Francois Poirier: Thanks, Robert. I’ll start with a very high level. I’ll ask Stan to provide some context on cost sharing in the US, and then Annesley can touch on our power and energy solutions projects in Ontario. And the only comment I wanted to make before passing it over is that, just to remind you that in Canada, we have mechanisms to have reimbursement of development costs or inclusion of development costs as spent in our tariff structure. And so the notion of cost sharing for development is really more of a US question rather than one in Canada. So over to you, Stan, and then over to Annesley.
Stan Chapman: Yeah, good morning, Robert. Again, I would just reiterate, first of all, that the progress in all of our projects is going really, really well. This year we’re on track to put three projects in service. We put our Virginia Electrification project in service on time and on budget a couple of weeks ago. Later this summer, we’ll put our Gillis project into service, and then assuming we get a timely and favorable re-hearing order on GTN, we’ll put the balance of that project in service by the end of the year. With respect to things like risk sharing mechanisms, we’ve been doing that for a very, very long time in the US. As a matter of fact, many, if not almost all of our projects have some sort of a cost sharing that’s usually around a 50-50 split between us and our customers should we have cost overruns.
We also have other protections where in certain instances should a customer not reach FID, they will reimburse us for 100% of our development costs. That’s something that we’ve been doing for a long time just as part of our DNA. The regulatory slides with respect to building projects has gotten a little bit more complex, but I think we have the skills and the talent to navigate that, and I see us continuing to originate and build new projects within this 5 times to 7 times build multiple and within our $6 billion dollar go-forward annual capital spend.
Annesley Wallace: Hi, Robert, it’s Ansley. In the power and energy solutions business, our near term focus is really on nuclear and pumped hydro. And a big part of the reason for that is the policy support that we see for both of those two sectors, particularly in Ontario. And so we are in discussions with the province on cost recovery agreements for those projects. As we progress them, we will remain very disciplined with respect to our capital that we would put at risk. And so we do anticipate advancing those agreements in the near term, both with respect to the work that we have begun on Bruce Power, a nuclear new build Bruce C at that site, as well as our Ontario pumped storage project.
Robert Catellier: Okay. Thanks, everyone.
Operator: The next question comes from Patrick Kenny of National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.
Patrick Kenny: Thank you. Yeah, good morning. Just on CGL and these potential cost recoveries from contractors, not sure if you can comment on or confirm if all claims have been filed with the courts at this point, what the total amount of all claims might look like. And also if you’ve assumed any successful litigation or settlements within your 4.75 leverage target by year end or if we should be thinking about these potential recoveries being 2025 at the earliest.
Greg Grant: Yeah, sure. It’s Greg Grant here. I’ll go first and then Joel can talk to the 4.75. But first, just given — you gave me the mic. I’m going to thank the team again. I think this was a monumental effort that the team was able to achieve here on CGL. It took everybody, operations, commercial, project execution, stakeholder, team effort to achieve the readiness by the end of the year, so that $200 million was quite important to the team. As you think about moving forward into 2024, safe execution is the mandate and what we’re going to continue to focus on as we work through some of the reclamation work. We’re not really going to get into talking about individual claims or what that looks like. I think what I would say is, we will vigorously defend the claims, but also in pursuing cost recoveries, which we do expect net recoveries. And just to highlight, we remain on track to the $14.5 billion.
Joel Hunter: Yeah. And, Pat, it’s Joel here. Just with respect to the net recoveries that Greg has highlighted, we’re not going to give you a dollar amount on that, but we do factor that into our funding plan here as it relates to this year.
Patrick Kenny: Okay, great. Thanks for that. And then just on NGTL, I’m wondering if you might have an update on where you’re at with rolling over the five-year revenue requirement settlement? And I know you can’t comment too much either on what a potential minority stake in NGTL might look like, but I’m just curious if having the new revenue settlement in place represents any sort of precursor to executing on any type of ownership transaction with NGTL?
Greg Grant: Sure. Greg here. I’ll talk about this settlement. Just as a reminder, the settlement’s in place until the end of 2024. Discussions are going well with customers. I can’t talk too much around the actual settlement itself but you’ve seen the system and the health of the basin here recently. We’ve hit all-time highs on NGTL here in January, continuing to seeing significant usage in decade-level highs heading out of mainline. So quite happy with the health of the basin. I think the conversations are going well with the customers. We’ll be looking probably not until mid-year before we start to get closer to settlement, but we expect a settlement with customers here later this year where we can comment more.
Francois Poirier: And with respect to the impact of the settlement or on the timing of any potential minority interest sale on NGTL, Pat, we obviously have — it’s public information that our settlement expires at the end of the year, that we are working towards a renewal of that settlement with our customers. And we have in our own minds a view as to what a fair outcome is. And we will obviously factor that into our view of fairness of any transaction for a minority interest in NGTL.
Patrick Kenny: Okay, that’s great. I appreciate your comments. Thank you.
Francois Poirier: Thanks, Pat.
Operator: The next question comes from Olivia Halferty of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Olivia Halferty: Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking our questions. Wondering if we could just start on Bruce. Availability continues to be strong, though I acknowledge the maintenance heavy fourth quarter. Is there any planned maintenance you can point us to for 2024? And more broadly, following the successful and accelerated MCR on Unit 6, are there any lessons learned that you can apply to future MCRs, and how much conservatism would you say is baked into the MCR timelines?
Annesley Wallace: Hi, Olivia, it’s Annesley. I’ll take that question. So we definitely did see strong performance from Bruce Power last year across both the operating units as well as with the performance of Unit 6 MCR program. Heading into 2024, we can expect availability to be similar to what we’ve seen in 2023. So we expect continued strong performance. There will be regular planned outages, as we also saw in 2023. But that is factored into that guidance. From a MCR perspective, we certainly have taken many lessons learned from the Unit 6 MCR project and have applied them to the planning and the execution of the future units. So we’re currently in execution on Unit 3 and we’re seeing some of the benefits of those lessons learned already.
On Unit 4, it will be a similar story. Beyond just the lessons at Bruce Power, we have also certainly engaged with industry and have continued to apply lessons learned from outside of Bruce Power as well. Maybe the last thing I would highlight with respect to Bruce Power performance for 2024, we do expect our annual price increase to come in April, and so we’ll share more at that point in time.
Olivia Halferty: Okay, thank you for all the color there. And then I guess just more broadly on the 2024 EBITDA guidance, what is the largest driver of potential variability? And maybe you could sensitize what could drive performance to the high end versus the low end of the target growth range.
Francois Poirier: Thanks for that question, Olivia. We don’t take a meaningful amount of commodity price or volumetric risk. So essentially, the drivers of performance for us are operational excellence through strong availability of our assets and bringing in our projects on time and on budget. So if we perform according to plan, we will fall within that range. And to the extent we find more efficiencies or increased availability in operations, you could see us move to the upper end, or as you saw in 2023, above the upper end of the range of our guidance and then the other factor of course is on delivering on our projects on time.
Olivia Halferty: Got it. Appreciate the color there. Thanks.
Francois Poirier: Thank you.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the question-and-answer session. If there are any further questions, please contact Investor Relations at TC Energy. I will now turn the call over to Gavin Wylie. Please go ahead, Mr. Wylie.
Gavin Wylie: Yeah, thank you, and thanks everyone for participating this morning. As noted, if you have any additional questions or we weren’t able to get through the entirety of the questions late today, please contact the Investor Relations team. We’re always happy to help. We very much appreciate your interest here in TC Energy and look forward to our next update. So thank you, and have a great day.
Operator: This brings to a close today’s conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.
