prices a little bit. I’m curious whether $2 gas has had any impact in terms of producer outlook for supporting expansions in the Haynesville or the Marcellus at the moment? And particularly as it relates to Gulf Run and your potential to expand that pipe there?

Mackie McCrea: Yes, you did hone in on probably the area where we are starting to see some rigs set down and also completions being delayed really both in Haynesville and also in Marcelles to a certain degree. So $2 dry gas prices is not great for those areas. In regards to how it impact, people are looking long term, producers aren’t that and the price we’re going to stay at $2 for the next four or five years. So discussions that we’ve had, the deals that we’ve done and deals that we’re negotiating to extend, to expand our capacity to the Gulf Coast through our network of pipelines that are ongoing and that demand will increase. We are in a little bit of a low here. As we’ve been in the second quarter of 2023, we’re probably possibly sat in that for the next quarter or so, but we’ll come out of this and a lot of gas in North Louisiana and even more market growth along the Gulf Coast and in the Southeast.

So love those assets. In fact, that kind of opens up one comment I want to make. We are now selling our space across North Louisiana on Tiger on MEP and then on sashed all the way down to Florida. We’re selling at tariff rates. And in some of this we’re also selling at tariff rates that we think will be able to get up to 10 year contract. So it’s funny. Hang on the pipe and it gets valuable sooner or later across all capacity, across Louisiana and all the way to Florida is becoming very bad.