Equitrans Midstream Corporation (NYSE:ETRN) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Neel Mitra: Got it. Thank you very much.

Operator: Our next question comes from Brian Reynolds from UBS Financial. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Brian Reynolds: Hey, good morning, everyone. Maybe to follow up on the amended credit facility, seemed like you had still enough room to run based on your prior amendment. So just kind of curious of the reasoning to basically take it to 6 times and partially above 6.25 times. Just wondering the drivers behind that. Is it just some extra doses of conservatism, or does maybe some of the MVP level debt and timing of that, maybe influence the decision to amend the facility periodically? Thanks.

Diana Charletta: That action was primarily just to give ourselves adequate cushion and for some conservatism so that we didn’t have any concerns with combined it going forward, but it should not signal any concerns with regards to the MVP financing and our ability to execute on that.

Kirk Oliver: Just to take any hurry off of the table, Brian.

Brian Reynolds: Okay, makes sense. And then as a follow-up to Spiro’s Southgate question, I know previously there were some issues around permitting that part of the leg of the project. Can you just help me understand how maybe the new scope of the project may be addresses some of these concerns around permitting there? Or should we expect some additional permits to be filed in those jurisdictions over the coming months to pursue that project? Thanks.

Justin Macken: Yeah, I’ll start. So the revised scope certainly shortens the project considerably. There’ll be less stream crossings and other things that could be permitting challenges down the road. So I think the revised scope here goes a long way to derisking the project, and we’re more comfortable with our ability to exit because we’re derisking it in that way.

Diana Charletta: We’ve also removed the compression, so that’s helpful, but we will need to file permits. The shorter route is great, but we still have to go through the permitting process. That date is pretty far out there, so we haven’t started that yet, but we have all the legwork and we have the route — we’ve been working on this route for quite a long time.

Brian Reynolds: Okay. Makes sense. Enjoy the rest of your morning.

Operator: We have no further questions in queue. I’d like to turn the call back over to Diana Charletta for closing remarks.

Diana Charletta: Thank you all very much for your time. We appreciate it. Have a great day.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.