Earnings call transcript: Kinder Morgan Q3 2025 earnings miss, stock dips

Published 30/10/2025, 22:14
 Earnings call transcript: Kinder Morgan Q3 2025 earnings miss, stock dips

Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) reported its Q3 2025 earnings, revealing an EPS of $0.29, slightly below the forecast of $0.30. Despite a revenue beat, the after-hours market reacted negatively, with shares dropping 4.55% to $26.25. The company highlighted strong performance in natural gas infrastructure and projected further growth.

Key Takeaways

  • EPS of $0.29 missed the forecast by 3.33%.
  • Revenue of $4.15 billion exceeded expectations by 2.22%.
  • Stock fell 4.55% in after-hours trading.
  • Natural gas transport volumes increased by 6%.
  • Project backlog reached $9.3 billion.

Company Performance

Kinder Morgan demonstrated robust performance in Q3 2025, driven by its natural gas infrastructure. The company reported a 6% year-over-year increase in EBITDA and a 16% rise in adjusted EPS. Despite the slight EPS miss, revenue surpassed forecasts, reflecting strong operational execution and strategic investments in natural gas projects.

Financial Highlights

  • Revenue: $4.15 billion, up from the forecasted $4.06 billion.
  • Earnings per share: $0.29, below the forecast of $0.30.
  • Net income: $628 million.
  • Dividend: $0.925 per share, a 2% increase from 2024.
  • Net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio improved to 3.9x.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Kinder Morgan’s Q3 2025 EPS of $0.29 missed the forecast of $0.30 by 3.33%, marking a slight deviation from expectations. However, revenue came in at $4.15 billion, surpassing the forecast by 2.22%. This mixed performance reflects the company’s ongoing efforts to enhance its operational efficiency and expand its natural gas infrastructure.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Kinder Morgan’s stock declined by 4.55% in after-hours trading, closing at $26.25. The stock’s movement is notable given the company’s performance, and it reflects investor sensitivity to the EPS miss despite a revenue beat. The stock remains within its 52-week range of $23.94 to $31.48.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking forward, Kinder Morgan anticipates exceeding its 2025 budget with projected growth of 4% in EBITDA and 10% in EPS. The company is exploring $10 billion in potential projects, focusing on natural gas, power generation, and export infrastructure. Future guidance includes EPS forecasts of $0.37 for Q4 2025 and $1.28 for FY 2025.

Executive Commentary

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, stated, "We are a prolific generator of cash and are fortunate to have the majority of our assets employed in a true growth segment of the energy business." CFO Kim added, "These are projects where we are actively talking to customers about them," highlighting the company’s strategic focus on expanding its project pipeline.

Risks and Challenges

  • Volatility in natural gas prices could impact profitability.
  • Regulatory changes in energy policies may affect operations.
  • Competition in the natural gas infrastructure sector remains intense.
  • Economic downturns could reduce demand for energy services.
  • Potential delays in project approvals may hinder growth.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about Kinder Morgan’s interest in power generation and data center infrastructure, with executives expressing caution about direct power investments. The company is exploring opportunities in key regions, including Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and Florida, and considering storage expansion to meet growing demand.

Full transcript - Kinder Morgan Inc (KMI) Q3 2025:

Michelle, Conference Call Operator: Good afternoon and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Third Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Results Conference Call. Your lines are in a listen only mode until the question and answer session of today’s conference. Today’s conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time.

It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman of Kinder Morgan.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan: Thank you, Michelle. As usual, before we begin, I’d like to remind you that KMI’s earnings release today and this call include forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as well as certain non GAAP financial measures. Before making any investment decision, we strongly encourage you to read our full disclosure on forward looking statements and use of non GAAP financial measures set forth at the end of our earnings release as well as review our latest filings with the SEC for important material assumptions, expectations and risk factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated and described in such forward looking statements. I think we all recognize the positives and negatives of publicly traded companies. One of the biggest pitfalls is the undue concentration on quarter to quarter or even day to day issues, many of which are relatively inconsequential in terms of the long term success of the enterprise.

With that in mind, I thought I’d take this opportunity to stress two important substantive factors that will impact the future of Kinder Morgan, the natural gas story and the long term strategy of our company. Obviously, the two are intimately related. On the natural gas demand front, there are two huge drivers. The first is a continued rapid growth in LNG feed gas demand driven by the enormous expansion of export facilities primarily along the Gulf Coast. While industry experts differ somewhat, there’s a pretty broad consensus that demand will at least double between 2024 and 02/1930.

In fact, S and P’s Commodity Insights recently estimated that increase at 130%, which implies a demand of 31 Bcf to 32 Bcf a day in 02/1930. As an example of this growing demand, six LNG projects have reached FID so far in 2025. Feed gas demand for those facilities alone when completed will be nine Bcf a day. Now there’s more variance in assessing the impact of the second driver, which is the increasing demand for electricity, primarily to serve AI data centers. There will clearly be huge additional demand for electricity, but how much of that will be captured by natural gas?

Let’s look at the alternatives. Certainly, renewables will play a major role, but can’t handle the entire load given AI needs for uninterrupted power 20 fourseven, not just when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. But can’t this be fixed by pairing wind or solar farms with massive batteries to store power and release it in a steady stream when needed? Well, that sounds intriguing, but there are serious drawbacks to this option because batteries are expensive and limited in the time they can cover. And renewables of the size to serve AI centers require enormous space.

A recent article in The New York Times of all places estimated that to continuously produce just one gigawatt, a solar farm would need 12,500,000 solar panels, enough to cover 5,000 football fields and wind turbines would require even more space. Another source of power is nuclear, which generates steady power from relatively small footprint, but this is an industry that unfortunately has been basically dormant for over forty years and new nuclear facilities are very expensive and would likely take seven to ten years to come online. This means that AI sponsor would not have the facilities when needed and would be gambling billions of dollars that the demand will still be there a decade or so from now. That leaves natural gas, which is abundant and reasonably priced and the infrastructure to produce power from natural gas is relatively quick to build. Reasonably, like I’ve just outlined, is why we believe that AI data center needs will supplement in a very meaningful way the tremendous increases in LNG feed gas demand.

And in combination, the two drivers will ensure a huge and growing market for natural gas in the years and decades to come. Now let me conclude by again emphasizing the long term strategy at Kinder Morgan. We are a prolific generator of cash and are fortunate to have the majority of our assets employed in a true growth segment of the energy business, namely the transportation of natural gas. These two characteristics dovetail nicely. The tremendous growth in natural gas demand drives the opportunity for expanding and extending our pipeline and terminal networks and adding new facilities as evidenced by the $9,000,000,000 plus of projects already approved by our Board, and we generate the cash internally to fund those projects while maintaining a healthy and modestly growing dividend.

Now to be clear, we have to complete these projects on time and on budget, but our track record in that regard is good and we’re benefiting from a federal regulatory process that is more supportive of projects like ours. While our base business is relatively flat, these capital projects will drive substantial growth in EBITDA and EPS for years to come. This is a simple, but in my mind very compelling strategy. And with that, I’ll turn it over to Kim.

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: Okay. Thanks, Rich. We’re pleased to report another strong quarter with EBITDA up 6% and adjusted EPS growing 16% year on year. These results reflect the strength of our underlying business and the continued execution on our growth projects. We currently expect to exceed our full year budget due to contributions from the Outrigger acquisition.

This outperformance would be greater if not for lower than budgeted D3 RIN prices and RNG volumes. Currently, the RNG volumes are much closer to budget, but RINs prices remain weak. The natural gas segment, which accounts for two thirds of our business is outperforming its budget even excluding Outrigger. Our expansion backlog remains flat at $9,300,000,000 with the approximately $500,000,000 of new projects offset by projects placed in service. The backlog multiple continues to be below six times consistent with our disciplined approach to capital deployment.

The mix of new projects added to the backlog this quarter is split roughly 50% natural gas, primarily supporting power generation and 50% to refined product tankage. Looking ahead, our opportunity set remains exceptionally compelling. We’re actively pursuing over $10,000,000,000 in potential projects, primarily in natural gas, underscoring the continued demand for our services and the strength of our platform. As I mentioned last quarter, the scale of opportunities we’re evaluating today is comparable to when our backlog stood at just $3,000,000,000 highlighting the consistency and the resiliency of our growth pipeline. Our gas infrastructure, than 66,000 miles of pipeline connecting all major basins and demand centers positions us as a critical player in energy infrastructure.

Today, we transport over 40% of the natural gas in The United States, including more than 40% of the volume headed to LNG export facilities, 25% of the gas fueling U. S. Natural gas power plants and 50% of the gas exported to Mexico. Looking forward, our internal projections estimate 28 Bcf a day increase in natural gas demand by 2,030, driven primarily by growth in LNG exports as well as power and exports to Mexico. Wood Mackenzie forecast a similar trend projecting 22 Bcf a day of growth in overall natural gas demand.

With our strategically located assets, we are well positioned to capture a meaningful share of this expansion. Our current $9,300,000,000 backlog is a strong foundation for long term high quality growth. A very significant portion of this backlog is supported by take or pay contracts providing both stability and visibility into future cash flows. And as we continue to advance our development pipeline, we expect to convert a portion of the $10,000,000,000 opportunity set into additional backlog further reinforcing our growth trajectory. We remain confident in our strategy, our execution and our ability to deliver long term value for our shareholders.

And with that, I’ll turn it over to Tom Martin to walk through the business performance in more detail.

Tom Martin, Business Unit Leader, Kinder Morgan: Thanks, Kim. Starting with the natural gas business unit, transport volumes were up 6% in versus the 2024, primarily due to LNG deliveries on Tennessee Gas Pipeline, new contracts from expansion projects placed into service on the Texas Intrastate System and increased Permian deliveries to Waha and Mexico on our El Paso natural gas system. Natural gas gathering volumes were up 9% in the quarter from the 2024 with growth across all our G and P assets, the largest impacts from our Haynesville and Eagle Ford systems. Sequentially, total gas gathering volumes were up 11%. We experienced a significant ramp from our producer customers during the quarter to meet the growing LNG demand.

The gathering volume growth trend continues in the early days of the fourth quarter, most notably on our Haynesville system as it is approaching new daily volume records in October. For the full year, we now expect the gathering volumes to average 5% above 2024. And looking forward, we continue to see significant incremental project opportunities across our natural gas pipeline network to expand our transportation and storage capabilities in support of the growing natural gas market. For example, we are exploring more than 10 Bcf a day of natural gas opportunities to serve the power generation sector. In our Products Pipeline segment, refined product volumes were down 1% in the quarter compared to the 2024.

For the full year 2025, refined products volumes are forecasted to be about 1% higher than 2024 and in line with our budget. Crude and condensate volumes were down 3% in the quarter compared to 2024. More than all of that decline is driven by taking Double H out of service earlier this quarter for the NGL conversion project. On Monday, Kinder Morgan and Phillips sixty six launched a binding open season for transportation service on the Western Gateway Pipeline, a newly proposed refined products pipeline system that will facilitate the movement of products from origin points in Texas to key downstream markets in Arizona and California with connectivity to Las Vegas, Nevada. This open season is scheduled to run through December 19.

Following the successful open season, the Western Gateway Pipeline and KMI’s SFPP East line will be jointly owned by KMI and Phillips sixty six. We believe this project provides attractive refined products alternative for markets in Arizona and California, given the decline in California refining market. In our Terminals business segment, our liquids lease capacity remains high at 95%. Market conditions continue to remain supportive of strong rates and high utilization at our key hubs in the Houston Ship Channel and New York Harbor. Our Jones Act tanker fleet is fully leased today through the remainder of 2025.

Assuming likely options are exercised, the fleet is 100% leased through 2026 and ninety seven percent leased through 2027. We have opportunistically chartered a significant percentage of the fleet at higher market rates and extended the average length of firm contract commitments to nearly four years. The CO2 segment experienced 4% lower oil production volumes, 4% higher NGL volumes and 14% lower CO2 volumes in the quarter versus the 2024. For the full year 2025, oil volumes are forecasted to be 4% below 2024 and one percent below our budget. With that, I’ll turn it over to David Michaels.

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: Thank you, Tom.

David Michaels, Financial Executive, Kinder Morgan: For the quarter,

David Michaels, Financial Executive, Kinder Morgan: we’re declaring a quarterly dividend of $0.02 $9.02 $5 per share or $1.17 per share annualized, which represents a 2% increase over our twenty twenty four dividend. For the third quarter, we generated net income attributable to KMI of $628,000,000 and EPS of $0.28 per share, both in line with the 2024. Last year’s results included favorable mark to market impacts on hedges and a onetime noncash tax benefit, both of which we treat as certain items. Excluding those items, adjusted net income and adjusted EPS grew 16% year over year delivering strong double digit growth. This growth was driven by greater contributions from our natural gas expansion projects placed in service, the Outrigger acquisition and strong demand across our natural gas footprint for natural gas capacity and related services.

Moving on to the balance sheet. As we’ve continued to take a disciplined approach to capital allocation, our balance sheet has strengthened. Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio has improved to 3.9 times at the end of the third quarter, down from 4.1 times at the end of the first quarter, which was immediately following the Outrigger acquisition. Year to date, our net debt has increased by $544,000,000 and here’s a high level reconciliation. We’ve generated cash flow from operations of $4,225,000,000 We’ve paid out dividends of $1,950,000,000 We paid or spent $2,245,000,000 of total capital.

The Outrigger acquisition was $650,000,000 and all other items were a source of cash of approximately $75,000,000 which gets you close to that $544,000,000 increase for the year. The rating agencies have recognized our strength in financial profile. And in August, Fitch upgraded our senior unsecured rating to BBB plus We were already on positive outlook by both S and P and Moody’s, and we look for a favorable resolution of those in the near term. As Kim mentioned, we expect to exceed our 2025 budget. And as a reminder, we budgeted to grow adjusted EBITDA by 4% and adjusted EPS by 10% from 2024.

So with the outperformance, we expect to deliver even larger year over year growth. As we mentioned last quarter, the budget reconciliation bill delivers meaningful tax benefits for us, primarily from full expensing of investments. In addition, adjustments to the corporate alternative minimum tax are expected to provide additional substantial tax savings beginning in 2026. So we are poised for a very strong full year 2025. We’re on track to beat our budgeted excuse me, our budget and deliver double digit earnings growth.

We’ve sanctioned additional high project high return projects that will support future growth. We’ve improved our balance sheet resulting in enhanced credit ratings and we expect meaningful cash flow benefits from tax reform, which will generate additional investment capacity. And with that, I’ll turn it back to Ken for Q and A.

Ken, Executive, Kinder Morgan: Okay. Michelle, if you’ll come back on, and we’ll take questions.

Michelle, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our first caller is Theresa Chen with Barclays. You may go ahead.

Theresa Chen, Analyst, Barclays: Good afternoon. I wanted to go back to your growth outlook and specifically the over $10,000,000,000 opportunity set in unsanctioned projects under development, up I think from the previous 7,000,000,000 to $11,000,000,000 range. What has driven the seemingly improved outlook over the past few months? How quickly do you think you can commercialize these growth opportunities? And where are you seeing the most interest for expansion projects amongst your customers?

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: Sure. So on the $10,000,000,000 that’s all the opportunities that that’s an opportunity set we’re pursuing right now. It’s mostly natural gas. It supports the themes that we’ve mentioned here today. So export LNG, power, but there’s also projects that support exports to Mexico and industrial growth.

And as I said, the opportunity set is very similar to when our backlog was at $3,000,000,000 So we haven’t seen any diminishment in the projects that we’re looking at. These projects are mostly across the Southern U. S, so they go all the way from Arizona to potentially Florida. And most of them are smaller in size, I’d say less than $250,000,000 but there are a few that are $1,000,000,000 plus. So it’s all over the board.

It’s power in Arizona, in Texas, power in New Mexico, power in Florida. It’s we need more egress from all the producing basins, the Haynesville, potentially the Marcellus, Utica. We need more gas moving to LNG. As Rich said, we’ve nine Bcf of gas demand from the projects that have FID recently. So I mean, it’s across the board.

And then today, we have potential projects we’re working on with respect to Western Gateway. So there’s a lot of different opportunities out there.

Theresa Chen, Analyst, Barclays: Thank you. And on that last point, Kim, following this week’s announcement of your open season for Western Gateway, Can you talk about your project positioning relative to ONEOK’s competing Sunbelt project? And assuming that Western Gateway solicits sufficient commercial interest during the open season, Can you talk about potential gating factors, regulatory or otherwise that Kinder and Phillips may need to address before the project can be sanctioned?

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: Sure. So relative to the competition, I think their pipeline just goes into the Phoenix market. Currently, the Phoenix market is set by us from the West as well as from the East. The project the proposed project with P66 and us would reverse our West line, build a new pipeline from border to Phoenix. And so we would be sending barrels from the East into the Phoenix market and reverse our West line so that you could potentially barrels could move on into the California market and potentially into the Las Vegas market.

I think it’s from our perspective, it’s a very good project for Arizona. Arizona is a growing market. So it gives additional capacity to serve the Arizona market. Arizona is no longer dependent on California, where California has got some closing refineries. California gets potentially additional barrels coming to the California market.

To the extent there are additional closures in California. And I think it’s a great project because you’re accessing multiple markets. You’re not just going to one market. So in terms of the open season ends on December 19. And then from there, we’ll need various regulatory approvals.

And we would target a 2029 in service date.

Theresa Chen, Analyst, Barclays: Thank you.

Michelle, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan.

Jeremy Tonet, Analyst, JPMorgan: Hi, good afternoon.

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: Good afternoon.

Jeremy Tonet, Analyst, JPMorgan: Just wanted to follow-up on some of the comments you had said there with KMI seeing an opportunity to step more robust at any time in the company’s future. And just wanted to, I guess, see if we could expand upon that in any way. And just wondering how you think about the landscape given Kinder’s competitive positioning, it seems like it’s a competitive market out there. Any thoughts that you could provide around that? And I guess, what could be the cadence of how this capital could fall into plan at a high level over time?

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: Yes. So a couple of things. Yes, think I walked through some of the background on the $10,000,000,000 in opportunities. But with respect to on competition, look, we’re not going to win all these projects, but we’re going get our fair share. And what makes us very competitive is our existing footprint, which provides us with opportunities to build off of that footprint and we can provide our customer services that other competitors can’t offer, and so including storage.

And so that’s really at the end of the day what differentiates us from our peers. We also have a good track record on bringing projects in on time and on budget, which I think is helpful when time is important to our customers. And that’s especially true I think for some of the data center and power customers. So I think in terms of how this comes, how this the cadence of bringing these to FID, that is that’s hard to project. And so I can’t tell you exactly what that’s going to look like.

But I think we’ll bring significant projects to FID in 2026 based on that 10,000,000,000 backlog.

Jeremy Tonet, Analyst, JPMorgan: Got it. That’s very helpful. Thank you. And then just a smaller question for me as it relates to the guide. Just seems like the language changed a little bit with how much you’re going to exceed the guidance by outrigger in the 2Q versus 3Q and it seems like it’s a little bit less at this point.

Just wondering what other, I guess, changes in the backdrop you see versus the 2Q?

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: Yes. I mean there was a slight change on that and it’s really related to the RNG volumes and the REMS price weakness.

Jeremy Tonet, Analyst, JPMorgan: Got it. I’ll leave it there. Thank you.

Michelle, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is Julien JULIEN Dumoulin DUMOULIN Smith SMITH:] with Jefferies. Your line is

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan0: Hey, good afternoon team. Thank you guys very much for the time. I appreciate the opportunity. Maybe just picking up where the other guys just left off here. Can you elaborate a little bit on how you’re seeing the opportunities emerge as it pertains to the shadow backlog?

I know you gave some of these examples smaller and larger, but maybe regionally and how they pertain. I mean, we’ve seen examples recently in the last week here with a private backed pipeline FID in the Gulf Coast. Could you elaborate a little bit on the power opportunities both in as it pertains to Texas? And also maybe as it pertains to backlog opportunity in the Southwest, I mean, we saw what your peer announced in the last few months, but how does how do you think about the future on the gas side in the El Paso system?

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: Yes. I mean, I think there’s continued power development. A lot of it is for data centers, but there’s other things that are driving power development, coal retirements that some of those have pushed out some, but some of them are still happening. And so what we see and there you need more peakers to back up renewables, which is what we’re seeing in Texas. And so on the data centers and the power conversions, I mean, we’re seeing that potentially in Arizona, some places where maybe the pipeline that got announced recently doesn’t go, wouldn’t serve.

We’re seeing some in Colorado. We’re seeing some potentially more in Arkansas, in Florida. Again, I’ll just repeat some of these and then people come in. We’re seeing opportunities to build out of the Haynesville to get gas further to the market, get more volumes potentially coming out of the Marcellus, Utica. So there’s a lot of different opportunities.

Storage is a huge factor right now. People need a lot of storage. And so we’re looking at some opportunities to expand our storage and some new greenfield opportunities.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan1: So one thing I’ll add, especially out West is we have strong connectivity to Mexico. So when you think about the power demands there, those are also rising and not only from the base organic power, but Mexico also is evaluating their own data centers. And so our footprint, especially out West is very well connected along those lines. And then when you look out in the Southeast, you’ve seen the IRPs that have been put out by all the various states. Clearly, there’s demand that’s coming.

And as you all know, we’re well positioned in that market to try and capture some of that growth. When I go to the Gulf Coast, we continue to debottleneck and the plumbing to be able to get the molecules from the supply zone to the consuming markets. I think that’s something you can kind of take away on things that we’re working on. And then all of this gets put together with our when we evaluate storage and how to integrate storage and then supply access to these consuming markets. Those are kind of the big themes that we’re seeing on the horizon.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan0: Got it. And if I can nitpick a little bit, I know you just looked at the Southeast opportunities on SMG. Does that line up with what we’re seeing right now in the generation resource planning? I mean, obviously, they’ve upticked it pretty meaningfully here of late. Is that presently reflected or is there a little bit of a mark to market that happened on your side?

And then also on the Western gateway, if you could just clarify what the ultimate economics are on your side or at least the total dollars are?

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan1: So I’ll take the first question and I’ll turn it over to Kim and Mike on the second one. So Southeast, look, in terms of what we’re in that $10,000,000,000 that Kim is referring to, that is about taking into account some of the IRPs that are out there, especially in the Southeast. I mean, that’s what we see as infrastructure that’s needed. And so I think to answer the first question, that is a subset of that $10,000,000,000 And then I’ll turn it over to Ken and Mike for the second I

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: mean in terms of the cost to build that pipeline, we’re not going to get into that because it’s a as you know, there’s a competitive project out there. And so we don’t want to compromise that position at this point in time.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan0: Completely understood. Thank you guys very much. Look forward to working you guys.

Michelle, Conference Call Operator: You. Our next caller is Michael Blum with Wells Fargo. Your line is open sir.

David Michaels, Financial Executive, Kinder Morgan: Thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. I wanted to ask about Highland Express, the NGL conversion project, just in terms of where do you stand on committed initial volumes and where do you think that can go? And then I noticed in the press release you talked about potentially some takeaway out of the Powder River as well. So I wonder if you can expand on that.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan1: Yes. So sticking to our previous discussions, it’s on track. We’re on track to be ready first quarter next year for our initial commitment. Obviously, you all know we’re also at a very aggressive competition with the incumbent there. So I won’t get too much into the details on what’s next.

That being said, we have some assets that we’re effectively repurposing to be able to position ourselves to draw incremental barrels to the pipeline. And I will leave it at that till we actually have the next set of announcements to make hopefully very soon.

David Michaels, Financial Executive, Kinder Morgan: Okay. Fair enough. And then I want to ask you about the behind the meter opportunities. I know in the past you’ve talked about maybe coming up with a solution with partners. So just wanted to see where that stands and if that can be a meaningful driver and if that’s part of that 10

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: If you’re talking about investing in power, I think the answer is still that’s not something that we’re interested in doing. I think we’ve got plenty of opportunity, plenty to say grace over in our existing infrastructure business. That is what we are good at. That’s what we know how to do. And therefore, the growth that we’re projecting is very high quality growth, as I said, largely backed by take or pay contracts.

I think maybe where we’re missing a little bit is, I think in the past what we said is, if there was a data center or something that wanted us to invest for some reason, maybe we might make a very small investment there. But that would just only be to facilitate a project getting done. That is not where we want to invest our dollars. And so what I would say is it is unlikely that we invest behind the meter.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan1: But to add on to what Kim just said, we are looking at working with our partners to supply gas in certain instances to be able to support a consortium of folks to be able to provide reliable power. I mean, think that’s the way you would look at our participation in the opportunity. We would be looking to build the infrastructure to be able to support that.

David Michaels, Financial Executive, Kinder Morgan: Thanks.

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: We’ll supply the gas.

Michelle, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is John Mackay with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open, sir.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan2: Hey, everyone. Thanks for the time. I’m going to go to the shadow backlog too, I guess, not to keep running through the same thing. But I guess I just want to ask one more way. When you’re looking at this $10,000,000,000 how much of this is, look,

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan3: it’s

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan2: a competitive environment. We’ll see what we win. We have a lot to bring to the table versus really waiting for actually that demand to materialize, the next LNG FID, some larger power build out across the Southeast, etcetera? Maybe just what are the kind of buckets between the two in terms of what you see in front of you?

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: Yes. I mean these are projects where we are actively talking to customers about them. And so I think we’re having conversations with people. We are putting together estimates on what things would cost. We’re looking at return.

These are all things that are active conversations internally.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan2: That’s fair. Maybe just follow-up, second question. Appreciate the comments on the guide around the RNG side being softer. Could you talk about the rest of the business? I mean, was relatively strong.

Any more kind of one offs in there? Or is this a kind of healthier run rate?

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: I think gas is very strong. We didn’t have much of a winter or much of a summer. And they’re still even if you take out the Outrigger acquisition, they’re still going to nicely beat their budget. Terminal is also doing very well this year and should exceed its budget. Products, I’d say, is kind of right on its budget, slightly short, but it’s pretty small.

And then where the weakness is really in the RNG and a little bit on CO2.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan0: That’s clear. Thank you.

Michelle, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is Spiro Dounis with Citi. Your line is open, sir.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan4: Thanks, operator. Good afternoon, team. Wanted to start with the 2026 outlook. I know we’re going be getting a formal update from you guys in a few weeks. But maybe just at a high level, if you just talk about some of the variables you could see impacting the various segments?

And maybe any reason 2026 growth wouldn’t at least sort of match up to the 2025 growth rate?

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: Well, I think we’re going through a process right now. And so I think it’s too early to talk about what the growth rates might be. But in terms of if you want

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan5: to go

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: tailwinds, headwinds, something like that, Tailwinds, we’ve got expansion projects. You’ve got a full year of the 25,000,000 that we’ll get in 2026. And then you’ve got partial year 2026 growth projects. We’ve got contract escalators in our terminals business and our products business. Interest rates are coming down.

So that should be a tailwind for us. We’re not expecting significant increase in taxes given what we’ve seen on the big beautiful bill and the bonus depreciation. As always, we a little bit of decline potentially in CO2 in oil volumes. And then what’s unknown is I think commodity prices at this point in time. We’ll just have to see where those come out.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan4: Yes. Fair enough. Thanks for that, Jim. Second one, if you could believe it, do have another follow-up on the opportunity set. And so just curious how we should think about the time frame that either the $10,000,000,000 or the 10 Bcf a day captures?

And I’m asking from two different perspectives. To the extent these are all opportunities you’re sort of chasing within the decade, is there an opportunity here to see investment per year CapEx go up above $3,000,000,000 And then conversely, how should we think about your ability to maybe deliver more short cycle cash flow? A lot of these projects are later dated, great projects, but just curious if you could sort of fill the front end up more too.

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: Yes. So I think if you think about these are going to be both unregulated projects and regulated projects. And so the regulated projects now have a shorter time cycle than they have in the past. And so that’s very good. Think the FERC has gotten rid of eight seventy one.

So that five months has gone. That five month waiting period is gone. And I think they’re working really hard to get permits delivered more quickly. So that’s going to shorten that should shorten up your capital cycle some. I think the gating item is probably going to be compression.

And so that’s going to that will limit how much you can probably shorten it up. But I think in general, the FERC projects are going to be three a little over three years probably from the time you sanction them to the time you’re in service. And I think shorter capital will be on the gathering side and then on all Texas intrastate projects, all the pipelines in Texas and then potentially other intrastate pipelines in other states. So generally, I think you’re going to start filling up the out years, but you may have some near term capital which increases 27,000,028 million CapEx somewhat. But I think we have plenty of free cash flow and balance sheet capacity to be able to handle any increases that we see above 2,500,000,000.0 or $3,000,000,000 If you think about it, I’m not giving any guidance here.

I’m just throwing out a rough number. If we have $5,500,000,000 of DCF and you’ve got $2,600,000,000 of dividends, you’ve got $2,900,000,000 of cash flow to support the expansion projects, then our balance sheet right now is sitting at 3.9 times. Every 0.1 times is $800,000,000 I don’t we’re probably not going to run it up to 4,500,000,000.0 but you’ve got $3,000,000,000 ish at least a room there. And then over time, EBITDA is going to come down more as we bring these projects online. And so that balance sheet capacity is going to increase over time.

And then I think there is also very attractive third party capital out there if we wanted to access it. So I think we’ve got I’m not worried about capacity to finance these expansions. I think they are good return projects and we will find ways to do them without compromising our balance sheet.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan4: Got it. That’s helpful, Ken. I’ll leave it there. Thank you.

Michelle, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is Keith Stanley with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan5: Hi, good afternoon. Just wanted to follow-up on Western Gateway and I know you don’t want to say a total capital cost, but my questions are more on the structure. So if Phillips is building the new pipe and I think your capital investment is just a line reversal and maybe some tankage, is it fair to think your portion of the CapEx is a lot smaller in this project? And then the second question is the structure of the JV. So you’re contributing SFPP, they build Western Gateway and then is it roughly like a fifty-fifty JV from there?

Ken, Executive, Kinder Morgan: Yes. I think it’s going

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: to be around a fifty-fifty JV. And so yes, because we’re contributing assets, our capital expenditure for the new assets would be a little bit less than what P66 would have to contribute.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan5: Okay, great. And then second question, I think, Kim, you referred to potential TGP projects that would add egress out of the Appalachia region. I think there’s been a few capacity reservations for projects. Can you just talk about what you think is possible or doable to increase capacity out of Appalachia on TGP?

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan1: Yes. So this is Stifel, Keith. Yes, we’ve been working diligently on trying to find ways to get incremental egress out of the basin. As these consuming markets develop with the demand that Rich Kim talked about earlier, It’s incumbent on us to get incremental gas out of the basin. We’re in terms of what that capacity amount is still being worked on.

But needless to say, I would say rough numbers north of half a Bcf is what we’re trying to get. But still early and I take that with a grain of salt that we’re done with all the diligence.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan5: Thank you.

Michelle, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is Zach Van Ebern with TPH.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan3: Hi, all. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe going over to the Haynesville, sounds like volumes continue to grow there. I think on the last few calls, you guys had mentioned you’re getting close to capacity. Maybe an update there?

And then is this from your largest customer on that system? Or are you seeing private start to flow volumes as well?

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan1: Yes. So one, we are as Tom mentioned earlier, we are pretty much at capacity. We’re just waiting for when we cross the record, hopefully any day now. But I think it’s not only our largest customer, but there are a few of the other privates that are also looking to increase their drilling in response to the demand that’s coming our way. And so we do see meaningful ramp up next year in the Haynesville.

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: Yes. And I think quarter over quarter in the Haynesville volumes are up 15%. So we’re seeing our customers bring on these volumes. And you might remember we announced last quarter $500,000,000 investment in the Haynesville, which is it’s a lot of treating capacity, but also some incremental pipe capacity to be able to accommodate our customer volumes.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan3: Got it. That makes sense. And then maybe moving over Haynesville to is,

Ken, Executive, Kinder Morgan: it is we expect it to

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: be one of the strongest probably the fastest growing basin. Our internal projections are it’s going to grow almost 11 Bcf a day between 2024 and 02/1930. So it’s going to go up to probably 23 Bcf a day in terms of production. So I think we’re seeing opportunities today, but I expect we’ll continue to see opportunities over time both to invest in the Haynesville and to take molecules away from the Haynesville.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan3: Got you. No, that all makes sense. Appreciate the color. And then maybe one on the Permian West expansion open season. It looks like that gas is heading westbound.

Just curious if that could be upsized if the demand is there? And then maybe some color on the customer mix. There’s obviously some data centers where that expansion is heading. Is there demand also beyond Texas as well?

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan1: Yes. Look, I mean, that I think I believe you’re referring to the smaller open season that we’ve got out there going west. That is to serve power. And obviously, as the open season closes, we’ll evaluate the bids and look at what we

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan2: can do

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan1: to accommodate the capacity. Clearly, in and around that area and then if you kind of flip over one state over into New Mexico, there’s a lot of activity on the power side. And so we’re just going to have to evaluate how the bids come across.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan3: That makes sense. Thanks for all the answers. Absolutely.

Michelle, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is Brandon Bigel with Scotiabank. Your line is open, sir.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan0: Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Just one quick one here for me. Would just be curious as to what you guys think the longer term market dynamics are in California for the refining products market and whether or not there’s upsized potential for Western Gateway or any other future growth into that market? Just any high level thoughts you have.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan1: Yes. I’d say we wouldn’t want to speculate on the California markets and what’s happening there. But if you think about our reversal of the West line and that volume needing now to be filled through the new gateway line into Phoenix, you’ve got this access into California. So depending on what that California refining market does, you’ve got the capacity across that West line to continue to grow with changes in that market. And then as we’ve talked before, you also have access beyond through our CalNeve line into Las Vegas, Nevada.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan0: Okay, great. That’s helpful. I’ll leave it there. Thanks.

Michelle, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is Jason Gabelman with TD Cowen. Your line is open sir.

Jeremy Tonet, Analyst, JPMorgan: Yes. Hey, thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to ask about the shadow backlog as well. And you mentioned both kind of large scale and smaller projects. And I was hoping to get a bit more color on the larger projects.

If I look at the backlog that you have right now in Projects and Execution, it’s kind of three large projects that are all serving Texas and Southeast. Should we assume the large projects in the backlog are kind of similar in markets they serve? Is it kind of a bit different? I noted, for example, you mentioned Mexico a couple of times and wondering if that’s one of the larger projects in the backlog. Thanks.

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: Well, so all these projects are competitive, almost everyone that we’re working on. And so that’s why we haven’t given it we’ve tried to be very broad in how we describe the backlog. So what I would say about the larger projects in the backlog is generally they are around the themes of supporting export LNG and supporting power.

Jeremy Tonet, Analyst, JPMorgan: Okay. Understood. And then my other question just on M and A. Given there’s starting to see once again a bit of a larger multiple dispersion between natural gas and liquids names. And given you do have a decent sized non natural gas business, I wonder if there’s opportunities out there or holes in the portfolio that you’d be interested in filling, especially if crude oil prices fall and some other companies become available?

Thanks.

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: Are you talking about buying?

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan6: Yes.

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: Okay. So look, I mean, I think acquisitions, M and A is always opportunistic. And so we will look at opportunities for assets that fit our strategy, is owning energy assets energy infrastructure assets fee based. And we can do it on returns that we think are appropriate on a risk return basis and that we can do within keeping our balance sheet within the metrics 3.5 to 4.5 times debt to EBITDA. So I don’t again, I think our view is there’s unlimited capital for good returns, good risk return opportunities.

And so we’ll continue to look at those. We’ve done some in the recent past. We haven’t done anything that is huge, but we did one at the beginning of this year in outrigger. We did one last year as well. And so those things are hard to predict.

But I think we either have the capital depending on the size or can find the capital to pursue those when they come about.

Jeremy Tonet, Analyst, JPMorgan: Okay, great. Thanks for the answers.

Michelle, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is Dave Venin with Prudential. Your line is open, sir.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan6: Hey, thank you for taking my buy side question. I appreciate it. You guys got a great opportunity set in natural gas, but just kind of switching gears a little bit here to the CO2 business. At least one operator is talking about potentially using CO2 sweeps in some of these tight plays out in the Midland and Delaware Basins and such. Is that something you guys have looked at?

Does that represent a business opportunity for Kinder Morgan? Or do you need to see more proof of concept around something like that?

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan5: Are you talking about participating in that, Dave?

David Michaels, Financial Executive, Kinder Morgan: Are you

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan5: talking about supplying the CO2? Either. I think with regards to supplying the CO2s, we certainly would be interested in that. I think in terms of the other side of that, I think we would have to look at that a lot more closely and really seriously look at the risk return opportunity there before we would consider investing.

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: Yes. And it depends on my understanding on a lot of these, Anthony, is it depends on how they frac that field to begin with, so whether they would be successful CO2 candidates. And I think anytime you’re doing something new, you need to get a much higher return on that to compensate for the risk of doing something that you haven’t spent a lot of time doing before. Obviously, we know what we’re doing in CO2, but we haven’t done a lot of flooding of these previously fracked fields.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan6: All right. Hey, thank you very much.

David Michaels, Financial Executive, Kinder Morgan: Thank

Michelle, Conference Call Operator: you. Our next caller is Jean Ann Salisbury with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan7: Hi, Kim. I just wanted to follow-up on the comments that you’d made about needing to build pipelines from kind of Tier two basins, not the Haynesville to the LNG that’s coming online. One issue I guess that I had been thinking about is that it’s a little bit unclear who would be willing to underwrite these contracts with the LNG builders kind of being linked to Henry Hub and the EMPs maybe not wanting to take long term contracts. So just wondering if you could give any color on if you see that being kind of a constraint to these being built and just if you think it’ll be a mix of end users, EMPs and marketers on those kinds of pipelines?

Kim, CFO/Executive, Kinder Morgan: Yes. I mean on second tier basins, something like the Eagle Ford I think is very well positioned. And I think there’s one, that’d be great for us because we’ve got a great position in the Eagle Ford. And I think that is a basin that could grow more than what is in a lot of the current projections and a place where infrastructure is relatively easy to build. And then I think the Haynesville has a lot of growth to come to support this.

But Cecil?

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan1: Yes. When we look at this, I think as the market start figuring out what where they can actually get a molecule that will drive. So I would the way I would answer the question right now is that would be driven primarily by the market pulling from the supply and then some of the producing base producers kind of complementing. It’s going to take a little bit of both especially in the second tier basins. And I think that’s going to evolve over time as the plumbing gets kind of discovered where we can get gas, where you can source gas and how that moves through the networks to the grid, the pipeline grids to be able to get to the consumer.

That’s the way I would think about that.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan7: Great. I’ll leave it there. Thank you for taking my question.

Michelle, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. And at this time, I am showing no further questions.

Rich Kinder, Executive Chairman, Kinder Morgan: Okay. Michelle, thank you very much and everybody have a good evening.

Michelle, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. You may go ahead and disconnect at this time.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.

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