Kinetik Holdings Inc

NYSE:KNTK

Earnings Call Analysis

Kinetik's Strong Growth and Strategic Developments in Q3 2024

In Q3 2024, Kinetik achieved record adjusted EBITDA of $266 million, a 23% increase year-over-year, driven by processed gas volumes growing 15% to 1.71 billion cubic feet per day. Strategic moves included acquiring a further stake in EPIC Crude, enhancing its position in the pipeline market. The company raised its 2024 adjusted EBITDA guidance to $970 million - $1 billion, projecting nearly 20% growth. Capital expenditures were refined to $270 million - $290 million. Recent EPA approvals for CO2 capturing will add economic benefits starting in 2025, supporting sustainability goals. A new pipeline project is set to enhance operational flexibility and capacity, positioning Kinetik for significant future growth.

Exceptional Performance in Q3

In the third quarter of 2024, Kinetik achieved its best results as a public company, reporting an adjusted EBITDA of $266 million, representing a remarkable 23% year-over-year increase. The company processed an impressive 1.71 billion cubic feet of gas per day, marking a 15% growth from the same quarter last year. This robust performance comes despite facing negative gas prices at the Waha Hub, which averaged negative $1 per Mcf during the quarter, illustrating Kinetik's operational strength even under challenging market conditions.

Strategic Partnerships and Growth Initiatives

In September, Kinetik strengthened its position in the market by acquiring an additional 27.5% equity interest in EPIC Crude through a partnership with Diamondback Energy. This move enhances Kinetik's financial profile and promotes sustainable growth. Furthermore, Diamondback's commitment of approximately 33% of the pipeline's capacity on a firm long-term basis allows Kinetik to secure a significant revenue stream, while refinanced debt is set to reduce EPIC's annual interest expenses and potentially enable distributions to partners by early 2025.

Upgraded Financial Guidance

Based on its solid performance and market confidence, Kinetik has revised its guidance for adjusted EBITDA for 2024 to a range of $970 million to $1 billion, an upward revision of 3% at the midpoint compared to previous forecasts. This new guidance suggests a nearly 20% growth year-over-year, solidifying Kinetik's resilient growth trajectory amidst ongoing market volatility.

Capital Allocation and Dividend Growth

The company is committed to a balanced capital allocation approach, catering to both organic and inorganic growth opportunities while enhancing returns to shareholders through consistent dividend growth and opportunistic share repurchases. In line with this strategy, Kinetik's Board of Directors has announced an increase in the quarterly cash dividend to $3.12 on an annualized basis, reflecting confidence in its future earnings potential and commitment to value creation for shareholders.

Operational Efficiencies and Future Projects

Kinetik's operational team has successfully navigated significant maintenance across multiple facilities, demonstrating remarkable efficiency and cost discipline. Recent capital expenditures totaled $59 million, with anticipated spending for the full year refined to $270 million to $290 million to support strategic initiatives, including the construction of Kings Landing Cryo 1 and the new pipeline connecting Eddy County to Culberson County, expected to boost processing capacity significantly. This ensures Kinetik can handle expected growth while maintaining operational effectiveness.

Outlook and Market Dynamics

Kinetik anticipates continued demand for its services despite current pricing challenges, emphasizing that the ongoing management of operational capacity and customer relationships will enhance profitability. With gas prices projected to bounce back, the company expects a return of curtailed volumes from Alpine High and continued growth in gas demand over the coming periods. The management underscores that the operational flexibility within their infrastructure will position Kinetik favorably to capitalize on market opportunities as they arise.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Operator]

Good morning. Thank you for attending today's Kinetik Third Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. My name is Makayia, and I'll be the moderator for today's call. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call with an opportunity for questions at the end.

I would now like to pass the conference over to your host, Alex Durkee. Alex, you may proceed.

[Alex Durkee, executive]

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Kinetik's Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Our speakers today are Jamie Welch, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Trevor Howard, Chief Financial Officer. Other members of our senior management team are also in attendance for this morning's call. The press release we issued yesterday, the slide presentation and access to the webcast for today's call are available at www.kinetik.com.

Before we begin, I would like to remind all listeners that our remarks, including the question-and-answer section, will provide forward-looking statements, and actual results could differ from what is described in these statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve a number of risks and assumptions.

We may also provide certain performance measures that do not conform to U.S. GAAP. We've provided schedules that reconcile these non-GAAP measures as part of our earnings press release. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call to Q&A.

With that, I will turn the call over to Jamie.

[Jamie Welch, executive]

Thank you, Alex. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call today. We have a lot to get through, so let's get started. Yesterday, we reported our third quarter results. We logged Kinetik's single best quarter as a public company in terms of adjusted EBITDA, which was an increase of 23% year-over-year.

We also processed gas volumes of 1.71 billion cubic feet per day, representing 15% growth year-over-year. As many of you are aware, negative gas prices persisted at the Waha Hub with the gas daily price averaging negative $1 per Mcf for the quarter. So the outperformance that we achieved is even more impressive when you take into account the nearly 170 million cubic feet per day of wellhead gas volume curtailed on our system due to pricing.

In September, we partnered with Diamondback Energy to acquire an additional equity interest in EPIC Crude, bringing Kinetik's total ownership to 27.5%. This was the much needed first step in a series of transactions to support continued growth and strengthen the financial profile of the pipeline. Diamondback has now committed approximately 33% of the overall capacity of the pipeline on a firm long-term basis.

Kinetik itself is also now finalizing a long-term transport agreement with EPIC. With these actions, EPIC Crude received a multi-notch upgrade from the credit rating agencies. And in early October, EPIC refinanced its Term Loan B, which significantly reduced its annual interest expense and positions the business to begin distributions to partners in early 2025.

Also at the beginning of September, we received MRV plan approval from the EPA. The approved MRV plan covers 3 acid gas injection wells at our Maljamar and Dagger Draw processing facilities and enables Kinetik to economically benefit from the CO2 that we are currently capturing and sequestering on our system through 45Q credits.

This is only the fourth plan approved in the state of New Mexico. This is a significant step on our sustainability mission to continue decarbonizing our footprint. We are working to fully quantify the economic benefit, which we expect to recognize beginning in 2025. We have also started our MRV plans at our Diamond Cryo and Kings Landing processing complexes.

Construction has been progressing on our capital projects in Lea and Eddy Counties, New Mexico. Last quarter, we announced an amendment to an existing agreement in Lea County with one of our largest customers. The build-out to facilitate the MVC step-up and treating services is complete and the amended agreement commenced November 1.

Our operations team remains highly focused on the construction of Kings Landing Cryo 1, and we're on track to commence operations in the second quarter of next year. We have 100 million cubic feet per day curtailed on our northern system as well as significant DUC inventory. So the in-service of Kingsland and Cryo 1 is critical for our customers in the region.

We're also announcing today that we will connect the west side of our system with a large diameter, high-pressure, rich gas pipeline between Eddy County, New Mexico and Culberson County, Texas. This pipeline, which is expected in service in the first quarter of 2026, will leverage and optimize our available processing capacity and provide tremendous flexibility to move significant sweet gas volumes south, freeing up treating and processing space on the Durango system north for higher-margin sour gas.

The announcement represents a change in scope where we were initially contemplating a plant relocation to one of our Delaware North processing sites. Now that we fully understand the gas quality specs of existing PDP and new development on our northern system, this new pipeline is a far better solution across all aspects, operations, commercial and financial.

Starting with operations. The new pipeline will initially increase Delaware North access to processing capacity by 150 million cubic feet per day versus the originally contemplated 60 million cubic feet per day increase with the plant relocation.

On the commercial side, not only can we access more processing capacity for Delaware North, but this solution allows us to move lower-margin sweet gas south and replace those volumes with higher-margin sour gas.

On the financial side, the new pipeline does not represent an increase in CapEx. The new connector pipeline has already been underwritten and supported by our announced Eddy County gathering and processing project. Today's announcement is the first step of several that unlock significant value for our shareholders and customers.

When announcing the Durango acquisition earlier this year, we said that connecting our North and South systems was a highly important strategic objective for the company. Today, I'm exceptionally proud of our team and excited for our customers with this new pipeline announcement.

Our commercial team has also been very active with current and prospective customers up north to commercialize the build-out and expansion of the Kings Landing processing complex with Cryo 2, following our decision to purchase long lead critical path components.

Given the need for additional processing capacity in the region, supported by exceptional reservoir quality and producers' well economics, we plan to take FID on Kings Landing 2 as soon as possible to enable producers to further develop the resource in that area.

Each successive quarter this year, we have demonstrated outstanding performance and cost discipline, which gives us the confidence to tighten our capital expenditures guidance range and again raise our adjusted EBITDA guidance to now $970 million to $1 billion, with an internal goal to achieve at least the top end of this revised EBITDA range.

Annualized third quarter adjusted EBITDA actually puts us above our objective. So what was once a medium-term EBITDA target is now within immediate reach, and I'm incredibly proud of what our team has accomplished so far this year to make this a reality.

2024 also marks a year of strong execution on our capital allocation framework with achievement of our leverage target, pursuit of strategic and accretive growth projects and likely our adjusted EBITDA target of $1 billion. Our performance year-to-date and increased confidence in QinetiQ's outlook underscored the Board of Directors' decision to raise the quarterly cash dividend to $3.12 on an annualized basis.

Looking ahead, we remain committed to a balanced capital allocation approach that provides both flexibility for organic and inorganic growth opportunities as well as continued acceleration of returns to shareholders through annual ratable dividend growth and opportunistic share repurchases.

So with all of that, I'd now like to hand the call over to Trevor to discuss the financial results and revised guidance in more detail.

[Trevor Howard, executive]

Thanks, Jamie. In the third quarter, we reported adjusted EBITDA of $266 million. For the quarter, we generated distributable cash flow of $184 million and free cash flow was $165 million, increasing more than threefold year-over-year.

Looking at our segment results, our Midstream Logistics segment generated an adjusted EBITDA of $174 million in the quarter, up 24% year-over-year, largely driven by a full quarter of contributions from our assets in New Mexico as well as strong performance across our Texas assets. Following substantial maintenance overhauls at several Delaware South trains in the spring, we have seen our cryos perform exceptionally well, contributing to our bottom line outperformance.

Average gas process volumes were 1.71 billion cubic feet per day across the system. Growth in volumes was driven by our first quarter of our New Mexico processing plants, which are operating at full capacity and volumes in Texas were sequentially flat despite wellhead volume curtailments increasing approximately 30 million cubic feet per day over the same time period.

Shifting to our Pipeline Transportation segment, we generated an adjusted EBITDA of $96 million, up 22% year-over-year. This year-over-year increase was driven by contributions from the PHP expansion and Delaware Link and our increased ownership in EPIC Crude. Shin Oak experienced volume growth and margin expansion in the quarter, while PHP posted stronger marketing margins and low fuel costs due to low Waha natural gas prices.

Total capital expenditures for the quarter were $59 million. Our leverage ratio per our credit agreement stands at 3.2x below our target leverage of 3.5x. In September, we received $30 million cash from an affiliate of ArcLight Capital Partners following the FID on the GCX expansion project, which we used towards debt repayment in the quarter.

As Jamie mentioned, we are revising upwards our 2024 adjusted EBITDA guidance. We now estimate full year 2024 adjusted EBITDA in the range of $970 million to $1 billion, a 3% increase at the midpoint versus the previous guidance range and year-over-year growth that approaches 20%.

In our Midstream Logistics segment, we continue to expect year-over-year processed gas volume growth in the high teens. The Lea County MVC step-up and margin expansion for gathering, treating and processing services commenced this month, and we anticipate the start-up of gathering services at our Eddy County project in December.

Additionally, following the in-service of Matterhorn in the third quarter, we have seen some pricing relief at Waha, albeit brief, and we expect a return of curtailed volumes from Alpine High later this quarter following the completion of routine scheduled maintenance at the Permian residue gas pipelines.

As a reminder, our equity residue gas volumes are priced at the Houston Ship Channel hub. On the hedging side, we are 75% hedged on our remaining 2024 expected gross profit, and for calendar year 2025, we have hedged approximately 65% across our exposures. Our Pipeline Transportation segment reflects the year-over-year benefit from the PHP expansion in Delaware Link and now the increased ownership in Epic Crude.

Turning to our capital expenditures guidance, we fine-tuned our range to $270 million to $290 million for the full year. We have continued our strong track record of maintaining cost discipline, which gave us the confidence to tighten the range.

Our full year estimate continues to reflect capital needs for the construction of Kings Landing 1, the new Eddy to Culberson County pipeline, pre-FID work for an expansion at Kings Landing, including an associated acid gas injection well. The growth projects in Eddy and Lea Counties, integration efforts and growth and maintenance CapEx associated with the existing Texas and New Mexico systems.

Like Jamie, I'm impressed by our team's dedication and focus on execution as we strive to hit our $1 billion adjusted EBITDA goal. We continue to deliver on our commitment to maximizing shareholder value. We look forward to sharing what next year has in store for Kinetik when we issue full year 2025 financial guidance with our fourth quarter earnings in February.

And with that, I would like to open the line for Q&A.

[Operator]

At this time, we’ll now begin the question and answer session. [Operator instructions]. The first question is from the line of Neel Mitra with Bank of America.

[Neel Mitra, analyst]

It seems like you're doing a lot more with sour gas treating as well as CO2 treating and then some sequestration that would all add to margin.

How should we think about when we think about the G&P fees, how each of those components adds to the fee you're getting and maybe the knock-on effect, if that's allowing you to compete for upcoming acreage dedications that are expiring off of other producer systems?

[Jamie Welch, executive]

Neel, its Jamie. I'll start. I'm sure Trevor or Chris Kendrick will jump in, too. Yes. As we've talked about before, both when we announced the Durango transaction back in May and then obviously in the second quarter, and I think all the intervening period with all the interactions that we've had with investors, there's a material difference between what we see as the average -- I would say, the average gross fee on the southern end of our system to the Delaware South, if you will, versus the overall rates that we see Delaware North.

So if the distinction is $1, $1.10, low pressure all the way through, right? So you've got to make it apples-to-apples, not a high-pressure deal, but low pressure all the way through on the processing side with your typical fixed recoveries and whatever else as far as the incremental margin capture. The distinction between that and what we advertised and said around Durango was average margins almost $1.80. So that will give you a sense.

Everything is a stair step, gas that doesn't hit the typical suite of a quality spec of maybe 4 ppm, maybe very low inerts. It's -- as you ramp up and you go 10, 20, 50, 100 parts and then you go all the way up into the most extreme sour and you can have thousands of parts per million, then you obviously are just increasing the overall rate structure.

So it's a sort of stair-step approach. Hopefully, that gives you a sense of the distinction. But it's -- you provide a lot more services on the sour gas side, and that's whether you're using your acid gas injection wells, which we have 3. That obviously provides both incremental OpEx, but obviously incremental margin for us.

[Neel Mitra, analyst]

Perfect. Second question, you've made a lot of progress with your partners on Epic. It seems like, first, you probably want to maybe extend some of those contracts. From my understanding, some of them are still on spot rates or short-term contracts. But what would we need to see in order for you to open season an expansion? And if you were to do so, what would be the timing of it if we were to get through some of those steps?

[Jamie Welch, executive]

So I think as far as on the Epic expansion, it's a topic that comes up all the time, both with the partners and with the management team. You're right, there are a series of there are some -- the contract portfolio is both some long term, some medium term and some shorter term almost buy sells. That changes, obviously fairly dramatically with the new very long-dated, very large contract or contracts from Diamondback, right, for 1/3 of the capacity of the pipe today.

We ourselves are going to take a very -- a modest amount of transport space on that pipeline, which will obviously be advantageous for our crude gathering customers. So I think what it requires is you will see the decision to expand manifest itself in the MEH diff and the amount of commercial success to replace the shorter-term buy sells with, again, medium and longer-term firm contracts because buy-sells will always be there.

They are typically the domain of the marketers, of which there are many, the Mcuriers, the gunvores, the trappis, et cetera. They will always want available access, particularly available access to an export market, and obviously, Corpus is ideally situated for many different reasons to do so.

Even more so now, I think they're actually finishing the Phase 2 of the dredging with the board of Corpus Christi right now, which will obviously be ideal as it relates to overall drafts and therefore, what we can actually load and unload the size of vessels that we can get in. So I do think, it's not a question of if on the expansion.

It's a question of when because it's very clear that I think this is the pipeline best positioned, and I think the only remaining pipeline positioned to expand, relative to the other pipes out of the Permian on the crude side.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Michael Blum with Wells Fargo.

[Jamie Welch, executive]

So look, it's a really interesting question. I'll sort of break it down into the following. If you recall back when we did the very first call for the year for our year-end 2023 results and our guidance that we initiated for 2024, we talked a lot about the increase in maintenance capital that we were actually spending for this current year.

In large part, it was both related to compressor top end, so overhauls as well as changing out Mulsive beds, which are really almost like those silica beads that you find when you get any package, whether it's from Amazon or anything else. It's basically -- it's like an absorption of drying agent. So we changed those out in the context, I think, of diamond Matt walls on. I think it was the first time since those trains had gone in service.

The overall performance on recoveries across the system as a result of the multer bed change-outs has been exceptional. We operate a business with a contract portfolio that has fixed recoveries, whether you're in rejection or in recovery. And therefore, the outperformance drops to our bottom line.

And I can just say the operations guys have really done an exceptional job. And that was a -- I would say, just given the size of the 2 Bcf a day and the multi complexes that you're dealing with, that outperformance is a meaningful contributor.

Yes. We have open space. We always said this, we had open space on PHP. In large part, we took incremental space on the expansion that obviously, over time, as our customers increase production, that space would obviously get filled up because our first need and first call for that service is to provide that option for our customers. We benefited in the first part of this year because of the very large spreads.

However, don't lose sight of this. We will always have PHP space, and when Waha goes really, really negative, between Matt and Anne and Kris Kindrick and the commercial team, we run our plants in full recovery because you basically change the ethane from being in the natural gas stream into the NGL stream.

If that creates incremental space because we own this PHP space, this is all ours between what Chris Evans and Anne and Kris Kindrick and Tyler and Trevor and Ross, they all do is we look to optimize that space. We look at this multiple times a day. We look on a predictive basis. We look on a then current day basis. We are always looking to optimize it, working in conjunction with operations.

So I don't think it's correct to maybe suggest that, oh, this is some sort of onetime benefit. At the end of the day, we'll create this optimization. And that's part of the overall portfolio just given the size of our business, and that will continue. It may not be as pronounced at certain times versus others, but it will always be there.

So I do think that they are certainly 2 of your contributors. OpEx was an exceptional performance. I think we obviously had the benefit also of 1 quarter of Durango, so that obviously helped and then obviously, on the pipeline transportation side, we had multitude.

When everyone is running in recovery because you have negative Waha, well, Shin Oak is running literally at, I would say, probably above capacity. I mean there is -- literally, it is running so full, it's almost going to burst, not literally, don't take that figuratively, but just in the context of just it's running completely full.

Then in the context of PHP, where it from a fuel standpoint, and Chris Kendrick can tell you this, from a fuel standpoint, it prices at Waha. So if Waha is incredibly negative, your fuel cost, when you think about your rate plus fuel to the pipeline is lower. So you have great outperformance, and then obviously, at the back end, we had the increase in our EPIC crude.

So I want to say it's a multitude of factors. It's not just one, but this is the benefit of having a risk really diversified business where there are so many compensating factors that things can look better -- we can optimize our system as we see conditions present themselves.

[Michael Blum, analyst]

Perfect. Maybe I know you're not giving '25 guidance today, but maybe you could just speak to the trajectory of CapEx for next year? What is that going to look like and maybe some of the building blocks to get there?

[Jamie Welch, executive]

So I think, Michael, as I think we've talked to you and talked to other analysts and investors. We have said, look, think about it from a -- if you're going to think about an overall range, $250 million to $400 million, that sort of range. And we said, look, as you think about next year, you'd be the upper end of that range.

That may also be the case depending upon the timing on Kings Landing as well into '26, that's Kingslanding 2, right? So this is the pre-FID work, long lead critical path items that we've done. And our viewpoint is, I think on the EBITDA, look, I think we've said very consistently, we're almost to the midpoint, 20% year-on-year increase.

We've said this is a business that between '25 and '27 on a compound annual growth rate should be 10%, 12-plus percent. That's how you think about it, and that's without, as Trevor would tell me, breaking a sweat, and he's a good runner. So he doesn't sweat that much.

So it's I really do think that it's a context of the business is really, really designed for a tremendous inflection in growth from here on out. So you've got that top line growth, and I think we continue to have the very focused cost discipline on the capital side.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Jacqueline Koletas with Goldman Sachs.

[Jacqueline Koletas, analyst]

First, I just want to start on the pipeline connector. So is there optionality to expand that beyond the 150 Mcf a day announced? And how has future connectivity impacted commercial conversations from here? And beyond that pipeline connector, are there other connections that you can build or potentially buy from here to further connect the North and South Delaware systems?

[Jamie Welch, executive]

Okay. Jackie, you get the price. Don't keep going on because you got a lot -- there's a lot. There's a lot in there that you've just gone through in your 60 seconds. So let me start at the top. On the connector side, greater than 150 that we can basically get on the Eddy County. But that can grow, which is the question you asked, we can increase that with additional boost compression at the Sierra Grande site to have that in excess of between 260 million and 300 million cubic feet a day drawing or draining out of Eddy County, that's a big deal.

I got to say, I know that this may have surprised people. We've been talking about the desire to connect Durango, the north to the south and creating that super system. And I really do think between the overall team here did a phenomenal job, engineering, ops, construction to come up with a plan that said, rather than move that idle 60-day cryo, why don't we do this? It's going to cost the same. You've already budgeted for it, it's already in your numbers in the Eddy County project. And it actually creates the connectivity.

And so when these guys go and talk to newborns -- all these other customers we've got in the north, and we say, Bingo, not only capital investment, but we now can take incremental volumes, that they're not on the massively sour side, but there's obviously some flexibility that we have. That's really array of sunshine for them in the context of their development plans because for so long, they've been capital starved with no egress, right? No midstream egress.

So I feel like this proposition, we knocked down the first of the big pillars, which was connect on the West, done. This is what this does. It's a massive game changer for this company. It's a massive game changer for our customers, and it really puts us in a position now to emphasize, okay, on the Lea County side, much more sour gas, as we know, where are the connections? How do we think about it? We said we would analyze connecting on the basis of new commercial opportunities.

So we're keeping -- basically, we are continuing hard at work to finalize commercial opportunities that will ultimately result in us connecting on the Lea County side. So that would be on the East, and then you will have your super system. And that will be unique. It will be unique amongst our peers. And I think it will really provide us so much flexibility for optimization that really will position us, I think, tremendously going forward in the future.

[Chris Kendrick, executive]

And Jacqie, this is Kris. I think one other thing we didn't hit on is we expect Kings Landing to fill up pretty quickly. So we wanted to make sure we had an outlet for our customers as they continue to grow. This pipeline is that answer because we can get it on quickly.

And second, this goes through an area where we're going to see significant gas growth over the next 5 years. So we think there's additional commercial upside where this pipeline will traverse. So strategically, it makes a lot of sense for Kinetik, and so we're excited to provide this outlet to connect the systems.

[Jamie Welch, executive]

And it would be fair to say, as I look at Chris and the team, what goes into Durango is a mix of sweet and sour. You have both. So what you've really done here is you have the combined elements. This gives you the opportunity to separate them to free up sour gas treating and processing, which is much more complicated.

And it's not a case that anybody can basically go and treat and process sour gas if you don't have the right infrastructure. And you can obviously permit and build the right infrastructure, but it takes time. And you probably heard that in the context of whether it was Jim Teague talking about Pinon, multiple years to get this done.

So what we looked at our business when we said, "Hey, look, there's a bunch of sweet here. If we could separate that suite through Eddy County down into Culberson and bring it south, we leave more sour gas treating and processing up in the Durango system, which is, as I said, the more complicated, it's higher margin in the context of all the services that we have to provide, it really is a tremendous value proposition for the company.

[Jacqueline Koletas, analyst]

I appreciate the color there. And then just pivoting a little bit, you talked about it a little bit before an amendment mentioned some hedging in the year into '25. But you're able to benefit on open PHP capacity again and some benefits on continued Waha softness.

What is your view on the commodity price environment for the fourth quarter and '25? And how quickly do you expect pricing to recover? And on those commodity swings, what is your timing expectations for the return of those Alpine High volumes?

[Jamie Welch, executive]

Okay. So you referenced fourth quarter '25. I think you meant fourth quarter '24, just to confirm

[Jacqueline Koletas, analyst]

Yes, sorry, fourth quarter '24.

[Jamie Welch, executive]

Yes. That's no problem. We just wanted to check as opposed to being -- giving you a prognostication as to what it might be a year out from now. So the short answer is cash today for Waha is negative $0.95. Hey, welcome to the third quarter again, it's same old, same old. Interestingly enough, December is $1.20 right now, positive, Positive, $1.20. That's more than enough to bring the Alpine High volumes back on.

You can listen to the Alpine, I'm sure the Apache call in a couple of hours or 1.5 hours or whatever it is, but that's more than enough. This is all PDP, right? There's no new development in the context of Alpine High at this point.

So I think our viewpoint is the basin is tight. So let's frame what tight means. We're going through some maintenance on PHP through 19 to 20, I'm looking at Kindrick. Matterhorn is full, like 2 Bcf a day, and we have negative Waha prices. What does that tell the audience about how tight this basin is? The overall lower decline curves, the increasing GORs that we're seeing, this gas needs egress.

And so I think Waha is going to remain challenged. Yes, you've got Blackcomb. You've got the GCX expansion. Maybe the transfer team get over the finish line with Warrior Run. All of this is going to be needed just given the continued growth that we see on the gas side.

The net beneficiaries, of course, in a weaker gas price environment on a hub basis are the integrated NGL players because everyone is running in full recovery as much as you can and trying to evacuate the ethane in the form of their NGLs.

So I think our viewpoint is, look, we -- in our updated guidance, we said, look, it would be December, you'd start to see the return of the Alpine High volumes. I think our viewpoint is that gas prices will bounce around. I do think we'll see some positive Waha pricing. It's not. It's still a pretty big dip. I'm looking at Annie relative to ship and hub. It's crazy, like $1.20, $1.25. So there's plenty of money from the optimization standpoint to be made.

And as I said, that's what the team does, like we optimize this business every day working with the ops guys to come up with the right formula. So I think our viewpoint is, look, we're just going to we're just going to continue this trajectory. I think crude is going to remain pretty much range bound, $70. $70 in a cost environment that is controlled is still a good day for, I would say, almost universally for all of our producers.

Look at the efficiencies they continue to drive, look at the reductions in D&C costs. If they can get their overall LOE down and keep that managed, $70 as far as the WTI price, I think, is a good day at the office for them. So we feel pretty jazzed up by what's going on around us and particularly as it relates to not just right now for '24, but as we look out into '25 and beyond.

[Jacqueline Koletas, analyst]

Great, that’s it for me. Appreciate it.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Burke Sanisviero with Wolfe Research.

[Burke Sansiviero, analyst]

Just firstly, any impressions you have on the potential setback rules being considered in New Mexico and sort of how you're thinking about potential impacts for the Durango assets?

[Jamie Welch, executive]

I am so glad you asked this question because there is so much misinformation out there. So look, I saw this Reuters article, much like I'm sure many of you, I think everyone believed that this was some proposed legislation. That's not it at all. This is all about the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee undertaking an economic study, an economic study, impact to the state regarding the cost of potential setbacks and the impact that would have on the state's revenue.

So let's frame that for a second. The LSC study is the first time on record that publicly everyone's addressed there is a true legitimate real significant cost of potential setbacks. Look, our view is, unlike in other states where you've seen discussions on setbacks, there are a multitude of factors here that says it's different here, and here's why.

Oil and gas sector represents as far as percentage to the overall state coffers budget, 50%. Oil and gas is the largest single employer in the state of New Mexico. The incomes for oil and gas workers is more than 2x the state average median income for workers.

New Mexico, unlike in other states, where you can have -- citizens can get a number of signatures and then get something basically across the line in the context of modifying state constitution. You do not have that legislative process at all in New Mexico. So groups of citizens that have a mechanism where they gather all these signatures to change the state's constitution does not exist in New Mexico.

It is clear in all the conversations that we've had and particularly now with the White House administration changing effective in January, the Democratic leadership and the governor will not support setback legislation. There is virtually no path to any bill, even if it eventuated. And as I said, right now, it is a study.

And so our viewpoint, along with Permian Resources, EOG, Oxy, Conoco and all of the other large oil and gas producers is we really think that this is just misinformation. I could say fake news, but it's in the context of how it's positioned. But it is a study, and it's the first time people got to see, and it has shocked a lot of politicians and regulators as to the potential impact that such a -- any type of framework could have on their overall state budgets and their overall finances.

So hopefully, Burke, that answers the question. But I think, look, I listened to Tom Jordan last week at Caterra. He did a great job. I think we feel like this is not a story.

[Burke Sansiviero, analyst]

Thanks for that. Just for my follow-up, understanding that the dividend marks a positive inflection point for the company, how should we think about further dividend growth given 2025 is shaping out to be a higher CapEx year?

[Jamie Welch, executive]

Look, I think our viewpoint is that, as we said in the prepared remarks, our capital allocation will be balanced, annual ratable dividend growth. So this was in the third quarter of November. Do you think about it towards this time next year, you shouldn't think about it earlier than that in the context of you're right, we're going to have a larger capital budget.

We're going to have great growth on the EBITDA side. But I do think that when we say annual ratable, Trevor is a man of his words. He means what he says, its annual ratable, and we will continue to grow it on a thoughtful, methodical basis.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan.

[Jeremy Tonet, analyst]

This is Bob Methti on for Jeremy. First one, I just had a clarifying question. I believe it was 170 million cubic feet per day curtailed in 3Q. And I think I might have heard 100 curtailed as of now, but I just wanted to clarify whether those volumes have returned or not.

[Jamie Welch, executive]

No, I think you were hearing that. We said 100 million cubic feet per day curtailed on Durango. It's where we started. We said, listen, we had 100 million cubic feet a day when we first announced the transaction, it's still there. We had a growing DUC inventory. It's still there. That's what we were talking about in the context of the reason that Kings Landing 1 needs to be on and in service as quickly as it can.

[Trevor Howard, executive]

Yes. Those aren't price-related shut-ins. We refer to them as shut-ins, not necessarily curtailments. They're not price related. It is associated with the lack of processing capacity at Delaware North.

[Jamie Welch, executive]

Yes, because it's full, right? I mean we run full every day on Durango.

[Trevor Howard, executive]

Whereas the 170 million that we referred to refers to price-related curtailments generally in Delaware -- predominantly in Delaware South. And just to highlight, that is wellhead and that is a gross number. So it's a bit different than a number that is reported by one of our other customers.

[Jeremy Tonet, analyst]

Perfect. And then switching gears, just given some of the industry consolidation, I wanted to see updated thoughts that you guys have on Kinetiks' role against this landscape.

[Jamie Welch, executive]

We swim with the largest fishes around, and we're not that big. So look, consolidation is -- it's going to continue. We all know that it's going to continue in the upstream space. It's going to continue in the midstream space. And I think we realize that our overall destiny in future is not necessarily for ours to control.

[Jeremy Tonet, analyst]

Understood. Thank you.

[Operator]

There are currently no questions registered. [Operator instructions]. There are no additional questions waiting at this time. I'd like to pass the conference back over to our management team for any further remarks.

[Jamie Welch, executive]

Thanks, everyone, for your time this morning. I know it's a busy time with everyone reporting, so I appreciate it. We'll see you shortly with the various tour dates that are coming up and the various conferences to go to year-end, and we look forward to continue our discussions. Thanks. Bye-bye. Thank you all.

[Operator]

Thank you all. That concludes today's conference call. We appreciate your participation. We hope you all have a wonderful day, and you may now disconnect your lines.