Hello, and welcome to the 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of The Williams Companies, Inc. Also please note that links to the company's annual meeting materials, the rules of conduct for this annual meeting and the company's forward looking statements cautionary language are available on the meeting portal. Registered stockholders may electronically submit questions at any time during this annual meeting by clicking on the message icon with the red dot at the top of the meeting portal. Following the business portal of today's annual meeting, the company's CEO, Alan Armstrong, will make a presentation and respond to stockholder questions. It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Williams Companies Inc, Mr.
Stephen Bergstrom. Mr. Bergstrom, the floor is yours.
Thank you. The meeting is now convened and will please come to order. I'm Steve Bergstrom, Chairman of Board of Directors of the company and will act as the presiding officer of this annual meeting. I would like to welcome all of you to this, our 2nd virtual annual meeting. I would now like to introduce you to our Board of Directors.
Our current directors are Nancy Deasy, Steve Chazen, Casey Cogut, Mike Creel, Stacy Dorey, Vicki Fuller, Peter Regaus, Rose Robison, Scott Sheffield, Murray Smith, Bill Spence and Alan Armstrong, who is also our President and Chief Executive Officer. We will begin with the formal business portion of the meeting, during which the voting on the proposals contained in the company's proxy statement will be conducted. Following the formal business portion of the meeting, we will transition to the informal portion of the Annual Meeting. During this portion of the meeting, our CEO, Alan Armstrong, will provide a report on operational and strategic matters. We will then entertain stockholder questions, which have been electronically submitted through the meeting portal.
To address some meeting administration, I note that Ms. Cheryl Mann will act as secretary of the meeting and that Mr. Joseph Roche of Computershare Trust Company will act as inspector of elections for the receipt, validation and tabulation of proxies and votes. Our Corporate Secretary, Bob Reilly, will read the submitted stockholder questions aloud. The Secretary has reported that a meeting quorum is present, and I have received proof in the form of an affidavit of mailing that proper notice of the annual meeting has been given.
In order to conduct an orderly meeting, I ask that you please follow the rules of conduct, which are linked on the meeting portal. We will now begin the business portion of the meeting. The first item of business is the election of directors. Do I have a nomination?
Mr. Chairman, I nominate to serve as directors for the ensuing year the entire slate of directors listed in our proxy statement. Specifically Alan S. Armstrong, Stephen W. Bergstrom, Nancy K.
Veasey, Stephen I. Chazen, Charles I. Cogut, Michael A. Creel, Stacy H. Storey, Vicki L.
Fuller, Peter A. Raguas, Rose M. Robison, Scott D. Sheffield, Murray D. Smith and William H.
Spence. Mr. Chairman, I second the nominations.
I declare that the nominations for directors are now closed. The second item of business is an advisory vote on executive compensation.
Mr. Chairman, I move that the company's executive compensation be approved on an advisory basis. Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.
The next item of business is the ratification of the appointment of Ernst and Young LLP as the company's independent public accountants for 2021.
Mr. Chairman, I move that such appointment be approved and ratified. Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.
The polls are now open. If you have not already cast your vote, there is a link to vote on the meeting portal. If you previously voted by proxy, you do not need to vote today unless you wish to change your vote. Before proceeding with the meeting, I will wait a few moments for the submission of any
votes.
I declare that the polls are now closed. The next item of business is the preliminary report of the Inspector of Elections. Any votes cast before the polls are closed but not reflected in the Inspection of Elections preliminary report will be reflected in the final report of the Inspector of Elections. I now call on the Inspector of Elections for his preliminary report.
Mr. Chairman, I report that each of the nominees for director have received a majority of the votes cast. A majority of the votes cast were on an advisory basis voted in favor of the company's executive compensation and the majority of the votes cast were voted in favor and thereby ratifying the appointment of Ernst and Young LLP as the company's independent auditors for 2021.
Based on the Inspector of Elections preliminary report, I now declare the election of each of the nominees as Directors of the company that on an advisory basis, the company's executive compensation is approved and the appointment of Ernst and Young LLP appointment as the company's independent auditor for 2021 is approved and ratified. Final voting results will be available in a Form 8 ks, which the company will file with the SEC within 4 business days. There being no further business, is there a motion to adjourn the business portion of the annual meeting?
Mr. Chairman, I so move. Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.
I now declare the business portion of the annual meeting adjourned. We will now proceed with the informal portion of the annual meeting. It is now my pleasure to introduce our company's President and CEO, Mr. Alan Armstrong.
Thank you, Steve, and good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for our 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. We appreciate your continued interest and investment in Williams. Before I begin my prepared remarks, I want to recognize 2 new directors who joined the Williams Ward since our last annual meeting, Rose Robison and Stacy Dore. Rose brings 32 years of experience in the energy industry and most recently as Chief Financial Officer of DCP Midstream. At Williams, Rose serves as a member of the Board's Compensation and Management Development Committee as well as the Environmental Health and Safety Committee.
Stacy Dorey brings 23 years of experience in Energy and Law. She currently serves as Chief Executive of Cherilyn Utilities LLC, an electric utility that owns and develops transmission infrastructure assets in Texas. On the Williams Board, Stacy serves on the Governance and Sustainability Committee and the Audit Committee. With the addition of these 2 outstanding individuals, the Williams Board of Directors now consist of 13 members, 12 of whom are independent. Williams has always been a company that accepts and embraces change, which has served us well now for over a century, and I am grateful to have such an experienced and diverse Board to oversee our direction, guide our strategic decisions and ensure we are staying true to our core values.
Let me start by saying that Williams demonstrated incredible business resiliency in a year of unprecedented challenges of our industry and our country. I'm pleased to report that 2020 was another year of records for Williams, proving how durable our business can be against multiple headwinds, including the pandemic and oil price collapse, major customer bankruptcies and a highly active hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico during 2020. The tumultuous market environment allowed us to truly distinguish ourselves and we were one of the few midstream companies to maintain and deliver on our pre COVID guidance ranges provided in 2019. In fact, we surpassed guidance midpoint in our key financial metrics, including adjusted EBITDA of $5,100,000,000 distributable cash flow of $3,360,000,000 and we also met or exceeded all of our other key financial metrics, allowing us to once again produce positive free cash flow. Furthermore, we set records in 2020 for both gathered volumes and contracted transmission capacity, and we achieved early in service capacity for key pipeline expansion projects to serve the growing demand for natural continuously improving on project execution, operating margin ratio, reliable service to our customers, safety performance and environmental stewardship delivered strong financial performance in 2020 and we continue to consistently return these results to our shareholders in the form of stronger balance sheet and growing dividends.
In fact, Williams has paid a common stock dividend every quarter since 1974, putting Williams amongst an elite group of NYSE Energy Companies that have paid a dividend for 45 years or more. In terms of sustainable business operations, Williams is setting the pace for the midstream sector. And in 2020, Williams was the 1st in the U. S. To establish a climate commitment by setting a near term goal of 56% absolute reduction from our 2,005 levels on our company wide greenhouse gas emissions and we expect to accomplish this goal by 2,030.
Williams is leveraging its natural gas focused strategy and technology that is available today to pursue pragmatic methane emission reduction opportunities through leak detection and repair, work practice improvements and equipment upgrades on a site specific basis. And these improvements also increase the earnings potential for our asset base. In addition to setting aggressive near term and actionable climate targets, we are committed to transparent reporting to ensure stakeholders can hold us accountable. Williams was recognized this past year across several key ESG rating and rankings, most importantly, the Carbon Disclosure Project or CDP as is often referred to, for our commitment to transparency and governance around climate change. These high marks demonstrate that Williams is on the right track to successfully sustain and evolve our natural gas focused business to reduce emissions while continuing to deliver long term value to our stakeholders.
As our 2020 performance clearly illustrates, we've built a business that is steady and predictable, thanks to an intense focus on our natural gas based strategy. Our best in class long haul pipes are in the right places to meet critical energy needs and our impressive gathering assets are in low cost basins that will be called on to meet growing natural gas demands. As interest around a clean energy future accelerates, our strategy provides significant solutions that we can execute on today. So on behalf of the entire Williams organization, thank you for your continued trust and through the meeting portal. As a reminder, to ask a question, please click message icon with a red dot at the top of the meeting portal.
Mr. Chairman, at this time, we've not received any questions from stockholders.
Very well, thank you. Our 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders has now concluded. Thank you for attending and for your continued support of The Williams Company.