Kinder Morgan (KMI) Q3 2026 earnings call transcript

Thank you, Michelle. Before we begin, as usual, I'd like to remind you that KMI's earnings release today in this call, include forward-looking statements within the meeting of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as well as certain non-GAP financial measures. Before making any investment decisions, we strongly encourage you to read our full disclosures on forward-looking statements and use of non-GAP financial measures set forth at the end of our earnings release, as well as review our latest filings with the SEC, or important material assumptions, expectations, and risk factors that may cause actual results that differ materially from those anticipated and described in such forward-looking statements. Let me begin by sharing some projections from credible third parties that once again support our belief that the demand for natural gas is destined to dramatically increase both in America and the rest of the world in the coming years and even decades.

Shell projects that global LNG demand will grow to nearly 750 million tons by 2050, and that's an increase of 65% from 2025. That's an enormous increase and one that we believe will especially benefit the U. S. given the preference of international customers for sourcing their supply here. On the domestic front, the North American Electrical Liability Corporation is predicting that peak demand for electricity in this country will grow by between 225 and 245 gigawatts by 2035, and obviously much of that astounding growth will be met by natural gas generation.

These two estimates just reinforce and strengthen what we believe is a bullish natural gas story. Now let me turn to our own story at Kinder Morgan. The third quarter was another good quarter force with results exceeding both the comparable period in 2025 and our budget for this year. Perhaps more importantly, we made substantial additions to our backlog of new projects.

Our additions constitute one of the largest increases in any one quarter in our corporate history and our backlog of U. S. natural gas projects now stands at an all-time record. And I would add that we expect these new projects to lead to even more expansion opportunities over the coming months and years. In a broader sense, I believe the existing new projects we announced demonstrate the strength that comes from a large, national, midstream footprint.

That footprint, which we are constantly expanding and extending, allows us to offer more diversified connectivity to our customers as they seek alternative and expanded sources of supply. To put the size and utilization of our natural gas network in perspective, I remind you that we deliver about 40% of all the natural gas in America, including approximately 40% of all LNP gas and over 50% of gas exports to Mexico.

Our network connects almost every producing basin with the great majority of demand locations throughout the country. I'm highly confident that our assets will allow us to continue to serve the multifaceted needs of our customers, and at the same time deliver real and sustainable value to our shareholders. As I've said before, but it certainly deserves repeating. Our strategy is not complicated.

We have assets that generate large amounts of recurring cash flow. We are in a business that is in need of substantial additional infrastructure because of the size and reach of our system. We're in a unique position to capture a substantial portion of that need by developing projects supported by long-term take-up pay agreements with credit worthy entities. And our strong cash flow allows us to build that infrastructure by using primarily our own cash without undue leverage. We are able to earn good returns from these investments, thus increasing our EBITDA and EPS in the years ahead.

For me, it's hard to think of a better strategy that combines consistent growth with minimal risk.

And now let me turn it over to Kim. Okay, thanks, Rick. This was another outstanding order for Kinder Morgan. Adjusted EPS increased by 21%. Adjusted EBITDA grew by 9%. And every one of our business segments contributed to that growth. Those results reflect both the strengths of our assets and the outstanding execution of our employees. For the full year, we expected just an EPS growth to exceed budget by more than 13%. And EBITDA to exceed budget by more than 6%. Our financial position continues to strengthen as well.

We ended the quarter at approximately 3.5 times debt to EBITDA, the low end of our targeted range. Roughly $3 billion of annual cash flow available to fund expansion CAPEX. We have significant flexibility to fund our organic growth while maintaining a strong JAP flexibility is important because our project cycle increased from 9.6 to $14 to $4 billion of order.

Added $5.4 billion in new projects and placed $700 million of projects into service. The backlog multiple remains very attractive at $5.7 ton. In the $5.4 billion of additions are two highly strategic joint venture projects. FNG Southeast Connector and NGPL's Permian Link. Together, Kinder Morgan share of these projects is approximately $4.7 billion. Those projects are supported by at least 20-year take or pay contracts with credit worthy shippers providing the type of long-term stable cash flow we seek to create.

Fortunately, Southeast Connector is contracted with strong investment grade utilities while Permian Link is contracted with an A-rated hyperscalar. These projects also highlight the quality of opportunities we see in front of us. Southeast Connector is a transformational project that connects diverse supply with one of the fastest-growing natural gas demand regions in the country. Large load interconnectional quests across the Southeast now exceed 200 gigawatts, which could represent roughly 8 PCF a day of natural gas demand if it all came to fruition and if it was all served by the gas fire generation.

Southeast Connector is designed to meet that need by delivering approximately 2.6 PCF a day of natural gas into the region. In addition, we expect this project, like many of our other large projects, to drive future expansion opportunities. Permian Link captures a similar compelling opportunity by moving abundant low-cost Permian natural gas north to meet growing power demands in the Texas Panhandle. Together, these projects demonstrate how our next work is uniquely positioned to connect growing supply basins with growing demand centers. More broadly, as Rich mentioned, the long-term outlook for natural gas remains exceptionally strong.

Would McKinsey Project North American natural gas demand to increase by approximately 46 PCF a day by 2035, driven primarily by LNG exports and power generation demand?

Projects of this size and quality do not happen by accident. The commercial creativity, customer relationships, project management, and legal expertise and the patience and perseverance required to bring these opportunities together are remarkable. And I cannot be more proud of what our team has accomplished.

These projects extend our visible growth runway. Before this quarter, most of our EBITDA from our backlogs was expected to be online by the end of 2029. With Permian Link and Southeast Connector entering service between 2030 and 2032, we have meaningfully extended the period of high quality cash flow reported by approved or paid contracts.

Simply put, we are delivering strong results today while continuing to build a longer runway for high quality future growth.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Dax to give you details on our business purposes. Thanks, Kim. Starting with the natural gas business unit, transport volumes were up 3% in the quarter versus the third quarter of 2025. The incremental demand was primarily result of increased LNG feed gas deliveries on Tennessee gas pipeline and incremental demand on our intra-state system.

Natural gas gathering volumes were up 14% in the quarter from the third quarter of 2025 with most all the increase coming from our Kinderhawk system in the Hanesville, which was up 40%. As we've continued to say, demand for gas on our pipes remained high and our system remains highly utilized. While we announced the sanctioning of two very important projects today, looking forward and consistent with Kim's comments, we continue to see significant incremental project opportunities across our natural gas pipeline network, driven primarily about power and LNGD, and we will continue to pursue them aggressively.

In our product pipeline segment, the fine product volumes were down 3% in the quarter compared to third quarter of 2025, including condensate volumes were down 11%. More than half of the decline in crude volumes is explained by the removal of double H from service for the NGL conversion early in the third quarter of 2025 with the remaining decrease resulting from fewer well-connected Highland crude.

As previously announced, we, along with our partners, were proud to reach a final investment decision on our Western Gateway project during the third quarter. The project, which will fundamentally change the way clean products are delivered to the desert Southwest and Southern California will ensure the availability of these products to consumers for decades to come. Kindermore is $300 million total cash investment, which includes our $250 million contribution to the JV and a $50 million investment in our non-contributed assets has been added to our project backlog and is expected to reach in service in 2029.

In our terminal business segment, our liquid lease capacity remains high at almost 93%. Market conditions continue to remain supportive of strong rates and the utilization of banks available for use is just under 96% at our key hubs on the Houston Ship Channel and in Carteret, New Jersey. While the temporary Jones Act waiver has added some market uncertainty, our tanker fleet remains exceptionally well contracted.

Assuming likely options are exercised, our fleet is 100% leads to the rest of this year, 97% leads to 2027 and 80% leads through 2028. We have opportunistically chartered a significant percentage of the fleet at higher market rates and have an average length of firm contract commitments of almost three years. The worldwide shortage in refined product supplies and the associated price dislocations have both been significant positive for our export terminals and the Houston Ship Channel hub. In Q3, we saw 427,000 barrels a day move across our 11 docks, which represented an increase of 39% over Q3 2025 and an all-time record.

The CO2 segments saw 8% higher net oil production volumes compared to Q3 2025, which was led by an 11% increase in production at SACROP. In GL volumes were 9% higher and CO2 volumes were 3% lower.

Finally, RNG volumes increased 18% as these significantly improved operations that are driving both greater uptime and hydrocarbon recovery at our facilities continued in the third quarter, and with that up and right over to David. Okay, thank you, Dax. We're declaring a quarterly dividend of 29.75 cents per share, which is $1.19 per share annualized, and an increase of 2% over 2025. We delivered a record setting once again with net income attributable to KMI and adjusted EBITDA reaching record levels for the third quarter.

A third quarter performance, I had an internal expectations with EPS 15% above budget and adjusted EBITDA 6% above our budget. And this follows a half of the year during which we achieved similar out-performally financial performance. We had another very strong quarter for the third quarter. We generated net income attributable to KMI of 764 million and EPS of 34 cents.

Those are 22 and 21% higher than the third quarter of 2025 respectively. Adjusted EPS was 35 cents, that's 21% up from last year. Adjusted EBITDA grew by 9% to $2.18 billion. So, importantly, as Kim mentioned, the strength was broad-based with all four business segments delivering higher-adjusted earnings year over year.

Natural GAS saw greater contributions from EPMG, Kinderhawk, TGP, and our Texas interest system. This performance was driven by greater volume and rates on capacity sales, park and loan contributions, expansion project contributions, and greater gathered volume.

Segment, benefitable commodity pricing, as well as greater butane blending volumes, partially offset by lower crude and refined product. Our terminals segment benefited from expansion projects placed into service, higher commodity prices, stronger coal and petroleum co-cantling activity with Jones Act tanker rates.

And our CO2 segment benefited from higher commodity prices, strong volume growth, particularly at SACROC, which was up 11% from last year.

Stepping back from the quarter, our year-to-date results have been exceptionally strong. Year-to-date versus 2025, EBITDA has grown 13%, and adjusted EPS is up 32%. As Kim mentioned, we now expect our full year adjusted EBITDA to be more than 6% above our budget and adjusted EPS to be more than 13% above our budget.

That represents well more than $515 million of additional EBITDA. Obviously noted, six, we've benefited from a handful of large items that may not be recurring. Winter storm fern and extended cold weather in the northeast, a terminals contract buyout, a favorable FERC rate true up, and unusually favorable Waja to Houston ship channels spread. Collectively, these items contribute approximately $225 million to our outperformants in 2026.

In addition, favorable commodity prices have contributed an additional $175 million versus our budget. If you recall, our budgeted WTI price was $60 per barrel.

Tightness continues across our U. S. infrastructure, and that provides opportunities for us to capture additional margin when disruptions occur. We expect those conditions will persist.

Balance sheet, our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio ended the quarter at 3.5 times, which is down from 3.8 times at the beginning of the year. Despite spending more this year due to our monument acquisition and greater than budgeted CAPX, we expect to end the year at 3.6 times leverage. And that's an improvement from the budget of 3.8 times driven by the EBITDA outperformant.

It puts us low below the midpoint of our leverage year-to-date net debt increased $513 million. And here's a reconciliation of that. We generated $4 billion of cash flow from operations. We've spent $1.98 billion in dividends. We've $3.07 billion in capital, and that's growth sustaining and our contributions to our JVs. And then the monument acquisition was approximately $500 million. And that gets you pretty close to the $513 million debt increase.

Now I'll turn it back to Kim for Q&A. Okay, Michelle, if you'll come on, we'll take questions.

Theresa, this is Stacel. How are you doing? Well, one, I'm going to break this question up in a few parts. So the open season that we had, the non-binding open season, in terms of interest, over to the UPCF of interest in that open season, where we are right now, we've been intimating to the market.

And you guys, there's a demand equation here, and ultimately we'll need to be solved with incremental molecule. We do feel 219 in some form is going to help contribute to that molecule shortfall.

When we think about what the project ultimately looks like, that's going to depend on who signs at the bottom line. One of the things that we're seeing right now is timing. There's some customers that are wrong than others. We're managing through that to try and see how we can stage these projects. It may be coming multiple forms.

If I had to kind of gauge where I see the CAPX landing there, roughly around a billion and a half dollars, depending on ultimate interest, we could adjust from there. So, strong interest. We do see the need. I think when you think about the downstream Southeast Connector, Tennessee is well-positioned to serve that. But not only that, it's also that middle system per corridor that we have that I talked about on the last call.

We see that corridor from Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, that's a growing demand center. And so, I think the opportunity is set there for incremental supply, so as well.

No, too early. We were in the midst of the open season, I will tell you. We had significant interest in the open season, and this was a binding open. We're still in the process of working through the press and agreements. The interest on the commercial side has very important credit, making sure we have the credit behind. So, we're working through those details. But needless to say, we can scale this.

Up to three and a half, 3.5 B. C. F. is bought. That's right. Enough signed commitment today to support going forward in that by being the project. And then there are other customers that are interested in working with on PAs, and they may come in later, and that will cause us to scale.

It ultimately depends on who saw this.

Southeast Connector, we've got that open season. Yeah, we'll close. We'll get some clarity around that as far as the middle system. There are several power projects that have been evaluating, particularly on our 219 FALC project. And so really the timing there is what we're talking about. There's some that are further along than others. What we're going to have to do is really, really the project to be able to accommodate the immediate demand.

And then the team is still creatively thinking on how we can accommodate the broader interest. That's going to take a few quarters to kind of button up some form or fashion. And then ultimately, as usual, we're going to have to, we'll function when we get customers that find the bottom line.

So, I mean, the shadow backlog, financial remaining shadow backlog, you know, as we talk to these big projects, we think, and, you know, we've talked about some of them on this call. But, you know, as a result of getting these signed up, create bottlenecks and other places that we will have to alleviate that will lead to more projects. And so, I think the industry fundamentals in natural gas, as we talked about, also in our opening comments remain very, very strong.

You know, we are confident that there will be meaningful additions, you know, converts, if you will, into the backlog.

Well, I think, yeah, you have to go for it. The bill that's in Congress? Indeed. You said yes. Okay. The bill that's in Congress obviously hasn't passed yet. Now, you know, the current permitting regime, I think we are very comfortable with, and, you know, had very good success working with the FARC to get M. F. the hex in South to North, which in a year, which is, you know, the fast and recent time on permits of the size.

And so, I think that the current permitting regime, we will be able to get this project done. No concerns there. I think the permit bill that is in Congress is a good one.

And I think, you know, it does some things that could help on working projects, not other problems. But for one, you know, it eliminates the state's ability to, to what I'll call, gain the 401 water permit.

It eliminates the nature as a remedy of the court, and it strengthens the nationwide as well. You know, I think it would be great if it got passed. We think it'd be very helpful and we are very supportive of it, but we are very comfortable completing these projects under the current permit in the current permitting environment.

Let me say it's hard to project exactly what this is going to be coming in, but I mean, people just talked about another billion and a half projects and, you know, we've talked about other projects that we think will come about as a result of Southeast connector. So, you know, I think the reason for the shadow backlog back in the beginning was, you know, was because people did not believe in the opportunity set that we were seeing on natural gas. And so we were providing this number to try to help you understand the opportunity set. I think, you know, at this point with a $14.4 billion backlog, you know, I hope we've established some credibility about being able to bring these to bring these things.

So, with respect to run rate, I think, you know, the, you know, it's probably going to be around $4 billion ish for the next few years in terms of the CAPEX that we would expect.

Yeah, we're going to avoid giving in previewing the 2027 for right now. But, but yeah, I think it's important to note that some of those, some of those items that we experienced this year. You know, it's unlikely that we're going to see those again next year, you know, winter weather is always hard to predict, but we're not experienced. We're not going to go for a budget of colder or more severe winter weather than we normally do. And then the commodity price uplift piece that just depends on you guys all have your own commodity act.

So you can you can put that in there. We'll give you the sensitivities. Let me just address, you know, you know, 20 data level in the middle of our budget problem.

You know, it'll bring in quite a bit of cash through that, you know, because those projects aren't evenly over all the years, the growth is not going to be even every single year. You know, example of that is, you know, try to contract to be the dot comes off.

You know, 26, because of these items is going to be a difficult year to replicate, but the underlying. So let's hear all remains.

It depends on the the shipper receipt deliveries, right? I mean, I can tell you, you know, if we scale to a 2 to 3 BCF number would be higher than the 1.5 billion. We're really focused on at this point, just the brownfield component. And then ultimately we'll adjust accordingly with incremental value, Matt. And that's the way I would think about that.

Here's what I think of both those pipes. We're, you know, our interest state system. You know, I talked about this on the last call, our Permian highway and DCX. They're in the heart of the demand centers that are coming in and further developing. Our focus has shifted from, you know, to really focus on these demand poles. What we see there, especially across our PHP pipeline system, is we see a, you know, power demand center for the local warming. And so to the extent that there's any push pullback by any of the producers that are on the pinning the project, we see demand pole. The same thing is out there in our Gulf Coast systems. You know, they were both of these pipes.

Some of the first pipes spoke, so perspective, relatively low on the cost spectrum. And so what we see there is GCX. There's so much incremental LNG demand that you have to count. And so I think we feel pretty good about that. And then overall, this has been on market pull. So we see those under pin by long term contracts or portfolio perspective. We feel pretty good. I mean, it's a point we've got like 6,000 miles of interest a pipe and 145 PCF of storage and, you know, those pipes tie into that, you know, are part of that system and tie into a lot of demand. And so we feel good from a demand pole standpoint that we can continue those pipes will continue that opportunities.

Okay. Let me talk. And we see significant demand developing there as well. So, you know, as Rich alluded to earlier, you get these stems inside and you get ancillary secondary and tertiary expansions off of the stem. So we feel pretty good about that. And we think we can help on the demand side as the demand develops.

Okay. Well, I will talk broadly. You know, as you know, we're not the operator FGT. We'll let energy transfer talk about the details, but I will tell you this. You know, we've been talking about systematically in the Southeast. You know, we see we see strong demand in Florida. We do.

The FGT sanction is new projects already, obviously in discussions with other customers on future potential expansions. We see the demand profile of being strong. And so I'll just leave it at that. And, you know, we're not the operator there. We work with the operator, but we feel pretty about that as well. And it's not just FGT. We also can help them in that growing market.

So without getting into the customer details, I'll tell you, we are trying to accommodate multiple customers on this project. I mean, we've got an anchor hyperscaler, but we had significant interest. We're also talking to those other customers. I think the anchor, the anchor tenant obviously is driving the need for speed. And I think one of the benefits that Permian link brings to the power market, as we've talked about before, is the link to storage and the flexibility and reliability that helps these hyperscalers achieve their seven nines of reliability.

I think that's a real differentiator here, you know, the next phase. You know, we look at all of our storage facilities to see where we can kind of enhance service and flexibility, and that's what I think differentiates this.

One of the beauties of kind of a location we've picked is we've got access to multiple pipeline corridors, right? We've got interconnects to Tennessee. Selfishly, we want to grow Tennessee, but we have interconnects to Columbia gas.

We've got interconnect with TECCO. We've got interconnects planned with several other major interstates there. And ultimately, those pipes also have forward haul, back haul capabilities. And so when you think about where the supply could come from, all we said, we need incremental molecules to move not shift gas on gas competition until you basically could get a molecule from the Gulf Coast. To that point, we have all of these major from including Tennessee, and then also from the Appalachia, Marshall of Southwest, Utica, down to that point. And so it's multiple basins that can kind of serve that take off point. That's the beauty of it.

We said all along that we believe it's going to be all of the above. You're going to need, we see the demand profile that we started off with.

It's significant. That's significant growth. And it's going to take more than those basins to satisfy that growth. So we think there's plenty of the key is going to be building that infrastructure in the middle, which we're really focused on. And then ultimately, this will take care of itself. And I mean, if you look at Woodmack numbers, and I think pretty similar to our internal numbers, you know, they've got Haynesville growing by 13 B. C. F. You know, Permian growing by a little over 10 and Marcel is growing.

So those are the three big producing basins that are helping to get that B. C. F. of growing now and 20.

We need them all.

I mean, there's there's no science behind this other than we move about 40% of the gas in the U. S. market. And so we move about 50% of the gas to Mexico 40% going to LNG and 45% of the power demand across the south. So, I mean, if you want, I mean, I think that's good numbers and.

Yes, it does include SEC does include the Greenfield line. I mean, link it comes online in 2030. And then on SEC, it comes on 2030, 2031 and 2032.

Let me say a couple of things. One is, I think we're being very prudent in approaching this project in terms of spending capital until we get more comfort and make sure we're we can get built. And then secondly, what I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about it, but that we do have certain cost protections, you know, against costs.

No, I mean, we haven't seen, I think, you know, our customers continue to gauge and we continue to look for our opportunities. I think they see this, you know, as we become an increasingly globally connected market, you know, I think I think there's been more focus on how to handle some of the volatility through our storage assets. And so we've just seen the dialogue continue. It's been good.

A couple of things. One thing is, you know, one mile or not, you know, that's largely a function of a couple of things. One steel product, we have not, we didn't change our returns or decrease those. And again, they also the increase in the materials cost.

All of a sanctioning today are demand pool. And that is our problem when we do these projects, because I think that demand can be based on the coming goes. Some of them have been there for long. The demand pool, you know, it is there for decades, the customers on these projects.

Well, 29 and 2030 is, you know, we're getting SMG South system for is coming online. Q for 28 and Q for 2029. So that'll drive growth in 29 and 2030. And then I think in my mid year, 2029 and then these projects, you know, you'll get fourth quarter probably roughly you'll get.

Is that said, every, it's not going to be exactly the growth rate every year. It'll vary year in and year out, but seven times multiple as we get these things. These are again, backside to pay contracts with either credit worthy entities or that have significant collateral posted.

Look, I mean, we do see opportunities, you know, both, you know, we have both of our legs pipeline, go to the air zone in Mexico. And I would have the eye on the chair. We see significant, we do see significant power demand there. We also see traditional conversion, you know, clamp conversions as opportunities on the Western side really to comment on kind of where and how those get to prevent. We do have discussions on going back as well. I'll leave it there.

Okay, thank you, Kim. One, I was going to ask just with the four curve on crude oil have moved up nicely here in 27 and beyond whether that puts some co two expansions. Back into play, potentially, and then also, I think there may be some inorganic opportunities out there on R and G. I'm just curious your thoughts on potentially expanding that business as well.

Yeah, no, as you know, a part and the four curve has come up, but it's still we can do and the ability, but it's really no different in terms of her looking at her and will be.

Tising that curve was just called risk associated with that. And so there was some concerns then we do on businesses.

And then on R and G, I don't think we can really kind of talk about, you know, ongoing processes where I need to kind of look.

R and G business. I mean, we did have to struggle, but we do have a team that has learned and who knows how to operate these at this point. And so I think we've developed some expertise there. But, you know, we also have lessons learned that we would take into account if it's anything we look at. And then, I mean, to Anthony's point on the CO2 stuff, I mean, you know, when we look at those, you know, those are long-term projects, and so we've had $85.

Look, we've invested significant capital up there. We've got, I think we're pretty well positioned for what we see coming. And we can always adjust if we see the macro environment change a little bit. I think where I would take it is. We're sitting in a good spot. We've got the infrastructure we need to accommodate and growth, then, Mike.

The answer is your latter questions. No, we don't do anything contingent, but I mean, I look, we explain the macro environment. They have to make their own judgments on this. I think there's plenty of resource. It's a price function. There's a there's a dry gas window. There's a associated gas window. And then there's other basins in and around that can help meet the demand. If it's, you know, once again, it's a function of supply and demand. And there's other basins that can feed to our networks and ultimately get into to serve the pipelines that we have from different areas, for example, the evil first and go the other direction as well.

So I would leave it, I think it's broad enough to understand that there's going, you know, they need to secure a molecule. I think we make sure to end the rest.

I mean, I just to keep my mind. It's an efficient plan. An efficient plan. And look, that was likely all the connection requests, assuming they all go and that's all natural gas. And so, you know, it'll be in combination.

The point is there is huge amount of demand growth in the southeast. And, you know, that's part of what southeast connector is across.

Look, we approach this project the same way we approach all of our other projects, which is popping down on the risk return threshold, meaning that if a customer is willing to share in some of the costs. Then we can move down the return threshold a little bit. If the customer is not willing to share and cost over runs, then we need a higher return.

And so, you know, we have some flexibility in how we approach that. And then as we negotiate, you know, our customers at times have a preference between, you know, hey, I don't want to cost share. I want you to take the cost for us. And that's one rate and we put them one rate. And then if they're willing to share in the cost for us, there's another rate. The other thing I'd say is, you know, it has the ability we can add much to this lead to even.

It's important, you know, when we talk about the scale of this product, I mean, the scope of this project, we have capabilities to serve incremental. And we're talking to the incremental customers to basically fulfill the back.

Not really at this point. I mean, look, we have some pretty good customers over our own that are very sophisticated in doing that. And, you know, I think we stick to what we do best, which is build large scale infrastructure very similar to the power. So we're not focused on power. Focus on building pipeline infrastructure. And so I think we would, we would collaborate with us to do that. And I think that's probably the best.

Yeah. And I think there's a very established in that. And so, you know, typically they're going to have an income.

I think, you know, it's going to be, it's going to be a combination of, you know, the JV funding a portion of it and contributing in capital. So I think, you know, those JVs have nice, they can go to the capex.

We can, we can take on incremental debt at those JVs. If we do that, though, and as to do it in such a, well, we will do that, but our plan is to do it in such a way to maintain the existing ratings at those JV pipes. We'll be some capital in which case we will make equity contributions.

And so now, you know, we also have flexibility given, you know, on sheet is in our cash flow. We can fund that 100%. We could fund that capex 100%.

Okay. Well, let me just conclude with two remarks. Again, I want to say, and Kim mentioned this number, that if you look at the returns expected on this $14.4 billion of backlog, that's $2.5 billion of additional EBA DOT. And if you look at that in terms of where we are presently, that pushes us between $11.5 billion of EBA DOT. The other thing I would mention is last call, there was some, let me call it, skepticism about whether we could really bring these projects along.

And I think I made the remark, well, we have to get the horses in the corral. I just want to say, we've got a hell of a lot of those horses in the corral now with the saddles on, but we've got more horses just outside the corral. And I think you're going to see them, and they want to come in.

That would be the message for the future, but thank you all for your good questions. We appreciate it's been a great quarter, and we hope to bring you more good news in the future.