Welcome to the Enbridge Inc. First Quarter 2022 Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Justin, and I will be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session for the investment community. During the question-and-answer session, if you have a question, please press star one on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Jonathan Morgan, Senior Vice President, Capital Markets. Jonathan, you may begin.
Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to the Enbridge Inc. First Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. Joining me this morning are Al Monaco, President and Chief Executive Officer, Vern Yu, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Colin Gruending, Executive Vice President, Liquids Pipelines, Cynthia Hansen, Executive Vice President, Gas Transmission and Midstream, Michele Harradence, Senior Vice President and President, Gas Distribution and Storage, and Matthew Akman, Senior Vice President, Strategy, Power, and New Energy Technologies. As per usual, this call will be webcast, and I encourage those listening on the phone to follow along with the supporting slides. We'll try to keep the call to roughly 1 hour, and in order to answer as many questions as possible, we will be limiting the questions to one, plus a single follow-up as necessary. We'll be prioritizing questions from the investment community.
If you are a member of the media, please direct your inquiries to our communications team, who will be happy to respond. As always, our investor relations team will be available following the call for any follow-up questions. On to slide two, where I'll remind you that we will be referring to forward-looking information on today's presentation and Q&A. By its nature, this information contains forecast assumptions and expectations of future outcomes, which are subject to the risks and uncertainties outlined here and discussed more fully in our public disclosure filings. We'll also be referring to non-GAAP measures as summarized below. With that, I'll turn it over to Al Monaco.
Good morning, everyone. Well, to start, what you see here is the first of 80 turbines being installed at our 480-megawatt Saint-Nazaire wind project off the west coast of France. Just to give you a sense of the magnitude of this infrastructure, the towers are 170 meters in height, and each blade is about the same as the wingspan of an Airbus A380. Pretty exciting time in our renewables business, and more on that later. First, though, recent events are very troubling, and we're all very concerned for the people in Ukraine. Many of our staff have connections to the region, and we're supporting them. What's happening is also revealing a lot about global energy markets. I'll start off with how we're thinking about that, followed by our business update. Vern Yu will cover our financial results and outlook.
Before that, this slide captures our Q1 highlights. It's been a good start to the year. All four businesses performed well, operating at or near capacity. That translated into strong Q1 numbers, and we're on track to achieve 2022 guidance. The balance sheet is in good shape, and both S&P and Fitch reaffirmed our BBB+ ratings. We've got CAD 10 billion of projects in execution, with CAD 4 billion slated for service this year. So far in 2022, we've added another CAD 1 billion to our project backlog that'll support post-2024 growth. We'll update you on two carbon capture opportunities we're very excited about. More broadly, we're seeing a pickup in customer infrastructure, especially LNG export. Recall there's CAD 5 billion-CAD 6 billion a year of conventional and low-carbon opportunity enterprise-wide in the hopper. Those will go through our capital allocation filter, which Vern will also cover later on.
On to energy markets. Coming into the year, we saw growing demand and underinvestment in supply move energy prices higher. The Russia-Ukraine war has worsened the demand supply gap, obviously, but it's also put energy back in the spotlight. Energy markets are at an inflection point, and we're in an energy crisis. There are three things that come out of this. Any way you look at it, global energy supply will need to increase to address national security risks, affordability, and reliability. That means we'll now need an energy supply buffer and greater diversity of that supply to manage those risks. Europe's heavy reliance on Russia is driving this, of course, but the impacts are broader and global, regardless of when this war ends. Second is the energy transition.
We'll need to accelerate low-carbon investments as well to meet demand, achieve emissions goals, and as part of the security buffer. To make that happen, we'll need to pick up the pace on proven ways to grow low-carbon fuels like RNG, hydrogen, and especially carbon capture. That'll mean leveraging existing transportation and storage infrastructure more quickly, like ours. It also means much more investment in natural gas to provide reliable, lower-carbon baseload power and to enable renewables. Third, North America will play a much larger role in the global energy market. Here's why. The North American energy advantage that we've been talking about is even more evident today. Massive low-cost reserves and the technology to produce them with the lowest carbon intensity. Of the 10 largest global producers, Canada and the U.S. are number one and two on sustainability.
You can see that with the ESG scores on this chart. North America will be the supplier of choice. You saw that already with the U.S.-EU announcement to work together. Asian markets are also looking to secure long-term supply. The biggest opportunity in our view is natural gas exports with the potential for over 30 BCF a day. That's more than triple last year. Of course, crude exports are set to grow by 50%. All of this is very positive for infrastructure pointed at Tidewater. Remember as well that the North American grid is integrated, so growing global demand and export is upside to Canada and the U.S. What you see here is underpinned by strong energy demand. We're going to need more supply of both conventional and low-carbon energy, and now that'll be needed faster.
80% of world demand comes from hard-to-abate industrial uses and heavy transport, and of course, petchem demand is growing. It's also clear today that natural gas will be essential to meeting demand. Even before the crisis, Europe amended its taxonomy for clean energy to include natural gas. On low-carbon, CAD 25 trillion will need to be invested with renewables, the largest component, along with RNG, hydrogen, and again, carbon capture. We are headed in the right direction as the tax credits in the Canadian government budget incentivize carbon capture, and there are U.S. proposals to expand 45Q. What does all this mean for our strategy? This slide recaps the two-pronged approach we outlined for you at Enbridge Day. Our strategy is to invest in both conventional and low-carbon energy, and that makes even more sense today.
On the conventional side, we'll focus on optimizing throughput and modernizing our systems. On low-carbon, we'll continue to align with the pace of transition. Through 2025, we see over 4 billion of low-carbon opportunities. Finally, any new investment, conventional or low-carbon, will need to meet our investment criteria, so that won't change. When you step back from all of this, we believe the two-pronged strategy approach makes even more sense today, where energy security is back in the spotlight and where demands for conventional and low-carbon energy supplies will continue to rise. Now to the business update and gas transmission. Very strong volumes with Texas Eastern hitting 16 of its top 25 peak days ever. We're on track to put $1.2 billion into service this year, and that's on top of the $2.4 billion last year.
The lion's share of spending is on new compression or modernization more generally. Along with our solar self-power projects, we're lowering emissions. For example, our current modernization program will take out 182,000 tons of CO2 per year. We're also excited about more organic growth. We've got good optionality to support growing domestic demand, and it's pretty clear more capacity in the U.S. Northeast is needed to manage disruptions and peak demand. We all know what's happening with global gas prices, but it's not pretty for U.S. Northeast consumers either with gas prices at roughly 5x Henry Hub. This situation screams for more infrastructure, especially given increased supply variability from offshore wind that's coming and more displacement of coal, of course. We put Phase I of our Appalachian to Market project into service last year, and Phase II is in pre-construction.
Building greenfield is tough sledding, of course, these days, but these expansions are executable and cost-effective, and there's more that we can do. LNG exports is a big opportunity with momentum building across the U.S. Gulf and now more so in Western Canada. Our Texas Eastern system feeds LNG along the Gulf Coast. We supply 4 plants today with about 2 BCF a day. We've locked up capacity agreements with three more LNG projects that could add up to 7 BCF a day and over $2 billion of new investment. Plaquemines LNG is now fully contracted and likely going ahead, which will drive $400 million on our Venice Extension Project. Not in the secured category yet, but we expect it to be shortly. Texas LNG and Rio Grande LNG are also progressing positively.
In fact, earlier this week, you saw NextDecade granted a 15-year SPA with ENGIE to support Rio Grande. Seeing good momentum then here with both projects potentially reaching FID later this year. By the way, on Rio Grande, that could drive FID on our Rio Bravo pipeline. Western Canada is another big growth region for us. Shifting fundamentals are bringing Western Canada to the fore once again. You've got a world-class liquids-rich resource base that rivals the Marcellus and the Haynesville. Operators have done every bit as good a job unlocking reserves. We could see production grow 50% for LNG export here and regional demand growth. With growing demand in Europe for U.S. LNG, Western Canada can step in to fill the gap.
Proximity to Asian markets provides two to four weeks reduced shipping time and lower emissions. LNG breakevens in Canada at roughly $6-$8/MMBtu rivals the U.S. Gulf Coast and looks very favorable if you look at East Asian LNG prices somewhere in the order of $30/MMBtu in Q1. LNG Canada is in construction, of course, and Woodfibre is advancing early-stage construction activity. We're the main conduit out of the Montney and Deep Basin, so all of this bodes well for upstream expansion on our BC pipeline system. On that note, we launched a binding open season today for 400 million cubic feet on T-North. That'll be a $1 billion expansion. Woodfibre LNG is contracted on T-South, with volumes currently flowing to the Pacific Northwest.
Once they reach FID, we'll need to create new capacity to replace volumes currently moving south. That expansion would be approximately CAD 2.5 billion. Depending on Woodfibre's FID timing, we're targeting a binding open season on T-South for later this year. By the way, this could also require further upstream expansion on the T-North side. All of this is shaping up to be a big opportunity multiyear, which again goes to prove the value of pipe in the ground. Now, longer term, we also hold what could be two valuable pathways to the coast, the Pacific Trails and the West Coast Connector corridors. We look at these as low-cost options on the future of LNG exports. Now, for either of these to move forward, we'll need to see a clear path to execution with strong local community support and commercial underpinning.
We have a way to go for those. Turning to liquids, Q1 Mainline throughput averaged 3 million barrels per day. Seasonally, we'll see a more concentrated maintenance season in Q2 than we usually do, offset by stronger volumes in the back end of the year. We remain on track for the full-year average utilization of 2.95 million barrels per day that we guided to in December. On Mainline tolling, healthy dialogue here ongoing with shippers. As you may recall, we shared our cost information, which was the precursor to negotiations. Our sense is that shippers would prefer another incentive tolling deal. Of course, that model worked very well for 27 years and aligned us with the shippers. As we've said, we'll need to see an appropriate return given the risks we manage under that model.
Given it's often challenging to come to consensus, we're preparing a cost of service filing, which is a very good alternative for us. The schedule is the same as we showed you last time, where we expect to have a new tolling construct in place in 2023. Now, more broadly on Liquids and how it fits within the shifting energy landscape I talked about earlier. Our scale and access to the best markets provides a ton of optionality and value for our customers. Our focus is adding highly executable capacity to the Midwest and the Gulf. Expansion options are right-sized and can be called on as production grows. In total, we've got roughly 400,000 barrels per day of egress opportunity on the Mainline and Express. We're also developing a new Gulf Coast path via Pony Express that will link up with Seaway.
Downstream, we're continuing to develop the Houston terminal opportunities. Since we acquired Ingleside, we've seen increasing interest on several fronts, which is already proving out the upside. On conventional, we're progressing a 2-million-barrel storage expansion. The terminal is already permitted for five, actually, so we can move that one along once we get commitments. There's also potential emerging for LNG exports, and stay tuned for more on that over the next while. As you saw today, we're also now developing an integrated solution for blue hydrogen and ammonia production with H Cycle . Now, the key to this concept is the integrated value chain through to exports. Texas Eastern runs just north of Ingleside, so it nicely is positioned to provide feedstock for hydrogen. It looks like the geology in this region is suited for carbon capture and storage.
The hydrogen and ammonia production would be destined to meet local demand and the export market, which of course is booming. Multiple upsides at Ingleside. Now to carbon capture in Alberta. In March, we were awarded the right to move forward on our Wabamun storage hub, so we're now validating the geology. Another positive was the federal government's investment tax credit, 50% on capture and 37.5% on transportation and storage. This will go a long way to help make the numbers work. At 4 megatons per year captured with upsides to that over time, this project will be one of the largest globally. We've given you a preliminary timeline here, which could see the project in service as early as 2026. On our utility, population growth will drive new gas connections and expansion of transmission and storage.
In fact, we just FID an expansion of our TransAlta system. It's a CAD 300 million investment to support growing greenhouse and power demand market in Ontario. The utility continues to generate about CAD 1 billion-CAD 1.5 billion of ratable annual investment. It's a great business and a real gem in our portfolio. Moving to renewables, we had a strong quarter exceeding our resource targets, so that's good to see. What we have in execution will drive visible EBITDA growth through 2024. In France, we have four offshore projects in construction, including our first floating facility. As you saw earlier, we're installing turbines at Saint-Nazaire, and we're in the fabrication phase at Fécamp and pre-construction at Calvados and Provence Grand Large. In North America, we have 10 solar power projects in progress. Seven of those should enter this year.
Remember, we can build these quicker given they're inside the fence. We're also moving along about 3 gigawatts of opportunity for the next phase of growth post 2024. Before I pass it over to Vern, as you heard, we're seeing lots of positive fundamentals right now, and I've covered a variety of opportunities on both the conventional and low carbon front. He's gonna remind you about our framework and discipline around putting free cash flow to work and maximizing value. Over to you, Vern.
Thank you, Al, and good morning, everyone. Our first quarter results were up significantly over 2021 on solid operational performance across all of our businesses. We saw the benefit of CAD 14 billion of capital that we put to work last year. In liquids, the Mainline moved about 3 million barrels per day in Q1, up 9% year-over-year, taking advantage of the additional capacity from Line 3. As a reminder, until we finalize the tolling for the Mainline, we'll be including a provision in our results for that segment. Our Ingleside facility, with its highly contracted cash flow, is performing as expected, and it should remain strong through the balance of the year. Gas transmission utilization was solid, and the CAD 1.4 billion of expansions added to our BC Pipeline system last year are driving growth in EBITDA.
It's business as usual at the utility, with customer growth and colder weather making positive contributions in the first quarter. In the quarter, our renewables business benefited from higher wind resources. Energy services continued to experience narrow basis differentials and backwardation in the quarter, so below expectations here. Finally, lower capitalization of interest expense associated with Line 3 replacement has resulted in higher financing costs. It's been a very solid start to the year. Let's move over to our outlook. With the strong first quarter, we're confident we're on track to achieve full-year guidance. Our systems are expected to continue to be highly utilized, including the Mainline, which is on track for 2.95 million barrels per day on average for the year. As always, this factors in a seasonal drop in throughput in the second and third quarters due to upstream and downstream maintenance activity.
Our exposure to rising commodity prices remains limited, but we expect some modest upside at Oxbow and DCP. Gas distribution and renewables remain on track to meet their annual guidance. We're expecting energy services results in Q2 to be comparable to Q1, a slight headwind for the year. Energy services outlook improves for 2023 and beyond as we have transportation and storage contracts expiring at the end of this year and early in 2023. We're well protected against inflation. As a reminder, 80% of our revenue has some form of inflation protection through our various tolling mechanisms. Revenues are adjusted through regular rate filings or directly through embedded contractual inflation escalators. Our capital has been largely secured for 2022, which provides good protection against capital cost increases, and we continue to manage our capital program through active supply chain procurement and fixed price EPC contracts.
Our financing costs are also well protected. About 90% of our debt is fixed rate debt, minimizing our near-term exposure to rising interest rates, and we continue to optimize our financings. We're generating a lot of cash flow and more investment capacity. Let's move on to our capital allocation framework. Our priorities remain unchanged, and we're making good progress in all fronts. Our balance sheet is in great shape, and we're on track for debt to EBITDA to be at the low end of our target range by the end of the year. S&P and Fitch just reaffirmed our BBB high stable credit ratings. We've increased our dividend 3% in 2022. That's our 27th consecutive annual increase. We initiated our share buyback program. That's the model going forward. Ratable dividend growth supplemented where it makes sense with share buybacks.
Our cash flow and balance sheet leave us with about CAD 5 billion-CAD 6 billion of annual investment capacity. We expect between CAD 3 million to CAD 4 billion will be deployed to low multiple organic expansions and system optimizations, along with utility rate base and modernization capital in gas transmission. That leaves about CAD 2 billion per year available for more organic growth, asset acquisitions, share buybacks or debt repayments. We'll review all of these options as we go through the year to ensure that we continue to maximize shareholder returns. All of these options will need to meet our low-risk business model, exceed risk-adjusted hurdle rates, have a strong strategic fit, and align with our emission reduction goals. As always, we will continuously evaluate options to recycle capital where appropriate to supplement the CAD 5 billion-CAD 6 billion of annual investment capacity.
Our secured capital bucket continues to grow, so let's move to that. Today, our secured capital program sits at just over CAD 10 billion. These projects will support our 5%-7% DCF per share growth outlook over our three-year planning horizon. The CAD 10 billion in secured capital includes CAD 1 billion that we announced so far in 2022. All of this secured capital is highly contracted or rate regulated, which fits our low-risk commercial model. As you just heard from Al, we're advancing a number of exciting opportunities across all of our businesses. This will drive growth in 2024 and beyond. Before I turn it back to Al, let me spend a minute on how we're advancing our ESG priorities. As you know, ESG is foundational to our business, and our goal is to maintain and enhance our ESG leading position.
We are embedding our ESG priorities into our compensation and how we finance our business. Our strategic plans and annual budgets also incorporate the strategies and the capital expenditures that are needed to meet our emissions goals. We believe this dis-differentiates us in our sector and better aligns us with all of our stakeholders, customers, investors, communities, and many more. We're making good progress on the emission targets we set in late 2020, and we continue to challenge ourselves to do better. In addition to our 2020 emission targets, earlier this year, we made some additional commitments. These include working with organizations to support the development of the emissions reduction guidelines for our sector, engaging with our suppliers to generate further scope three emission reductions, and provide more reporting on different net zero scenarios.
Our sustainability report, which will be issued in June, will provide more information on how emission reduction targets are factored into all of our capital investment decisions. It will provide further detail on our biodiversity programs, provide more transparency on our path to net zero, and provide an update on our approach to indigenous reconciliation. In a nutshell, we continue to raise the bar on how we approach ESG. With that, I'm going to turn it back to Al.
Thanks, Vern. A few takeaways to close. The energy crisis demonstrates once again that all sources of energy are needed to ensure affordable, reliable, and secure energy while achieving climate goals. North America is an ideal spot to be part of the solution, and Enbridge plays a key role. Our footprint, access to the best markets, combined with being ahead of the curve on low carbon, puts us in excellent position. Our strong balance sheet and differentiated approach to sustainability means we're a natural midstream partner to upstream and downstream customers. Finally, we'll continue to take a disciplined approach and not compromise our low-risk business model. Taken together, we think this provides a great opportunity to grow the business and a solid value proposition for our investors. I'll now turn it back over to the operator for Q&A.
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you have a question, please press star one on your touchtone phone. If you wish to be removed from the queue, please press the pound sign or the hash key. 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 one on your touchtone phone. Robert Kwan from RBC Capital Markets is on the line with a question.
If I can ask first about the capital allocation priorities for that CAD 2 billion. Clearly in the first quarter, you showed that there's, you know, it's not either/or and there's a number of things going on. I'm just wondering with some of the changes in the environment, whether that's the energy security opportunities, energy transition, as well as, you know, just the higher share price. Can you just talk through how some things have just moved around since you last spoke about this on the last quarterly call?
Yeah, that's a good question to start, Robert. Well, first of all, as you heard through those remarks, I think there's been, you know, definitely a positive shift in the fundamentals. We certainly will see more in the hopper for sure. I think it's probably too early to tell whether that changes, you know, the broader outlook. You heard the comments that Vern made around capital allocation discipline. You know, I think the way we're looking at it at this point is there's really no change to how we're looking at allocation. Discipline is gonna remain around the balance sheet, the dividend growth, and we're gonna continue to really make sure that we invest wisely.
In a nutshell, I guess, a lot more opportunity, but we'll continue to put a pretty strong filter on what we're doing, and comparing opportunities that we have to invest capital with each other. That's really how we look at it, Robert. No major change right now, but certainly more opportunity ahead.
Got it. I just was wondering as part of that, you know, is there maybe a bit more of a bias to reducing debt effectively, just opening up balance sheet capacity for new projects and a specific project I'd like be interested to get your comment on. It's just there's a lot of stuff going on in BC, as you highlighted, and especially that T-South expansion's pretty big. So if Woodfibre goes ahead and just with growth in the LDC, do you have a sense, or can you provide some color as to whether you think supply diversity is one of their goals and therefore, you know, how's your project positioned versus, say, something along the Southern Crossing line? Or do you see the potential for both of those projects to go ahead?
Yeah. I think our project is definitely in great position there, Robert, for a bunch of reasons. The main one has to do with competitiveness of the toll, and that stems in large part from the scale of the system. The other part is, if you recall, I mean, the West Coast system is more or less a north-south header, and that gives us opportunity, you know, to expand to the West Coast, but also to continue volumes down south. As to the capital allocation implications there and the size of those projects, you know, if you think about it, we're throwing off, as Vern said, a lot of free cash flow right now, and we will continue to do that over the next two to three years.
The projects that we're talking about are certainly not cash consuming, let's just say, in the next couple of years in any material way. In a way, to get back to your original point, you're sort of building up some excess capacity here, while those projects will come to fruition in the next two, three, four years, capital spending-wise. As far as the balance sheet, you know, Vern can expand on this, but essentially, we're in very good shape right now. I think we've been pretty clear about the four and a half to five, and as he said, we'll be near the bottom of the range by the end of this year.
Going back to what I just said, it's possible that with free cash flow the way it is, that we could pop below that 4.5 in the next little while. As you point out, these larger projects come to fruition. In effect, we'll be building up some capacity for that.
That's great. I appreciate the color. Thanks.
Okay.
Jeremy Tonet from JP Morgan is on the line with a question.
Hi, good morning.
Hi.
Just wanted to start off with the new Ingleside hydrogen and ammonia initiative, as you outlined there. Just wondering if you could fill in a bit more, I guess, on what some of the drivers are that could help you reach a positive FID. Who are the end customers that you're looking to service here? You know, what type of contractual support are you expecting here? What type of timeline? Just more color on this would be helpful.
Okay. Well, I'm gonna start and then we'll get Colin to provide some more details. You know, this is a great example of how pipe and facilities that are in place gives you an advantage. You know, just broadly speaking in this region, Jeremy, we've got, you know, a big gas header along the Gulf. We've got Seaway, we've got Ingleside now, and a bunch of projects in development. As we went through, pretty strong fundamental support here. Export-wise, obviously, gas is critical. CCUS is critical. This has really a bunch of attributes to it that go to that value chain I was talking about. We've got essentially a brownfield industrial complex here with some very big players. It's naturally helpful for us to grow from this area.
The business model should be fit quite well with what's going on. That's sort of the big picture here. These are sizable opportunities that can really move the needle. That's the background and context of how we're thinking about the region generally. Maybe Colin can provide some context around customers and markets specific to this opportunity and the partner.
Yeah. Hey, thanks, Al. Good morning, Jeremy. Yeah, so, thinking about this project probably, with a capital cost of, you know, $2 billion-$3 billion. We're JVing, so we have half of that. In terms of commercial construct, of course, we'd look to term this out under a take-or-pay type arrangement, and we'll be jointly marketing the facilities with our partner. You know, I think European fertilizer companies, domestic and European power gen with respect to hydrogen. The concept is pretty novel, you know, exporting decarbonized fossil fuels. I think you'll see more of these. Of course, the Ingleside facility, you know, has 54-foot dredge depth now, ample space to build facilities and is close to open water.
That's the formula and model we're looking for here.
Got it. Thank you for that. Wanted to pivot to the WCSB here and the takeaway situation. Just we see a few different gives and takes here as far as egress is concerned. You know, with Trans Mountain, there's delays. The Canadian government financing support is changing. They still need to build through sensitive population areas, so there's headwinds there, uncertainty there. But at the same time, even with oil at $100, we haven't really seen material FIDs out of the WCSB. So do you see much growth out of the basin and shipper demand for more capacity that might underpin a new CTS if there's more takeaway demand than CTS seems like maybe it's a better option to incentivize that?
Do you not see this demand materializing and basin doesn't have much growth and that feeds into cost of service being more likely outcome?
Okay, I'll start again, Jeremy Tonet. Maybe I'll start this way. The fundamentals here for the oil sands basin and the basin generally in Western Canada are pretty positive. I think we all know about the attributes around the size of the reserves, you know, the surety of getting those to market. Of course, the upstream group has done a tremendous job, both in terms of, you know, lowering cash costs, but also on the emissions front. I think fundamentally, you know, we're very positive on that part. The signals I think that they probably need to see going forward, obviously we've got very high prices right now, that's positive. But, you know, they're gonna wanna see some stability in that long term.
We don't need 100-dollar oil for that to happen, but certainly clarity on where it's going longer term. They're gonna be looking at capital efficient solutions, debottlenecking first. Everybody's concerned about supply chains, and of course, as you refer to, egress of the basin. That's where we come in, which, you know, as we alluded to in the remarks, the Mainline is extremely well positioned for this. The Mainline tolling agreement actually will be important in that we need to see clarity on the commercial underpinning for those projects that we have in the queue here, which Colin can get to. We need to see clarity on that in order for us to continue to incrementally expand.
Again, in this environment, incremental expansion, optimizations on the system are ideally suited, I think, for where the basin is and what these producers need to see in order to invest additional capital. The basin generally will be probably behind in its ability to react to increasing prices here, as we've seen compared to say the Permian, just because of the nature of what we're talking about in oil sands, longer-dated investment profiles. That's the bigger picture. Colin, do you wanna give some specifics around where we are on the expansion opportunities and the timing?
Yeah. Thanks, Al. We're keeping our Mainline expansion opportunities ready to go here and advancing long lead items to enable them to be there. We believe industry will continue to want some egress or some insurance egress, having not had any for decades. We'll potentially weave that into any commercial arrangement we negotiate here. You know, the timing of those will have to be TBD, but we're keeping them warm, Jeremy.
I'll just add one more thing here. Colin, you mentioning TMX, Jeremy. You know, in the bigger picture here, again, if you think about it, we've got what would be two nice pathways through to the Gulf Coast, and that'll continue to be an extremely strong market. The thing that's happened recently here in terms of the security buffers that we've been talking about is, you know, the export position that we have relative to those two paths, I think is gonna be ideal in terms of the longer term future of heavy oil coming out of Western Canada. We know that the Gulf Coast is a great destination for that, will continue to be, but now we've got this additional opportunity to really generate greater exports out of that region too.
That bodes well for us, I think.
Got it. That's helpful. I'll leave it there. Thanks.
Okay. Thanks, Jeremy.
Robert Hope from Scotiabank is on the line with a question.
Good morning, everyone. Wanna circle back on the BC expansion project. When you take a look at the T-North, I guess the first phase of the expansion as well as the second phase of the expansion, specifically in the first phase, is that dependent on the T-South expansion and Woodfibre? Or could we see that progress independently just to serve LNG Canada demand?
I'll go quickly, and then Cynthia will chime in. On T-North, that goes ahead regardless. That's the binding open season we're talking about. On T-South, I think that is most probably dependent on Woodfibre LNG sanctioning. That's the short answer. Cynthia, do you have anything to add there?
Yeah. Thanks, Al. I think you covered it in your earlier remarks. We see the volumes that are currently going to be assigned to Woodfibre, serving the US Pacific Northwest. When those 300 million cubes a day move to Woodfibre, then we're going to need to come in with some additional supply. That's why we'll really have that opportunity to expand T-South when that happens.
All right. Thanks for that. Then, you know, BC can be a challenging place to build pipe as, you know, coastal and Trans Mountain are learning. You know, how do you know, secure the supply chains and the development pipeline to give you confidence in these large investments?
Well, I think, again, I'll go first. On the west, I mean, this is really the crux of the advantage I think here in this particular case, whether you look at, you know, the community aspects of building new infrastructure, and obviously, the indigenous groups that are along the right of way. The fact that we've been there for so long, the fact that we have good relationships, and the fact that in this particular situation, we're not doing a lot of, you know, looping or twinning of pipelines here. I think in this case, you know, we're in pretty good position to expand the T-South system. Certainly, that goes for T-North as well. Supply chain-wise, you know, that's something we're gonna have to manage.
Everybody's, I think, exposed to increasing costs here, inflation and so forth. It's something we can manage. We've got, you know, pretty in-depth supply chain group here that looks at this strategically and can really bring the size of our company to bear in terms of base loading particular contractors. I think we're in reasonable shape these days as far as you can be in a tough environment permitting-wise and in an inflationary setting. I don't. Do you wanna add anything, Cynthia?
We have had, obviously, as Al said, a long history of operating very successfully in BC. The challenges that everyone is facing, it's not just in BC as we know. We need to continue to focus on our customers and our stakeholders. We're doing a lot of work. We continue to want to progress these projects, but we do need that stakeholder support and customer support. If we focus on those fundamentals as we have in the past, and really allow us to continue to be successful.
Thank you.
Hey, Rob. Thank you.
Praneeth Satish from Wells Fargo is on the line with a question.
Thanks. Good morning. On the Ingleside facility, I just wanted to get an update in terms of the interest you're seeing from customers to potentially export NGLs from the facility. Sounds like, you're getting some traction there. If you did export NGLs, would you be looking to export LPGs or other NGL products? How much would you export and where would you source the NGLs from?
Okay. Colin, do you wanna take that?
Hey, Praneeth. Yeah, good questions. We're looking at various forms of purity NGL export out of Ingleside. Won't be too specific, but we'd be sourcing them locally obviously, and these are under development, so I think I'll just leave it there for now.
Okay. Got it. Just staying in the U.S. so gas production is increasing both in the Northeast and the Haynesville. Both regions have had some egress constraints. Recognizing that you have pipelines in both areas, are you evaluating any potential projects to improve takeaway? Do you have the ability to do any brownfield expansions, or would they need to be greenfield at this point?
Cynthia?
Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. We obviously have our Texas Eastern system that leaves us in a unique position to serve Haynesville production and get to the Gulf Coast market with our existing infrastructure. There are some opportunities for both brownfield and obviously greenfield in this space. We're continuing to have those conversations with the key players, our key customers, to figure out the best path forward to serve the incremental needs.
Got it. Thank you.
Robert Catellier from CIBC is on the line with a question.
Yes, thank you. A lot has changed since we last spoke. I'm wondering if you can discuss if you feel there's an understanding by policymakers, especially in the US, for the need to get permitting moving in order to build the infrastructure that's required to deal with this energy crisis.
Well, let me put it this way, Rob. I think we're certainly hearing the right things. How would I put this? They certainly get it. As you can imagine, impact on consumers all the way from home heating costs to you know, prices at the pump. I think everybody understands the situation really well. I'm not convinced yet that you know, we're gonna see quick action to provide additional clarity on regulatory permitting. I'm just being honest there. There's a myriad of issues, of course, you know, general policy issues related to acceleration of you know, lower carbon opportunities. You've got federal versus state jurisdictions and you know, quite a complex array of permitting agencies and approvals that are required.
I think we all know what needs to be done here, no doubt. I think we're gonna need a little bit of time for this to unfold. Certainly, if there ever was a time in terms of the signals that are being sent around the impact on the consumers, this is it. We're hopeful. You know, we continue to do a lot of work on this. As you know, these roles change over time that we have, and a big part of the role these days and all the people around this table is engaging with governments and explaining, you know, what's happening and what we need to see in order to put capital to work. We have that capital. We've got the capability to work through these regulatory processes and permitting issues.
Certainly we need more policy support at a very high level, and hopefully that will come through. You know, I will add too, though, that you really have to be skilled in this area these days, regardless of you know, the policy issues that you're alluding to. In terms of the ground campaign, if I can put it that way, Cynthia alluded to this, engaging communities, you know, the work we do with indigenous groups, these are the things that really help get projects moving. Those are the general thoughts.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. That's helpful.
Okay. Thanks, Rob.
Theresa Chen from Barclays is on the line with a question.
Thank you for taking my question. First, I wanted to ask about the Mainline system. In the context of changes in global flows of crude and the Russian, you know, production and exports on the crude side currently seems to be rerouted, but certainly some long-term uncertainty there. Coupled with Mexico's publicly expressed intention to consume more and more of their domestic production, which is heavy sour nature, there does seem to be an incremental bid in the marketplace for that sour barrel. I was wondering, are these structural themes a factor into your discussion with shippers about the rate? How do you view these themes in light of, you know, the value and competitive advantage of your system, not just Mainline, but really MidCon all the way to the Gulf Coast?
Yeah. This is a great question, Theresa. I think the short answer is, and Colin can chime in too, that we're probably in the spot where it's too early to tell. There's no doubt that there's a price change and that's been driven by different signals on supply. How, you know, Russian volumes get reabsorbed and how flows realign and change, I think that's yet to be determined. As I alluded to in the remarks, it's pretty clear that, and I'm gonna say North America here because both Canada and the U.S. because of the integrated nature of our systems here in North America, really are in position to fill this gap. We went through that. The reserves are low cost. We've got reliability on our side.
Security obviously is something we bring to the table. You're seeing this right now. Europe and Asia are gonna be competing for natural gas. I know you didn't mention gas, but that's part of it as well. You've seen that with some of the LNG contracts that have just been signed up. We're probably a little bit early to figure out exactly where the flows get realigned, but for sure, we're in pretty good position. Now, on the Mainline, maybe, Colin, you can just comment on what you think about that.
Yeah. Thanks for the question, Theresa. I'll give you a number here. 45% is the market share position, presently, for Canadian crude in the Gulf, in the markets at Cushing. The point you're making has been alive and well for a while, and I think the points you're making now even accentuate the competitiveness of Canadian crude. You didn't mention Venezuela, but that's been a structural factor in decline as well into the Gulf. Yeah, the Mainline sees all that. As Al mentioned, we're looking at another path, you know, down through Cushing as well, all feeding the same phenomenon. The Mainline toll, you know, acts as that foundational toll. It's going to be an open access system.
We're taking contracting or firm service off the table, so all shippers will have access to that path.
Thank you. Would you mind commenting on what is the latest cost estimate on the Line 5 tunnel, please?
Colin?
Al, I can take that. Yeah, sure.
Yeah.
I think, you know, we're probably looking there at about CAD 750 million, Theresa, and probably trending up.
Got it. Thank you very much.
The cost for both reroutes in Wisconsin and Michigan will be factored into any toll deal we arrive with industry.
Understood.
Thanks.
Linda Ezergailis from TD Securities is on the line with a question.
Thank you. Just further with respect to Line 5, I guess one of the questions I would have is how do various policymakers and regulators and governments understand, you know, the importance of keeping existing energy infrastructure used and useful? Can you give us a sense of a timeline to resolve various challenges along there and what some of the solutions might be to meet the needs of all stakeholders?
Colin, do you wanna take that?
Sure. Hey, good morning, Linda. I agree with your point. I think Al mentioned this more broadly earlier. I think policymakers all around this or on both sides of the border fully get the importance of keeping existing infrastructure flowing, especially in light of recent events globally. The Canadian government has shown up loud and supportive on all elements of Line 5 here in both Michigan and Wisconsin. There were comments made in the House of Commons this week with respect to that. That's all encouraging. The timelines on both reroutes are multiyear. We're working through the permitting processes on both and you know, trying to move it along as prudently and as thoroughly as we can.
Yeah, that's the latest there, Linda.
Just a quick comment on that, Linda. Colin's right about the Canadian government's activity and involvement here, which has been very strong. It's also state governments in the surrounding region of both Michigan and Wisconsin, who certainly get the criticality of this infrastructure to their states and consumers in the region. That's helpful too.
Thank you. Just sticking in the region, there's an Ontario provincial election coming up. Can you comment quickly on any sort of potential implications for your presence in the province? I'm assuming more positive than any sort of challenges, but especially for your utility.
Michele's here, so she can answer that.
Sure, thanks, Linda. You know, we've been working with the government on a number of initiatives, whether that's as we're looking at blending in RNG or hydrogen. If I pull back, I would say we have a very long history of working with a range of governments and we know that we're a critical asset to the local economy. The infrastructure we have in place is very valuable, and we really just don't see that changing in any material way.
Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Linda.
Ben Pham from BMO is on the line with a question.
Okay, thanks. Good morning, everybody. Looking through your slides and, you know, there's a number of chunky projects, CAD 1 billion-CAD 2 billion, and if you add in the BC Pipeline, this could be even more than that. I'm wondering, is it? Are you at the point in time where the CAD 5 billion-CAD 6 billion of CapEx you mentioned previously, that there's potential upside momentum to that? Maybe not to the CAD 10 billion range, but it just sounds like there's just a lot of pent-up demand to grow your business.
Yeah. I'm gonna get Vern to comment, but just generally from my point of view, Ben, you know, there may be. Yes, I mean, it's always possible that number rises. On the other hand, I think that the important thing is how we filter the number and ensure that, you know, we maintain the discipline that we have been focused on here over the last number of years. Yeah, the hopper may be larger, but we're gonna be very careful about how much we deploy, which has generally been constrained to the amount of free cash availability that we have to invest. I don't. Vern, do you wanna comment?
Sure. Al, I think we talked about this very quite a bit at our Enbridge Day in December, and there's really no change. The balance sheet is our number one priority. Having the flexibility in all markets is critical to us. Our free cash flow generation and some room that we have on our balance sheet provides CAD 5 billion-CAD 6 billion a year investment capacity. We're gonna go through and make sure that the highest and most attractive projects get done first. If we have too many opportunities, that's unfortunate, some of these won't just proceed.
Okay. Thanks for that. What about the Ridgeline project? Could you provide a commercial update on that project?
Yeah, thanks. Ridgeline, we're continuing to progress with that. There will be an opportunity as we move forward. We're still awaiting FID. Again, that project, as we currently plan to go forward, if we get the FID, that would be a Q4 2026 in service.
Okay. Great. Thank you. Have a good week, everybody.
Okay. Thank you, Ben Pham.
Brian Reynolds from UBS is on the line with a question.
Hi, good morning, everyone. Maybe I'll just follow up some of the questions on the heavy oil coming out of Western Canada. The teams here that, you know, Mainline is progressing towards a tolling agreement in 2023. Was just curious as to how we should think about the potential tolling agreement and the expansion of Mainline, and whether they're interrelated or whether the expansion, you know, ultimately could be announced before the resolution. Thanks.
Okay. Colin, do you wanna field that?
Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Brian. It's a good question. We talked about it a bit, but to be clear, they basically need to be sequenced together. I think Gail mentioned this. We need clarity on the tolling agreement to understand how any expansions would work within that framework. I think that's the order that needs to happen.
Yeah. Just to put a point on it too, Brian, I mean, this is one of the things we're talking about with the customers Colin and his team are in that, you know, we need to have that underpinning. Like you said, we're ready to go on these. I think it'll be really important to provide some additional capacity here, given the opportunity that's in front of the basin in terms of, you know, where we're at fundamentally, which is what we've been talking about a lot on the call, very positive. You know, hopefully we can move the tolling agreement along so we can get moving on those.
That, that's great. In terms of just sequencing of events, could that also impact the Flanagan South and potential Seaway expansion in 2024 or are those kind of separate events in your view?
Yeah. Hey, Brian, it's Colin again. Those are likely in that same mix. I think as we just talked about on the T-South earlier, full path egress to the Gulf is the prize here, and it's likely those would be considered or concluded together. The downstream legs of that path would be contracted, though, maybe that's your question. Whereas the capacity on the Mainline would potentially be more open access. Likely to come together all at once.
Makes sense. Then just quickly as my final question, you know, understanding the NGL exports out of Corpus Christi and more details to come on that. But just curious if you could just talk about how the relationships with DCP and PSX and in addition to the new cracker in the region could ultimately, you know, drive success for the projects and, you know, ultimately whether, you know, Enbridge were considering JVing with the project around NGL exports out of Corpus Christi. Thanks.
Take this back to you, Colin.
Yeah, thanks, Brian. I don't want to get into too many specifics here, but yeah, we do have obviously a great relationship with the parties you mentioned, and they'll be in the mix here as well.
Appreciate the color. Have a great day, everyone.
Thanks, Brian.
We have reached our time limit and are not able to take any further question at this time. I will now turn the call over to Jonathan Morgan for final remarks.
Okay. Great. Thank you everyone for joining us this morning. We appreciate your ongoing interest in Enbridge. As always, our investor relations team is available following the call to address any additional questions you may have. Once again, thank you, and have a great day.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating.