Earnings Call: Q1 2019

May 15, 2019

Good morning. My name is Natalie, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Keyera Corp. 4th Quarter 2019 Results. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Thank you. Lavonne Budnik, Director of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference. Thank you, and good morning, everyone. It's my pleasure to welcome you to Keyera's Q1 conference call for 2019. We have a lot of exciting news to discuss with you today, and we want to ensure that there's enough time for your questions. So let's get started. On the call today is David Smith, our President and CEO Stephen Kroeker, Senior Vice President and CFO Brad Lock, Senior Vice President and COO and Dean Setiguchi, Senior Vice President and CCO. I would like to remind listeners that some of the comments and answers that we will speak to today speak of future events. These forward looking statements are given as of today's date and reflect events or outcomes that management currently expects. In addition, we will also refer to some non GAAP financial measures. For additional information on non GAAP financial measures and forward looking statements, please refer to our public filings that are available on SEDAR and our website. With that, I'm going to turn it over to David. Thank you, and good morning, everyone. As Lavonne mentioned, we have a number of exciting developments to discuss with you today. First, let's start with our quarterly financial results, which we reported yesterday. After a record year in 2018, Keyera's midstream services remain in high demand. We achieved record gross natural gas processing volumes and our fractionation units operated above nameplate capacity at Fort Saskatchewan. We did have an unplanned outage at our AEF facility in February that lasted 17 days and as a result, our first quarter results were lower than anticipated. We delivered adjusted EBITDA of $164,000,000 distributable cash flow of $0.51 per share and net earnings of $0.16 per share. For the full year in 2019, we expect another year of strong financial performance as we are bringing new capital projects online and market fundamentals are supporting higher fractionation fees. Our marketing business is expected to generate between $280,000,000 $320,000,000 in realized margin in 2019 as AEF benefits from lower butane feedstock costs. We continue to successfully execute our strategy, expanding and enhancing our integrated network of assets through disciplined capital investment. We are very pleased to be proceeding with CAPS, our new condensate and NGL pipeline system. Keyera has partnered with SemGroup and KKR to build this highly desired world class pipeline solution that will transport condensate and NGL volumes from the liquids rich Montney and Duvernay developments in Northwestern Alberta to Fort Saskatchewan. The CaPS provides Keyera with secure long term take or pay revenues and strong project returns. It enhances our integrated value chain and creates a platform for numerous future investment opportunities. We thank our customers for their endorsement and commitment to our solution. With that, I'll turn it over to Brad. Thank you. As David mentioned, this is a big day and an exciting time for us as we are about kick off the next wave of cash flow growth for Keyera focused on processing production from the liquids rich Montney and Duvernay developments in Northwestern Alberta. We are growing our footprint by expanding our Simonette gas plant as this plant continues to operate near capacity and building out our Wapiti and Pipestone gas plants. Phase 1 of Wapiti and now our Pipestone gas plants are both 100% fully contracted with new recently signed processing agreements. I'm pleased to report that we have completed and commissioned Phase 1 of the Wapiti gas plant on schedule and in a safe and environmentally responsible manner. All equipment is operational and our anchor tenant Paramount expects to achieve 1st sales gas any day now and will continue to increase its production bringing on existing drilled and completed wells. I want to express my sincere appreciation to our project and operations teams for this outstanding accomplishment. This has been the largest construction project in Keyera's history and demonstrates our ability to successfully complete world scale projects in Alberta. To increase the capture area in the Wapiti gas plant, we are building the North Wapiti pipeline system. This pipeline is nearly complete and includes a successful crossing of the Wapiti River this past winter. The compression facilities are expected to be completed in the second half of the year and will bring volumes from the Pipestone Energy's development into the existing plant. The second phase of the Wapiti gas plant is currently under construction and is expected to be completed in mid-twenty 20 providing the capacity to meet the growing volume profiles from both anchor tenants. In 2021, once we have completed our development plans at Simonette, Wapiti and Pipestone, we will have gas processing capacity in the region of nearly 1,000,000,000 cubic feet per day and increased our condensate handling capacity to 90,000 barrels per day. As producers continue to develop the liquids risk formations around our plants, they have been searching for a competitive option to move their growing condensate and NGL oil volumes from the field to Alberta's liquids hub in Fort Saskatchewan. Our CAPS project is that solution for industry, and I'll now pass it over to Dean to talk about this outstanding project. Thanks, Brad. This is a very exciting project for Keyera. CAPS is backed by multiple long term agreements averaging 14 years in length and includes 35% take or pay commitments. We currently have over 60% of the initial capacity contracted and I'm happy to say late yesterday we added 2 new shippers increasing this to over 65%. CAPS will be initially connected to our 3 Montney gas plants plus several third party facilities. By 2022 when CAPS is operational, Kiara and Semkems will have 9 gas plants with over 2,000,000,000 cubic feet per day of gas processing and 130,000 barrels per day of condensate handling capacity that could supply volumes to caps. It creates a platform for numerous future investment opportunities that could include additional gas and condensate processing investments, new NGL infrastructure and other value added services. While we evaluate future opportunities, we will remain committed to our disciplined approach to responsible growth. With that, Stephen will talk about our financial position. Thanks, Dean. We are pleased to see our customers are continuing to sign up for midstream services under long term take or pay contracts. During the quarter, we had significant take or pay contracts signed to make CAPS a reality, to fill the Pipestone plant and to support sulfur handling investments related to the oil sands. These types of contracts provide a solid financial footing as we invest capital. Our capital program is now at $2,900,000,000 which includes our 50% share of the CAPS project. To date, we have funded approximately $1,100,000,000 of this capital program while maintaining a net debt to EBITDA covenant ratio of 3x, well below many of our peers. We plan to fund the remaining portion of this current capital program without issuing common equity, apart from the existing DRIP program. While we are comfortable operating at a covenant leverage ratio above 3x for a period of time, we may consider other financing alternatives such as hybrid debt or preferred shares to fund a portion of the capital program. An additional source of funding for our capital projects is the cash flow generated from our facility based marketing business. Over the past 5 years, the marketing segment has generated over $1,000,000,000 in realized margin, which helps to fund our ongoing capital programs. On average, we expect marketing to deliver a base annualized realized margin of between $180,000,000 $220,000,000 This base range includes a number of assumptions such as AEF operating near capacity, butane cost being similar to the 2018 contract year, WTI being between US55 dollars per barrel and US65 dollars per barrel and other variables as described in our MD and A. For 2019, we expect to be well above this base range and earn realized margin of $280,000,000 to $320,000,000 primarily due to a significant shift in market fundamentals for butane that allowed us to contract butane supply at costs much lower than the previous year. With that, I'll turn it over to David for closing remarks. Thanks, Stephen. Although our industry continues to face a number of challenges, I remain very confident that Canadian oil and gas represents a tremendous opportunity for our country. Not only does our basin have some of the best geology in the world, we are leaders in responsible energy development. We believe with improved market access, Canadian oil and gas can play a critical role on the international stage and not only help to minimize carbon emissions, but also improve the quality of life for millions of people around the world. I am proud to lead a team at Keyera that is part of this global solution. We are committed to safety, operational excellence, environmental responsibility and serving our customers. And we're very excited about the suite of opportunities ahead of us. On behalf of Keyera's Board of Directors and management team, I would like to thank our employees, customers, shareholders and other stakeholders for their continued support. With that, I'll turn it back over to the operator. Please go ahead with questions. Our first question comes from the line of Matthew Taylor of Tudor, Pickering, Holt. Your line is open. Hey, thanks for taking my questions here guys. Just thinking about opportunity for fractionation, now that you've got caps in hand here. So obviously NGLs are destined for a tight frac market. Is there really 2 opportunities here? First, a contracting one to potentially shift contract tenure from 1 year to more aligned with CAT's commitments and then a second one here in potentially expansion? Yes, absolutely. Matthew, do you want a BD job here, Kiara? Yes, you absolutely hit it on the head. I mean, really, we have an opportunity to secure long term cash flow streams with longer term commitments and that would extend both to the CAPS pipeline, but also downstream in our business to our frac business as well. And we also see more demand for storage and also terminalling services as well. So I think that this will create growth opportunities all the way through our value chain. And then maybe just as a follow-up, is there a possibility to debottleneck the fracs or would you need to build a new one? No, it's something that we're sort of evaluating what the best way to add capacity at our Fort Saskatchewan site. Okay, great. And then shifting over to Pipestone, now that that's fully contracted and you've got positive caps FID in hand, how are you thinking about timing of Phase 2 and maybe even more broadly the next leg of growth in the Pipestone area? Well, we're very actively engaged in discussions with producers in the area. And again, it's going to be based on the timing of the developments. And obviously, we have to have a level of commitment that would support the investment of new capital to build a second phase. So we're actively working with the customers, I guess, the key message. And again, when they're ready to make that commitment, we'll be there to provide the solution. And then one last one, if I may. You mentioned the base marketing guidance of 180 to 220. And looking at the assumption, several of them line up with the last 12 trailing months of realized marketing margin. I'm just curious how you can reconcile that back to, I think, last 12 trailing months of 260 and guidance is 180 to 220. So just curious, any thoughts there? Yes. It's Steven here. As you can appreciate, there are a lot of different variables throughout our marketing business and again not just an iso octane business but the condensate, the liquids blending, the propane on those various fronts there. I would comment that the 2018 year in particular had very good strength on the hedging program. As you can appreciate when the WTI decreased that caused a whole bunch of positive financial benefits on our side, which again proved the hedging strategy that we have. As well we had just extra strength on things like condensate marketing and iso octane business throughout the year. If you recall back in the Q2 time, there was extra demand for isooctane businesses there. And so again, it's just a variety of factors. What we tried to do in the upcoming range is just realize that give an anchor point or 2 to help people understand the context. But we are comfortable that's a comfortable range to use as a base marketing. And as we talked about in the presentation or in the Q1, the expected results for this year are clearly above that largely because of the ability to source butane at a lower cost for this year. Great. That's helpful. Thanks for taking my questions. And our next question comes from the line of Rob Hope, Scotiabank. Your line is open. Good morning, everyone. Congrats on all the news. Maybe just start off with, can you just provide a little bit of color about how the partnership came about with SemCAMS? Why Wolf was replaced as well as what do you think SemCAMS brings to the table that could be additive to the project longer term? Yes, Rob, it's Dave here. The as you know, we've been pursuing the concept of this liquids pipeline for quite a long time. And I think it became evident to us that SemCAMS and KKR represented a pretty strong partner. Sem has as I think some of our disclosure has indicated, SEM has a significant amount of processing capacity in the region that we expect eventually to be able to draw upon. And they had been pursuing their own liquids egress project. And I think both of us realized that it made sense to come together. And with KKR, we have a partner, financial partner who's very, very excited and very bullish on the long term outlook for the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. So I think our conclusion was that they were the best partner to be moving forward on the project with. Yes. All right. Yes. And maybe just to add to that, obviously, you'd have to talk to the folks at Wolfe to get their comments. But one thing I'd like to just say about their team is that they've been they're very incredible to work with. We have a great relationship with the Wolf team. And but clearly, we have a great partnership now with SEM. And again, we have a joint objective to provide a competitive solution that's customer based solution for liquids transportation. And if we're successful in delivering that service, we'll have a highly profitable joint venture and that's what we're both working towards. All right. That's helpful. And then a follow-up on an earlier question. You touched on kind of the downstream growth potential there. But can you walk us through how much expansion capacity there could be in a caps as well as could you go after additional liquids handling or hubs up in the field as well to kind of increase that growth side as well on the upstream angle? Sorry, you're speaking to the potential expand the CAPS pipeline? Yes. And also down through that? Yes. Yes. I mean, certainly, we see CAPS this being the initial scope. We can add more pumping capacity to increase the capacity of the pipeline. We are in active discussions still with a number of customers and that may change and alter the scope of the project. And obviously, it's going to be based on economics that are acceptable to us. But we certainly see opportunities from that front. And also downstream, I mean, I don't think I could clarify exactly how much frac demand we'll need or capacity we'll need. But certainly, we see that in the future that more frac capacity will be needed, and we're prepared to build it as that demand arises. Rob, what I would say is it's a little early to quantify what those opportunities might look like in terms of scope and scale. But clearly, I think as you've alluded to, we see opportunities at the downstream end of the pipeline to expand our frac and storage business. We think it strengthens our gathering and processing offering at the upstream end and may lead to expansion opportunities there. And of course, the pipeline itself has lots of expansion capability. All right. Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Robert Kahn of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Good morning. I just have a number of questions here just on the contract. And I guess first, what drives the 10% to 15% return profile? Is it you actually getting additional contracts? Or is it the area dedications and facility specific volumes actually coming through? Well, Robert, it's Dave here. I think as we indicated in our in previous quarters, we're generally looking at a 10% to 15% return on capital for as a general comment for all of the investment program that we have currently underway. And I think what we're trying to say is that starting in 2024, we expect that this project will be well within that range as well. In terms of where the volumes will come from, obviously, we have committed volumes that we've talked about. We expect growth from the customers that have committed volumes, but we expect a lot of new customers. And as Dina has mentioned earlier, in some of the conversations that were that are still underway, we expect that there's an opportunity to expand the scope of the project. But we're very pleased to be moving forward with the project as it's currently scoped. And I think one of the key messages, Robert, is that we believe that we're going to be in the range, very comfortable we'll be in the range of 10% to 15% range in 2024. But we see the profile building over time. So when we bring the pipeline into service in the 2022, there is sort of a build period to get it up to fill up the pipe. So we'll get in the range in 2022, but we think that those economics will improve sorry, 2024, but we expect the returns to improve as time goes on. Got it. Okay. And then the 60% figure, which I guess is now 65% or so, is that only the take or pay commitments or is that all commitments including the area dedications? It's just the take or pay. No. Okay. It's all. It's all. It's all. So put differently, the take or pay is a 75% of the 60% or I guess that's 55% ish? Okay. That's correct. Sorry, I thought you were referring to the area dedications as well. But yes, sorry, it's just Okay. And the 14 year average contract, is that a weighted average? Yes. Okay. That's great. And then last, is there any capital cost protection built into the contracts? In terms of being able to pass on capital cost overruns, Rob, is that what you're referring to? Yes, exactly. Yes. So the short answer is no. I think we've explained in the past that our starting point in developing this project was to match the tariffs on the existing system that are out there. We started from the point that we were going to have to be competitive in terms of the tariffs. And then we put together a pretty detailed cost estimate and have concluded that it's very economic at those at that tariff level. But if there is if there are cost overruns, that would be for the owner's account. Okay. That's great. And then just finish with a somewhat granular question around gathering and processing and your turnaround recovery mechanisms, especially for RMB. Can you just remind me how those are going to work? Are you recovering it in the current year? Is it post the turnaround? Or is it that whole 4 year recovery as well? It's on a 4 year recovery cycle. So we recover both pre and post turnaround for most of our facilities. So it kind of normalizes our facility returns. Okay. So a bunch of those recoveries are actually currently booked into the Q1 results as well? Yes. Are you able to quantify how much that was in the quarter? No. Okay. Thank you. And our next question is going to come from the line of Robert Catellier, CIBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Hi, thank you. Congratulations on the news. And I did have some follow-up questions, particularly around the costing. What capacity is currently envisioned for CAPS at this point? And what factors might influence that? And I'm thinking in particular, is there a decision point or a pivot that comes with the passage of Bill C-sixty nine or something of that nature? Let me I'll take that one, Rob. Thanks for the question. I think first of all on your second point, Bill C-sixty nine as much as we don't like it doesn't have a direct impact on this project. This project would be within Alberta jurisdiction and we would be dealing with the Alberta Energy Regulator for most of the application and permitting required. With respect to the capacity, we're not being specific about that at this stage. We've indicated that we're planning to build a 16 inches pipe for condensate and a 12 inches pipe for NGL mix. The actual specific capacity is not something that we're prepared to talk about in detail as yet. Some of there's some technical issues that still need to be worked out and there's some scoping that's still to be determined. Okay. The build C-sixty nine was more of a holistic question to the extent that producers lose confidence in export capacity in that box that could trickle through the entire business, right? And maybe have an impact on the commitments you're willing to make? Well, certainly, it has an impact on the sentiment in the industry. But I think the specific concerns today would be more around the oil egress for the products that we're looking at that would be flowing on caps, specifically NGL mix and condensate. We don't think that Bill C-sixty nine is going to have an effect on the investment outlook for the companies at least in the foreseeable future. Obviously, LNG development on the West Coast, which is moving forward, is something that's important to the producers in this area because natural gas pricing is an important part of their netback. But we're looking more at the long term value for liquids like propane and butane and condensate. And we're certainly with the development of West Coast export terminals and PDH facilities, we're certainly expecting better days on propane. And we think the condensate will continue to be in demand to the extent that the pricing will remain strong. Okay, that's helpful. And then just it's obviously an important platform for future growth aspirations, but is there any one particular area that you're most excited about that has potentially the most upside? You mean a geographic region? No, I'm just thinking either one part of your value chain or it could be geographic as well, but is there any like is it the frac that gives you most upside to strengthening and expansion of G and P or is it something else? Well, I think Or maybe totally above. Well, I think we continue to put value in the integrated network. It's the nice thing about CAPS is that it gives us opportunities in terms of developing transportation capacity, but also additional gathering and processing and additional downstream type of investments. Clearly, the characteristics of the Gallium and Processing business are a little different than the liquids infrastructure. Gallium and Processing is a bit more geographic specific. And so you have to be confident in the geology where you're making those investments, whereas the liquids infrastructure that we have at Edmonton Fort Saskatchewan serves the entire basin. And so those are the kind of strategic criteria that we look at when we're looking at it. But I think we still put great value in the entire integrated value chain. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to, as my last question, drill down into the marketing outlook that was provided. I think it's very valuable. But I'm just curious to comment about referring back to 2018 comparable butane cost comparable 2018 contract year, is that as a percent of crude or the actual butane prices that were realized? And the same thing on RBOB, what sort of pricing and hedges are you assuming in the long term guidance? Yes. No, that's a good question, Rob. Again, we as I mentioned before, lots of variables. And so we do want to get into a host of different variables, but rather concentrate on a few key ones. On the butane, as we've described in our MD and A before, we buy butane usually in some type of relationship to WTI is for the most part. And so that was that comment was meant to be more of a percentage basis relative to WTI. And again, it was meant to be a year that was sort of comparable of history in terms of giving you a guideline as opposed to the lower prices we had this year. I would say on the rest of the range, we looked at averages and moving around that a little bit in terms of the other variables. We just didn't want to go into a bunch of detail on RBOB and other things, but that's the general approach. Okay. Yes, that's good context. Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of David Gillison of Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open. Hi, good morning. So just a follow-up question to Robert on the caps return. Does the 10% return assume the current level of contracting or does it assume getting to a higher a bit higher level? And then kind of what takes you from that 10% to the 15%? On the first question, David, the reference to the 10% to 15% range is our expected case. So it would assume additional volumes in addition to what's initially contracted, yes. And as Dean alluded to earlier, there will be a ramp up once the pipeline has started operation in 2022. It's I'm not we're not going to be more specific than that with respect to sort of where we expect to be in the range and when. I think the point to emphasize is that we're pretty bullish on the expected returns with this pipeline with the opportunities that we see to fill the initial capacity and then to expand the capacity. It's Stephen here. The only other thing I think I would add is that we just have to remember that we have we're in a very good position. We have 2.5 years still as ourselves in the same group at KKR to continue marketing that pipeline. So we're looking forward to that. And then could you give us a little bit of color on the ramp up? So it starts in 2022 and what type of contribution you might see? And is it a quick ramp up to 2024 or is it a slow one? Well, I think at this point, it's very difficult for us to be specific. Obviously, with the additional contracting that we expect to do, we'd like to see it full day 1. But at this point, it's not something that we can get into much detail on. I think what I can say though is a number of the contracts that we have signed have sort of a shape profile. So it's not like it's a flat commitment. Usually, it starts off at a lower rate and it continues to build over time in accordance with their drilling plans. So that's a component of what that contributes to the increasing return on capital over time. But also, we see opportunities with future growth in terms of drilling and more production from that area. But also, we believe that there will be opportunities for us to contract supply that comes off of our competitors' pipeline system once those contracts expire. So there's a number of different ways that we're going to compete for volumes over time. Okay. Thank you very much. And our next question comes from the line of Andrew Kuske, Credit Suisse. Your line is open. Thank you. Good morning. You had a strong quarter in the liquid side of your business. And I'm just curious, if you looked at your business, absent the quota impact, how do you think the numbers would have panned out for you? There is no impact. I mean, we saw nothing really unusual with our liquids infrastructure results in the quarter. We had a full 1st full quarter with our baseline terminal contribution from that asset. And we see strong frac rates going forward for the rest of the year. So overall, we believe it was a strong quarter, but nothing unusual to it. So your condensate deliveries, though, they were down in the quarter because of the quotas? Yes. Yes, a little bit down. And also that had no economic impact? Well, there's a little bit of variability, but a lot of it is a take or pace where people commit to capacity on our system. And so it's somewhat indifferent to phones that are within their capacity of contracted ranges. We still get paid the same amount. There is a variable component to it, but it's not significant. And part of the difference in the volumes too, I guess there's 2 factors that influence. 1 is curtailments, but also it's the weather conditions. The colder the ambient temperatures, the more diluent is generally required. Okay, helpful. And then maybe just a bit more accounting focused question and maybe just on the budgeting. When you look at Simonette and this is just a budgeted amount where you came in $10,000,000 lower on the Simonette expansion than the original estimate. And just what happened there? That's obviously a favorable outcome. But what was the dynamic there? This is Brad. And I think we continue to look for efficiencies in our construction project. I think we continue to try to bring schedules forward. And I think a couple of those things led us to deliver the overall Simonette program at a slightly lower level of cost than what we had budgeted. So I don't think it's I mean, dollars 10,000,000 on a $190,000,000 project is nice. And I think we'd like to be able to deliver those on all the projects we push forward. And then maybe just finally on just bringing things forward in a schedule, when AAF was down on an unexpected basis, did you manage to bring anything forward that you're planning, say, later in the year or next year to just deal when the unplanned outage happened? Absolutely. I think anytime we have an outage at any of our facilities, once we kind of understand the time and scope that goes with it, We try to bring forward any other kind of maintenance that can be done at that time that enhance the longevity of that facility to get us through the next turnaround and there were certainly some projects that we did through that time to try to achieve that goal. Do you have a dollar value on that amount? It was not material. Okay, That's great. Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Matthew Taylor, Tudor, Pickering, Holt. Your line is open. Hey, guys. One more if I may here. Just with Wapiti service a couple of months ahead of schedule, can you help me understand the cash flow ramp expected from the project over the year? I'm just thinking through here and looks like contracts and counterparties for sales gas takeaway, take or pays, etcetera, to the facility around 50% U to I? Yes. I think, I mean, we're certainly going to see Paramount's production ramp up here through Q2 into Q3. They do have some capacity limitations on their sales gas that's going to prevent them from utilizing the full capacity. I think if we can get our Pipestone facility, the Pipestone compressor station up and running and allow that facility to come on efficiently. I would like to be able to see that our Train 1 is running at full capacity by the time we get into next year. But really, that's at the drive of the producers and their well performance as they bring them on. Great. Thanks for that. And our next question comes from the line of Patrick Kenny with National Bank. Your line is open. Hey, good morning guys. Just two quick follow ups here. Just first on the 60% contracted level, just wanted to confirm that that doesn't include any internal agreements with your own marketing group or with Sam or KKR? Pat, it's Dave here. There is a commitment that Keyera has made as a customer of the pipeline and that's part of what is in the project. But we still even without that, we would still be over 60%. Okay, great. And then just on the marketing guidance here, the step down, obviously, you're not assuming cheap butane forever, but maybe you could just give us your thoughts on when you might think the butane market would rebalance here and why? Well, we have seen the butane market rebalance to a certain extent already. But we do believe fundamentally that Western Canada is oversupplied. And again, with the continued development of liquids rich plays, supply is increasing. So with that, we think fundamentally that butane prices in Alberta will be lower than what they have been historically, but certainly not like what we saw in 2018. At the end of 2018. End of 2018 and what we've contracted this year. Sorry, yes. Okay, that's great. That's it for me guys. Thanks. And there are no further questions at this time. Great. At this point, I would just like to thank everyone for listening in on our call. If you have any further questions, please give myself or Kelvin a call and we'll be happy to help you out. Thank you and have a good day. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.