Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

When you really look at the capital projects that we’ve talked about here, I know we start off with this CapEx number of where we are, we’re going to continue to look at acquisitions. And so when you focus on that and you see where we kind of €“ what we did in 2022 with some of the smaller type acquisitions, the $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion does not include anything that might come along only on the consolidation front. So we’re going to allocate dollars to the continued growth of the company. And then third, we’re going to look at returning capital to the unitholders, and that will be evaluating the distribution levels. Like I mentioned in the kind of the prepared remarks that we’re going to be looking at that distribution more on an annual type basis.

There’s not a whole lot of other guidance at this point that we’re going to provide at this time. But we’re going to continue to look at possible unit buybacks. So we put both of those in that same returning capital to the unitholders. But that’s the way, I think, in summary, answering your question.

Michael Blum: Okay. Great. Thanks for that. And then also I just wanted to ask you about your gas storage business. I wonder if you can just talk generally about the trends you’re seeing in storage rates and then just remind us kind of what’s your average length of your storage contracts and how much merchant capacity you have? Thanks.

Mackie McCrea: Hi Mike, this is Mackie. Yes, we’ve got a total of about 150 Bcf throughout the country of storage. So average kind of storage facility is a little bit different. We have been able to consummate over the past five or six months, some storage-related deals with transportation to some power plants in Texas as well as in Oklahoma. What happened with Yuri kind of woke some folks up, and that’s what we were kind of advertising for a while. If you don’t lock in demand charge or reserve space from storage and for pipeline capacity, you could be in trouble when times are tight. So we have been successful. Some of those deals are three to five years. A lot of our storage contracts may be as low as a year or two. I won’t get into a lot of specifics for competitive reasons, but we’ve got a wide variety of customers and a wide drive needs.

And then, of course, whatever the merchant capacity is available we’ve got an optimization team that capitalizes on that value when those opportunities arise.

Michael Blum: All right, thanks very much.

Mackie McCrea: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Marc Solecitto with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Marc Solecitto: Thanks. Good afternoon. Maybe just to start, wondering if you could share your latest thoughts on a potential C-Corp currency? And if that something that could be on the table here in 2023.

Tom Long: Yes, Mark, this is Tom Long. We do have a team that’s working on that. I guess the way I would tell you is that we are spending quite a bit of time on evaluating that. And we feel pretty good about probably 2023. We’re going to be a little bit careful about putting in guidance out there right now. But it’s something that we still think makes a lot of sense and are spending a lot of time. But can’t really guide you any closer than that.

Marc Solecitto: No, I appreciate that. And then going back to when you announced the Enable transaction, I believe at the time you referenced the opportunity to integrate slightly some of those G&P assets with your Gulf Coast frac assets over time. So just wondering if you could give us an update on that. Are we starting to see that here in 2023? Is that still a little bit longer dated?