Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Williams First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would now like to turn the call over to Danilo Giovanni, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Antoine, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us and for your interest in the Williams Company. Yesterday afternoon, we released our earnings press release from the CEO, Chad Zamarin,

and our chief financial officer, John Porter, who we'll speak to this morning.

In our presentation, it was an integral to our remarks on non-GAAP measures that were county principles, and these reconciliation schedules appeared at the back of the day to go over to Chad.

We advanced our career, and we commercialized three new major projects, and adjusted EBITDA grew 13% to a record $2.25 billion. dollars. Our momentum continues to build, demonstrating the scalability of our strategy, the ongoing strength of our assets, and the growing contribution from our expansion project. Our teams continue to execute high return expansions at a steady pace while adding new projects to our robust backlog, and during the quarter, we made consistent progress across our projects. Most notably, we placed the Naughton Coal conversion project into service, a critical milestone that again demonstrates how we help customers transition to cleaner burning natural gas while maintaining affordability and grid reliability. We also kicked off construction on NETSI, the Northeast Supply Enhancement Project, and SESI, the Southeast Supply Enhancement Project. Moving these large-scale pipeline projects into the construction phase is a testament to our team's ability to navigate complex permitting to deliver the infrastructure. I'm also excited to report that we have now placed on foundation all of the turbines at our Socrates Plato South location. In addition, we've completed construction on the first phase of the Aristotle Pipeline, which will serve as a natural gas energy artery for several of our power innovation projects in Ohio, including Socrates. We aren't slowing down. We continue to sign new deals at attractive multiples that will drive growth through the end of the decade and beyond and help us achieve the 10-plus percent earnings CAGR we set out at Analyst Day. Based on the strong start to the year and our visibility into the remainder of the year, we are currently pointing toward the upper half of our full-year EBITDA guidance, as John will detail shortly. Looking forward, we continue to find new ways to solve the energy challenges of today, including the massive power needs of next-generation data centers. Today, we're announcing three new major projects that further advance our strategy. The first project, NEO, is our fifth commercialized behind-the-meter power innovation project with a high-quality hyperspace. NEO is the largest power project Williams has announced to date, consisting of 682 megawatts of installed capacity, a 12-and-a-half-year contract, and an in-service date in the second half of 2028. Like our other power innovation projects, we expect to execute NEO at an attractive five-times build multiple, and the project is expected to represent an investment of approximately $2.3 billion. Our second new project is ATLAS, which consists of a gas infrastructure agreement to provide up to 164 million cubic feet per day of pipeline capacity to serve a large investment-grade customer data center in the Northeast. This project has a 13-year term, and we expect it to be in service by the end of this year. While relatively modest in CapEx, Atlas demonstrates our ability to deliver an efficient natural gas solution for providing backup energy supply to existing data centers in lieu of diesel generating. Our third new project is Silver Spur, which is a significant expansion of our Northwest Pipeline system and includes the installation of compression and the construction of a 90-mile transmission pipeline into the Idaho market that will add 275 million cubic feet. Silver Spur represents the first phase of our previously discussed Rockies Columbia Connector Project and is one of the first major expansion, targeting an in-service date of early 2020, an upsizing of the Transco Power Express project in response to the continually growing need for natural gas to power data centers and market growth. With the addition of a new customer and the upsizing of an existence has been increased in feet per day of new transco capacity. And as we continue to see very strong demand for natural gas translating into new projects and a growing backlog, we are also seeing the supply response. In the first quarter alone, we sanctioned roughly 700 million cubic feet per day of new expansion projects across our gathering and process. Collectively, the first quarter results further highlight our position at the intersection of incredible potential and the energy required to achieve it. By achieving another quarter of record results while commercializing and progressing key growth projects, the strategic direction is clear. Natural gas demand is rising, our contracted project backlog is growing, and we are staying laser-focused on execution and value creation. That combination will continue to drive the higher earnings and cash flow that will deliver strong long-term return for our shareholders. And with that, I'll now turn it over to John for a deeper dive into the play.

Thanks, Jed. As Jed shared, we've had a strong start to 2026 with record first quarter 26 EBITDA up 13% over 25. Bridging from last year's $1.99 billion to this year's $2.25 billion, our overall financial performance continues to be led by our transmission and golf businesses, which improved nearly $150 million, or about 17%. It was a great first quarter with growth across every business in this segment. Transco grew about 10% year over year, driven by higher tariff rates following last year's rate case settlement, as well as the effects of numerous expansion projects. Our deep water gulf businesses grew more than 60%, reflecting the combined effects of natural gas storage. Each G&P business grew 10 million, or a 2%, as strong growth in the rich gas areas was offset by volume declines in certain dry gas areas. The west grew from our Louisiana Energy Gateway pipeline. Our sequent marketing business had another strong start to the year, with $227 million of adjusted EBITDA, And I'll note that about $15 million of the overall $72 million increase for Sequent was related to the Cogentrics investment acquired in March of 2025. And as a reminder, we expected to best our Cogentrics investment. We start the year with 13% adjusted EBITDA growth, which is our growth CapEx midpoint. In addition to another power innovation project, leverage moves modestly above our target range of 3.5 to 4 times. to four. Importantly, as we previously discussed, the balance sheet leverage tightness is primarily an issue for 26 and 27 before the historic earnings growth we expect in 28. In the meantime, we're preserving multiple options to manage leverage while continuing to advance these projects and other opportunities on the horizon. As I've previously discussed, those financing options include bringing in partners, and we continue to see robust interest from a broad group of potential counterparties but we're not locked into any single path and we have great flexibility based on timing market conditions and cost of capital I'd expect us to firm up our financing plans over the next couple of months overall we're very encouraged by the strength of our first quarter results the ongoing strong execution across our project portfolio and the continued commercialization of new business and we feel well positioned with the flexibility to find growth with that I'll turn it back to Chad and

Thanks, John. I recently had the opportunity to join an incredible group of leaders, including Secretary of Interior Burgum, Secretary of Energy Wright, EPA Administrator Zeldin, and FERC Chairman Sweat, as we celebrated the groundbreaking of our Nessie project, the first new gas pipeline into New York City in over a decade, a project many thought impossible. Looking out at the crowd, which included Williams employees and union workers who will support their families and communities through their work on this project, I was reminded of the role we play in a stronger, more resilient America. Not just through pipelines and power, but through livelihoods, through the meaning and purpose of the men and women who do the essential work of delivering the energy infrastructure of America. These are the real heroes. They work every day to bring affordable energy to homes and businesses, and they work every day to preserve and advance the quality of life that we are blessed to have. And they do it while advancing sustainability and a better world for future generations. As we look forward throughout 2026 and beyond, we will continue to stay focused on smart and sustainable growth and efficient and reliable operations. We will also continue to advocate for permitting and judicial reform to help America further accelerate the infrastructure needed to increase affordability, bolster reliability, and enable economic prosperity and national. Of course, none of the work about the investors, our company, and our team. I want to close by thanking our employees for their unwavering commitment to safely and reliably serving our customers and our nation. The Williams leadership team is incredibly proud to work with such a talented group during this exciting era of growth. We'll now open up the line.

Thank you. At this time, we'll conduct a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow up. Our first question comes from Jeremy Tonette from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for all the color today and details on the NEO project there. I was wondering if I could dive into, I guess, the power market a little bit more, if you could provide any more incremental color, I guess, on the relative level of appetite that you're seeing now versus where you were before in, I guess, how you think, you know, deal formation could proceed going forward here, you know, after this large deal.

Yeah, thanks, Jeremy. And by the way, great job on your note yesterday. I love the May, the fourth, be with you theme. You know, I would just say that we've continued to see very strong interest in our projects. You know, we keep seeing, you know, the challenges that we're going to have as a country. We've been living the difficulty of building infrastructure on the pipeline, seeing that clearly on the data center side. And I think our ability to bring tailored energy solutions to being recognized as a smart solution to balance grid reliability, affordability for consumers, and the need for speed for these facilities. And so, you know, you've seen our backlog. We talked about NEO represents the single largest project. you know, as you do the map, also the efficiency of our project continues to also improve. And so we continue to see robust demand. The backlog, I'd say, remains as robust, if not more so than we do. No change, if nothing else, I'd say stronger recognition that a combination of solutions, including behind the meter, hybrid solutions, and grid complementary, not just the near term, but for a long time to make sure that we can meet the needs of. Got it. Thank you for

that. And was just curious, I guess, you know, the industry has long talked about the need for permitting reform and the importance of gaining that to develop the needed infrastructure in the country. And as you talk to your local state senators, what do they say about the prospects

for this in D.C. right now? Yeah, look, I mean, we remain hopeful. I've spoken about last year, the House passed a bill that had many of the provisions that we'd like to see passed into law. The Senate is working on advancing permitting reform this year, and, you know, we're lucky to have a very strong, you know, delegation from here in Oklahoma, including recently to fill Mark Wayne Mullen's seat. You know, we will continue to advocate for meaningful permitting reform, the two primary issues that we're going to keep focused on. There are a lot of great, I think, improvements that we can see, and the House bill had many of those, but the two primary ones are FERC permitting process and making sure that that, when you get a FERC certificate, when you've gone through the very robust and rigorous environmental permitting process, you have your federal permit that process. So we as a country are advocating for any bill to form so that on Atlantic Sunrise, we want every lawsuit along the way to increase the cost to the consumer. And unfortunately, that's not unique to Atlantic Sunrise. That's every infrastructure project in our country, projects up in litigation. So, you know, those are the two big, big ticket issues with a lot.

Got it. Makes sense. Wishing Alan well in his endeavors.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Julian Dumlin-Smith from Jeffries. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, team. Nicely done yet again, bigger and better. Just if I can needle you a little bit on how you think about the cadence of the six gigawatt backlog here. First, has that been replenished here when you think about NEO folding out of that back, folding into moving forward here? How do you think about actually seeing the timeline of some of this material? As you talk about time to power, just be very curious on what you're seeing out there. A lot of your peers talking about some pretty rapid activity out there. So, again, obviously, well done on NEO. And here we are asking about the next and the timeline around it. So, thank you.

Yeah, I'll start. I would just say, Julian, I wouldn't gigawatts have we spoken to. I think order from execution perspective that worked from a steady and predictable growth perspective, that complement the equipment and supply chain availability that we've secured in support of the we'll get deeper into the financing and making sure that we are being very thoughtful and disciplined with respect to the balance sheet and so right now we see plenty of backlog to allow for us to effectively balance all of those factors do more than we would hope to from a growth and the backlog remains frankly is robust and I would actually say the team does a great job of high-grading the backlog to make sure that we do have this bounty of opportunities, but we're being very disciplined in making sure that the projects really fit to where we have competitive advantage and strength.

And actually, if I can keep going on that, you alluded to it. I mean, what about creative financing solutions here, right, for PI? Obviously, you had some latitude here on the balance sheet as is, but what are you evaluating? What are the structures? How do you think about the capacity here as it stands as you ratchet up further here? I'll pass it back to you.

Thanks, Sheila. And John Porter here. Appreciate that question. You know, obviously, we are seeing leverage temporarily move modestly above our long-term target range of 3.5 to 4 times. And, of course, this is really being driven by the execution now on five of these high-quality, fast-cycle power innovation projects. So the first thing I would really emphasize is that this is really a timing dynamic where In 28, we will see enormous earnings growth that will completely reset the leverage capacity of the company. But in the meantime, I'd say we're being very intentional in preserving financing flexibility. We're not going to rely on any single lever. We have multiple well-established options available to us. But, for example, we really have seen great interest from some really terrific potential partners around these power innovation projects. And these structures are attractive. They would allow us to recycle capital while retaining our strategic and operational roles where that makes sense. So overall, we remain very focused on executing within our overall capital allocation priorities. Obviously, dividend growth stays intact, and we're committed to returning leverage to our target range over time. Stepping back, we feel really good about where we're at and our ability to fund this CapEx program efficiently and to continue to add to it. We do have multiple paths. We're not locked into any one solution. We expect a strong earnings growth profile of the business. We'll naturally deliver the balance sheet, especially as the projects come online in 27 and 28. And as I mentioned earlier in my prepared comments, expect to hear more details on this.

All right, stand by. Thanks, Chad. Thanks, John. Thank you, Julian.

Our next question comes from Panit Sadish from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks. Chad, I think you made a comment earlier that the project costs and efficiencies are improving for the power projects. Maybe in that context, could you provide an update of how much redundant capacity you think is appropriate for the future power projects and what you're doing for NEO? Has that evolved relative to Socrates? I think Socrates is being built with about 50% kind of redundant capacity. So I guess, are you seeing that ratio trend down with the more recent projects or kind of waiting to see how Socrates performs before making any changes on that front?

Yeah, thanks, I'd say a little bit of both. Continually seeing kind of a more efficient in the middle effectively process. We do expect operating even as we've just been building out Socrates and then these are the early days. We have I think we're going to continue to see pretty impressive efficiency gains over time.

Got you. Thank you. And then maybe shifting gears to the transmission side, can you talk about the opportunities that you're seeing in the Rockies and whether the Silver Spur expansion that you announced today could be the first of more projects on Northwest? I think you ran several open seasons last year. So any color on customer interest from that process and whether we should stand by for additional expansions there.

Yeah, Pradeep, this is Larry Larson. I'll take that question. And, yeah, you are right. We initially went out with the Rockies Columbia Connector expansion open season last year. And as we kind of mentioned in the prepared remarks, the Silver Spurs, it's really the first phase as we started looking at all the market needs within Idaho as well as in the Pacific Northwest and Washington and Oregon. and the Idaho market was clearly mature and ready to move forward. I mean, it's hard to believe, but Idaho is the second fastest-growing state from a population standpoint in the nation, and the thing that they were lacking was additional infrastructure, and so excited to be able to get this first phase of what was originally the Rockies-Columbia Connector Project commercialized, and we're going to progress forward with that project. But, yeah, we still see interest both longer term in Idaho, I hope that we're also still progressing discussions with our key customers within Washington and Oregon, and hopefully we'll see some progress on the second phase of that expansion project this year. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Amit Thankar from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking my question. Just a couple more follow-ups on NIO, if I may. Is the counterparty kind of the same that you have for Socrates the Younger and Socrates for this particular project?

Yeah, I mean, we're in a state as soon as we can.

And then relative to, I guess, the other projects from an air permitting standpoint and whatever kind of regulatory approvals that maybe the public to the commission of Ohio would need to provide, where does that project stand relative to the others?

Neil. Yeah, I mean, it's just an early phase. We'll be filing for those.

Thank you so much. Our next question comes from Brandon Bingham from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Wanted to maybe try to pry a little bit more on the financing side of things, hopefully from a different angle here. There have been a couple of deals announced recently for gas pipeline assets, and the chatter suggests the marks were quite healthy. And in the past, you've looked to take advantage of sort of the disconnect between private market valuations. So just curious if there's any consideration in doing so again in light of these deals and the potential funding needs.

And Brandon, I think right now what we're primarily focused on is really understanding what's possible in terms of partners. We've had some, again, some opportunities set there. Some of those partners, I think, could even perhaps have opportunities set in the space as well. So, that looks like a pretty fertile area for us in terms of being able to do something at size, at a very attractive cost of capital, with the right governance structure, and, you know, again, perhaps even an ability to add to. So, I think that's our main area of focus right now. But, like I said earlier, we've got a lot of different things to tap into coming at us. We are still trying to commercial teams, and there's a lot out there.

Okay, great. Very helpful. And then maybe just quickly looking at the Haynesville, wondering what some of the latest and greatest commentary you're hearing from producer customers in that basin, just in light of Henry Hub, sitting comfortably below three bucks right now, but knowing that the Gulf Coast LNG ramp is coming in quickly.

Yeah, hi, this is Larry Larson. I'll take that one. I mean, I think commentary, we've kind of mentioned in the past that the producer is obviously cautious drilling into kind of the pricing dynamics right now. But I think the fundamentals are really strong. And I think, as we've seen, we've announced some expansion projects of our gathering system in the Hainesville. And that's really to start building up from this materializing. And so I think they're cautious right now and are going to be balancing around where they see pricing in the near term. but recognizing that there is such a huge demand pull that is continuing to ramp up over the next few years. I think we're optimistic that we'll continue to see that pull from the Hainesville continue to build up with our producer customers. But I would say the majority of them are somewhat cautious in the near term, but wanting to be ready for that growth.

If you look at Hainesville, the natural gas curve is still in contango, and so are the fundamentals around natural gas. I mean, the amount of demand growth that we're – clear demand growth that we're – the Haynesville will be the most responsive in the U.S. And we do expect another strong – we actually had a relatively modest – we expect summer, we expect – so I think the producer –

Great. Very helpful. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Sparrow Donis from Citi. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Operator. Morning, Dean. I wanted to go back to the growth cadence. Just looking back at the analyst day, you talked about 8% of that 10% CAGR being locked in. Just curious where that stands now. Do incremental projects from here take you beyond 10%? It just seems like these announcements are coming in faster than expected. So I want to level set on that analyst day outlook.

Yeah, we do feel really good about how we're tracking against the long-term growth targets that we presented back in February. Again, 10% plus CAGRs for EBITDA and EPS for 2025 through 2030 is what we're targeting. And like you said, in February, I said that our current book of contracted business supported around an 8% CAGR. And I'd say with these new projects that we've announced today, that base growth rate is definitely now around 9%. So we've moved it up a point with these projects. And I would just say overall, we're feeling really good about kind of the three areas of focus that we're focused in on for fueling this industry-leading growth rate. And first, you know, project execution on the projects that we currently have in flight. And project execution has been going great for Socrates and the other projects that we currently are working on, including Southeast Supply Enhancement, other important transmission projects. Second, you know, we're feeling really good about being able to continue to win new opportunities. We've got our teams really focused in on that component as well. So overall, I think we're at about 9% of a pretty conservative look.

Thanks, John. Second question, just going back to the behind-the-meter strategy. Chad, you touched on this a bit, but seeing the landscape shift a bit here, there's some nimbyism coming in on the data center side. And I think we're also seeing a trend maybe towards bring your own power, which is a little bit different than behind-the-meter. I'm just curious how you're assessing that shifting landscape on how data centers are powered, your ability to maybe even pivot toward a bring-your-own-power strategy and potentially even develop a CCGT at some point?

Yeah, I'd say, you know, we remain focused on creative, innovative infrastructure solutions. You know, we've lived in some of the most difficult kind of infrastructure-challenging environments, so it's not unusual for us being really well to help customers figure out where to site projects. And so I do think we've always said, like, don't think of us as just an unlocked grid through partnering with our utility customers, but also create a larger footprint across which you could site projects by opening up the natural gas grid. That's really our focus. And so if that means bringing speed to market, you know, bring your own power solutions that are a bridge to grid power or are a compliment to grid power or over time scale with larger units with adding, you know, steam turbines and other solutions. I would just say that, you know, our team has done a phenomenal job of building floor there for today.

Our next question comes from Keith Stanley from Wolf Research. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. First question. So NIO was a 12 and a half year contract, which is good to see. How are discussions going on trying to lengthen contract duration further? What's achievable and how willing are customers to do this?

We've seen the extension, you know, the 12 and a half year. We do have on, we continue to see.

Thanks for that. The second question, what still needs to happen on constitution in order to move forward? What's the main gating items there and potential timeline?

Yeah, thanks. And markets that we might have thought weren't open for business or back open for business. I think that's a good sign that markets need more gas infrastructure. I mean, we've grown gas demand by 50% over the last 10 years, and that's why politics and agmentation of that market that's made put together, and so it's a lot of herding cats. But at the end of the day, I mean, energy, natural gas infrastructure, and so we're going to keep at it. But, yeah, that's really a lot of different. Today we're on file with FERC, the last gating item.

You hit it really well. There are a lot of great discussions going on with the utilities. There's a strong recognition, I think, going to Winter Storm Fern and just the fragileness of that market, I think it was really highlighted through that. And so I think all of the utilities are just trying to figure out how do they get the right support through their states as well as additional infrastructure that they want to do on their systems to be able to help build up robustness in the market area as well. So conversations are going well. It's just, as Chad mentioned, just trying to bring all of the different parties together to be able to get something that we can commercialize and progress forward.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jean Ann Salisbury from BOA. Please go ahead.

Is the Marcellus Gathering expansion at all driven by integration and pull-through into one of your pipeline projects or behind-the-meter projects? And I guess as my follow-up a little bit more broadly, you obviously have some very large competitive advantages in Ohio and Utah that have helped you get the behind-the-meter projects. Can you discuss where you see yourself as having similar competitive advantages elsewhere?

Yeah, this is Larry Larson. I'll take the question of the Northeast. It's not directly related to our power projects. It's just an expansion as our producer customers are going and developing in different parts of opportunity for us to provide some additional compression and gathering pipe infrastructure to be able to get them access to market. So it's not directly related to it. But I think as you see us creating more and more demand tied back into that area, it'll help us provide more solutions to be able to grow both the gathering and processing side of the business. So I think we're well positioned on that front, but it's not a direct correlation.

Yeah, and I'll start. It is the incredible footprint that Sequin opens up across the entire United States, but importantly layering that.

Yeah, it's Rob. I mean, I often talk about our virtual footprint. Sequin, our marketing platform, I mean, we've got capacity positions on every major pipe across connecting pipelines, near pipelines to the extent we need to. So when you look at the data center hubs, I mean, you know, in our earnings presentation, we have a slide that shows, and you can see we can pretty much touch any data center hub opportunity backlog. We have a physical footprint, but also places where. Yeah, one thing I would also note, I mentioned it in the prepared

marks, the Aristotle pipeline, which we are commissioning now, we've been here to deliver gas for Plato South, but basically the team designed an artery that now moves across that Columbus-New Albany area, which has been a very large data center corridor, and so we overbuilt the capacity to be able to not just serve along which other projects could be developed, and you're going to continue to see it in Utah, where the Aquila project, and that's an area of growth, and frankly...

Very clear.

Thank you. Our next question comes from John McKay from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hey, team. Thanks for the time. Let's stay on the behind the meter piece, I suppose. We're seeing kind of more entrance into the space, particularly from the services side, but kind of across the board. Could you just spend a minute or two, and you've touched on a lot of these pieces, but spend a minute or two kind of talking about your view of your relative competitive advantage. And we'd love to hear more about kind of specifically the balance of plant and how this is more than just, you know, hey, we've gotten our hands on a turbine. Maybe walk through that a little bit if you can.

Yeah, thanks, John. I do think what we provide is, you know, by energy infrastructure project, relatively small from a capital perspective, but that's an important project that demonstrates the ability to move data centers away from diesel backup generation to natural gas generation. The natural gas grid is this massive, efficient solution for backing up existing data.

Thank you for that. You touched on it, but my second question was just going to be on Atlas, and I think you answered it, but just to clarify, are you saying you're effectively working with a customer to swap out their diesel backup at a data center for gas? Yes, and if you could just clarify, it looks like it's relatively low CapEx, but I wanted to check on that.

Yeah, I'll let Larry fill in any gaps. Basically, yes is the answer. This is some pipeline infrastructure, $50 million, but be able to provide fuel and be able to rely on the Transco system and some of the flexibility there.

So I think it's a great solution for the customer at the end of the day in a way that we're able to provide a lower emission solution and something with some really strong reliability. And again, I take credit to the team.

I think it's proving up what I hope and expect to be a solution that we can provide for other facilities. I mean, there was an assumption that you had to have compressed natural gas or on-site liquefied gas as a storage solution. I think we're showing that the pipelines, because of the compressibility of gas, actually have tremendous storage capacity. We have storage across the natural gas footprint. And so, yeah.

Thanks for the color. Appreciate the time.

Our next question comes from Manav Gupta from UBS. Please go ahead.

Hi, I have two questions I'll ask them together. My first one is, on your analyst day, you also highlighted besides transmission and power, you are looking at multiple NAD gas storage opportunities. So if you could elaborate a little bit how those decisions are moving ahead, how customers are looking at NAD gas storage within the U.S. in terms of reliability. And then quickly, if you could talk a little bit about the upsizing of the Power Express project. Thank you.

Yeah, we're definitely seeing very strong interest in the storage space. We've seen through some of the winter storms, but also as you see increased demand and needs, especially along the Gulf Coast. We've got our pine print through permitting. We've got another expansion of our Gulf facilities that's in progress, actively working right now to finish commercialization. Hopefully we'll have some announcements on that in the upcoming quarters. And we've also got some projects out west with some of our facilities around Mountain West that we're working on, so definitely seeing strong interest, and I think we'll see some progress on a couple of projects here later this year, and I think we'll continue to look at others. We've got a pretty large footprint across the facilities and on power of our needs. I think, as you've seen, we've moved around the scope of this project and continue to work with customers in that area within Virginia, and we had one of the customers that they've firmed up their ultimate needs, ended up having an upsize, and then additionally, we've had another customer come to the table that fit really nicely within the scope of that project, able to keep returns in scope within something that was manageable and not impact timing of the overall project. And so I think it just demonstrates the value of the Transco system and how we can make minor adjustments to scope of expansion projects and be able to flex to meet the customer's So great job by our commercial team staying connected with those markets and finding ways to continue to upsize where it makes sense.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Sunil Saibal from Seaport Global. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, and thanks for the time this morning. I wanted to touch base on the LNG opportunity. It seems like with all the geopolitical events happening currently, You know, there is an increased focus on the U.S. as an LNG supplier. You obviously have a position in one of the LNG projects. So I was curious if you could give us an update on that market.

Yeah, I'll start and Rob may want to fill in. The first thing I'd say is things are progressing well on the Woodside LNG project. We've taken over our Louisiana Energy Gateway system and will be the primary source of the Woodside LNG terminal. I think we like our position and the scale of it on the LNG front. So right now on that project, primarily things that are happening in the world today further reinforce. We produce 40% more natural gas statistically. And if anyone had concerns over producing a commodity, much lower than it was.

This side is obligation. And we have been talking to producers and looking at trying to use that to sort of help attract more volume through our Hainesville system. and help complete that well head to water strategy that we've been working on.

Okay, thanks for that. We'll stay tuned on that 1.5 MTPA. Changing topics, I think there were some comments in the press about power trading, you know, opportunity for Williams. I wanted to see if you could clarify, you know, how are you looking at that opportunity around your existing assets or the assets that you're building?

Yeah, I mean, right now I'd say stay tuned on that front. But for today, you know, we're not a, as we are, but we want to make sure that we can provide the most efficient.

Thanks for that.

Our next question comes from Craig Sear from Tui Brothers. Please go ahead.

Morning. Thanks for taking the questions. So first, I just want to kind of talk through the equity partner opportunity in power innovation. It seems like there's three prospective drivers for that, but you're kind of emphasizing one over the others. And in my mind, that's staying within near-term leverage targets, enjoying carried interest upside on individual deals. But then you kind of repeatedly talked about recycling capital and the potential wider range of projects. And then in Q&A, John mentioned the potential for strategic relationships that could further add to project opportunities. So maybe you want to opine a little more on that. Is accelerating the growth of this the primary focus?

From a treasury financing perspective, again, we can stay ahead of the wonderful kind of book of business. We see the commercial teams reviewing with this and making sure that we don't get caught limiting our abilities to continue to grow. in to win the financing issue. We are committed to the 3.5 to 4 times leverage target. That gives us a lot of breathing room relative to our current ratings, so that's not a ratings agency issue. That's more of an internal target that we've agreed to with the board that we all feel comfortable as a good leverage range for the business. We also want to be able to continue to grow our dividend, and so I think overall, we're just trying to find ways to finance the CapEx in a very efficient manner in a way that really can confirm. And I think what we've seen with these meetings that we've been having with the we'll continue to be assets that time too. So we have a number. We're trying to make sure we're not locked into any one path, but I feel really optimistic we're going to have a very attractive financing solution for shareholders to announce at some point. And last one for me, Chad, in answer

to John, I think you mentioned the energy storage component. I believe that was a major contributor to some prior project upsizings that you all had announced. Wanted to inquire about the best factor evolution as a part of power innovation solutions, and what exactly are customers looking for with this? Is it more second-to-second responsiveness, or is there an increasing interesting interest in longer-duration backup support.

Yeah, thanks, Ray. I think primarily, so this is primarily.

Thank you. That concludes the Q&A portion of our call. I'll now turn it over to President and CEO Chad Zimmerman for closing remarks.

Well, thanks for the always robust Q&A, and thank you for your interest in Williams. We look forward to speaking with you again soon, and in the meantime, we wish you well.

thank you for your participation in today's conference this does conclude the prayer group program you may now disconnect