Good afternoon. Welcome to the webcast and thank you for joining us. Today, we will be discussing the acquisition of the Tallgrass Crude Oil Transportation System, which was announced earlier this afternoon and the previously announced acquisition of the Salt Creek Crude Gathering System. Joining me are Greg Ebel, President and CEO, and Pat Murray, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
As usual, I encourage those listening to follow along with the supporting slides. Please note we will not be conducting a Q&A session following the webcast today. However, both the investor relations and media teams will be available. We will be referring to forward-looking information on today's webcast.
So a quick reminder that by its nature, this information contains forecast assumptions and expectations about future outcomes, which are subject to the risks and uncertainties outlined here and discussed more in our public disclosure filings. Lastly, before we begin, we will also be referring to non-GAAP measures which are summarized below. With that, I will now turn it over to Greg Ebel.
Well, thanks very much, Marlon, and good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. Before we get into the detail of our announcement today, let me reiterate what we have previously said about how we consider these types of transactions. At Enbridge, our primary goal is to create and compound value for our shareholders over time, through both dividends and growth of our business.
We have secured CAD 41 billion in organic growth projects and are focused on bringing these into service on time and on budget. Although we primarily achieve growth through such efficient, capital-optimized, and organically developed projects, we occasionally use opportunistic and disciplined M&A to supplement the organic portfolio. This has served Enbridge and our shareholders well, both financially and strategically for years.
Consistent with that approach, I am excited to announce today that we are strengthening our leading North American crude oil platform through the acquisition of Tallgrass Energy's crude oil transportation business. These highly strategic assets enhance our scale and connectivity, and we are acquiring them for $2.6 billion U.S., which approximates to 10x-11x 2027 EBITDA.
We expect this multiple will improve over time through synergies and growth capital. The assets acquired include a 75% operating interest in the Pony Express Pipeline, a 460,000-bbl-per-day long-haul pipeline connecting Guernsey, Wyoming, and Cushing, Oklahoma. This acquisition provides Enbridge with a strategic connection between the Bakken, Powder River, and Denver-Julesburg basins, and is highly complementary to our existing assets such as Express-Platte and our Cushing terminal.
The acquisition adds to our very recently announced purchase of Salt Creek Midstream's crude gathering business, extending our Permian super system into a wellhead-to-water platform. Those gathering assets were acquired for $600 million U.S. at 7x EV to EBITDA multiple, which we are also expecting to decrease over time with synergies.
The Salt Creek acquisition extends our presence deeper into the growing Permian Basin, which connects directly to our Gray Oak Pipeline and Enbridge's Ingleside export terminal. We continue to have strong conviction in the long-term fundamentals of crude oil, and these assets are located in some of the most prolific basins in North America. At Enbridge, we strive to be a leading operator in every region we're in, allowing us to provide customers with increasingly advantaged service offerings across our integrated network.
Opportunities like these do not come along very often, and when they do, they must clear a high bar for us. Deals must fulfill a strategic requirement within our all-of-the-above approach to energy investment, align with our views on the basin and market fundamentals, be accretive in the first year and over the long term, enhance our portfolio by creating future optionality or growth projects.
If you have all of that, there must be a willing seller with a reasonable price. Given the discipline imposed by those four or five requirements, you won't be surprised that we evaluate acquiring many more assets than we actually ever do. The Tallgrass and Salt Creek opportunities happen to meet all of the strict criteria I just mentioned. At their core, these transactions will deliver strong cash flows, and both come with embedded long-term option value.
Together, they will further strengthen Enbridge's industry-leading liquids franchise. Now let's dive into a little more detail on the Tallgrass crude portfolio. The assets include a 75% operating interest in Pony Express, an interstate pipeline carrying crude from basins in the Bakken and the Rockies to refineries in the region and to Cushing, Oklahoma, for further transportation to the Gulf Coast.
We're also picking up a 51% ownership in Powder River Gateway, a 240,000-bbl-per-day short-haul pipeline delivering volumes into Pony Express. Also included are 8 million bbls of crude oil storage across nine different terminals. Strategically, this acquisition provides Enbridge with an increased footprint in the region, with direct connection to an additional 500,000 bbls per day of refining capacity.
We are also very excited for the embedded growth that comes along with these assets in Pony Express Pipeline 2, a 60,000-bbl-per-day expansion that will be added to our secure growth backlog when the transaction closes. This expansion showcases the demand for egress along this valuable corridor and also extends a portion of existing contracts into the next decade. These Tallgrass assets were highly attractive to us as a standalone asset.
What also excites us is the opportunity to integrate them into our broader liquids business, which will create optionality and new pathways to better serve customers in the future. Now I'll discuss the other strategic acquisition I mentioned and that we recently announced. At the end of August, we announced the acquisition of Salt Creek Midstream's crude oil gathering assets in the Permian.
The acquisition included the Orla and Wink North gathering systems, as well as a 50% interest in the Delaware Crossing system, each with its own terminal, serving the prolific Delaware Basin in the Permian. With this direct connection to the Permian producers, Enbridge can now offer an integrated wellhead-to-water solution that includes gathering, long-haul transportation on Gray Oak Pipeline, and export at the docks at Enbridge's Ingleside export facility.
The gathering system is currently moving about half of its total capacity of 420,000 bbls per day, allowing meaningful room for growth. It also provides us with structural benefits during the recontracting of existing Enbridge systems, as we can now move volumes for our customers across our full Permian crude value chain. With that, I'll pass it on to Pat to go over the funding for these transactions.
Thanks, Greg, and good afternoon, everyone. Turning to funding, we've structured these acquisitions in a manner that is consistent with our longstanding capital allocation framework and commitment to maintaining a strong investment-grade balance sheet. We're funding the total CAD 4.5 billion for these acquisitions through an equal combination of debt and equity. The remaining equity raise provides us future financial flexibility as we navigate this high-growth environment that we're currently in.
We believe this is a prudent financing structure that allows us to complete two highly strategic and opportunistic transactions while maintaining our commitment to our long-held 4.5x- 5x Debt-to-EBITDA target. Importantly, these acquisitions are expected to be accretive in the first full year of ownership and support continued optimization of our super system. Turning to the right side of our financing slide, we wanted to provide additional context around how our annual investment capacity is built up.
As we've discussed previously, Enbridge continues to have CAD 10 billion- CAD 11 billion of average annual investment capacity funded through free cash flow after dividends and additional debt capacity, all while remaining within our leverage target range. That framework has not changed. In fact, one of the key reasons we structured the funding for these transactions this way is to preserve the capacity for the significant organic growth opportunities we continue to see across the business.
Today, we have a CAD 41 billion secured growth backlog and a substantial opportunity set beyond us. By funding these acquisitions conservatively, we're ensuring that M&A does not crowd out future accretive projects or reduce our ability to continue executing on our organic growth program.
We also retain additional flexibility through capital recycling initiatives, partnership structures like the transaction we recently announced with KKR and Apollo, and other financing alternatives, which provides us further upside beyond our base investment capacity. Stepping back, the key takeaway is that we opportunistically acquired high-quality strategic assets while preserving balance sheet strength, which supplements our existing growth backlog and adds additional future opportunities. With that, I'll turn it back over to Greg to close out the presentation.
Well, thanks very much, Pat. As I mentioned at the beginning, both acquisitions discussed today represent the types of opportunities that do not come along very often, and even more rarely meet our disciplined evaluation criteria. We've spoken many times before about the value of assets in the ground, unlocking future growth, and the additional footprint we've added today only extends our growth potential even further.
The Tallgrass system is a premier asset in the Rockies, increasing our exposure in the region while providing us with long-term growth flexibility. Salt Creek Midstream extends our value chain further upstream in the Permian, allowing us to provide a full suite of services across gathering, transportation, and export. These assets align well with our low-risk business profile, adding predictable cash flows and future growth opportunities.
Our balance sheet strength and the CAD 10 billion-CAD 11 billion in annual investment capacity is maintained by the prudent financing of the transactions, allowing us to add more organic projects and continue delivering on our 5% growth target through the end of the decade. To sum up, these assets are highly complementary with Enbridge's current crude assets and enhance our position as a first-choice investment opportunity.
Finally, let me speak to our recently announced CEO succession. Our continued momentum on these strategically important transactions during a time of CEO succession reflects the strength of Enbridge's planning, deep bench strength, and execution capabilities. The company will continue to deliver on its core strategy of being the first-choice energy delivery company in North America and beyond for our customers, communities, regulators, policymakers, and of course, you, our investors.
I have complete confidence in Michelle, our management team, and our amazing employees to continue delivering value to all of our stakeholders in 2027 and the years ahead. Thank you for listening, and we look forward to talking again with you soon.
Great. Thank you. We appreciate your ongoing interest in Enbridge. As mentioned before, the investor relations team will be available following the webcast for any questions. Have a great day.