TC Energy Corporation (NYSE:TRP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Our next question comes from Robert Catellier of CIBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Robert Catellier: Maybe I’ll start with the NGTL system. I’m curious what you’re hearing from shippers about the implications of the Blueberry River First Nations agreement on their development plans and any additional expansion that you might need there?

Greg Grant: Sure. Thanks, Robert. This is Greg Grant, President of the Canadian Gas business. But — to start out with, I actually just want to congratulate the Blueberry River First Nation and the other three nations on the signing of the implementation agreement with the province of British Columbia. Some of us were lucky enough to be up there for the signing in Prince George and just to see how meaningful and emotional it was for the communities, not only today, but for generations to come. It is fairly new, Robert. So while we understand it may take time for industry players to analyze the agreement, we do think the clarity and the certainty will allow the continuation of disciplined and responsible growth in the region, and it’s an important step towards mutually beneficial development.

We’ve already seen the outcome of this. There’s actually been substantial increase in licenses and permits that have been approved in January. So we view this as continuing to feed the growth we’ve already seen in NGTL over the last year of over 1 Bcf of production and will allow us in the future to continue to add disciplined capital growth. So we’ll continue to work with the customers. as we review more details as they become available. But I really want to note that we really view this as a positive development, not only for our system, but the basin and the other BC First Nation communities.

Robert Catellier: But also, Francois, I can’t let you go without an asset sale question. So maybe you can just describe how you’re weighing the possibility or the ability to sell a core asset against the desire to maintain your business risk profile, as you touched on earlier, not changing the investment proposition? So what factors go into that process other than price? And also how significant evaluation do you need to justify selling an interest in the core asset?

Francois Poirier: I’m not sure if I want to say thanks for the question or not. But Robert, it’s a great question. And as we said before, the things — the factors that will influence our decisions around divestitures, first and foremost, deleveraging is our number one priority. I just want to be clear on that. The other side of the coin around leverage credit metrics, though, is the quality and stability of your cash flows. So it’s very important for us to maintain the high quality and stability of cash flow going forward. We like the diversity of our portfolio. We like the composition of our portfolio among our different businesses. And when you have $110 billion in assets, you’re looking to monetize $5-plus billion. You have an opportunity and optionality to divest off whether it’s discrete assets or interest in other — in larger assets in a way that you can preserve the high-quality composition of your portfolio.

So that’s how we’re going to go about it. Some of the other things we mentioned are pro forma impacts to per share cash flow and earnings growth. And of course, we want to continue to progress our emission reduction — emission intensity reduction between now and 2030.

Operator: Our next question comes from Patrick Kenny of National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.