Welcome to the MPLX Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. My name is Julie, and I will be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Press star one on your touch-tone phone to enter the queue. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Brian Worthington. Brian, you may begin.
Welcome to MPLX's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. The slides that accompany this call can be found on our website at mplx.com under the Investors tab. Joining me on the call today are Maryann Mannen, President and CEO, Kris Hagedorn, CFO, and other members of the executive team. We invite you to read the safe harbor statements on slide two. We will be making forward-looking statements today. Actual results may differ. Factors that could cause actual results to differ are included here, as well as in our filings with the SEC. With that, I will turn the call over to Maryann.
Thanks, Brian. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. Effective November 1st, two new independent directors joined the MPLX board. Michael Dunn and Bruce Niemeyer have strong records of accomplishment in the energy industry, making them outstanding additions, and we're happy to have them join our board. Delivering on our commitments to return capital, MPLX increased its quarterly distribution by 12.5% for the third consecutive year. The increase is supported by our multi-year track record of delivering mid-single-digit adjusted EBITDA growth and growth projects coming online over the next several years. Additionally, this increase reflects conviction in the durability of our cash flows and execution of our strategy. MPLX's distribution now equates to an annualized rate of $4.84 per unit.
As also announced this morning, in conjunction with Marathon Petroleum's sale of the St. Paul Park and Mandan refineries, MPLX announced the divestiture of midstream assets supporting these refineries for $750 million, representing an EBITDA multiple of approximately nine times. Ensuring the competitive positioning of our portfolio is a strategic commitment, and we expect to redeploy proceeds from the sale to advance MPLX growth plans anchored in the Permian and Marcellus Basins. In the third quarter, MPLX delivered adjusted EBITDA of $1.9 billion, reflecting 5% growth versus the same period in 2025. Excluding the impact of the Rockies divestiture in late 2025, MPLX adjusted EBITDA would have grown 7.3% year-over-year for the third quarter. Strong execution across our business and continued progress on the growth strategies across our integrated natural gas and NGL value chains enabled a return of approximately $1.1 billion to our unitholders.
During the quarter, the Harmon Creek III complex began operations with 300 MMcf/d of gas processing and 40,000 bpd of de-ethanization capacity, increasing our Northeast processing capacity to 8.1 Bcf/d and fractionation capacity to 800,000 bpd. As we continue placing high-return projects into service and increasing utilization across our system, MPLX remains positioned to deliver durable mid-single-digit adjusted EBITDA growth. Natural gas and NGL fundamentals are robust, creating compelling opportunities to support increasing domestic and global demand for U.S. energy. Growing producer activity, increasing demand for natural gas-fired power generation, and expanding access to global markets support continued investment across our integrated value chains. Our disciplined capital allocation framework remains unchanged. Investments must provide strategic fit, durable demand, and attractive risk-adjusted returns.
In the third quarter, MPLX and its joint venture partners announced the FID of the Solitude Pipeline System, which, when completed, will provide an additional 4.5 Bcf/d of natural gas egress from the Permian Basin. Solitude was one of the fastest projects to reach FID in the company's history, with strong long-term contracts from shippers bringing the project from commercial to FID in under 90 days, supporting our view of long-term production growth in the Permian Basin. Solitude increases MPLX's interest in Permian natural gas long-haul pipeline capacity from 11 Bcf/d to approximately 16 Bcf/d and is expected in service in late 2029. MPLX is investing over 90% of its $2.9 billion organic growth capital program for 2026 toward natural gas and NGL infrastructure opportunities.
Our growth toward the end of the year is supported by this capital investment and efforts to optimize operations. Secretariat I and Harmon Creek III have been increasing throughputs since being placed into service. We see opportunities to further increase processing utilization in the Marcellus Basin and in the Utica, where utilization rose from 73% in the second quarter to 89% in the third quarter. We also anticipate ramping additional sour gas throughput on our Titan 1 plant, which is running at over 150 MMcf/d. In addition to these efforts, we are advancing several projects that support our integrated value chain into 2027. The Bay Runner Pipeline is expected to be placed into service in the fourth quarter, providing additional access to LNG export infrastructure along the Gulf Coast. We expect volumes to ramp through 2027 to support the end users' commissioning and scaling demand.
Additionally, the BANGL Pipeline expansion is expected to come online in the fourth quarter, increasing capacity from 250,000 bpd- 300,000 bpd, and providing additional NGL takeaway capacity from the Permian Basin. The Blackcomb Natural Gas Pipeline began commissioning activities in July. The JV partners continue to progress the pipeline as planned, and Blackcomb is expected to achieve full commercial service in the fourth quarter. In the Delaware Basin, construction is progressing to expand sour gas treating capacity at the Titan Complex to over 400 MMcf/d, expected by year-end. New pipeline connectivity was placed into service between our Titan Sour Gas Complex and our Delaware Basin processing footprint, further enhancing our ability to optimize volumes across our integrated Permian system. We expect these growth platforms to position MPLX for strong adjusted EBITDA growth in 2027.
Our Gulf Coast fractionation and export facilities continue to progress on schedule and on budget. We expect the first 150,000 bpd fractionator, associated purity pipeline, and our 400,000 bpd joint venture LPG export facility to enter service in the first half of 2028. Furthermore, the second 150,000 bpd fractionator remains scheduled to begin operations in 2029. Through these investments, MPLX continues to strengthen its integrated wellhead-to-water strategy while positioning the partnership to generate durable cash flow growth. Let me turn the call over to Kris to discuss our operational and financial results for the quarter.
Thanks, Maryann Mannen. Slide eight outlines third quarter operational and financial performance highlights for our crude oil and products logistics segment. Segment adjusted EBITDA increased $67 million when compared to the third quarter of 2025. The increase was primarily driven by higher rates across the business units and increased butane blending, partially offset by higher operating expenses, including incentive compensation. Terminal throughput increased 6% year-over-year, primarily driven by higher export volumes. Moving on to slide nine, segment adjusted EBITDA and our natural gas and NGL services segment increased $26 million compared to the third quarter of 2025. The increase was driven by higher volumes, including growth from acquisitions, partially offset by the divestiture of non-core gathering and processing assets in 2025, and higher operating expenses, including incentive compensation.
Excluding the impacts of the Rockies divestiture, our natural gas and NGL services segment adjusted EBITDA has grown 10% year-over-year for the third quarter. Gathering volumes increased 14% year-over-year, driven by strong producer activity across the Utica, Marcellus, and Permian Basins. Processing volumes were up 5% year-over-year due to increased production in the Utica and additional processing capacity entering service in the Marcellus and Permian Basins. Utica gathering and processing volumes rose 19% and 20% year-over-year, and remain an area where we anticipate strong producer activity. Our Northeast processing system operated at an impressive 93% utilization in the third quarter, demonstrating the strength of producer activity in the Marcellus and Utica. In the Permian, increased utilization at Secretariat I and growing demand moving through BANGL further demonstrates the value of our integrated value chain strategy.
Sour gas treating volumes averaged over 150 million cubic feet per day during the quarter, as we continue progressing toward over 400 MM cu ft per day to capacity at Titan Complex by year-end. As additional projects enter service, we remain well-positioned to support growing producer activity. The quarter included $77 million of expense associated with incentive compensation, $37 million higher than the third quarter of 2025. Year-to-date, this expense has totaled $167 million, which is $48 million higher than the same timeframe last year, impacting our adjusted EBITDA growth by approximately 1% for the year. The increase was driven by charges to the partnership for annual bonus and long-term incentive compensation programs. The programs are a combination of financial and other metrics that include performance relative to peers and linked to its strategic partner, Marathon Petroleum.
Looking ahead, MPLX remains positioned to deliver second half-weighted adjusted EBITDA growth in 2026, underpinned by investments that are ramping through the balance of the year. While we expect these investments to generate modest cash flow in 2026, we are well-positioned to accelerate cash flow growth throughout 2027. Lastly, we do not expect the sale of the midstream assets associated with the St. Paul Park and Mandan refineries to impact our ability to deliver mid-single-digit growth. Now let me hand it back to Maryann for some concluding thoughts.
Thanks, Kris. MPLX is executing its strategy with consistency and discipline. Our priorities remain unchanged: operate safely and reliably, grow through high-return investments, optimize integrated value chains, and return capital to unitholders. The durability of our cash flows enabled us to increase our quarterly distribution by 12.5% for the third consecutive year. This increase marks the fifth consecutive year of double-digit increases, resulting in annualized base distribution growth of greater than 70% over the past five years. The divestiture announced today currently presents a headwind to 2027 that was not initially contemplated when other operational metrics were established. We still believe we can deliver mid-single-digit EBITDA growth and are comfortable with annual distribution coverage of 1.3x .
We acknowledge that another year of 12.5% distribution growth may be impacted by the loss of this EBITDA, and we still expect a significant distribution increase in 2027, greater than distributable cash flow growth. In addition to the strong set of organic projects we are developing, we continue with evaluating inorganic opportunities. Our announced divestiture provides an additional $750 million for growth, and we remain committed to deploying capital to opportunities that are strategic and deliver strong returns. Underpinned by the optimization of our value chains and increasing utilization across recently completed investments, MPLX remains on track to deliver durable mid-single-digit adjusted EBITDA growth, and we expect even greater EBITDA growth in 2027. Our strategic investments, financial flexibility, and strong relationship with MPC continue to differentiate MPLX and support long-term value creation. Now, let me turn the call over to Brian.
Thanks, Maryann. As we open the call for your questions, as a courtesy to all participants, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and a follow-up. If time permits, we will re-prompt for additional questions. We will now open the call to questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you have a question, please press star, then one on your touchtone phone. If you wish to be removed from the queue, please press star, then two. If you are using a speakerphone, you may need to pick up the handset first before pressing the numbers. Once again, if you have a question, please press star, then one on your touchtone phone. Our first question comes from John Mackay with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Hey, team. Thank you for the time. Maryann, maybe I'll pick up on kind of the end of your closing remarks there. You guys have been talking a lot about confidence in the second half over first half EBITDA ramp. Maybe just a little more color you can share there and kind of specifically whether you'd expect the Titan expansion to contribute in fourth quarter. Then, not to ask for too much, but kind of any incremental color you want to give on 2027 over 2026. I know you sound constructive on it, but maybe any incremental detail, we'd appreciate.
Good morning, John, and thanks for the question. Let me take the first part, which is the ramp first half to the second half. We have been indicating for the last several quarters that the back half of our year, second half of 2026, we expected that growth to be stronger than the first half of the year, given the timing of project completions, et cetera. We remain confident, frankly, in the fact that the fourth quarter will see incremental growth over the third. Let me talk a little bit about why we see that, and then I'll talk about 2027 for a bit. As I mentioned even in my prepared remarks, we've got Secretariat I continuing to ramp, Harmon Creek III that came online in the middle of the year, just in the third quarter. It continues to ramp into the fourth quarter as well.
We're also seeing opportunity to increase Utica processing utilization. I think I mentioned in my prepared remarks, it rose from 73% in the second quarter to 89% in the third, and we still see opportunity there. Ramping on additional sour gas through our Titan 1 plant. I think the question you asked is whether or not Titan 2 would see any incremental volumes, and the answer is no. We expect Titan 2 to complete at the end of this year, and it will begin its ramp to 400 in 2027. But certainly, Titan 1 operating well. As a matter of fact, Greg, Kris, and I had the opportunity to visit the Titan Complex just a few weeks ago and experience really the progress on that asset as well.
Quite pleased with where we stand and confident in the team's ability to get that Titan 2 completed by the end of the year. Then we've got Blackcomb Pipeline that began its commissioning in July, and that's expected to achieve full commercial service in the fourth quarter as well. BANGL, the NGL pipeline, 300,000 bpd- 400,000 bpd in the fourth quarter. Again, we feel pretty confident about that. For 2027, even with the loss of the EBITDA from the assets associated with MPC's sale, we still expect 2027 EBITDA growth to be stronger than 2026, as many of the projects that we were talking about begin to come into service again. The one thing I want to pass to Kris, we talked a little bit about the compensation expense, and that could be a headwind or a tailwind.
Kris talked about it in his remarks, but I just wanted to give him a second to talk about that as well, and then I'll come back in the event you have any other follow-up.
Yeah. Hi, John. Just to elaborate a little bit on what I had in my prepared remarks, emphasizing two numbers. When you look at third quarter and you look Q over Q versus 2025, our expense was $37 million higher this year than it was in prior year, associated with these long-term incentive compensation programs. When you look at third Q year-to-date versus prior year Q- to- date, it's about $48 million higher than the 2025 year-to-date numbers. Thinking about going to our proxy-like information filed in our 10-K, we know that MPLX doesn't really have employees. Instead, MPC employees are used to serve MPLX's arrangements, and then there's a reimbursement associated with that. That compensation program that all employees participate in is tied to certain financial metrics, but also metrics that are tied to MPC share price.
When you look at MPC share price this year, that significant kind of outperformance as compared to prior year is impacting the expense that we're recording this year. As Maryann Mannen had stated, we can't really predict what that price is going to do in the fourth quarter, so it could be a headwind, it could be a tailwind, but we'll continue to monitor that movement.
So, John, operationally, we remain confident in the fourth quarter being as we suggested, and obviously the back half of this year being much stronger than the first half of this year, heading into 2027. Let me pause and make sure we answered your first part of your question, John.
No, that was great color. Thank you. Thank you both. Maybe just second one for me. We obviously saw the joint sale today. Just curious if, Maryann, you can touch on kind of how you see the MPC/MPLX relationship kind of progressing from here. Again, you did a joint sale. Could you do a joint acquisition at some point? Then, we have some re-contracting coming up in early 2028, so maybe just kind of pull that into sharing your general thoughts on the state of things. Thank you.
Yeah, sure. Thank you for the follow-up, John. The relationship with MPC and MPLX remains very strong, strategically important, a lot of value there. The decision for MPC to sell the Mandan and St. Paul Park obviously resulted in the loss of some EBITDA for MPLX, but we remain committed to the basins that we talk about, Permian, Marcellus, our nat gas, NGL strengths, and then obviously Utica, increasing our utilization there. These remain strongholds in our growth portfolio. We're confident in the portfolio that we have today. In terms of the re-contracting, see no reason why MPC and MPLX would not re-contract. As you know, we typically look at this 12- 18 months out, but it would be MPLX and MPC's intent to obviously re-up those contracts. So, no change in that strategic relationship at all, John.
Thank you very much for the time. Appreciate it.
You are welcome. Thank you for the questions.
Thank you. The next question comes from Manav Gupta with UBS. Your line is open.
Morning. I am going to cheat a little here. I am going to ask a question which I should be asking on the other call, but I am reasonably sure somebody else might beat me to it, so I am going to ask you a question. Why Minnesota and North Dakota refineries? Why were those two not core to MPC? Why was the decision to move ahead with that divestiture along with those midstream assets?
Sure. Good morning, Manav. First of all, I want to thank all of the employees of MPC and MPLX. Critically important, these employees have continued to run all of our assets safely and reliably, and will continue to do so throughout the rest of the year before that sale occurs. You may remember, maybe as far back as August of 2024, one of the messages that I wanted to be sure that I and the rest of the leadership team continued to convey was our commitment to ensure that we had the appropriate portfolio, both at MPC and MPLX, for today, and the appropriate portfolio for the future, looking at demands, strengths, opportunities, et cetera.
We felt at this juncture, given the opportunities that we saw and what we believed to be a good valuation and the fact that we were selling to a company that we believed would take good care of the employees and the assets, that the proceeds from that could be redeployed to continue to ensure that the portfolio for the future was optimized in an even better fashion than we were currently optimizing today. That would be the reason why we made that decision. Hope that helps.
No, perfect. My second question is, we have seen some of your peers buy assets out there. M&A market has been hot. I am trying to understand, is it more function of the asset package that came in did not fit the MPLX profile, or was it, do you think, the prices that were out there were a little too high for MPC to make those acquisitions and make the maths fully work? If you could talk a little bit about that.
Yeah, certainly. I would say across both MPC and MPLX, we continue to look at M&A opportunities that fit our strategic intent, right? They must be able to deliver the value proposition that we have shared with our unitholders and our shareholders. When you look at the opportunities that we would be evaluating for MPLX, we want to be sure that wellhead-to-water, our growth of our Permian footprint, and the importance of NGL is a strong area of consideration for us. Of course, looking at the utilization in the Utica and obviously our Marcellus Basin as well. We also need to be sure, particularly as we are looking at this, that they fit our returns profiles. In the case of MPLX, if we have said mid-teens returns are critical, and these opportunities must also be able to deliver our mid-single digit returns.
We will be very disciplined in ensuring that when we put capital to work, both organically and inorganically, that we meet those objectives. And that would be, Manav, of why I would say whether we have or have not transacted here in the recent past.
Thank you so much.
You are most welcome. Thank you for your question.
Thank you. The next question comes from Doug Irwin with Citi. Your line is open.
Hey, team. Thanks for the question. Maybe a little bit of a follow-up to Manav's line of questioning there. Just on the asset sale, curious how quickly you expect to be able to redeploy those proceeds, and then should we be thinking about the target there as being more organic growth or M&A or maybe a mix of both as far as how you recycle those proceeds?
Yeah, certainly. Thanks for the question. On the proceeds from the sale of these assets, we think, one, it strengthens our balance sheet position and continues to give us flexibility. While we have not talked about our 2027 capital yet, we will obviously do that on the next earnings call. As you can imagine, there are projects that we are completing, our two fractionators and our export dock. As a matter of fact, Shawn and I were just out there a few weeks ago seeing the progress there. As I mentioned in my remarks, that will be ready for operations, at least frac one and the export dock, no later than 2028. The completion of Titan 2 is happening this year. We have got Traverse for 2027. The second fractionator at our Texas City will also be done.
We have got our Marcellus gathering expansion that will be complete in the first half of 2028. Eiger Express Pipeline, Solitude Pipeline System that we just announced, and Secretariat. These are all projects that are currently ongoing. Again, we do not expect 2027 capital to be stronger at this point than what we saw in 2026. As you know, we actually accelerated some. We will look to deploy those proceeds as quickly as we can on organic or inorganic opportunities as we see fit that meets that criteria. I hope that helps, Doug.
Great. Yeah, that is helpful. Maybe a follow-up on the asset sale again. You have now announced two fairly sizable asset sales in each of the last two years. I guess, do you view these as more opportunistic, or are they maybe kind of part of a broader plan to keep paring up your footprint here around the Northeast and the Permian?
Yeah, I would say it this way. When you look at the Rockies, as we shared when we decided to do that divestiture, we felt that those assets were better placed in the hands of those who had a different capital allocation strategy to those assets, and we wanted to deploy funding from that into natural gas and NGL, as you have seen us do. In the case of this particular sale, this was really the result of MPC's decision to monetize and to sell those two assets. Really, perhaps different rationale. We continue to say that Permian, Marcellus are critical basins for us. Almost 90%, frankly, of our capital is being put to work in natural gas and NGL. I mentioned actually in my remarks, the speed at which the Solitude Pipeline System got FID'd.
These are places where we see, particularly when you look at the demand pool coming from LNG, et cetera, places where we see opportunities. Having said that, we are quite pleased with the MPLX asset portfolio. It is operating well. All of our assets are cash flow positive, as are the basins where we operate. We remain pleased with the portfolio as it exists today.
Great. Thanks for the time.
You are welcome. Thank you for the question.
Thank you. The next question comes from Gabe Daoud. Your line is open.
Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone.
Sure.
Maryann and team. Hey, Maryann. Was hoping we could maybe just get your perspective on the large Appalachian M&A on the E&P side last week. Just curious how that transaction could maybe impact the business moving forward, since it did include one of your key customers.
Yeah. Good morning, Gabe, and thanks for the question. First and foremost, I'd say, when we look at EQT and Range, both of these are long-term existing customers of MPLX with whom we believe we maintain very strong relationships. Frankly, we are absolutely looking forward to continuing to work collectively on that combined set of assets. We don't typically discuss any of the specific terms of our customer contracts, but we can share that we've got durable long-term commitments and strong acreage dedications that extend largely over a decade from one of those customers. We don't expect really to be negatively impacted by the combination. We, MPLX, strive to be the midstream company of choice to support our producer goals and customers. Anyway, let me pass it to Greg.
Greg's got deep customer relationships as well, and he can share a little bit more with respect to the insights in that combination. Thanks for the question, Gabe.
Yeah. Thanks, Maryann Mannen. Gabe, we were in the very beginning with Range Resources Corporation in the Marcellus, I'm proud to say, and we've grown over. That goes back almost 20 years. EQT, same 15-year relationship or a little over that. As we build out the Marcellus and the integrated position we have with C3+ ethane purity pipelines all interconnected to third parties, we build out a system that's integrated, and both of these customers are part of that. As we continue to build out our Liberty gathering system in Washington County, that we're going to be expanding along with Majorsville, that sort of ties into the Harmon Creek III expansion, our Houston plants, our fractionator, and the entire integrated system. We're running at 93%, 94% even after the Harmon Creek III plant came online, which is our largest yet built.
We continue to have opportunities to grow here, and these are two key customers for us that we hope to continue to do that with.
Thanks, Kris. Thanks, Maryann Mannen. That's helpful. Then, just as a follow-up, given your position on the Permian egress side of things, could you maybe give us your updated thoughts around supply against the expected capacity that should show up by 2030 or so? I think there's pretty close to 20 Bcf a day that could come on from an incremental egress standpoint by 2030 versus supply expectations of just maybe 7 Bcf- 8 Bcf a day of growth side end. Can you maybe just talk to the mismatch, and are the volume expectations just simply too low? Will the basin be long pipes for maybe a short period of time? Would love to get your thoughts on that.
Yeah, sure, Gabe. I'm going to ask Dave to give you some thoughts, and then I'll come back there with any other follow-up that you might have.
Hey, Gabe. Great question. Let me step back a little bit, and we've been participating in this basin on egress pipelines for almost 10 years now. As Maryann Mannen's comment stated, we're participating in six long-haul pipes now, with the most recent being Solitude recently announced, so moving almost 16 Bcf a day out of the pipe. Your comments are spot on. As Maryann Mannen touched on with Solitude, that pipe was the fastest FID of any of the six pipes out of the basin, whether it be to Agua Dulce or to Katy. We're seeing continued strong shipper demand, customer demand in that. The other interesting part about Solitude is our partners. All these pipelines are multi-partnered, as you know.
The partner mix from not only midstreamers but producers in the Solitude Pipeline kind of gives you a little bit of a view of how people are thinking about the necessity for capacity going forward. As we think about it and looking forward, whether it be driven by data centers, power demand generation, but more specifically in the U.S. Gulf Coast by LNG, we continue to see the demand and the need, and we see strong customer support and commitment to these long-haul pipes coming out of the basin. As we look forward, we will continue to, through the lens of strict capital discipline, participate in the basin, whether it be in-basin G&P with Greg and his team or participate in these long-haul pipelines that get the gas out of the basin into the customers that are actually pulling and wanting the demand there.
We see a strong outlook there. Hopefully, that helps.
Yeah, that's very helpful. Thank you all.
You are welcome. Thanks for the question.
Thank you. The next question comes from Keith Stanley with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.
Hi. Good morning. Appreciate the flexibility on the distribution growth next year. I think it is a prudent move given the asset sale. You still noted you intend to raise the distribution faster than DCF growth next year. I am curious if, as part of that, you would consider a larger increase in buybacks as a lever that you could use to reduce the unit count and improve your coverage and allow for faster distribution growth if organic growth opportunities do not materialize.
Hey, Keith. Good morning. It is Maryann Mannen. Thanks for the question, and appreciate your color there. I am going to pass it to Kris to talk a little bit about buyback and your question, and then I can take any follow-up that you might have.
Hey, Keith. I know you've done the math, but what I would tell you is, first and foremost, our capital allocation strategy is really unchanged. When you think about us maintaining safe, reliable operations, then distribution growth, then growth capital, and then your unit buybacks being the last consideration for return of capital to our unit holders, that's unchanged. When you think about buybacks as a tool to help with coverage ratio, it takes a lot of money to move that dial, as I kind of opened with. It's something that we look at, but it's not something that we've considered at this point.
Understood. That makes sense. Thanks for that. Second one, and I apologize in advance for revisiting it, but on the whole affiliate relationship, it's pretty striking just the performance difference between MPC and MPLX this year, and obviously market conditions are driving that. MPC has $12 billion of cash at the MPC level. You're selling another $3 billion of assets. You're getting a lot of free cash flow the rest of the next few quarters. With the MPLX public float only $22 billion, is there any consideration at all to using this unique period of time to simplify the structure and consider maybe buying in MPLX? It would just seem like if you were ever going to do it, this could be the time to do it, or is it just something you want to keep permanently out there?
Yeah, no worries, Keith. I'm happy to address the question. As I've mentioned before, we continue to believe that MPC and MPLX, the strategic focus, the relationship is critically important. Having said that, we recognize that our objective with respect to the unit holders of MPLX and the shareholders of MPC is to ensure that we are providing and creating via structure and all other capital allocation that we do, that we are creating the optimum value creation for both of those organizations. Of course, we'll always look at structure, and to the extent that any change is necessary, we would certainly make any adjustments that would be necessary. I would tell you, however, and you know this, that our exchange ratio wouldn't be the only criteria, of course. That's not the sole criteria that we would use to consider that.
Appreciate the color. Thank you.
You are welcome. Thanks for the question.
Thank you. The next question comes from Theresa Chen with Barclays. Your line is open.
Morning. I want to go back to the Northeast customer consolidation, understanding that there should be opportunities for MPLX to grow alongside the combined EQT Range entity. But given the greater scale of the customer post-close, how should we think about the potential impact on rates and contract economics over time?
Hey, Theresa. Good morning. Thanks for the question. I am going to let Greg talk a little bit about that. But again, we believe based on long-term contracting, particularly when you look at sort of the decade of that contracting, that we are quite optimistic, if you will, of our ability to execute through that. But let me let Greg give you incremental color there.
Thanks, Maryann. Theresa, as I mentioned previously, we have a longstanding relationship with both Range and EQT. We process gas for both and fractionate for both gatherer for one. The infrastructure we build out has been built out over 15 years- 20 years, and we have continued to have the ability to incrementally add capacity, whether it be in the processing side, fractionation, or debottlenecking as we continue to do. So, based on the durability of our contracts, the acreage dedications, and the extension of that in the rich area, we feel really confident not only about the contractual situation that we're in, but also the ability to grow incrementally with these customers.
As is the case with any customer, and particularly with the combination and with scale, we'll always be open to discuss and be willing to discuss other win-win arrangements that could help both the producer customers and our growth. So we're interested in continuing to have those discussions.
Thank you.
You're welcome, Theresa. Thank you.
Thank you. Our final question today comes from Vrathan Reddy with JP Morgan. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. It has been hit on a couple times during the call, but just curious how you, with the additional capital redeployment flexibility, how you evaluate the Marcellus Utica growth opportunities versus the Permian, and should we think about that as primarily processing additions, given what you have mentioned so far? Are there other parts of the value chain that you are looking at at this moment?
This is Greg again. I would say that we continue to see, as indicated by the ramp of our Harmon Creek III plant that came online earlier, we are continuing to actually loop pipeline in the Marcellus area, add compression, and debottleneck some of the plants. We are obviously at high utilization, near mid-90s, but we do have opportunity to continue to incrementally extract more capacity out of our fleet of plants out there. The NGL prices are really good. Light oil and crude on the Utica side is really good, the pricing there. We have a lot of You have seen we have almost doubled our volume and utilization in the last three years in the Utica, and we were fortunate we had some capacity that was built out that we are able to grow into.
We will continue to do that in both the Utica and the Marcellus, and all those systems are integrated together into fractionation and both liquids and gas takeaway. I think we will continue to see opportunities there for incremental growth.
Yeah, I just wanted to quickly add as well, this is kind of thinking again about our capital allocation strategy and where do we see the growth. When we think about the Northeast, you've thought about that. We've always been a just-in-time processing fractionation builder. When Greg and team get to that kind of mid-90s, we're thinking about what's that next expansion project. It's the low to mid-90s, they better start engineering it. So if you think about the Majorsville expansion that's going to be coming online, that's where that comes on just in time. When you think about the Permian and the Southwest, that's an area where it's, as you've seen, there's exponential growth. We just talked about some of the egress that we're expected to see through 2030, but it's also the area that we do just in time, right? We're not deploying stranded capital.
Rather, we're getting the acreage dedications and the line of sight to the volumes to fill both processing and fractionation as it's scheduled to come online.
Great. Thanks for that. As a follow-up, how would you guys frame the long-term CapEx run rate at this point? Obviously, fundamentally supportive backdrop in 2027 has a lot of growth projects coming online, but as you think about longer term, how would you frame that run rate CapEx?
Yeah, I'll take that one quickly. What I would tell you is when we think about our CapEx, 2026 is an elevated amount, and what we did, we pulled forward a lot of capital spend that was associated with some of these big organic projects that we're doing. You think about Secretariat II, you think about our wellhead-to-water on the NGL side of the house. These are pull forward, not overspend. So it's an important thing to delineate there. So thinking about that, right, 2027 likely looks less than 2026. When you go longer term, you start thinking 2028, you start thinking 2029, what I'll remind is that base business continues to get bigger and bigger. So to get to that mid-single-digit EBITDA growth, you're going to happen, and you require those mid-teens return on either organic or inorganic projects.
The amount you have to spend gets bigger and bigger each year. What I would also tell you is, just like you saw with this year, it won't always be linear, right? It can come in in chunks. That's how I'd probably answer that. Hopefully that helped.
Yeah, that's helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks for the question.
That was our final question.
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