Tristan Richardson: Appreciate it. Thank you, gentlemen.
Operator: Thank you. And our next question today comes from Jean Ann Salisbury with Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Jean Ann Salisbury: Hi, good morning. You referenced contracting in the Permian on nine plants to kind of underpin West Texas LPG and the looping. Can you give any more detail on the duration of those contracts even qualitatively? As I’m sure you’re aware, we seem to be heading towards severe Permian NGL pipe overbuild in 2025. So having long-term contracts seems important.
Sheridan Swords: I would say that we have long-term contracts. That’s the people that we have contracted with both now and for the LPG expansion or the NGL expansion are long-term contracts. So we feel comfortable that we have the volume behind to be – to have a very favorable return on that project and with a lot of upside as we continue to grow. We think it’s a very cost-effective way to do it, that we can be able to compete going forward even as new pipelines come online.
Jean Ann Salisbury: Thanks, that’s helpful. And you may have said this before, but can you remind us roughly what portion of the liquids pipelines for the combined company do you think you can generally take the full PPI indexation on?
Sheridan Swords: On the liquids pipelines, on the NGL pipeline, a lot of it is more driven by individual contracts as we do as not as much on the tariff itself. And then there is a larger portion of that on our new refined product system that contain that – but about 70% of our tariffs on the refined product system are at market rate that we can move as we want to. And so 30% would be more on a FERC tariff rate.
Jean Ann Salisbury: Great. Thanks so much.
Operator: Thank you. And our next question today comes from Harry Mateer with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Harry Mateer: Hi, good morning. Walt, you mentioned the 3.7x annualized run rate leverage number for 4Q ex transaction costs, I guess following up on Jeremy’s question a bit. Just curious how much seasonality is in that number? And can you just confirm your goal still to bring leverage to the 3.5x level that you previously laid out? And it sounds like more quickly than you previously thought?
Walt Hulse: Well, Harry, we’re pretty positive on ‘24 and where things are headed. So I think that we expect to continue to make progress on our leverage metrics as we go throughout 2024. We have said aspirationally all along, that 3.5% is a good spot to be. We don’t care if we go below it a little bit. That’s fine. If we have got significant earnings and it drives our debt-to-EBITDA below 3.5%, that’s a good problem to have. So, we are very pleased with the trajectory of that credit metric and have no reason to think it’s going to change any direction.
Harry Mateer: Okay. Thanks. And then my follow-up is when you think about that target, how do you go about the balance between EBITDA growth and debt reduction? And maybe put differently, should we think about ONEOK being in the bond market refinancing? You have some small maturities next year, do you think it’s more likely that free cash flow will take care of that and maybe that puts ONEOK out of the bond market for a while as things currently stand?
Walt Hulse: Well, I am not going to say we will or we won’t be in the bond market, but I would just say that the last several maturities that we have had, we have called for cash. We are generating a lot of cash. So, I think we have got the flexibility to manage our debt portfolio in a very comfortable manner. But we are going to keep our flexibility. If it makes sense for us to go to the credit markets for a reason, we may or may not do that. But you can see what we have done in the last several. And given the size, we are probably going to maintain that flexibility.
Harry Mateer: Okay. Understood. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. And our next question today comes from Neal Dingmann with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.
Neal Dingmann: Thanks for the time. My first question is just around the synergy ops that you talked about on Slide 8. Specifically, I don’t know if you all could comment yet, maybe it’s too early, but I am just wondering if you could comment on how quickly you all are thinking about the potential for start realizing some of that batching upside, which looks quite interesting.
Kevin Burdick: I mean just in general, as we look at the synergies, obviously, they are going to – there is going to be a variety of scenarios that play out. Some will get very quickly, potentially by the end of the year. There may be others that are going to take some capital and some effort to put things in the pipeline in the ground or other activities like that, that may span out of ways. So, it will be a blend. But I think again, the focus here is that our confidence level in achieving these things continues to grow as we get more information.
Neal Dingmann: That makes sense. And then – go ahead, I am sorry.
Pierce Norton: Well, I said – this is Pierce. What I am going to tell you is that to kind of tag it on to what Kevin is saying is that we are confident that these opportunities are there. It’s just a matter of the timing of when they come in, and we will let you know that as we give our guidance from year-to-year.
Neal Dingmann: Okay. Thanks for that add. And then just – you touched on this a little bit earlier, but my second question is just on Rockies and Mid-Con activity. It seemed like last quarter was solid. You talked about a number of connects there, especially in the Rocky. So, I am just wondering are you currently seeing sort of similar type activities, just any color you could add there. Thank you.
Sheridan Swords: Neal, this is Sheridan. Yes, we still are seeing good activity in the Bakken. We have increased our well count activity, and that’s to show you what we are seeing. And we think that’s going to continue or know that’s going to continue into 2024 in the Bakken. So, we are very excited about that. And that’s why we continue moving on long lead time items with the Elk Creek expansion. And then the Mid-Continent, as we said multiple times, has really been surprising us to the upside that more producer activity out there, especially with oil-driven rigs that is producing high GPM or high liquid content gas, that’s really – not only producing more gas in the region, but also more liquids for the NGL pipeline. So, we continue to see growth being very – we are very optimistic about growth going through the fourth quarter and into 2024.
