Phillips 66 (PSX) Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Welcome to the first quarter 2025 Philips 66 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Emily and I'll be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we'll conduct a question and answer session. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Jeff Dietert, Vice President, Investor Relations. Jeff, you may begin.

Welcome to Philips 66 Earnings Conference Call. Participants on today's call include Mark Lazier, Chairman and CEO, Kevin Mitchell, CFO, Don Baldridge, Midstream and Chemicals, Rich Harbison, Refining, and Brian Mandel, Marketing and Commercial. Today's presentation can be found on the Investor Relations section of the Phillips 66 website, along with supplemental financial and operating information. Slide two contains our safe harbor statement. We will be making forward-looking statements during today's call. Actual results may differ materially from today's comments. Factors that could cause actual results to differ are included here, as well as in our SEC filings. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mark.

Thanks, Jeff. Welcome, everyone, to our first quarter earnings call. During the quarter, we continued to execute on our transformational strategy and deliver returns to our shareholders. By staying focused on what we can control, we made important progress across our 2027 priorities, improving refining operations, enhancing our NGL value chain, and executing on our growth opportunities. Underpinned by the strength of cash flow contributions from our midstream business, we returned $716 million to shareholders this quarter. We did this in a challenged macro environment in refining, renewables, and chemicals. We also executed one of the largest spring turnaround programs in the history of Phillips 66 that impacted volumes and margins. These important investments position us well for the future. While our results reflect the challenges of this environment, our ability to return significant capital to shareholders demonstrates the strength of our integrated business model. We remain focused on strategy execution, disciplined capital allocation, and cash returns to shareholders. Slide four shows how we continue to improve refining operations through targeted, low-capital, high-return projects. These recent investments lead to greater feedstock flexibility and yield. Before I touch on some of these projects, I want to highlight the success of our Spring Turnaround Program, which was completed safely, on time, and under budget. Furthermore, our refineries not in turnaround this quarter ran well. These accomplishments would not have been possible without our employees' unwavering dedication to operating excellence and safety. Thank you to the refining team. Well done. The bulk of the annual turnaround activity and associated costs are largely behind us, which you will see reflected in our guidance going forward. We are well positioned to capture upside in the market for the remainder of the year. During this quarter's turnarounds, we achieved meaningful project milestones. At the Sweeney Refinery, we removed constraints and enhanced crude flexibility. We now have an additional 40,000 barrels per day of heavy light crude switching capability. Depending on market conditions, we will run additional Permian barrels, displacing imported heavy crudes. We expect this flexibility in a rapidly changing price environment will enhance long-term margins at this strategic refinery. Also, at our Bayway facility, we completed a project that increases our FCC native feedstock capabilities, reducing the need for VGO imports. Both of these low-capital and high-return projects are enabling us to enhance market capture. We're committed to our refining business. We have a clear path to increase operational run time, improve yields, and reduce costs per barrel. Moving to slide five, Midstream is critical to our integrated strategy. It's a key growth driver and creates ongoing value for shareholders. We've made disciplined investments to build out our integrated wellhead-to-market strategy, a strategy that allows us to efficiently move products from the wellhead to high-value end markets. This strategy provides significant stability to our financial results and adds material benefits to other segments. Our value chain creates optionality in product placement and supports reliable, long-term cash generation. We acquired Epic NGL on April 1, which is immediately accretive and expands our takeaway capacity from the Permian. The acquired assets are highly integrated with the existing Phillips 66 asset base and provide long-term fee-based earnings growth. This acquisition enhances our ability to offer producers unmatched flow assurance while expanding connectivity to end markets. We also continue to expand our natural gas gathering and processing footprint in the Permian Basin. Our Dos Picos II expansion plant, which was part of our pinnacle acquisition strategy, is expected to come online in the third quarter of 2025. Today, we're announcing the construction of another gas processing plant in the Permian. The Iron Mesa plant will serve Delaware and Midland Basin production and will be funded within our existing capital budget. The facility is expected to come online in the first quarter of 2027. Both of these projects are great examples of our highly strategic and selective investments at low build multiples. They contribute to our plan to organically grow midstream run rate adjusted EBITDA to $4.5 billion by 2027. At Phillips 66, we've embraced a culture of continuous improvement and have taken decisive action to create long-term value for our shareholders. Slide 6 shows some of the achievements over the past three years. We have divested more than $3.5 billion of non-core assets at high multiples while making strategic acquisitions within midstream at attractive multiples to build a world-class NGL value chain. In refining, we're improving competitiveness by optimizing our assets to align with long-term demand trends. We've made operational improvements throughout the portfolio and we've rationalized our footprint with the sale of Alliance, conversion of Rodeo, and plan to cease operations and repurpose the land at Los Angeles. We have taken steps to execute on our transformational strategy, and we will do more. We remain committed to maintaining safe and reliable operations, investing in high-return growth opportunities, and capturing integration benefits. We will return over 50% of net operating cash flow to shareholders through share repurchases and a secure, competitive, and growing dividend. Demonstrating this commitment, we recently announced a $0.05 per share increase in our quarterly dividend. Since our formation in 2012, the annual dividend has increased every year, resulting in a significant 15% compounded annual growth rate. We have delivered over $14 billion to shareholders since July 2022. We will continue to create long-term value for shareholders as we execute on our 2027 strategic priorities, maintaining operational excellence, pursuing disciplined growth, returning capital, and ensuring financial strength. Now, over to Kevin to cover the results for the quarter.

Thank you, Mark. First quarter reported earnings were $487 million or $1.18 per share. The adjusted loss was $368 million or $0.90 per share. Both the reported earnings and adjusted loss include the $246 million pre-tax impact of accelerated depreciation due to our plan to cease operations at the Los Angeles refinery at the end of 2025. The adjusted loss excludes the $1 billion pre-tax gain on disposition of our non-operated interest in co-op. We generated $187 million of operating cash flow and returned $716 million to shareholders, including $247 million of share repurchases. I will now cover the segment results on slide 8. Total company adjusted loss increased $307 million compared with the prior quarter. Midstream results decreased mainly due to lower volumes because of the turnaround activity in refining. This was partly offset by the impact of higher commodity prices benefiting gathering and processing results. Also during the quarter, the Sweeney Hub had record fractionation volumes of 650,000 barrels per day. In chemicals, results increased mainly due to higher volumes and lower costs driven by turnaround activity in the prior quarter. Lower refining results reflect the impact of lower volumes and higher costs driven by turnaround activity and higher utility prices. This is partly offset by increased realized margins from higher market cracks. Marketing and specialties results improved due to lower depreciation and higher margins in the international business. In renewable fuels, results decreased mainly due to the transition from blender's tax credits to production tax credits, inventory impacts, and lower international results. Slide 9 shows cash flow for the first quarter. Cash from operations, including working capital, was $187 million. We received $2 billion from the sales of the non-operated equity interests in Co-op and the Gulf Coast Express pipeline. We paid down $1.3 billion of debt and returned $716 million to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. We funded $423 million of capital spending. Our ending cash balance was $1.5 billion. Looking ahead to the second quarter of 2025 on slide 10. In both chemicals and refining we expect utilization rates to be in the mid 90s. In refining we expect turnaround expense to be between 65 and 75 million dollars. We anticipate corporate and other costs to be between 340 and 360 million dollars. Now we will move to slide 11 and open the line for questions after which Mark will wrap up the call.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session as we open the call for questions as a courtesy to all participants please limit yourself to one question and a follow-up if you have a question please press start then one on your touch tone phone if you wish to be removed from the queue please press start then two if you are using a speakerphone you may need to pick up the handset first before pressing the numbers once again if you have a question please press star then one on your touchtone phone. Our first question today comes from Doug Liggett with Wolf Research. Please go ahead Doug your line is open.

Well thanks good morning or good afternoon everybody thanks for taking my question I guess it is still morning sorry. Mark obviously there's been a lot of dialogue a lot of backwards and forwards between yourselves and Elliot regarding the right structure for the business. I guess my question is, I had an opportunity to chat to you about this a month or so ago. And our understanding, at least, is you guys have looked at a lot of these proposals before and made decisions that are perhaps different. I wonder if you could share the extent to which you did look at some of these ideas that they're putting forward, for example, separating the midstream, and kind of rationalize why you came to a different outcome. I think everyone would probably like to hear your perspectives on that. I've got a quick follow-up, please.

Sure, Doug. I welcome that question. And I think when we're talking about strategic alternatives or the strategy that drives the company forward, it really is important to understand the mindset of our board. And we've got a strong board. We've got talented board members that have deep experience. Many of them have deep experience in refining and energy. and they have high expectations for us when it comes to preparing and delivering strategic alternatives for them. And they expect a very detailed, intelligent overview of all the options available, and they want the full risks and the unintended consequences of any strategic actions that we might recommend. In fact, they want to understand the risks and unintended consequences of not making strategic actions as well. So it's very comprehensive, and it's not just some simple high-level spreadsheet that they might rubber stamp. I would put them in the classification of brilliant. They ask tough questions, and they are deeply accountable. And my experience with the board really goes back to when I came back to Phillips 66 in 2021, and I was asked to prepare the strategic materials for our fall deep dive into strategy. And what we did is we took the board through scenario planning because if you remember back in 21 all the rage was net zero 2050 and so we we spanned the whole spectrum from net zero 2050 to a scenario where the world realized that there was a strong need over the long term for hydrocarbons and we established milestones to track and this analysis informed our strategic alternatives that then we did a deep dive on with with the board members and and we've reviewed all of those options and refreshed our views on those options in the subsequent years and i would say every board meeting the board asks us strong questions around the the strategy and the implementation of the strategy what's changed what's new should we should we move this way or that way and and we talk about our stock valuation and the evolving market conditions and the strategic alternatives and we do this every board meeting. And then in the fall, again, we'll take them into another deep dive to review what's changed since the prior year, what is our most recent view of where we stand in those scenarios. And I'll tell you that one of the underlying principles of every discussion is that everything in our portfolio is for sale at the full consequences if we should dispose of an asset or spin out a part of our company, that they want to understand what's the impact on the remaining assets? What's the impact on the remaining company? What are the unintended consequences? What are all the financial impacts? And I'd say that some of the parts is a part of that discussion, but it's not always the total driver of that discussion. One thing that we've learned, and I believe many of you, really when you talk about the multiple a company realizes in the marketplace, it's really correlated strongly. And that's why the midstream business has become such an important part of our business. It generates very steady earnings, and we've grown those earnings $4 billion and increasing. And so if there was a spinoff opportunity for that business, I will tell you that our board would be the first ones to challenge us to take a look. When you step back and look at our board, the people that we have on our board and the two new nominees that we have, amongst them, they've overseen more than $300 billion in major separation transactions during their careers. You know, this includes CITICS itself was the result of a spinoff. So John Lowe, one of our key members, was involved in that, and he was one of the architects of the spinoff. You know, you've got the Dow DuPont three-way breakup into Dow DuPont and Corteva, our nominee, Howard Ungerlieder. He was one of the architects of that and was right in the middle of all that and the decision-making there. You look at United Technologies. That was a conglomerate that was broken. It went through a three-way breakup into Carrier, Otis, and RTX. Greg Hayes was the architect of that, and Abbott Laboratories spin off into AbbVie, Glenn Tilton was right in the middle of that as well. So I would say that few, if any, boards in this country have more experience in executing such transformational transactions than the Phillips 66 board. They know how to do it, and they're challenging us every step of the way to explain to them what makes sense and what doesn't make sense. And, you know, and I mentioned the split up of United Technologies, a conglomerate. That word's been used in the same sentence as Phillips 66, and the first time I heard that, I thought, well, I thought I knew what a conglomerate was, but I better look it up to be sure. When I looked it up, there was nothing there that resembled Phillips 66. We are a hydrocarbon transporter and processor. We gather from the oil fields or from imports, and we move those through our transportation drills into high-value products that you use every day. And whether it's the crude value chain or the NGL value chain, it's very synergistic, and we're in the business of managing molecules, optimizing them every day. And if you look at what we have down at our Sweeney complex, all of those value chains come together in a deeply integrated way. Whether it's the fractionation capacity, we've got 260,000 barrel per day refinery, 550,000 barrel per day fractionation capacity. There's three ethane crackers on that site, owned and operated by CPChem. We've got 37 million barrels of capacity in 23 salt dome caverns at our Clemens. That infrastructure, we leverage it in an integrated way every day, moving the molecules. We're a commercial organization that trades around that information every day. So there is no hint of conglomerate in what we do. And if you look at the potential to spin off businesses, the board also asks us to bring in third parties to get a cold eyes review of what we do. And we've hired the best investment banks out there to look at strategic alternatives. And when you look at the midstream monetization specifically, the third party independent analysis will tell you that there are incredible dissynergies based on that deep physical integration. that there's massive tax burden that any spin would realize and that there are economies of scale. We've got a very strong balance sheet as an integrated company. The balance sheets of Remain Co. and Spin Co. would be impaired compared to what we have today. You'd throw additional SG&A on those remaining businesses. And the public company costs, none of these things are fully reflected in a simple sum of the parts analysis. And so we take that into account and we make sure that our board understands every step of the way and is verified by independent parties. And then if you look at just, you know, you just heard in our narrative that, you know, the accomplishments we've had over the last three years, the board was front and center in all those decisions. We took bold actions to make sure that we were in a position to be successful over the long term, the three and a half billion dollars of non-core assets. The only way we could define non-core assets is to have a well-defined strategy that was blessed by our what is core and what is non-core we expand our ngo well head to market strategy with the pinnacle and epic acquisitions fully supported by our board we sold the alliance refinery we converted rodeo and we have planned to cease the los angeles refinery every one of those major strategic actions have been deeply considered vetted and approved by our board and refining operations we've improved we've improved utilization, we've raised clean product yield and reduced operating costs over the last three years. Again, with our board, every time that we meet, every action that we take. And because of all these actions that we've put in place with the blessing of our board, we believe there's substantial upside door and strategic priorities. And we're going to maintain operational excellence, we're pursuing disciplined growth, and we're returning capital and ensuring financial strength. And I just finally be crystal clear on as we're making these strategic decisions at the board level, as we're making operational decisions at the operating and management level, we are focused on data. We are focused on facts. We don't act out of fear or short-term trends. We act on what we believe will create the most long-term value for our shareholders each and every time. And I will tell you that since the activists launched their campaign in February, the investor sentiment around their thesis has become more and more negative, and they become more and more positive around the process that, or the progress that we've made in our refining in all of our businesses. And so we believe we're in a strong position, we're committed to it, and we're going to base it on data and facts going forward. So Doug, thank you for that question.

Well, I think, first of all, Mark, thanks for the thorough answer. I think I've taken enough, enough time. I want to be respectful to my sell side colleagues. So I'll, I don't have a follow up, but I'll pass it back. Thanks so much for the answer.

Thanks, Doug.

Thank you. The next question comes from John Royal with J.P. Morgan. John, please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Tough to follow that back and forth, but maybe I'll go with a balance sheet question. So you're remaining well above your target at 38%. You got the big turnaround quarter for the year in the rear view. And you also have a potential asset sale coming, which is good. But also, the macro environment remains uncertain. So my question is, what do you view as your path to getting back to 30%? And does the path include maybe buying back a little less stock than your framework would otherwise imply?

Yeah, John, this is Kevin. Let me respond to that question. It's a very valid question. It's one we put a lot of focus on. We have targets on leverage, the 30%. The real target that I focus on is the $17 billion absolute debt level. That's what I'm – and the 30% becomes an output because it's a measure of debt and equity, as you know. And so our expectation is that between the cash that comes in from disposition of assets and some improvement in the overall operating environment from where we were in the fourth quarter and the first quarter, combined with in refining now being very well set for the remainder of the year to run at high utilization, then you combine that with some margin recovery, which we have seen. if you look into April, we're seeing margins that are sort of $3 to $4 per barrel higher than where we were on average in the first quarter. Then that should position us quite well in terms of being able to make progress on debt reduction. I'd love to hit that $17 billion number by the end of this year. I can't guarantee that will happen. It will be dependent on where operating cash flow comes out. But the overlay here is we're still committed to the 50% or more cash returns to shareholders in terms of operating cash flow. So that's the sort of basic criteria around returning cash to shareholders, 50% or more of operating cash flow. And at the same time, through hopefully strong cash generation and proceeds from asset dispositions, be able to make progress on debt reduction.

Great. Thank you, Kevin. And then my next question is on renewables. This was a little bit of a noisy quarter with the PTC coming into effect mid-quarter. Can you help us really as detailed as you're willing to be on what the post-PTC world kind of looks like in your renewables business? If you could give us any kind of sense for maybe the proportion of production that's eligible and how much you expect to receive on a per-gallon basis based on your current feedstock slate. That would be very helpful. Thank you.

Yeah, John, let me first just clear the first quarter result because that was somewhat of a messy result, to be honest. And let me just walk through what drove that, and then Brian will give a bit of the sort of forward expectations around it. So we had a significant drop from fourth quarter to first quarter. The transition from BTC was a significant impact. It was the largest driver of that drop. But we also had LIFO inventory impacts from drawing down low CI feedstock inventory where the LIFO rate exceeded market prices. That was about a $60 million hit in the first quarter. And then also in international, the recognition of the UK credits. These are the RTFC credits. It's not rateable. So we recognize about 50 million of those in the fourth quarter. We did not have any credit recognition in the first quarter. And so when you put all those things together, you get back to why the result was where it sits. So maybe Brian can give a forward look.

And so I would say it's hard to provide guidance for Q2, and you can tell I'm losing my voice, so I'm going to try as hard as I can. But with so many outstanding policy issues including the tariffs and the rbo for rins that hasn't been set yet it's it's it's difficult but we believe the rbo will need to strengthen the d4 rin or the biodiesel rin to continue to provide an incentive for rd production and margins continue to be challenged even in april and the current market has us running the plant at reduced rates in In terms of tailwinds, there are some tailwinds. We are seeing biodiesel plants closing, given the tight margins, and we've also seen demand for renewable diesel firming, and that's a seasonal firming of demand. And finally, we look forward to collaborating with the administration to support U.S. manufacturing by addressing the unintended consequences of tariffs on feedstocks given international rd imports to the u.s are untariffed with which just disadvantages uh domestic producers like rodeo thank you thank you our next question comes from the line of roger reed with wells fargo roger please go ahead yeah thank you good morning um maybe uh just to kick this off uh update on

where you are on kind of final asset dispositions um i think there's still some stuff in retail maybe something in the midstream space yeah roger it's kevin so as you know we've done three and a half billion of dispositions to date um so we're ahead of the uh target that we laid out um back in uh almost a couple years ago i guess um the the major item we're still working is the europe retail so the jet germany austria that is a very active process and um i know i've said this several times, but we are legitimately in-depth negotiations on that and hope to have some updates soon.

Yeah, as far as this, Mark, as far as other asset dispositions, we have other assets that we would define as non-core, non-operated assets. Many of them are in the midstream.

We're not going to name any specific assets, but certainly we know what the value of those assets are and we know that there are potential buyers out there and follow up on that how should we think about the use of cash flows or cash raised I guess maybe I should say from those asset sales at this point do you see it Kevin as you were talking earlier in terms of return of capital to shareholders or is most of this targeted for debt reduction I would expect most of this to be debt reduction and think of the cash returns to shareholders

being the so different part of the driving the cash.

And then if I could just toss in one more, if that didn't count as my follow-up, Jeff, I apologize if I'm violating the rules. But heavy maintenance Q1 in refining, very low in Q2. were you essentially wrapped up as we started Q2, or is there a little lingering into Q2 that we should think of within that mid-90s guidance?

Yeah, this is Rich, Roger. Thanks for the question. You know, Q1 was the heavy concentration of the turnaround activity, and you can tell by the guidance that we provided for the second quarter there that there is a little bit of linger that comes from quarter to quarter but it's certainly winding down in the second quarter and you see that in the in the overall guidance okay thank you thank you the next question comes from manav gupta with ubs please go ahead your line is now open good morning team uh can you help us better understand how some of these lpg exports will have to reset to accommodate around

tariffs? Because I think he was sending like 48% of our ethane to China and about 22% of propane to China. So how do these NGL exports now reset globally to work around the tariffs?

Hey, Manav, this is Brian. I'd say, like you said, the majority of China's LPG supply, which is primarily propane, comes from the U.S. Tariffs will likely alter those routes for Chinese LPG supply, it's possible that China could get their supply from the AG, from Australia, from Southeast Asia. And then the U.S. will just supply, will backfill the hole left by those regions, just rerouting trade flows. And maybe bringing it back to our assets, our Freeport LPG is mostly termed up, and we haven't seen any FOB cancellations for cargoes. We also have a strong international trading team in that they manage deliberate cargoes, which allows us to capture additional value and optimize the free port exports when we see changes to fundamentals or when we have market dislocations like those caused by tariffs.

Perfect. My quick follow-up here is on the polyethylene chain margin. It was weaker even before the tariffs were announced. And again, some portion of polyethylene raisin definitely moves to China, made into products and sold back into U.S. Those flows cannot be sustainable with the tariffs. So your medium-term outlook for the polyethylene chain margin here?

I think that there certainly is pressure from the tariff situation. Purchasing decisions are going to be impacted. I do believe that CPChem has minimized their exposure to China, and they've also got the ability to source material from the Middle East, similar to the propane discussion, and so there would be rebalancing. But, no, it's certainly clear that tariffs do – the uncertainty around tariffs causes people to slow down their decision-making. You see that across the economy.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from Neil Mehta with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, Neil.

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the thorough answer to the question around some of the parts. Kevin, I had a follow-up for you around the midstream side of the equation, because that's where I think there's been a lot of focus around, you know, you built a good business. Does it make sense to try to monetize it? And I think you made a comment that there's significant tax leakage around monetization. Is that in the case of a spin as well? And then can you provide a little bit more detail or help us quantify a framework for thinking about tax leakage associated with midstream monetization?

Yeah, Neil, the tax hit is in the context of a sale of the business. A spin-off you would expect would be structured in a tax-free manner. And so I would expect minimal tax implications from a spin. But in terms of an actual disposition of the business, it is significant tax effect because the majority of those assets were constructed or acquired during a period where we had accelerated depreciation. So the tax basis is extremely low. So just to put some context around that, you can, you know, depending on what number you use for valuation, and there's a $50 billion number that's out there, that would drive a $10 billion quantify what we mean by significant tax impact.

Got it. And there's no clear offsets that you could put against that, it sounds like.

Not that I'm aware of.

Okay. All right. And then the follow-up for the team is really on the refining side. It's obviously challenging conditions in Q1, but you guys are going to be running better here in Q2. Just love your thoughts on the path back to mid-cycle. And one of the factors that's suppressing profitability has been the tightness of WCS.

Just how do you guys see that moving from here as we work through turnaround and can that that be a tailwind hey neil it's brian i'll try to get this out just on market outlook and maybe the caveat is geopolitics and the slowing economy make everything hard to predict but um what we've seen kevin's mentioned this u.s margins in april are firming a good bit and you can see that in our market indicator we're estimating about 1 million barrels worth of global refining capacity shutting this year, and most of that rationalization will be in the U.S. and in Europe. And in fact, if you look out through the end of the decade, we only show about 300,000 barrels a day of net additions per year, and we're likely to see that number to continue to decrease. But on gasoline, we're forecasting global gasoline demand to be about a half a percent up for the year, and U.S. gasoline demand to be up about one percent if you take if you took a look at first quarter that was 1.1 percent year-on-year growth in the U.S. lower pump prices good unemployment numbers less working from home all contributed to that strength U.S. gasoline inventories are now currently at about five-year averages and our current gasoline supply outlook is for those inventories to continue to tighten particularly as we get in gasoline season and particularly in the U.S. On the distillate side, we see demand globally up about 1% and in the U.S. up about 2% for the year. Part of the demand increase will come from lower biodiesel and renewable diesel production driven by the weaker renewable margins. And also there's a shift to Mediterranean ecofuel in May, which will help. U.S. diesel inventories are really sitting at very low five-year seasonal lows in part due to kind of ongoing maintenance, both in the Gulf Coast and in the Midcon. And then finally on jet, 1Q25 global jet demand was up about 2.3% year on year. We're forecasting 2025 global jet demand to be up 2%. I know a lot of the airlines have talked about they can't predict for the rest of the year. And in some ways, if you think there's going to be a recession or more tariffs, the bets are off. But this is, if you don't think those things are going to happen. This is kind of our view, and we're starting to see trimming of near-month flights, so it's really hard to tell. U.S. jet demand, 1.4 percent up. That's from fleet and flight schedule growth. Again, it's very, very difficult to tell. And then on the, you mentioned on the Canadian differentials, in Q2, we anticipate about 358,000 barrels a day off the market, mostly driven by plant maintenance and production facilities. And then as you kind of look across the year, we see differentials start to widen out. You know, you'll get the seasonal benefit of diluent in the product. And also you'll get more OPEC barrels on the market, which will also help weaken the heavy differentials.

That's all great color. Thank you so much.

Thank you. The next question comes from Teresa Chen with Barclays. Please go ahead, Teresa.

I wanted to go back to the NGL conversation. There are some materials circulating about a carve-out for NGLs within the Chinese reciprocal tariffs. Do you have an early view on this, especially for ethane? And in the event of additional downside volatility for NGL prices in the Gulf Coast, how is your business positioned within the backdrop of potentially lower LPG? are crack spreads and POP margins and processing?

Well I think first of all most of our business is termed up at the Freeport facility and as I mentioned we're not seeing anybody cancel any of those term contracts. I think you know a lot of the or most of the ethane for China comes from the U.S. and we would we've seen that still moving we expect it to continue to move so I don't think that would really have an impact on our business going forward?

Yeah, I think it's at a high level of consuming ethane, and so I think that it may be rumor and speculation at this point, but the Chinese need access to U.S. propane, so it's in their best interest to seek that accommodation.

Got it. And related to the FID of Iron Mesa, would you be able to quantify the cost, and is this plant, the first of maybe several plants to increase the Y grade under your control, especially in light of a competitor building out their own rack and dock infrastructure later this decade that maybe creates a volume shortfall in Sweeney and Freeport?

Hi, Teresa, this is Don. Yeah, I mean, it continues, I think, really just to demonstrate the progress we're making in and building out our ngl value chain and um it does support our hurry and gnp growth and position in terms of barrels coming out of our own gas plants from a uh investment standpoint it's you know it's a typical midstream return with a from a build multiple kind of a sub five times uh type size you know a little bit maybe to unpack iron mesa it's it's going to be located uh near our Goldsmith facility. And so that really provides us with several benefits. We will be able to retire portions of our Goldsmith facility, upgrade the processing. That's going to improve our operational efficiencies, our reliability, reduces our environmental footprint, improves our cost structure in that area. So we'll get an immediate uplift on the existing throughput that we have there as we'll load this plant first and then from a location perspective you know given our pipeline network in that area we'll be able to process and bring gas from both the midland and the delaware basins to this facility and this facility will be tied into our sandhills ngl system and so it you know i'd expect us to continue to be successful commercially from a gathering processing standpoint, we have opportunities then to continue to grow our GMP footprint organically like this, whether that's a partial upgrade of existing facilities as well as just expansion. All of that is helpful for our overall NGL value chain. And maybe just to step back and think about it from a broader context, you know, with this plant and then the the two plants in the Midland Basin, the Dos Picos and Dos Picos II that's about to turn on later this year, we'll have added close to 800,000 a day of gas processing capacity. That produces over 100,000 barrels a day of NGLs to feed our system. So really making good progress as we grow out this system. So we feel good about where our footprint is going and, again, what our supply outlook for Sweeney is.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jean Ann Salisbury with Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Hi, good morning. I think many midstream investors don't own PSX stock because of the volatility of the earnings of the other segments. Is that your view as well? And given your answer to Doug's question, which I think suggested you are not that interested in the spin, what other things can PSX do to get fuller credit for the stability of the midstream earnings in your stock?

Yeah, Jean-Anne, that's a great question. And I think I touched on that earlier that we're a midstream player. I think those seeking that multiple from stable earnings will take note and across it.

Yeah, I was just going to add on a little bit there in terms of we will continue to look at our disclosures and the information we provide around the midstream segment and enhance where appropriate. And as the midstream business grows, part of the narrative is that the refining business, yes, has volatility, but it also provides a lot of nice upside from a cash generation standpoint and returns to shareholders. And so that's where I see that value proposition that you've got that large, stable, midstream business supplemented by the upside that comes with the refining and marketing business.

Great. I'll leave it there. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Joe Leach with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead, Joe.

Hey, team. Thanks for taking my questions.

I just wanted to ask on shareholder returns. With the dividend increase a few days ago, the stock is yielding just north of 4.5%, which is above refining peers. Could you just talk through the balance between raising the dividend and leaning into the buyback given where shares are trading?

Yeah, Joe, it's, you know, the dividend, our principles there are secure, competitive, and growing. And the reason for the growing is we do have dividend investors and increases on an annual basis. And so you can expect to see us increase the dividend every year. It was a relatively modest increase. It was five cents, 4%, smaller than some of our more recent increases have been. But we felt appropriate in the overall context of the business environment that we're in today. And so therefore, the real upside from a shareholder return standpoint is going to be in share repurchases. And as you see operating cash flow increase, then that increases the, you know, go back to the 50% of operating cash flow returned to shareholders. The dividend is easy to get to compute, but so 50% and potentially above level, depending on where we are and other priorities, including balance sheets.

Yeah. And Joe, when you look at the combination of share repurchases and our dividend, the gross dividend outlay has remained, are declining. And so it's to catch up and we're taking advantage of that. So think of the dividend outlay as relatively constant and then share repurchases when the cash is there.

Great, thanks. That makes sense. Now the other question that I had was around refining utilization in first quarter, which came in a little bit light versus what we and I think others have been expecting based on the low 80% guidance. Was that economic driven or was that always part of the plan?

Yeah, this is Rich. So our guidance was low 80s for the quarter there was certainly a heavy focus of that was of that downturn was related to the turnaround activity and our turnaround activity was heavily focused on crude crude units as well for the quarter so that that was a big impact especially in the atlantic basin we had turnaround at the bayway facility and the gulf coast and sweeney and then uh so did woodward were down quite a bit. That all said, those were the majority and the major components of the downturn in the utilization. There were some minor market adjustments as well made through the year, primarily in the January and front end of February time frame. So those were relatively minor, call them a point, maybe two, point and a half.

Great. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Matthew Blair with Tudor Pickering Holt. Matthew, please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning. I have a two-parter on M&S. First, should we expect a pretty considerable tailwind to your Q2 M&S results from the falling crude price environment? We do track a retail indicator. It's looking quite strong in the second quarter. I know your wholesale business is a little bit different, but what are your expectations on M&S for the second quarter, and is there a big pickup in line? And then second, every company reports things a little differently. And I think there's an argument to be made that Phillips refining results are a little different than your large cap peers because your U.S. wholesale activities are in M&S and not in refining.

So my question is, could you help us understand roughly what percent of M&S EBITDA and off costs are related to those wholesale activities so we can look at things on a little bit more of a uh apples to apples basis thank you hey matthews brian i'll start and kevin can take over i think you're right when prices are falling it's usually uh somewhat beneficial for marketing just to give you a little bit of color we're seeing a stronger april margins and uh our view is barring anything significance, a slowdown in the economy or something like that, we would expect a seasonal uptick in Q2 earnings or margins consistent with prior years.

Yeah, Matt, it's Kevin. And just on the second question, we don't break out our results by channel of trade, which is what you're referring to. Our marketing and specialty segment covers the wholesale business. It also covers the retail to the extent we have retail. But the bulk of that business is a wholesale model and so it's you know we don't have a EBITDA or the costably low when you think about the the company owned retail business is going to have a higher cost but it's not something that we're breaking out at that channel of trade level.

Thanks Paul, I'll leave it there.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ryan Todd with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks. Maybe just one follow-up on some of your earlier comments on renewable diesel. Outside of the macro backdrop, which is obviously very noisy, as we think about the first quarter and into the second quarter, can you talk about maybe some of the challenges that you had optimizing things from a feedstock point of view in the first quarter because of the timing of some of the announcements. And as you look into the second quarter, and then maybe, I don't know if you said this earlier, but do you have a rough estimate of maybe what percent of the product you were able to book credits on during the quarter? And as we think into the second quarter, how will both of those things change and be a potential tailwind for you this quarter?

Yeah, maybe I'll start and others can join in. I would say, like everybody, if you don't understand the rules of the game, it makes it more difficult to play in the game. And the PTCs were, it was kind of not completely known. At that time, we didn't have, we had PTC value for imported used cooking oil, and now we don't. and so we made some decisions early on between the end of last year and beginning of this year that were sub-optimized frankly given our view of what the credits would be and how they how they turned out and some of the sanctions so i think uh going forward we'll have maybe a clearer view we still don't uh have a complete view of the ptcs we think that'll come in june or july with the tax bill you know we talked about the rvo proposal we expect to come at the uh second half of may but not for implementation until q3 so we're looking forward to that the good news is i think uh ag and oil are aligned that we need to increase the rvo to make uh to make up for some of the credit value that we lost in the btcs and then lcfs is also up for debate we think by the of June. We'll have some more clarity on that. So the more clarity we have on the credit values and how they work, the better we'll be able to run the plans and the more focus will be on finding the right feedstock to make the right product.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Paul Cheng with Scotiabank. Paul, please go ahead.

Hey, guys. good morning or good afternoon um mark i think uh it can easy maybe for investors it's a little bit easier to understand the english in integration benefit on the midstream to the rest of your business uh maybe it's a little bit more difficult on the chemical even cp cam is a join ranger and they won't they run by their own board and their own management and in theory that all transaction between you and dp cam should be in arms link so maybe you can help us understand a little bit better uh why i mean even though you're the great asset why that is important for them uh to be part of the portfolio and work out uh synergy or that integration benefit you can we see from there.

Yeah, Paul, glad to take that on. When you look at CPChem, first of all, the model's been great. For the last 25 years, it's grown faster and more profitably than their competitors. It's been a great return on capital employed business. It's thrived and done quite well. And we've sat across the table from our partners, each of us expressing our undying love for the company and interest in owning all of it if the other is interested in parting from it. And so I think that there is great operational synergy between CP Chem and Phillips 66 as an NGL provider and as an asset operator around the Sweeney complex where there's a very heavy presence of CP Chem, whether it's the storage facilities at the Clemens Terminal, the physical location and streams going back and forth between the assets. Yes, there is an arm's length agreement, but all of that happens quite seamlessly. Now, I would say if Philips owned those 100%, there would be even greater synergies to capture, but being a 50% owner and being deeply co-located and physically integrated, there are significant advantages there, and those represent substantial assets. You've got three of their Gulf Coast crackers right there in the Sweeney complex embedded and deeply integrated, and so it is real, and it happens every day, and if it was truly an independent in making things happen over time, and I think there's benefits in both ways okay great um the second question i think is for calvin um just curious that i mean with all the volatility create uh given the trump administration economic and talent policy

should philip 66 revisit or what is the cash balance that you really want to keep on on the book as well as what is the debt to capital ratio and your payout ratio uh to be quite find that with higher volatility, should you have as high of a payout ratio still going to pay out more than 50% or should you prioritize and get the debt to be lower than what you even say target at 17 billion? At least that for until maybe that the volatility become perhaps a little bit lower and the risk of recession become less.

Yeah, Paul, it's all about balancing the different priorities. There is a lot of uncertainty out there right now, but the point is it is uncertainty and we don't know exactly which way this will play out. So we don't want to make any dramatic decisions around that. And we think that the way we've set our prioritization is very measured and balanced in a low cycle environment or a more volatile environment. And it works in a more robust environment as well. The 50% payout modest. We do have, and from a balance sheet standpoint, yeah, the cash at the end of the quarter was one and a half billion. We've tended to run around about that somewhere at the end of most periods. Would it be nice to have more? Yeah, but it's perfectly adequate. There's a natural cycle over the course of the month anyway. The end of the month, the end of the quarter tends to be a relatively low point in that cycle. We have significant liquidity facilities that we can draw on as necessary, and when we need to, we do. But the balance sheet needs to look like and feel that at the $17 billion level, when you consider that midstream with a pretty stable, very stable $4 billion of EBITDA, the marketing business, also with stable EBITDA in the order of $2 billion, that supports that debt, that supports the leverage at a modest ratio. And so that's how we leverage ratios relative to the different business segments we operate in. So we expect to have a debt level that can be supported by the more stable cash generating businesses and think of the refining business and the chemicals business as being.

Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. I will now turn the call over to Mark Lazier for closing comments.

Less than three years ago, we embarked on a transformative strategy. We've divested multiple non-core assets at attractive multiples, strengthened our NGL value chain, and rationalized our refining portfolio. We improved refining operational reliability and reduced refining controllable costs, all while returning over $14 billion to shareholders. Looking forward, we will deliver significant value through our 2027 strategic priorities, maintaining operational excellence, pursuing disciplined growth, returning capital, and ensuring financial strength. We value shareholder feedback. We're committed to maximizing long-term value for our shareholders through operational excellence and disciplined capital allocation. Thank you for your interest in Phillips 66. If you have questions or feedback after today's call, please call Jeff or Owen.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. This concludes your call, and you may now disconnect your lines.