DT Midstream Inc

NYSE:DTM

Welcome to the DT Midstream Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2024 Earnings Call.

I will now turn it over to our speaker today, Todd Lohrmann, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome, everyone. Before we get started, I would like to remind you to read the safe harbor statement on Page 2 of the presentation, including the reference to forward-looking statements. Our presentation also includes references to non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the reconciliation to GAAP contained in the appendix.

Joining me this morning are David Slater President and CEO; and Jeff Jewell, Executive Vice President and CFO.

With that, I'll go ahead and turn the call over to David.

Thanks, Todd, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining. During today's call, I'll discuss our 2024 accomplishments, provide an update on our organic growth projects, our recent Midwest Pipeline acquisition and our outlook for 2025 and beyond. I'll then close with some observations on the overall gas market before turning it over to Jeff to review our financial performance and guidance.

So with that, 2024, was another strong year for DTM. I'd like to commend our employees for their continued dedication and commitment to excellence, including their exceptional safety performance, finishing the year with 0 OSHA recordable safety incidences, very well done, everyone.

I'd also like to welcome to DTM, all the new employees to join the team from ONEOK, following our Midwest pipeline acquisition. These professionals have strengthened our organization with their deep expertise in operating FERC assets.

Turning now to our financial results. We delivered adjusted EBITDA and of $969 million, which exceeded our increased guidance midpoint and was another record high year, extending our track record of 10% compounded annual growth since we spun the company in 2021. At the end of the year, we closed on the acquisition for ONEOK, expanding our FERC interstate natural gas pipeline networking. The transition of these pipes to DTM has been dressing well, and the team is busy integrating these assets into our network.

On the construction front, we had solid execution of projects across our footprint, on schedule and on budget. Our Haynesville construction team placed several key growth projects into service, enhancing both the supply and market connectivity of the network. We also placed our Ohio Utica system into service with our anchor customer noting the resource there continues to meet or exceed expectations, providing confidence in the premium quality of this resource play. -- and we look forward to further expansions of the system as well as potential downstream opportunities as they increase their pace of development.

On the commercial front, our team advanced many opportunities from our backlog into full development. We reached FID on a LEAP Phase I expansion in the Haynesville and added new producers to the network, expanded our Stonewall and AGS systems with a new Mountain Valley pipeline interconnect, recontracted nearly 20 Bcf of capacity at our gas storage complex with overall longer terms and attractive rates and added our clean fuels gathering project.

We continued our disciplined financial management, prioritizing a strong balance sheet with our goal of achieving an investment-grade rating. And we were upgraded to investment grade by Finch in October and expect to be upgraded by at least 1 of the other 2 rating agencies in 2025, having positive outlooks from both S&P and Moody's. So I am very pleased with our overall performance during 2024 and despite some significant macro sector headwinds, including depressed natural gas prices, causing produced a slowdown, a pause and approval of new LNG export permits and an uncertain political environment for much of the year.

The team has proven time and again their ability to execute on commitments regardless of the broader environment. So I'm excited about the future and our team's ability to deliver on expectations.

Turning to 2025 and beyond, we are very well positioned to serve growing demand across our footprint and continue our track record of premium high-quality growth. 2025 is presenting a much more constructive environment in terms of pricing and overall natural gas market sentiment, making it an opportune time to capitalize on commercial projects. This morning, I am pleased to announce 2 new projects that will serve utility scale power generation.

The first project is off of our newly acquired assets, where we will be constructing a lateral for Midwestern Gas Transmission to AES Indiana's, Petersburg power plant, which is currently being converted from coal to natural gas. The lateral capacity will be approximately 300 million cubic feet per day and construction is currently underway with an expected in-service date in Q1 of 2026.

The second project is off of our Stonewall and AGS system. We have signed a precedent agreement with an experienced power generation developer to serve one of their new power developments. A 2,060 megawatt combined cycle gas turbine power plant in West Virginia under a 20-year firm service contract on our Stonewall and Appalachia Gathering systems. The project is subject to our customer reaching FID on the power plant, which we expect to incur in 2026.

Our expected pipeline in service is late 2028. These are the first 2 projects to be commercialized but of our robust backlog of opportunities to serve power demand growth. Subsequent to the acquisition from ONEOK, we have updated our overall project backlog increasing it by approximately $1 billion to $2.3 billion over the 2025 to 2029 time period. The $2.3 billion represents our high probability organic growth opportunities. This project backlog can be fully funded within our cash flow, and supports our 5% to 7% long-term organic growth rate with pipeline projects comprising approximately 70% of the total opportunity set.

Finally, I'd like to take a moment to address the natural gas market fundamentals. We are seeing strong structural demand signals across our assets. Cold weather has rebalanced the North American market strengthening natural gas prices. This January and February, our storage complex experienced all-time high record withdrawals and many of our pipelines experienced peak day conditions, and are flowing at record high utilizations.

New LNG terminals are ramping up capacity and power demand growth expectations continue to remain strong. In addition, we have seen a pendulum shift in public and political sentiment around the importance of natural gas being a foundational fuel to drive the American economy and to support our allies around the world. This could be a fundamental turning point, ushering in a new era of investment in natural gas infrastructure as the nation more clearly appreciates its role in delivering an affordable, reliable, domestic clean fuel to serve growing power generation and industrial onshoring demand. I believe these fundamentals will provide tailwinds across our asset portfolio.

Our Haynesville system with its leading connectivity to both supply and demand markets is exceptionally well positioned to capitalize on the strengthening trends. We expect that LNG demand that can be served by our Haynesville system will grow by 12 Bcf per day within the next decade, and basin supply will increase by a similar level. Strongly positioning our integrated system to serve the supply and demand for the foreseeable future. Industrial and commercial onshoring is another quickly developing theme that we believe our assets are well positioned to serve. -- as much of this demand is forecasted to emerge across our asset footprint in the industrial heartland of the country, leading to increased utilization and expansion opportunities for our pipelines.

Turning to power demand. Our assets are strategically located to capture future growth in utility-scale grid-connected electric generation demand. With our new Midwest Interstate pipeline assets serving utility customers with ample coal to gas switching opportunities and our storage complex providing these customers with balancing services. In addition to grid connected power demand, we continue to advance our behind-the-meter data center projects. We are engaged with many developers whose proposed projects sit on top of or adjacent to our assets. While these projects are still being developed, we expect the DTMs opportunity will come in the form of pipeline laterals to serve these facilities with the potential for mainline expansions to follow.

So with that, I'll pass it over to Jeff to walk you through our financial results and outlook.

Thanks, David, and good morning, everyone.

As David mentioned, we delivered overall 2024 adjusted EBITDA and of $969 million, an increase of 5% over the prior year, supported by our Pipeline segment's 7% growth year-over-year, which was driven by new LEAP expansions and higher storage revenue. For the fourth quarter, we delivered overall adjusted EBITDA of $235 million. Our Pipeline segment was in line with the prior quarter, driven by increased seasonal demand at our storage facility and on our JV pipelines. Offset by transaction costs related to our Midwest pipeline acquisition.

Our Gathering segment results were $6 million lower than the prior quarter, driven by producer deferrals of production to Q1 of 2025 and a key producer customer unplanned outage, resulting in lower Haynesville volumes. Operationally, for the quarter, total Gathering volumes across the Haynesville averaged just above 1.4 Bcf per day, down from the third quarter, driven by the deferrals and the key customer outage I previously mentioned.

Volumes in the Northeast were flat quarter-over-quarter. In 2025, volumes appear to be responding positively to the improved natural gas price environment, with Haynesville volumes averaging 1.6 Bcf per day thus far in the year.

Now moving on to our financial outlook for 2025 and beyond. As we have done in the past, we are providing the current year guidance as well as an early outlook for next year. For 2025, our adjusted EBITDA guidance range is $1.095 billion to $1.155 billion, representing 18% growth from our 2024 original guidance.

Our 2026 early outlook range for adjusted EBITDA is $1.155 billion to $1.225 billion with the midpoint representing a 6% increase over the 2025 guidance midpoint. Our adjusted EBITDA guidance for 2025 and 2026 is supported by the incremental contribution from our growth investments, including the integration of our recently completed Midwest pipeline acquisition, as well as expected activity from our major customers.

Longer term, we continue to target adjusted EBITDA growth of 5% to 7%, which is supported by our $2.3 billion organic backlog, advantaged asset positions, strong balance sheet and our high level of take-or-pay contracts. Our 2025 growth capital guidance is $400 million to $460 million. For 2026, we expect the level of growth investments to be in line with 2025. We currently have approximately $60 million of committed spend in 2026 and are working to advance a number of organic growth opportunities to FID.

Our Board has declared a quarterly dividend increase to $0.82 per share, which represents a 12% increase. This increase is supported by our higher adjusted EBITDA following the Midwest pipeline acquisition and its larger opportunity set and earnings base. Our approach to the dividend has not changed as we plan to continue to grow it annually, in line with adjusted EBITDA growth, and we are committed to maintaining a coverage ratio above our 2x floor.

From a balance sheet perspective, we are pleased with our positioning on leverage and progress or obtaining an investment grade credit rating. As David mentioned, we received positive reaction from the rating agencies following our recently completed Midwest pipeline acquisition and are on positive outlook with both Moody's and S&P in addition to Fitch's investment-grade rating.

Our debt maturity profile has a weighted average maturity of approximately 7 years and we are forecasting 2025 year-end on-balance sheet leverage of 3.1x and proportional leverage of 3.9x. We continue to execute our plans we have shared with the rating agencies and expect to be upgraded to an investment-grade credit rating in 2025. Our cash flows continue to remain strong, funding our growth investments, and we continue to expect to be a minimal cash taxpayer until 2028.

And with that, I'll now pass it back over to David for closing remarks.

Thanks, Jeff. So in summary, we are highly confident in delivering on our full year guidance for 2025 and early outlook for 2026, continuing a track record of strong performance.

Looking forward, the market fundamental support in our pipeline business are very positive. It certainly feels like we are entering a golden age for energy infrastructure investment. Our pure-play natural gas pipeline asset portfolio is very well positioned to take advantage of this opportunity, with our integrated assets providing critical capacity to premium and growing demand markets. We continue to remain laser-focused on advancing our sizable organic project backlog, delivering long-term value creation to our shareholders and supporting a reliable growing dividend.

And with that, we can now open up the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from Michael Blum with Wells Fargo.

I definitely want to ask about the 2 new projects. But before I do, I just want to level set, you have been, I think, before talking about 6 or more potential lateral data center-related projects that you have been pursuing. I thought those were behind the meter. So I guess the first question is -- are the 2 announcements today, which are in front of the meter in addition to those or those part of what you've been pursuing?

No, those are new and in addition to our behind-the-meter opportunities, Michael. So these -- I would call these utility scale, direct utility scale power generation opportunities.

Great. Perfect. And then on the projects, I'm just wondering on the Midwest and Appalachia projects. Anything you can give us in terms of CapEx, expected returns? And then for the Midwest project, what the length of the contract would look like.

Yes. I'd say we'll start with the one-off Midwestern. It's -- we're going to build a relatively short lateral over to this facility. And the customer is committing to long-term firm capacity on the mainline. We'll build this under a blanket authorization. So that will give you a sense of the capital size here. It's fairly modest from a capital perspective, but layers on a really nice long-term load onto the network. -- that we're really excited about.

And this transaction happened literally right out of the gate with the new assets. So I'd say we're really pleased 2 months into it with how we view these assets coming into the portfolio and the opportunity set that they're going to provide, and that's all reflected in the increased backlog that we've disclosed to the shareholders today.

If we switch over to Appalachia, that project has been in the works for a number of years with a large power developer. It's in the PJM Q. It's also been through the West Virginia PSC process. It will hang off of the Stonewall system and have a firm capacity across the entire network, our gathering network, both Stonewall and Appalachia gas Gathering system. And again, it they haven't FID-ed the plant yet. So they expect to do that early next year. And then we would commence construction to serve that plant.

And again, that's a long-term contract, a 20-year contract, with a brand-new combined cycle power plant that sits in a really nice spot inside the PGM system.

Your next question comes from Theresa Chen with Barclays.

For the broader updated $2.3 billion backlog, can you just remind us your expected returns and any sort of like economic terms on beef projects as well as the process that you're pursuing from here?

Sure, Theresa. I think we've pretty consistently been sharing 5 to 8x multiple in terms of proxy for the returns on these projects. And nothing has changed there. So obviously, we're trying to get the lowest multiple possible on all of our projects. But I think that band is a good calibration for the investors in terms of how we view our capital deployment. And the 2 projects that we announced today comparably fall into that band.

Got it. And on the macro front, on the heels of the weather tailwinds, the LNG feed gas spread being higher, the drawdown of inventory, better pricing as a result based on your conversations with your producer customers, what are your views on the pace of production recovery across your footprint from here through the remainder of this year and into next. Maybe just kind of asking what is the near-term look that's analogous to Slide 28.

Yes. Why don't we just talk about this year? Because I'm not sure that many of the public producers are even talking about next year yet. So I think the way to think about it for our guidance is we are expecting to see Haynesville volumes ramp over the year in our portfolio and I think Jeff mentioned it in the call in his remarks this morning that we're already seeing a ramp from kind of the exit rate in '24 to where we are today.

And then we're expecting Appalachia volumes to be relatively flat across the footprint. It's different by system. We have 4 different systems in Appalachia. But generally, Appalachia looks about flat across the year, embedded in our '25 guidance. So that's kind of the feedback we've been getting sort of at the end of last year from our producers.

Now there's been a lot of fundamental changes in the market over the last 2 months, and I alluded to some of those in my opening remarks, so obviously, we're going to work closely with our producer customers to see if they're going to adjust their plans or not as they kind of look forward at the gas markets and the pricing for the balance of this year and next year. But I'd say generally speaking, it's been a very positive shift in sentiment around natural gas and their feelings around their business as a producer. But I do think, especially for the public, they want to give a little time to make sure that, that pricing remains intact. And -- but that's just my sense of the multiple conversations we've had with all of our producer customers in our Gathering segment.

Your next question comes from Spiro Dounis with Citi.

Want to go back to the capital plan quickly. David, I think you referred to these projects is highly probable, and so just curious if you could just give us a sense of the magnitude of the projects maybe sitting behind what was announced today and how much room you think there is to add to this backlog while staying within your free cash flow?

And second part of this question, I just want to make sure, have you assumed that some of these data center projects are in that $2.3 billion? Or would they be additive?

Yes. Spiro, great question. Maybe I'll start at the highest level. And I'd say now that we've closed the acquisition from ONEOK that opportunity set, which has come to us through that acquisition is more significant than we thought when we originally announced the transaction. So there's quite a backlog of opportunities that are presenting themselves around those assets. And that's reflected in our backlog. And in particular, it's reflected in the fact that 70% of that backlog is sitting in the pipeline segment, which we love because it's high-quality projects. The one that we just talked about this morning is sort of the first of a series of projects that we're working on there.

In addition, the modernization opportunity set that we envisioned pre-close is even more robust than we thought post close. So that investment opportunity is in the backlog and it's very significant versus maybe the last time we publicly chatted to the investors pre-close. So giving us a lot of confidence in that backlog. And you kind of said it -- this is a probability weighted backlog that it's not the gross number. It's the highly probable number. So there's a significant set of opportunities in addition to what we've just disclosed that I think over time as we work on them, they could get pulled into the backlog. So I'm really optimistic about the opportunity set in front of the company right now.

We've got really favorable sentiment right now in the market, both on the regulatory front and on the political front and in the general population sentiment front. So again, I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves here, but everything is aligning nicely right now to create a nice runway for the company over multiple years. So I think make some significant investments in our Pipeline segment. So we're really excited about that, Spiro.

Turning to the power generation. We kind of intentionally wanted to unpack that for the investors in the slide deck and really differentiate that opportunity set between what I'll call utility underpinned power demand growth and then behind the meter data center power demand growth. What we've been observing in the last 3 or 4 months as many utilities, especially up here in the Midwest, have directly captured some of the data center demand. And as a result of that, are initiating what I call utility scale gas-fired power generation projects.

We're very excited about that, obviously, because many of those utilities are customers of ours on the pipelines already. So there seems to be really 2 emerging trends that we're seeing in our footprint, both the data center trend, which we've talked about at length, and that's very robust and continues to be robust, and we're really just waiting on site commercialization for all the pieces to fall into place to be able to FID some of those projects. and this emerging utility scale power generation opportunity that's presenting itself sort of at the same time. So very excited about that.

Great. Helpful color, David. Second question, just pivoting here to the Utica. Sounds like that's going pretty well. I think you said exceeding expectations. So I wonder if you could just dial that in a little bit more and maybe give us a little bit of color there around the outlook. And you also did mention the possibility for downstream opportunities. I just want to make sure I understand what that means. Are you looking to maybe get into the processing at some point? Or are we talking about downstream into the transmission side?

Yes. It's really -- my reference was to transmission side, Spiro, as a potential downstream opportunities as to these points ramp. I expect these producers will want to have a pathway out of the basin at some point. So that will present opportunities for us with our transmission pathways out of the basin. And then in terms of where we see this part of our business going in '25 and '26, I'm highly confident.

And again, I can't speak on behalf of public companies here, but highly confident that there's going to be growth and a focus on these resources and continuing to develop these resources. So we're hand-in-hand with our anchor customer here working to line out those expansion plans and make sure that the infrastructure is there for them as they continue to develop their resource base.

Your next question comes from John Mackay with Goldman Sachs.

I wanted to move to the Haynesville. You guys have talked in the past about your ability to take market share down there. I guess I'd just be curious where you guys stand now in terms of where you think DTM can grow versus the broader basin on both Gathering and then also on further LEAP expansions?

John, great question. Nothing has really changed in that regard. We're highly confident in our ability to continue to grow that network like we have over the last 3 years. There's lots of infrastructure discussions being had in the public domain right now around the Haynesville and the Gulf Coast markets, which as I look at that, the demand is showing up and the market is recognizing that the demand is showing up, and there's lots of infrastructure projects being discussed publicly to connect incremental supply to that new demand that's showing up. So the confidence level and the demand arriving is high right now.

So I expect that we will continue to win our fair share of the market share as this continues to develop over the back half of the decade, just like we have over the past 3 years. I'm really proud of the fact that our system is the most highly interconnected system period out of the basin in terms of supply connectivity and market connectivity, and I believe that's appreciated by all the market players and that's why we've been able to keep peeling off expansions kind of consistently over the last 3 years. We're obviously working on the next one. And as we -- once we contract that, we'll start working on the one after that. And we've got a nice runway of capability with that asset set. And again, we can continue to expand in nice bite-sized pieces that comfortably fits into what the market wants.

And I think that's just one of the competitive advantages in addition to feature that we have across the footprint. So that will be the plan to keep chipping away at it going forward and just keep winning our fair share of the growing market demand.

I appreciate that. And maybe just staying down there in Louisiana. Am I just giving us an update on CCS. I think we're seeing the time line push a little bit. I know there's a lot going on in the broader regulatory side. So maybe just an update there.

Yes. So I'll start with the positive is that the application requirements were finalized by the State of Louisiana. So that was slowing everything down last year. So that's kind of done, and we're over that step. So now the application is complete, it's really sitting with the state and we're in the waiting period now for the final Class VI permit. As soon as we have that in hand, then you should expect that we will FID the project and at that point, begin to spend what I'll call material amounts of capital to construct the project.

We're obviously talking to the states pretty much weekly now, trying to get a sense of timing from them. And I'm not going to predict their timing anymore because I've been predicting it for the last 12 months, and I they always underwhelm in terms of what they see versus what they do. And I'm just being transparent with you because I know everyone is wondering about this. So we're applying steady patient pressure to the state to move things along. The application is complete. We have a lot of local support for our project. All the critical pieces are in place and ready to go, it's just the permit at this point. So stay tuned.

Your next question comes from Keith Stanley with Wolfe Research.

Just one clarifying question. For the lateral project on Midwestern and for growth projects generally on the new interstate pipeline assets. Do you expect recovery to come from FERC rate cases? Or can some of these projects be done with bilateral contracts?

And then related to that, just curious your expected rate case cadence for those new assets?

Yes, great question. So initially, there'll be new incremental contracts to support these investments. And then when that particular asset comes into the next rate case, obviously, that capital and that rate base rolls into your next rate case and is part of the next rate case process. So that's how it will play out for the FERC assets.

At some point in the future, they all will go into some type of a rate case process, whether it be like a negotiated settlement or whether it be a full rate case process through the FERC. So that's how you should think about it in terms of the capital deployment. But again, in all cases, we're we have certain return expectations. The rate case process when that does play out as part of the economic assessment when we determine whether we're going to make that investment up front or not. So that's all folded into what I'll call the hurdle rates and the return expectations on the project when we initiate an FID the project upfront.

Great. And any timing you're expecting just for rate case cadence or frequency on these assets?

Yes. All 3 of those assets are on a different rate case cadence. And I don't want to -- I don't have that handy in front of me, and I don't want to guess at it for you. So I'm going to ask you to follow up with Todd off-line, and we can get you those details. But I don't want to quote it and have it quoted wrong here.

Your next question comes from Zack Van Everen.

Just one on Midwestern lateral. It looks like you guys were able to get this in service relatively quickly due to the FERC blanket authorization. Do you have that authorization on any other assets? Or is it just this pipeline?

No. Every one of the FERC assets has a blanket authorization capability.

Okay. So when we think about -- because generally, on the FERC side, a lot of people know 1 to 2 years in permitting and one is here to build depending on size. Will your projects relatively be a little bit faster than that due to the authorization?

Yes. If we can get projects in under the blanket, those projects can go a lot swifter than going through the full process with the FERC, as you just highlighted. So yes, this one was like literally in [indiscernible] or and off the main line. So it was -- it's a very short easy build over to this facility, which allowed it to go super quick, like literally right after we close the transaction this opportunity presented itself.

And yes, so we're super excited about this, right out of the chute. We've got our first power deal on these new assets. And as I alluded to, there are more to come that we're working on behind this so.

Your next question comes from Robert Mosca with Mizuho Securities.

So on the AGS lateral project. I understand that hasn't been FID-ed yet, but is there a potential for DTM to be a part of a CCS solution there? Has that come up at all in conversations?

We have been having a CCS conversations with a handful of power developers in the Appalachia, the -- what I'll call the broader Appalachia region. So it's very very much in the forefront of their minds right now.

That being said, with the new administration and what we believe is a relaxing of the rules around new gas-fired generation, it may not be a requirement, perhaps as some thought a year ago. So my sense right now is that the developers are pivoting more towards what I would call a conventional combined cycle footprint, but have the optionality in those facilities to either over time, introduce a hydrogen blend or build the facility in a way that over time, if they needed to, they could capture carbon off the back end of the plant for sequestration again over time.

So a lot of the developers are looking at trying to engineer in the optionality to decarbonize the facility over time, which I think is a smart approach, just given how the sentiment in the market and then the nation can swing back and forth on this particular topic.

Got it. No, that's helpful. And then maybe turning to the Haynesville. I think your main producer there has noted that they want to be flexible in terms of their production plans. How does that look in terms of the conversations you have month-to-month or quarter-to-quarter. I'm just -- should we think about it differently than this is the plan that you have kind of exiting '24 and just how dynamic that could be over the course of '25?

Sure. Well, again, I just have to be careful here because, as you know, our largest customer as a public company. So what I'll say generically, and maybe I'll repeat what I said earlier is that we expect volumes across our network, so they gathered volumes directly from our producer customers, which we have many, will grow over the course of the year. And we've actually seen them grow significantly since the exit rate in 2024. So some of that growth has already occurred, which is positive, right? It's what I would have expected given the -- how the market is shaping up right now.

So we'll see as the year progresses and as producers get progressively more confident with pricing and get more confident with the demand that's showing up again, a lot of producers, and I think they've said this publicly, they want to see the demand. They want to see it, feel it and experience it before they start to deploy capital to growing some of their production.

So I really think we're in a little bit of a wait-and-see mode. Having said that, natural gas prices today are probably $0.75 higher than they were 3 months ago. which is a pretty significant upward move, which certainly is supportive for their businesses. So we're just being patient. We see growth. We have growth in our plan. And we'll see how that evolves as the year unfolds.

There are no more questions. I will now turn the conference back over to David for closing remarks.

Well, thank you again for joining us. We certainly appreciate the support that you've shown to the company and look forward to delivering another strong year. Thanks, everybody, and have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.