Good afternoon and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the third quarter 2025 earnings results conference call. Your lines are in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session of today's conference. At that time, you may press star followed by the number one to ask a question. Please unmute your phone and state your first and last name when prompted. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman of Kinder Morgan.

Thank you, Michelle. As usual, before we begin, I'd like to remind you that KMI's earnings released today, and 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-GAAP financial measures. Before making any investment decision, we strongly encourage you to read our full disclosure on forward-looking statements and use of non-GAAP financial measures set forth at the end of our earnings release, as well as review our latest filings with the SEC for important material assumptions, expectations, and risk factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated and described in such forward-looking statements. I think we all recognize the positives and negatives of publicly traded companies. One of the biggest pitfalls is the undue concentration on quarter-to-quarter or even day-to-day issues, many of which are relatively inconsequential in terms of the long-term success of the enterprise. With that in mind, I thought I'd take this opportunity to stress two important substantive factors that will impact the future of Kendra Morgan, the natural gas story, and the long-term strategy of our company. Obviously, the two are intimately related. On the natural gas demand front, there are two huge strivers. The first is the continued rapid growth in LNG feed gas demand, driven by the enormous expansion of export facilities primarily along the Gulf Coast. While industry experts differ somewhat, there's a pretty broad consensus that demand will at least double between 2024 and 2030. In fact, S&P's Commodity Insights recently estimated that increase at 130%, which implies a demand of 31 to 32 BCF a day in 2030. As an example of this growing demand, six LNG projects have reached FID so far in 2025. Feed gas demand for those facilities alone when completed will be nine BCF a day. Now, there's more variance in assessing the impact of the second driver, which is the increasing demand for electricity, primarily to serve AI data centers. There will clearly be huge additional demand for electricity, but how much of that will be captured by natural gas? Let's look at the alternatives. Certainly renewables will play a major role, but can't handle the entire load, given AI needs for uninterrupted power 24-7, not just when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. But can't this be fixed by pairing wind or solar farms with massive batteries that store power and release it in a steady stream when needed? Well, that sounds intriguing, but there are serious drawbacks to this option because batteries are expensive and limited in the time they can cover. And renewables of the size to serve AI centers require enormous space. A recent article in the New York Times, of all places, estimated that to continuously produce just one gigawatt, a solar farm would need 12.5 million solar panels, enough to cover 5,000 football fields, and wind turbines would require even more space. Another source of power is nuclear, which generates steady power from a relatively small footprint. But this is an industry that unfortunately has been basically dormant for over 40 years, and new nuclear facilities are very expensive and would likely take 7 to 10 years to come online. This means that AI sponsor would not have the facilities when needed and would be gambling billions of dollars that demand will still be there a decade or so from now. That leaves natural gas, which is abundant and reasonably priced, and the infrastructure to produce power from natural gas is relatively quick to build. Reasonably, like I just outlined, is why we believe that AI data center needs will supplement in a very meaningful way the tremendous increases in LNG feed gas demand, And in combination, the two drivers will ensure a huge and growing market for natural gas in the years and decades to come. Now, let me conclude by again emphasizing the long-term strategy at Kinder Morgan. We are a prolific generation to have the majority of our assets employed in a true growth segment of the energy business, namely the transportation of natural gas. These two characteristics dovetail nicely. The tremendous growth in natural gas demand drives the opportunity for expanding and extending our pipeline and terminal networks and adding new facilities, as evidenced by the $9 billion-plus of projects already approved by our board, and we generate the cash internally to fund those projects while maintaining a healthy and modestly growing dividend. Now, to be clear, we have to complete these projects on time and on budget, but our track record in that regard is good, and we're benefiting from a federal regulatory process that is more supportive of projects like ours. While our base business is relatively flat, these capital projects will drive substantial growth in EBITDA and EPS for years to come. This is a simple, but in my mind, very compelling strategy. And with that, I'll turn it over to Kim.

We're pleased to report another strong quarter with EBITDA 6% and adjusted EPS growing 16% year-on-year. These results reflect the strength of our underlying business and the continued execution on our growth projects. We currently expect to exceed our full-year budget due to the contributions from the outrigger acquisition. This outperformance would be greater if not for lower-than-budgeted D3 REN prices and RNG volumes. Currently, the RNG volumes are much closer to budget, but REN's prices remain weak. The natural gas segment, which accounts for two-thirds of our business, is outperforming its budget, even excluding outriggers. Our expansion backlog remains flat at $9.3 billion, with the approximately $500 million of new projects offset by projects placed in service. The backlog multiple continues to be below six times, consistent with our disciplined approach to capital deployment. The mix of new projects added to the backlog this quarter is split roughly 50% natural gas, primarily supporting power generation, and 50% the refined product tankage. Looking ahead, our opportunity set remains exceptionally compelling. We're actively pursuing over $10 billion in potential projects in natural gas, underscoring the continued demand for our services and the strength of our platform. As I mentioned last quarter, the scale of opportunities we're evaluating today is comparable to when our backlog stood at just $3 billion, highlighting the consistency and the resiliency of our growth pipeline. Our gas infrastructure, more than 66,000 miles of pipeline connecting all major basins and demand centers, positions us as a critical player in energy infrastructure. Today, we transport over 40% of the natural gas in the United States, including more than 40% of the volume headed to LNG export facilities, 25% of the gas fueling U.S. natural gas power plant, and 50% of the gas exported to Mexico. Looking forward, our internal projections estimate 28 BCF a day increase in natural gas demand by 2030, driven primarily by growth in LNG exports as well as power and exports to Mexico. Wood Mackenzie forecast a similar trend, projecting 22 btf a day of growth in overall natural gas demand with our strategically located assets we are well positioned to capture a meaningful share of this expansion our current 9.3 billion dollar backlog is a strong foundation for long-term high quality growth a very significant portion of this backlog is supported by take or pay contracts providing both stability and visibility into future cash flows and as we continue to advance our development pipeline we expect to convert a portion of the 10 billion dollar opportunity set into additional

backlogs further reinforcing our growth trajectory we remain confident in our strategy our execution and our ability to deliver long-term value for our share i'll turn it over to tom martin to walk through the business performance in more detail thanks kim starting with the natural gas business unit transport volumes were up six percent in the quarter 2024 primarily due to lng deliveries on tennessee gas pipeline new contracts from expansion projects placed into service and increased permeate 2024 lng demand the gathering volume growth trend continues in the Ur-Hainesville system as it is approaching new daily volume we continue to see significant incremental project natural gas pipeline network to expand our transportation within 10 bcf a day of natural gas operates were down one percent 2024 for the full year 2025 refined products volumes are forecasted to be about about one percent higher than 2024 and in line with our budget crude and condensate volumes are down three percent in the core more than all of that decline is driven by taking double H out of service on Monday on the Western Gateway Pipeline to key downstream markets in Arizona and California with connectivity to Las Vegas. The season is scheduled to run through December 19th. Following the successful open season, the Western Gateway Pipeline PP Eastline will be jointly owned by KMI and Philips to refine products alternative for markets in arizona and california giving the decline in california reno's business segment remains high at 95 percent market conditions continue to remain supportive at our key hubs at the houston ship channel in new york harbor our jones act tanker fleet is fully leased today through the remainder of 2025. assuming likely options are exercised the fleet is 100 percent leads to 2027 extended the average lane 2024 or percent below 2024 and one percent below our

declaring a quarterly dividend of 29.25 cents per share or a dollar 17 per share annualized which represents a two percent increase over our 2024 dividend for the third quarter we generated net income attributable to kmi of 628 million dollars and eps of 28 cents both in line with the third quarter of 2024 last year's results included favorable mark to market impacts on hedges and a one-time non-cash tax benefit both of which we treated certain items excluding those items adjusted net income and adjusted eps grew 16 year over year delivering strong double-digit growth this growth was driven by greater contributions from our natural gas expansion projects placed in service, the outrigger acquisition, and strong demand across our natural gas footprint for natural gas capacity and related service. Through capital allocation, our balance sheet is strengthened. Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio has improved to 3.9 times at the end of the third quarter, down from 4.1 times at the end of the first quarter, which was immediately following the outrigger acquisition. Year-to-date, our net debt has increased by 544 million dollars and here's a high-level reconciliation we've generated cash flow from operations of 4.225 billion dollars we've paid out dividends of 1.95 billion dollars we paid or spent 2.245 billion dollars in total the outrigger acquisition was 650 million dollars and all other items were a source of cash of approximately 75 million dollars which gets you close to that 544 million dollar increase for the year the rating agencies have recognized our strength in financial profile and in august fitch upgraded our senior unsecured rating to triple b plus we were already on positive outlook by both s p and moody's and we look for a favorable resolution of those in the near term as kim mentioned we expect to exceed our 2025 budget As a reminder, we budgeted to grow adjusted EBITDA at 4% and adjusted to be expected to deliver even larger year-over-year growth. We mentioned last quarter the budget reconciliation bill delivers meaningful tax benefits. In addition, recent adjustments to the corporate alternative minimum tax are expected to provide at 2025. We're on track to beat our budgeted. We've sanctioned additional high-return projects that will support future growth. We've improved our balance sheet, resulting in enhanced credit ratings, and we expect meaningful cash flow benefits from tax reform, which will generate additional investment capacity. And with that, turn it back.

Thank you. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, you may press star, followed by the number one. And to withdraw your question, you may press star, too. Please unmute your phones and state your name when prompted. Our first caller is Teresa Chen with Barclays. You may go ahead.

Good afternoon. I wanted to go back to your growth outlook and specifically the over $10 billion opportunity set in unsanctioned projects under development, up, I think, from the previous $7 to $11 billion range. What has driven the seemingly improved outlook over the past few months? How quickly do you think you can commercialize these growth opportunities, and where are you seeing the most interest for expansion projects amongst your customers?

So on the $10 billion, that's all the opportunities that we're pursuing right now. It's mostly natural gas. You know, it supports the themes that we've mentioned here today. So export LNG checks that, you know, as I said, the opportunity set is very similar to when our backlog was at $3 billion. So we haven't seen any diminishment in the projects that we're looking at. These projects are mostly across the southern U.S., so they go all the way from Arizona to potentially Florida, $50 million. But there are a few that are egress from reducing basins. We need more gas moving to LNG. As Rich said, we've 9 BCF gas demand FID recently. So, I mean, it's across the board, and then today, you know, we have potential projects we're working on with respect to Western Gateway. So there's a lot of different opportunities out there.

Thank you. And on that last point, Kim, following this week's announcement of your open season for Western Gateway, can you talk about your project positioning relative to One Oak's competing sunbelt project. And assuming that Western Gateway solicits sufficient commercial interest during the open season, can you talk about potential gating factors, regulatory or otherwise that Kinder and Phillips may need to address before the project can be sanctioned?

Sure. So, you know, relative to the competition, I think their pipeline just goes into the Phoenix market. Currently the Phoenix market is by us from the west as well as from the east. The project, the P66 and us, would reverse to Phoenix and so we would be sending barrels from the east into the Phoenix market and reverse our west line so that you could potentially, barrels could move on into the California market and potentially into the Las Vegas market so you know I think it's from our perspective it's it's a very good project gives additional capacity market gets potentially additional barrels coming to the California market to the extent there are additional closures and if you're not just going to one market so you know in terms of the open season ends on on December 19th, 2029 in service.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next caller is Jeremy Tomet with JPMorgan.

Hi, good afternoon. Just wanted to follow up on some of the comments you had said there with KMI seeing an opportunity to step more robust at any time in the company's future. And just wanted to, I guess, see if we could expand upon that in any way. And just wondering how you think about, you know, the landscape given, you know, Kinder's competitive positioning, it seems like it's a competitive market out there. Any thoughts that you could provide around that? And I guess what could be the cadence of how this capital could fall into plan at a high level over time?

Yeah, so a couple of things. I think I walked through some of the background on the $10 billion in opportunities. But with respect to on competition, look, we're not going to win all these projects, but we're going to get our fair share. And, you know, what makes us very competitive is our existing footprint, which, you know, provides us with opportunities to build off of that footprint, and we can provide our – and so, you know, that's really at the end of the day what differentiates us from our peers. We also have a good track record on budget, which I think is helpful when time is important to our customers, and that's especially true, I think, for some of the data center and power customers. So, I think in terms of, you know, how this comes, you know, how this FID, you know, that is a project, and so I can't tell you exactly what that's going to look like, but I think we'll bring significant projects to FID in 2026 based on that $10 billion backlog.

Got it. That's very helpful. Thank you. And then just a smaller question for me as it relates to the guide. It just seems like the language changed a little bit with how much you're going to exceed the guidance by outrigger in the 2Q versus 3Q, and it seems like it's a little bit less at this point. Just wondering what other, I guess, changes in the backdrop you see versus the 2Q.

Yeah. I mean, there was a slight change on that, and it's really, you know, related to the R&G volumes and the Renz price.

I'll leave it there.

Thank you. Our next caller is Julianne DeMuwen-Smith with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon, team. Thank you guys very much for the time. I appreciate the opportunity. Maybe just picking up where the other guys just left off here. Can you elaborate a little bit on how you're seeing the opportunities emerge as it pertains to the shadow backlog? I know you gave some of these examples, smaller and larger, but maybe regionally and how they pertain. I mean, obviously, we've seen examples recently in the last week here with a private-backed pipeline, FID, in the Gulf Coast. Could you elaborate a little bit on the power opportunities, both as it pertains to Texas and also maybe as it pertains to the backlog opportunity in the Southwest? I mean, obviously, we saw what your peer announced in the last few months, but how do you think about the future on the gas side in the El Paso system?

I mean, I think there's continued power development. A lot of it is for data centers, but there's, you know, other things, but some of them are still. And so, you know, what we see is peakers to back up renewables, which is what we're seeing in Texas. And so, you know, on the data centers and the power conversions, I mean, we're seeing that potentially in Arizona, some places where, you know, maybe the pipeline that got announced recently doesn't go, wouldn't serve, Arkansas, and, again, I'll just repeat some of these, and then seed will come in. We're seeing, you know, opportunities to build out of the Haynesville to get gas further to the market, get more volume, you know, potentially coming out of the Marcellus-Jutica. So there's a lot of different opportunities. Storage is a huge factor right now. People need a lot of storage, and so we're looking at some opportunities to expand our storage and some new greenfield opportunities.

So one thing I'll add, especially out west, is we have strong connectivity to Mexico. So when you think about the power demands there, those are also rising, and not only from the base organic power, but Mexico also is evaluating their own data centers. And so our footprint, especially out west, is very well connected along those lines. And then when you look out in the southeast, you've seen the IRPs that have been put out by all the various states. You know, clearly there's demand that's coming. And as you all know, we're well positioned in that market to try and capture some of that growth. When I go to the Gulf Coast, we continue to de-bottleneck and the plumbing to be able to get the molecules from the supply zone to the consuming markets. I think that's something you can kind of take away on things that we're working on. And then all of this gets put together with our, you know, when we evaluate storage and how to integrate storage and then supply access to these consuming markets. Those are kind of the big themes that we're seeing on the horizon.

Got it. And if I can nitpick a little bit, I know you just alluded to the Southeast opportunities on SMG. Does that line up with what we're seeing right now in the generation resource planning? I mean, obviously, they've upticked it pretty meaningfully here of late. Is that presently reflected or is there a little bit of a marked market to happen on your side? And then also on the Western Gateway, if you could just clarify what the ultimate economics are on your side, or at least the total dollars are.

So, I'll take the first question, and I'll turn it over to Kim and Mike on the second one. So, Southeast, look, in terms of what we're in that $10 billion that Kim is referring to, you know, that is about, you know, taking into account some of the IRPs that are out there, especially in the Southeast. I mean, that's what we see, you know, as infrastructure that's needed. And so I think to answer the first question, that is a subset of that $10 billion. And then I'll turn it over to Ken and Mike for the second piece.

I mean, in terms of, you know, the cost to build that pipeline, we're not going to get into that because, as you know, there's a competitive project out there. We don't want to compromise that position.

Completely understood. Thank you guys very much. Look forward to working with you guys.

Thank you. Our next caller is Michael Blum with Wells Fargo. Your line is open, sir.

Thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. I wanted to ask about Highland Express, the NGL Conversion Project, just in terms of where do you stand on committed initial volumes and where do you think that can go?

And then I noticed in the press release you talked about potentially some takeaway out of the Powder River as well, so I wonder if you can expand on that. yeah so uh sticking to our uh previous discussions you know it's on track you know we're on track to be ready first quarter next year for our initial commitment uh obviously you all know we're also at a very uh aggressive competition with uh the incumbent there so i won't get too much into the details on what's next that being said you know we have some assets that we're we're you know effectively repurposing to be able to position ourselves to draw incremental barrels to the pipeline. And I will leave it at that until we actually have the next set of announcements to make, hopefully very soon.

Okay, fair enough. And then I wanted to ask you about the behind-the-meter opportunities. I know in the past you've talked about maybe coming up with a solution with partners. So just want to see where that stands and if that can be a meaningful driver and if that's part of that 10.

If you're talking about investing in power, I think the answer is still that's not something that we're interested in doing. I think we've got plenty of opportunity, plenty to say grace over in our existing infrastructure business. You know, that is is what we are good at, that's what we know how to do, and therefore the growth that we're projecting is very high-quality growth, as I said, you know, largely backed by take-or-pay contracts. I think maybe where we're a little bit is, I think in the past what we said is, you know, if there was a data center or something that for some reason maybe, you know, we might make a very small investment there but you know that was just getting done that is not where it is unlikely that we invest behind the meter but but what i but to add on to what kim just said you know we are looking at working with our partners to supply gas in certain instances

to be able to support uh you know a consortium of folks to be able to provide uh reliable power i mean i think that's the way you would look at our participation in the opportunity we would be looking to build the infrastructure to be able to support that.

Our next caller is John McKay with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open, sir.

Thanks for the time. I'm going to go to the shadow backlog, too, I guess, not to keep running through the same thing. But I guess I just want to ask one more way. When you're looking at this $10 billion, how much of this is, look, it's a competitive environment. We'll see what we win. We have a lot to bring to the table versus, you know, really waiting for actually that demand to materialize, you know, the next LNG FID, some larger power built out across the southeast, et cetera. Maybe just what are the kind of buckets between the two in terms of what you see in front of you?

I mean, these are projects where we are actively talking to customers. We are putting together estimates on what things would cost. We're looking at returns. These are all things that are active.

Maybe just follow up second question. Appreciate the comments on the guide around the RNG side being softer. Can you talk about the rest of the business? I mean, gas was relatively strong. Any more kind of one-offs in there, or is this a kind of healthier run rate?

I think gas is very strong. We didn't have much of a winter or much of a summer. and you know they're still even if you take out the outrigger acquisition they're still going to nicely beat their budget terminal is also doing very well this year and should exceed its budget and then where the weakness is is really on co2 all right that's clear thank you thank you our next caller is spiro dunas the city in the line is open sir thanks operator good afternoon team

I wanted to start with the 2026 outlook. I know we're going to be getting a formal update from you guys in a few weeks, but maybe just at a high level, if you just talk about some of the variables you could see impacting the various segments, and maybe any reason 2026 growth wouldn't at least sort of match up to the 2025 growth rate?

Well, I think, you know, we're going through a process, you know, right now, and so I think it's too early to talk about what the growth rates might be. But, you know, in terms of, you know, if you want to go tailwinds, headwinds, you know, something like that, you know, we've got expansion projects. You've got a full year of the 25 that, you know, we'll get in 26. And then you've got partial year 26 growth projects. We've got contract escalators in our terminals business and our product business. You know, interest rates are coming down. So that should be a tailwind for a significant increase in taxes, given, you know, what we've seen on the big, beautiful bill and the bonus depreciation, you know, as we see a little bit of decline potentially in CO2 and oil. And then, you know, what's on that point in time? We'll just have to see, you know, where those come out.

Fair enough. Thanks for that, Kim. Second one, if you can believe it, I do have another follow-up on the opportunity set. And so just curious, how we should think about the time frame that either the $10 billion or the $10 BCF a day captures? And I'm asking from two different perspectives. To the extent these are all opportunities you're sort of chasing within the decade, is there an opportunity here to see investment per year, CapEx, go up above $3 billion? And then conversely, how should we think about your ability to maybe deliver more short-cycle cash flows? A lot of these projects sound later dated, create projects. But just curious if you could sort of fill the front end up more, too.

Yeah. So, I think, you know, if you think about these are going to be both unregulated projects and regulated projects. And so, you know, the regulated projects now have a shorter time cycle than they have in the past. And so, that's, you know, that's very good. I think, you know, the five-month waiting period is gone. And I think they're working really hard to get permits delivered more quickly. So, that's going to shorten, that should shorten up your capital cycle some. I think the gating item's probably going to be compression. That's going to, that will limit how much you can probably shorten it up. But I think in general, you know, the FERC projects are going to be three, a little over three years probably from the time you say, you know, shorter capital will be on the gathering side and then on all the Texas intrastate projects, all the, and then potentially other out years have some near-term capital, which increases, you know, 20. But, you know, I think we have plenty of free cash flow and balance sheet capacity to be able to handle any increases that we see above two and a half or, you know, $3 billion. If you think about it, I'm not giving any guidance here. I'm just throwing out a rough number. If we have five and a half, you know, billion of DCF and you've got, you know, 2.6.9 times as $800 million. You know, I don't, but, you know, you've got $3 billion-ish. And then over time, you know, that debt to EBITDA is going to come down more as we bring these projects. And then, you know, I think there is also very attractive third-party capital out there if we wanted to access it. So I think, you know, we've got, I'm not worried about capacity to to finance these uh these expansions um i think they are good return projects and we will you know we will find ways to do them without compromising our balance sheet that's double ken i'll leave you there thank you thank you our next caller is keith stanley with wolf research your line is open hi uh good afternoon just wanted to follow up on western gateway and and no you don't want to say a total capital cost but my questions are more on the structure so if phillips is building the new pipe and i think your capital investment is just a line

reversal and maybe some tankage is it fair to think your cat your portion of the capex is a lot smaller in this project and then the second question is the structure of the jv so you're contributing sfpp they build western gateway and then is it roughly like a 50 50 jv from there Yeah, I think it's going to be around a 50-50 JV.

And so, yeah, because we're contributing assets, you know, our capital expenditure for the new assets would be a little bit less to them what P66.

Great. And then second question, I think, Kim, you referred to potential TGP projects that would add egress out of the Appalachia region. I think there's been a a few capacity reservations for projects. Can you just talk about what you think is possible or doable to increase capacity out of Appalachia on TGP?

This is Seifel Keith. Yes, we've been working diligently on trying to find ways to get incremental egress out of the basin. As these consuming markets develop, with the demand that Rich Kim talked about earlier, it's incumbent on us to get incremental gas out of the basin. In terms of what that capacity amount is, still being worked on, but needless to say, I would say just rough numbers north of half of BCF is what we're trying to get, but still early, and I take that with a grain of salt until we're done with all the diligence.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next caller is Zach Van Evern with TPH.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. Maybe going over to the Haynesville, it sounds like volumes continue to grow there. I think on the last few calls you guys had mentioned, you're getting close to capacity. Maybe an update there, and then is this from your largest customer on that system, or are you seeing private start to flow volumes as well?

One, we are, as Tom mentioned earlier, we are pretty much at capacity. You know, we're just waiting for when we cross the record, hopefully any day now. But I think it's, you know, not only our largest customer, but there are a few of the other privates that are also looking to increase their drilling in response to the demand that's coming our way. And so we do see meaningful ramp-up next year in the Hainesville.

Yeah, and I think, you know, Porter over Porter and the Hainesville volumes are up. $500 million investment in the Hainesville, which is, you know, it's a lot of treating capacity but also to be able to accommodate our customers got it that makes sense and then maybe moving over the other thing i'd say on the haynesville is you know it is we expected you know the strongest probably the fastest growing basin um you know our internal projections 11 bcf a day um between 2024 and 2030 so it's going to go you know for up to probably like 23 BCF a day in terms of production. So I think, you know, we're seeing opportunities today, but I expect we'll continue to see opportunities over time both to invest in the Hainesville and to take molecules away from the Hainesville.

Gotcha. No, that all makes sense. Appreciate the color. And then maybe one on the Permian West expansion open season. You know, it looks like that gas is, you know, heading westbound. I'm just curious if that could be upsized if the demand is there, and then maybe some color on the customer mix. You know, there's obviously some data centers where that expansion is heading. Is there demand also beyond Texas as well?

Yeah, look, I mean, I think I believe you're referring to the smaller open season that we've got out there going west. That is, you know, that is to serve power. And, you know, obviously, as the open season closes, we'll evaluate the bids and look at what we can do to accommodate the capacity. Clearly, in and around that area, and then if you kind of flip over, you know, one state over into New Mexico, there's a lot of activity on the power side, and so we're just going to have to evaluate how the bids come across.

That's it. Makes sense. Thanks for all the answers.

Thank you. Our next caller is Brandon Bigham with Scotiabank. your line is open, sir.

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Just one quick one here for me. We'd just be curious as to what you guys think the longer-term market dynamics are in California for the referring products market and whether or not there's upsized potential for Western Gateway or any other future growth into that market. Just any high-level thoughts you have.

Yeah, I'd say we wouldn't want to speculate on the California markets and what's happening there but if you think about our reversal of the west line and that volume needing now to be filled through the new gateway line into phoenix you've got this access into california so depending on what that california refining market does you've got the capacity across that west line to continue to grow okay great that's helpful i'll leave it there thanks thank you our next

caller is Jason Gabelman with TD Cowan. Your line is open, sir.

Yeah, hey, thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to ask about the shadow backlog as well, and you mentioned both kind of large-scale and smaller projects, and I was hoping to get a bit more color on the larger projects. If I look at the backlog that you have right now in projects and execution, it's kind of three large projects that are all serving Texas and Southeast should we assume the large projects in the backlog are kind of similar in markets they serve or is it is it kind of a bit different I noted for example you mentioned Mexico a couple times and wondering if that's one of the larger projects in the backlog Thanks.

Well, so all these projects are competitive, almost every one that we're working on. And so that's why, you know, we haven't given it – we've tried to be very broad in how we describe the backlog. So what I would say about the larger projects in the backlog is generally they are around, you know, support.

Understood. And then my other question is just on M&A. Given there's starting to see, once again, a bit of a larger multiple dispersion between natural gas and liquids named, and given you do have a decent-sized non-natural gas business, I wonder if there's opportunities out there or holes in the portfolio that you'd be interested in filling, especially if crude oil prices fall. and some other companies become available.

Are you talking about buying? So, look, I mean, I think acquisitions, M&A is always opportunistic. And so we will look at opportunities for assets that, you know, fit our strategy, which is owning, you know, energy asset, energy asset, fee-based. And, you know, we can do it on returns that we think are appropriate on a risk return that we can do within, you know, keeping our balance sheet within the metrics either dot. So, you know, again, I think our view is there's unlimited capital. We'll continue to look at those. It's huge, but, you know, we did one in the beginning of this year in Outrigger. We did one last year. So, you know, we either have the capital, depending on the size, or can find the capital to pursue those when they come about.

Okay, great. Thanks for the answers.

Thank you. Our next caller is Dave Winans with Prudential. Your line is open, sir.

Hey, thank you for taking a by-side question. I appreciate it. You guys got a great opportunity set in natural gas, But just kind of switching gears a little bit here to the CO2 business, at least one operator is talking about, you know, potentially using CO2 sweeps in some of these tight plays out in the Midland and, you know, Delaware basins and such. Is that something you guys have looked at? Does that represent a business opportunity for Kinder Morgan, or do you need to see more proof of concept around something like that?

Are you talking about participating in that, Dave, or are you talking about supplying the CO2? Either. But I think with regards to supplying the CO2, we certainly would be interested in that. I think in terms of the other side of that, I think we would have to look at and really see this.

And it depends on, you know, my understanding on a lot of these, Anthony, is it depends on how they frack that field to begin with, so whether they would be successful CO2 candidates. I think any time you're doing something new, you need to get a much higher return on that to compensate for the risk of doing something that you haven't spent a lot of time doing before. Obviously, we know what we're doing in CO2, but we haven't done a lot of flooding.

Hey, thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next caller is Jean Ann Salisbury with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Hi, Kim. I just wanted to follow up on the comments that you'd made about needing to build pipelines from kind of tier two basins, not the Haynesville, to the LNG that's coming online. And one issue, I guess, that I had been thinking about is that it's a little bit unclear who would be willing to underwrite these contracts with the LNG builders kind of being linked to Henry Hub and the EMPs maybe not wanting to take long-term contracts. So I was just wondering if you could give any color on if you see that being kind of a constraint to these being built and just if you think it'll be a mix of end users, EMPs, and marketers on those kinds of pipelines.

Yeah. I mean, on second-tier basins, you know, something like the Eagleford, I think, is very, you know, one, that'd be great for us because we've got a great position in the Eagleford. And, you know, I think that is a basin that could grow as in a lot of the current projections, is relatively easy to build. And then, you know, I think that the Hainesville has a lot of growth to come to support this. But Cecil?

Yeah, you know, when we look at this, I think as the markets start figuring out where they can actually get a molecule, that'll drive. So I would, you know, the way I would answer the question right now is that would be driven primarily by the market pulling from the supply and then some of the producing base, you know, producers, you know, kind of complementing it's going to it's going to take a little bit of both especially in the second tier basis basins you know and i think that's going to evolve over time as as as the plumbing gets you know kind of discovered where where where we can get gas where you can source gas and how that how that moves through the networks uh to the grid the pipeline grids to be able to get to the consumer that's the way i would think about that great um i'll leave it there thank you for taking my question.

Thank you and at this time I am showing no further questions.

Okay Michelle, thank you very much and everybody have a good evening.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may go ahead and disconnect at this time.