Earnings call transcript: Targa Resources beats EPS forecast, stock rises

Targa Resources Inc. (TRGP) reported its third-quarter 2025 earnings, surpassing analysts' expectations with an EPS of $2.13 compared to the forecasted $2.11. Despite a revenue miss, the company's stock rose 6.51% in pre-market trading, reflecting investor confidence in its strategic initiatives and growth prospects.

Key Takeaways

• Targa Resources reported an EPS of $2.13, beating the forecast of $2.11.
• Revenue fell short at $4.15 billion, against an expected $4.7 billion.
• Stock price increased by 6.51% in pre-market trading, reaching $157.25.
• The company anticipates strong long-term growth in Permian gas and NGL volumes.
• Targa is focusing on significant infrastructure expansions and new projects.

Company Performance

Targa Resources demonstrated robust performance in Q3 2025, with a 19% year-over-year increase in adjusted EBITDA to $1.275 billion. The company's strategic focus on expanding its infrastructure and processing capabilities in the Permian Basin has contributed to record natural gas inlet volumes and increased NGL transportation volumes. Targa's competitive position in the market is reinforced by its leading infrastructure and first-mover advantage in sour gas processing.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $4.15 billion, down from the forecast of $4.7 billion.
• Earnings per share: $2.13, surpassing the forecast of $2.11.
• Adjusted EBITDA: $1.275 billion, a 19% year-over-year increase.
• Available liquidity: $2.3 billion.
• Pro forma consolidated leverage ratio: 3.6x.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Targa Resources exceeded EPS expectations with a reported $2.13, a 0.95% surprise over the forecasted $2.11. However, the company missed revenue projections, reporting $4.15 billion against an expected $4.7 billion, marking an 11.7% surprise. This mixed performance reflects challenges in meeting revenue targets but highlights operational efficiency in earnings.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Targa Resources' stock surged 6.51% in pre-market trading, reaching $157.25. This movement is significant, considering the stock's 52-week range, and suggests positive investor sentiment despite the revenue miss. The market's reaction aligns with broader trends in the energy sector, where companies with strong infrastructure and strategic growth plans are favored.

Outlook & Guidance

Targa Resources remains optimistic about its future performance, projecting long-term growth in Permian gas and NGL volumes. The company plans to continue its infrastructure expansions, with several projects underway, including new gas processing plants and pipeline expansions. Targa also expects to maintain strong free cash flow and aims to reduce its leverage ratio while continuing to increase dividends and pursue share repurchases.

Executive Commentary

CEO Matt Meloy emphasized the company's transformation into a large integrated NGL infrastructure company, stating, "We are working towards Targa's next transformation." President Jen Kneale highlighted the benefits of increasing gas-to-oil ratios, noting, "We continue to see a broad theme of increasing GORs, which we're certainly a beneficiary of."

Risks and Challenges

• Revenue Miss: The significant revenue shortfall could indicate potential market or operational challenges.
• Market Volatility: Fluctuations in energy prices may impact future earnings and growth.
• Infrastructure Costs: The extensive capital spending on infrastructure projects may strain financial resources.
• Regulatory Changes: Potential changes in environmental regulations could affect operations.
• Competitive Pressure: Increased competition in the Permian Basin may impact market share.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about Targa's competitive dynamics in the Permian Basin and the company's capital efficiency strategy. Executives confirmed strong producer volume forecasts and discussed the potential for accelerated plant additions, highlighting confidence in meeting future demand and maintaining a competitive edge in the market.

Full transcript - Targa Resources Inc (TRGP) Q3 2025:

Tana, Conference Operator: Thank you for standing by. My name is Tana, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Targa Resources Corporation third quarter 2025 earnings webcast and presentation. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question, simply press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Tristan Richardson, Investor Relations and Fundamentals. Please go ahead.

Tristan Richardson, Investor Relations, Targa Resources: Thanks, Tana. Good morning and welcome to the third quarter 2025 earnings call for Targa Resources Corp. The third quarter earnings release and a supplement presentation that accompany our call are available on our website at targaresources.com. Additionally, an updated investor presentation has also been posted to our website. Statements made during this call that might include Targa's expectations or predictions should be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21(e) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in forward-looking statements. For a discussion of factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to our latest SEC filings. Our speakers for the call today will be Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer; Jen Kneale, President; and Will Byers, Chief Financial Officer.

Additionally, members of Targa senior management will be available for Q&A, including Pat McDonie, President, Gathering and Processing; Scott Pryor, President, Logistics and Transportation; Bobby Muraro, Chief Commercial Officer; and Ben Branstetter, Senior Vice President, Downstream. I'll now turn the call over to Matt.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Thanks, Tristan, and good morning. We had another outstanding quarter with record adjusted EBITDA driven by record volumes across our footprint. With three quarters completed, we now expect our full year 2025 adjusted EBITDA will be around the top end of our previously provided guidance range. Our Permian volumes grew more than 340 million cubic feet per day and nearly 700 million cubic feet per day compared to this time last year. Our Permian growth is driving additional NGL volumes through our integrated system, as NGL volumes increased about 180,000 barrels per day compared to this time last year. Incrementally, the customer success we achieved in 2024 has started to show up in our volumes, some this year, but really adding to our longer-term confidence of continued Permian volume growth.

Our customer success has continued as our commercial team has added to our leading Permian GMP position, with acreage dedications from new and existing customers in and around our footprint, further bolstering our long-term growth outlook. To accommodate this continued volume growth from our customers, in September we announced several new growth projects, including our Speedway NGL transportation expansion, the Yeti gas processing plant in Texas and the Permian, Delaware, and Buffalo Run and expansion of our Permian natural gas pipeline system. And today we announced our next gas processing plant, Copperhead, in New Mexico and the Permian, Delaware. Also, our previously announced Forza natural gas pipeline in the Delaware had a successful open season, and we are moving ahead with that project. We continue to expect meaningful long-term growth in Permian gas and NGL volumes across our footprint.

Our conviction is supported by multiple factors, including the bottom-up forecast from our existing producer customers, our continued commercial success, and the continued industry trend of rising gas-to-oil ratios. We have a lot of projects in progress, which means growth capital is elevated in 2025 and 2026, and these attractive investments will drive significant increases in adjusted EBITDA. Our chunkier downstream projects are set to come online in 2027. Both the Speedway NGL line and our larger LPG export expansion have sufficient capacity to handle our growing volumes for many years. Once these projects are online, we expect our downstream capital spending will be significantly lower for years to come, driving a substantial increase in free cash flow.

This expected increase in free cash flow will be durable, meaning even if we are in a stronger growth environment driving elevated spending on the GMP side, our downstream spending should still be modest. So in late 2027, our downstream NGL capital is expected to be significantly lower than today's, and our adjusted EBITDA is expected to be much higher than today's. This results in a strong and growing free cash flow profile for years. This is what our team is working towards every day: execute our large capital projects in the near term while continuing to invest in high-return projects leading to Targa's next transformation. A large investment-grade integrated NGL infrastructure company that provides industry-leading growth and generates significant free cash flow year after year. This is a value proposition we are excited to be a part of. This is our focus.

And as we look out over the medium and long term, we expect to be in a unique position to. Grow adjusted EBITDA, grow common dividends per share, reduce share count, generate significant and growing free cash flow, and do this all with a strong investment-grade balance sheet. Before I turn the call over to Jen to go over our operations in more detail, I would like to thank the Targa team for their continued commitment to safety and execution and for consistently delivering reliable, high-quality service to our customers.

Tana, Conference Operator: Thanks, Matt. Let's talk about our operational results in more detail. Starting in the Permian, our natural gas inlet volumes averaged a record 6.6 billion cubic feet per day in the third quarter, representing an increase of 11% versus a year ago and strong sequential growth. In October, our Permian volumes were impacted by some producer shut-ins from low commodity prices and storms, but these volumes are now largely back online, which we have taken into account in the updated color that we expect to be around the top end of our guidance range for adjusted EBITDA. The second-half ramp that we were forecasting at the beginning of the year has materialized, and we see at least 10% growth in our Permian volumes for 2025. Based on the visibility that we have today, we see 2026 as another year of strong low double-digit growth.

In the Permian Midland, our Pembroke II plant came online during the third quarter and is running at high utilization, and in Permian, Delaware, our Bull Moose II plant commenced operations recently in October. We expect our processing infrastructure currently under construction will be much needed at startup, and our projects are on track with previously provided timelines. Largely driven by requests from our customers, we are continuing to build out our intra-basin residue capabilities in the Permian, which will help us manage tightness in natural gas egress from the basin until the next wave of takeaway comes online in 2026. The Bull Run Extension in the Delaware is expected to begin operations in the first quarter of 2027, and Buffalo Run, our Midland residue expansion, is expected to be completed in stages and fully complete in early 2028.

Our newly announced Forza pipeline, a 36-mile interstate natural gas pipeline to serve growing natural gas production in the Delaware Basin in New Mexico, is expected to be in service in mid-2028, subject to receipt of necessary regulatory approvals. As demonstrated over the last number of years, we've taken a deliberate approach to enhance flow assurance and do an excellent job of managing takeaway for our customers, ensuring we have access to a wide portfolio of markets. The Blackcomb and Traverse pipelines, where we have a 17.5% equity interest, are currently under construction, and Blackcomb remains on track for the third quarter of 2026 and Traverse for 2027. Shifting to our logistics and transportation segment, Targa's NGL pipeline transportation volumes averaged a record 1.02 million barrels per day.

Our fractionation volumes ramped sharply in the third quarter, averaging a record 1.13 million barrels per day following the completion of planned maintenance at a portion of our fractionation facilities during part of the first and second quarters of the year. Our LPG export loadings averaged 12.5 million barrels per month during the third quarter. Given the anticipated growth in our Permian GMP business and corresponding announced planned additions, the outlook for NGL supply growth in our system remains strong, and we have a number of key projects currently underway. In the Permian, our Delaware Express NGL pipeline expansion remains on track to be complete in the second quarter of 2026. Our next fractionator in Montbellview, Train 11, is expected to be complete in the second quarter of 2026, and Train 12 remains on track for the first quarter of 2027.

Our LPG export expansion, which will increase our loading capacity to approximately 19 million barrels per month, remains on track for the third quarter of 2027. Speedway, which will transport NGLs from the Permian to Montbellview with an initial capacity of 500,000 barrels per day, is expected to begin operations in the third quarter of 2027. Our existing NGL transportation system is running full, and with five Permian plants under construction, we will be leveraging third-party transportation ahead of Speedway coming online. This positions us to aggregate significant baseload volumes that we can transition to our NGL transportation system when Speedway begins operations, meaningfully de-risking the project. Our existing contracts with our best-in-class customer base that allowed us to fill Grand Prix in six years will continue to drive the volume growth that will fill Speedway.

We are well-positioned operationally for the near, medium, and long term and believe that our leading customer service-driven, well-headed to water strategy puts us in excellent position to continue to execute for our customers and for our shareholders. Our strategy is unchanged as we execute the same core projects with strong returns along our integrated value chain in the same core areas where we have been building Targa for years. I will now turn the call over to Will to discuss our third-quarter results, outlook, and capital allocation. Will?

Tristan Richardson, Investor Relations, Targa Resources: Thanks, Jen. Targa's reported adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter was $1.275 billion, a 19% increase from a year ago and a 10% increase sequentially. The sequential increase in adjusted EBITDA was attributable primarily to record Permian NGL transportation and fractionation volumes generating higher margin across our GMP and LMT segments. Given the strength of our 2025 performance, we now estimate full year 2025 adjusted EBITDA to be around the top end of our $4.65 billion to $4.85 billion range. At the end of the third quarter, we had $2.3 billion of available liquidity, and our pro forma consolidated leverage ratio was approximately 3.6 times, comfortably within our long-term leverage ratio target range of three to four times. As we provided in September, we estimate net growth capital spending for 2025 to be approximately $3.3 billion. And we continue to estimate 2025 net maintenance capital spending of $250 million.

We announced today we intend to recommend to Targa's board of directors to increase our annual common dividend to $5 per common share. This incremental $1 per share equates to a 25% increase to the 2025 level. If approved, it would be effective for the first quarter of 2026 and payable in May 2026. We remain active in our opportunistic cap share repurchase program. As part of our all-of-the-above capital allocation strategy. During the third quarter, we repurchased $156 million in common shares, bringing year-to-date repurchases to $642 million, including purchases made subsequent to the end of the third quarter. We are in excellent financial shape with a strong and flexible balance sheet, and we are well-positioned to continue to create value for our shareholders. And with that, I will turn the call back to Tristan.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Thanks, Will. For Q&A, we ask that you limit to one question and one follow-up and re-enter the queue if you have additional questions. Tina?

Speaker 3: Thank you. And our first question comes from the line of Jeremy Tunay with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7: Hi. Good morning.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Hey. Good morning, Jeremy.

Speaker 7: Hey. Thanks for the updates here. Was just curious with you guys trending towards the top end of the guide here. Just wondering how things have unfolded versus original expectations. Is this more wells coming onto the system, or is this better productivity per well, or what factors would you say are driving this upside versus original expectations?

Tana, Conference Operator: Good morning, Jeremy. This is Jen. For 2025, when we gave our guidance back in February, our biggest caution was that it was predicated on a big back-half volume ramp based on the best available information that we had from our producers at the time. I think those volumes have largely materialized consistent to better than our expectations than we initially forecasted, and that's what's driving record Permian NGL transportation and fractionation volumes and providing us with meaningful tailwinds. I think we've also seen a fair bit of volatility across the year, which has provided us with some incremental natural gas and NGL marketing opportunities. We don't typically forecast those when we give guidance. So the fact that we're outperforming a little bit relative to the fact that we really didn't have anything material in our guidance is also a little bit of a tailwind this year.

But I'd say that producers are largely performing on track to a little bit better than expectations. We have not seen a material change or shift in activity levels on our systems. And I think that's really supporting the strength of performance that we've seen really across this year. But in particular, you saw a big ramp Q3 relative to Q2. You saw a big ramp Q2 relative to Q1. And then as we look forward to 2026, it just really puts us in a good position ending this year as well.

Speaker 7: Got it. That's helpful. Thank you for that. And appreciate the commentary with regards to 2026 with a low double-digit growth there. Not to get too far ahead of ourselves here, but some of your key producers have put out kind of long-dated looks into what the growth would look like in the Permian. And so just wondering what sense that provides for you as far as kind of a more of a medium-term look as far as how you think things could unfold for growth.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Yeah. Hey, Jeremy. This is Matt. I think we have the best-in-class footprint in the Permian across both the Midland and the Delaware with really active, high-quality producers. And so when we look out not only in 2026, but in 2027 and beyond, we get bottoms-up forecasts from our producers. And I think that really underpins the confidence we have about continuing to grow even with kind of a flat to even modestly declining rig count. Our producers are giving us their well schedules, and it gives us a lot of confidence as we get into '26 and looking at our locations and longer-term growth plans. It really kind of underpins our multi-year outlook.

Speaker 7: Got it. That's very helpful. I'll leave it there. Thank you.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Okay. Thanks, Jeremy.

Speaker 3: Our next question comes from the line of Spyrodonis with City. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2: Thanks, Everett. Morning, team.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Hey, good morning.

Speaker 2: Question wanted to—hey, morning, Matt. Wanted to start with operational leverage and maybe back to your comments just around that pre-cash flow inflection that's coming. I guess on my math, I think I've got another one to two more processing plant announcements before you need another frac. Speedway, of course, has plenty of headroom here, we think. But in terms of the rest of the system, any other expansions to kind of have on our radar as you keep adding these processing plants, or does it feel like we're finally heading to that period where you could benefit from some of the white space on the system?

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Yeah. Good question. And that is, as we kind of look out over the next couple of years, we do see that we're calling really a transformation as we get into the back half of '27. Once Speedway comes on, once our larger-scale LPG export comes on, the downstream spending should be relatively modest. And really, at that point, only include. Rateable fracs and that'll be dependent upon how our GMP is growing between now and '27 and as we're looking out into '28, '29. So as you're thinking about multi-year model, we've announced Trains 11 and 12. Those are progressing well. We're evaluating Train 13 and when we'll need to announce that and when that one's going to come on. But for the downstream spending, I think once Speedway and our export comes on, it's really going to be rateable fracs through our system.

And so when you look out in the back half of '27 with significantly higher EBITDA, even if we're in a strong growth environment on the GMP side, just the fact that we have significantly higher EBITDA and lower downstream spending, it's going to put us in a really good position to have a free cash flow profile for years to come.

Speaker 2: Great. That's helpful. Second question, maybe just going to intro basin residue gas. Seeing you lean into that part of the market a little bit more. So just wondering, can you walk us through maybe what that opportunity set looks like and how big that could be? And if we should expect the same kind of 5x, 6x return profile that we see across the rest of the business?

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Sparrow, this is Bobby. The way we work on these things is in coordination with our producers on everything. And when you look at what. Drives that asset, that infrastructure investment for us, it's coordinating with our producers on where we can add reliability, where we can add redundancy to our plants, and then where we can make a really good fee in pushing gas through those pipes. At the end of the day, as that basin has grown and you've seen gas takeaway be more problematic from an individual pipe that is under.

That is getting worked on at some point in time and it affects a plant, we end up being able to move gas around the basin and put it into other available capacity, which both our producers and the producers we market for, the producers that market their own gas and the ones we market gas for, look for that optionality in the portfolio. And so ultimately, we've been building these little steps for a little while. We just announced the kind of complete picture recently, and it's all been underwritten by volumes that are flowing on our system that both we market and our big customers that market their own gas market. And when I think about what the investment multiple is, it's really a high-quality return relative to everything we do. So it smells a lot like all of our other reports that we put out on ROIC.

So I think it fits in really well with. Just deploying capital in spots where we have flowing volumes and customers that want it, and it's similar returns to the rest of our business.

Speaker 2: Great call, Bobby. Thanks for that. I'll leave it there. Thanks, everyone.

Speaker 3: Our next question is from the line of Teresa Chen with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9: Morning. Thank you for taking my questions. We. Have experienced this challenging environment for some time at this point, marked by bearish sentiment on liquid prices and broader macro uncertainty. You've delivered strong results and even guided towards the upper end of your annual guidance range, which underscores the solid momentum that you're seeing. But at the same time, your recent project announcements have drawn scrutiny, with some questioning why you didn't leverage or why you didn't choose to leverage third-party NGL infrastructure for longer versus investing now to increase capacity across your own system. Could you explain the rationale behind this decision and provide additional context supporting your strategy?

Tana, Conference Operator: Good morning, Teresa. This is Jen. I think that we really do try to be very much capital-efficient across the portfolio. And what we've tried to do is essentially drop breadcrumbs as we've gone through the last couple of years. And as we've added processing additions, continued to have commercial success that's been in addition to the foundational millions of acres already dedicated to us that was going to drive a lot of incremental growth on our system, drop breadcrumbs that Grand Prix was filling quickly, and we are trying very much to be capital-efficient around it. We've talked about the fact that we've done third-party offload deals, and that's part of what you'll see in 2026. We'll have some more offload fees than we've had before.

But part of what we're doing there is not that dissimilar to what we did with Grand Prix, which was we de-risk the investment by. At the time that the project will come online with Speedway, we will have already flowing volumes that we can move onto our pipeline. At the end of the day, we are in the business of providing the best-in-class operational support for our producer customers. And we think we do that really well. From the wellhead all the way to the water. And an important part of that is being able to operate our assets, being able to leverage our integrated footprint, being able to provide our producers with flexibility and fungibility and redundancy, and at the end of the day, be able to completely de-risk our enterprise and best-position target to create value for our shareholders.

And that's part of what we believe we're doing here. We've got five plants that are in progress. That's going to be a lot of incremental NGLs that we will need to move on our system. And what we will do is we will utilize third-party transportation for a period of time that we're comfortable with. And then again, we will base load our next investment with those already flowing volumes, and then we'll have operating leverage to accommodate the growth from there. And we just believe that that combination puts us in the best position, again, to both deliver for our customers and also to deliver for our shareholders.

Speaker 9: Excellent. Thank you. And follow-up question on the intro basin residue strategy clearly has become a key area of investment. Where do you anticipate the next bottlenecks to be within the Permian?

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: This is Bobby. When I think about the bottlenecks in the Permian, it kind of goes to plant-specific, which is what that header system is for at times of interruptions on long-haul pipes. But when I think about takeaway on residue in particular, and you may be asking about more than residue, but it's obviously extremely tight right now with where basis has gone every time there's a bobble in a long-haul pipe. But we're excited about the end of '26 with two pipes coming online and material capacity. But we've been growing fast, and I think those pipes will be not only needed but well utilized when they come online, so.

Speaker 9: Thank you.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 3: Our next question comes from the line of Keith Stanley with Wolf Research. Please go ahead.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources6: Hi. Good morning. So you're pointing to around the top end of the guidance range for the year, which at the exact top end would imply EBITDA is down in Q4 versus Q3. Are there any headwinds to be aware of? You cited some of the October shut-ins. Just how to think about Q4 growth relative to Q3?

Tana, Conference Operator: Morning, Keith. This is Jen. I'd say that I think we tend to be a conservative bunch. So I'll start with that. And I'd say that we feel really good about setting another year of record EBITDA in 2025. I think a little bit of the conservatism is born out of the fact that we've got two months to go in the year. We did see some shut-ins from lower commodity prices in October, which we haven't really seen before. There's continued maintenance on a number of natural gas pipes out of the Permian expected for November. And so a little bit it's going to be, what are the implications of that? Now, what's great is we've got a little bit of a natural offset where, to the extent we've got weakness in Waha pricing, we're able to leverage our extensive footprint to benefit on the marketing side.

But it's a little bit of just some conservatism as we go through the next couple of months, which may be choppy. But I think the key point is we are really well positioned, and it's probably likelier that we're above the top end of the range than below the top end of the range. But with that conservatism, just felt comfortable saying that we thought we'd be around the top end.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources6: Got it. Thanks for that color. Other question just on the frac volume. So Q3 was obviously up, I think it was 17% quarter over quarter. Should we think of that as a good run rate from here, or did you have a lot of unfrac'd inventory from the maintenance work earlier in the year that boosted Q3?

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Sure. Yeah. This is Ben. You're right. We did have a turnaround in the first and second quarters that really impacted us to essentially a frac down in terms of available frac capacity. And with the fracs fully back online in the third quarter and the turnaround going well, we were essentially full. And I'd just say we're very much looking forward to Train 11 and Train 12 coming online, and those will come on highly utilized.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources6: Thank you.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: All right. Thank you.

Thanks, Keith.

Speaker 3: Our next question comes from the line of Michael Blum with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5: Thanks. Good morning, everyone.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Hey, Michael.

Speaker 5: Can you discuss the decision to increase the dividend 25% next year. Versus leaning more heavily into buybacks? I imagine you haven't been too thrilled with the recent stock price performance given the strong underlying performance of the business. So just want to get your thoughts how you're weighing between dividends and buybacks.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Yeah. Hey, Michael. We've kind of talked about doing all the above approach. And when we just look out at our forecast over multiple years, we have a lot of room to meaningfully increase the dividend. So it is a little bit more art than science. We talk to our board and say what is a good balanced approach to increasing the dividend and also being able to have a strong balance sheet to be opportunistic with share repurchases. You've seen us pretty active so far this year on share repurchases. I think that's going to continue to be the framework going forward is we plan to be opportunistic with our share repurchases. It'll bounce around from quarter to quarter and year to year, but I think that'll be part of our return to capital. So I really think we can do both.

I think the dividend growth that we're providing is still something we can look at over multiple years and continue to grow it even from here. And I think that's just supported by our underlying fundamentals in our business of growing EBITDA and free cash flow generation going forward.

Speaker 5: Okay. Makes sense. Thanks for that. And then just wanted to ask on LPG exports, would you say volumes for this quarter were basically seasonally in line with your expectations? And can you give us an update on end market demand and specifically where you might be seeing areas of strength or weakness across different regions? Thanks.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Hey, Michael. This is Scott. I would say that typically throughout the year, at times, the second and third quarter volumes dip a little bit relative to what we see in the fourth quarter and the first quarter of each year. Fundamentally, nothing has changed on the export front. We continue to be highly contracted. The demand is growing really across the globe. There is also some seasonality as it relates to the kind of the product mix relative to propane and butane. But we continue to add contracts. We will get some benefit in the fourth quarter with the small bottlenecking project that is now online that gives us a lot of flexibility and provides some reliability to our export facility.

But really, when you look at our export project that we've got coming online in the third quarter of 2027, that's related to expected global demand that is going to continue to grow across various regions. We're going to see increased production from our upstream with the number of plants that we've got coming online, obviously Grand Prix and Speedway Pipeline providing products to our fractionation footprint, which is growing. And then the product itself will just be priced to move across our export dock and provide a lot of operating leverage that we will have going forward. So again, the fundamentals have not changed. The demand is continuing to grow, and we'll be a broad participant across various regions across the globe.

Speaker 5: Thank you.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: All right. Thanks, Michael.

Speaker 3: And your next question comes from the line of Manav Gupta with UBS. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8: Good morning. I wanted to ask you about the Permian sour gas opportunity. You guys were the first movers. You are the biggest processor of Permian sour gas. But as your returns have been very good, some others are trying to now chase. And I'm just trying to understand the competitive advantage over there and the growth in opportunity that you see in that region of Eddy and Lee in terms of Permian sour gas. What are you seeing out there? If you could talk a little bit about that.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources0: Yeah. I think what we said on the last call is that we implemented our sour gas strategy many years ago. We saw the need. We saw the economic benefit of a few of the benches in the Delaware specifically that had sour gas, mainly H2S and CO2, that. Again, were economic benches that weren't getting developed because of the lack of sour gas infrastructure. So again, a long time ago, we started investing in. Sour gas treating facilities. We began tying up acreage as sour gas began to get developed. So we were really a front-runner. In front of a lot of other people and were able to get a lot of acreage tied up. We continue to see the development now of those benches. So our sour gas production continues to grow. Certainly, other people have stepped into that realm because.

They've been, frankly, unable to participate in the growth in those benches without that capability. So I'd say we were first mover. We're well positioned. We've tied up a lot of acreage, and we're seeing the benefit of that strategy unfold and continue to unfold over coming years.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Yeah. And I'd just add on to that too. I mean, we have a system. That has fungibility and redundancy, really unlike any systems around. I mean, our Red Hill system can handle sour gas. Our Bull Moose Wildcat complex can handle sour gas. And we have a 30-inch wet gas line between those that can move volumes in between. And we have multiple AGI wells at several different facilities across Targa. So we offer a service to our producer customers that's really unmatched.

Speaker 8: Thank you so much for that. My quick follow-up is on the Forza project. I think you mentioned you had a successful open season. Our understanding is it's a lower CapEx project, so the returns would be very attractive. Could you talk a little bit about this particular project? Thank you.

Tana, Conference Operator: Morning, Manav. I mean, Forza is a 36-mile pipeline interstate, so it will allow us to move volumes from New Mexico down into Texas to more liquid markets. I'd say that it's a project that we're excited about, really driven by producer interest. It's in addition to the other projects that we have underway that are really just focused on how can we continue to provide the best services to our customers that allows us to aggregate volumes in different places and then move them to the best markets on behalf of our producers. So I think returns, as Bobby articulated earlier around our broad residue strategy, are very much commiserate with how we invest across the rest of our portfolio.

But what we like about this strategy is it's largely taking existing volumes plus some of the growth we have from some of our new plants that are in progress and underway and really leverage all of that additional volume to, again, provide more flexibility to our producer customers. And at the end of the day, it's really that best-in-class service that we think is what differentiates us relative to others.

Speaker 8: Thank you so much.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: All right. Thank you.

Speaker 3: Next question comes from the line of AJ O'Donnell with TPH. Please go ahead.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources4: Hey. Morning, everyone. I wanted to go back to. Maybe a follow-on to something that Spiro asked earlier in the call just about lumpier downstream projects and just overall CapEx. Looking at the Speedway project, just curious on. Given your volumes have been trending above estimates and continue to perform pretty well. At what point in time do you think you would anticipate needing to. Expand the pipe to the full million per day design capacity? And if it was sanctioned, is that something that you would pursue the capacity all at once, or could it be a phased approach?

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Yeah. No. Good question. That'd be a good CapEx project for us to undertake, for sure. A great CapEx project. Because most of the capital goes into getting that initial capacity. To move from 500,000 barrels up to a million is really just putting on pump stations. And so as we see volume growth, it would be a fraction of the capital. Compared to the initial capacity. So we'd be able to highly economically just layer on some pump stations to go from 500,000 to a million. And I think we'll just do that kind of ratably over time as opposed to announce, "We're going to go from 500 to a million." It's likely we'll stage them in over time as volumes ramp.

Tana, Conference Operator: Very much like we did with Grand Prix.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Yeah. Very much like Grand Prix. Right.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources4: Okay. I appreciate that. And then maybe if I could just shift to the Midcon. I think we've seen some commentary from producers and one of your peers specifically talk about activity moving to. Gassier areas of the basin. I'm just curious what you guys have seen on your system and how, if at all, that's impacted your thoughts on your central region. Platform.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources0: This is Pat. What I would say is that we have seen some levels of activity that we haven't seen over the last two to three years. I wouldn't say there's a huge surge in activity. Certainly, some of our key producers are starting to poke around and do a little bit more. Our Arcoma assets, our South Oak assets is what we call them, we're seeing increased activity and opportunity. Do we see it as a huge growth opportunity in the short term? No. Over time, if gas prices get a little. Stronger, certainly, I think that becomes an opportunity. Obviously, we have plant capacity, so our capital investment and our ability to get returns on that is very favorable. So. I would say there is an increase in activity. It's not huge. Hopefully, it grows over the coming years, and we're well situated to take advantage of that.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources4: Okay. Thank you, everyone.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: All right. Thank you.

Speaker 3: Your next question comes from the line of John McKay with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources1: Hey, all. Thanks for the time. Just one quick one for me, kind of sticking on Permian activity levels and the macro. Earlier this year, we kind of had a couple of conversations about how you'd expect the Midland versus the Delaware to ramp. Just curious kind of where that sits now, what you're hearing from your customer sets on either side, and whether or not that view, I guess, before that kind of Midland plans would ramp quickly, Delaware could take some time, whether that's shifted at all. Thanks.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Yeah. I mean, as Jen said, we've seen really good growth across our footprint this year, more or less in line with our expectations. And I think even as we look out into '26, it's kind of progressing as we had thought. I think what you're seeing now is a little bit—and you saw it this quarter—a little bit stronger growth rate in the Delaware. So as we're kind of moving out, I think we're going to see good, strong growth in really both sides of the basin, both Midland and the Delaware. But you're seeing a little bit more strength in the Delaware. So I think both of them are going to be needed at startup.

We have had the benefit of just with our expansive system on the Midland side, when you bring up a plant at deep pressures and you end up getting some flush production, that fills it up. I think we're starting to see, as we're building out our Delaware, it's starting to look more like that. So I think we're really optimistic on all the plants going in to be highly utilized.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources1: All right. That's clear. And I'll actually ask a second one. Just as you look across the basin. Certain pockets are getting more mature than others. Are you starting to see kind of big swings in GORs kind of from one region to another? And maybe just a broader comment on kind of how you'd expect that to progress from here.

Tana, Conference Operator: I wouldn't say that we're seeing broad swings or big swings in GORs across the footprint. I mean, a little bit is producer by producer and area by area dependent. But I'd say that what we continue to see is a broad theme of increasing GORs, which we're certainly a beneficiary of. And we're not really seeing any changes to that. If anything, it's just continuing to strengthen.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources1: All right. Thank you very much.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: All right. Thanks, John.

Speaker 3: Your next question comes from the line of Jean Anne Salisbury with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources7: Hi. Good morning. Just one from me. You all mentioned on the last call that processing plant costs had risen. I think you gave a new range of 225 to 275 million. I think you said at the time it was partly for more sour gas in the mix as well as tariffs. But I guess my question is if the cost escalation is causing any change to your margin expectations or if you can pass most of that through.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Yeah. So no, I think that range that we gave is still. A pretty good range. I think the sour end, you're probably in the 250, maybe a little bit more for sour plants. And you're probably in the low end of that range if you're putting in a sweet plant, depending on how much treating you want to put in. But it's somewhere around that range. Capital costs aren't a direct passback to the producers. There are some fuel and operating costs that do get passed back. But the capital costs. Those are borne by Targa. And it just goes into our overall rates that we're charging and how competitive we are for new volumes in the Permian. So we've still had a lot of commercial success. We're still earning good returns through our integrated system. So I still see us being highly competitive at those capital costs.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources7: Great. I'll leave it there. Thanks.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Thank you.

Speaker 3: Our next question comes from the line of Jason Gableman with TD Cohen. Please go ahead.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Hey. Morning. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask about the competitive dynamics in the Permian basin. You mentioned you secured additional acreage dedications over the past quarter. And I'm wondering, given kind of less producers growing other basins, obviously, other oil basins not growing. How's the competitive landscape. For going after that Permian acreage? Is it becoming more competitive there? And are you seeing some of kind of the fees that you're able to extract shrinking, or are you able to leverage some of your competitive advantages to maintain kind of a premium on the fees? Thanks.

Tana, Conference Operator: Jason, this is Jen. I'd say that it's always competitive. It's always been competitive. It's likely to continue to always be competitive. I think that our business model is to execute the difficult elements of the gathering and processing business. And do that really, really well and create a lot of fungibility, redundancy, reliability for our producer customers. And I think that that's part of what separates us. We've talked a little bit about our sour gas strategy and how we've been sort of a big first mover in that over many, many years.

So now we've got more than a two and a half BCF a day capacity on the sour side, seven AGI wells, really well positioned to not only service our existing customers, but to the extent that there are any customers that aren't getting the service that they otherwise need, we can sometimes step in and help as well. So I think that from our perspective, it really starts with the assets and the systems that we've built out, and then that well-head. To water value proposition that we're able to provide. I do think we just do it very well. We've been doing this for a long time. We take it very seriously. We invest on behalf of our producers across cycles. We try to make sure that we are exceptional partners to our producers, really work well alongside of them.

Again, I think that's part of the flexibility that we offer. And then we've just got some inherent advantages because of the size of our system and the vastness of our system that we're able to step out into areas to the extent it makes sense more easily sometimes than others, or we're able to utilize the fact that we've got more than 40 plants interconnected. Many of them interconnected to, again, help our producers where they may need it. So I really think it's what we already have in place and then just a continued strong commercial effort by what I think is the best commercial team in the business to go and continue to identify ways to both work with our existing customers and do more business with them, and then, of course, continue to chase new opportunities too. And that's part of what you're seeing.

We're not resting on our laurels that we already have millions of acres dedicated to Target and the Permian or in other areas. We're continuing to chase new business because we think we can do a really good job of helping our producer customers. And we believe we offer a differentiated service. And so we'll continue to chase that and, again, are having good commercial success that, at the end of the day, ends up being additive to that really strong foundation of dedicated contracts that we already have in place.

Speaker 0: Great. That's really helpful, Color. Thanks for that answer. And then my other question, just kind of following on to what Jean Anne just asked. Impact from tariffs and kind of more broadly, how you feel about that $1.6 billion cost. For the Speedway pipe? Is that kind of fully baked, or do you have perhaps some contingency baked in there, or is there a potential for tariffs to further. Increase that cost? Thanks.

Tana, Conference Operator: Jason, this is Jen again. I think we feel really good about it. Our engineering team, our supply team did an exceptional job of procuring pipe long before. We made the announcement that we were moving forward fully with the project publicly. And so I think that that means that we are in really good position to deliver, hopefully under budget, to any of our folks that are listening. But at the end of the day, feel good about the budget that we put out there. We always do have some contingency in all of the projects that we move forward with. And then I think our team does a really good job of trying to ultimately beat that and not use that contingency.

So similar to all of our projects, we just have a really strong team that's working day in and day out to try to outperform relative to the expectations that they've provided us with. And we feel really good about the Speedway project.

Speaker 0: All right. I'll leave it there. Thanks.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources7: Thank you.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: All right. Thank you.

Speaker 3: Next question comes from the line of Sunil Sewal with Seaport Global Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4: Hi. Good morning. So I think last year your team had given a kind of a longer-term steady state CapEx number of $1.7 billion. I was curious, where does that number stand today with the growth in the portfolio that we've seen?

Tana, Conference Operator: Sunil, this is Jen. I think that the frameworks that we provided back in February 2024 are very much still helpful. And I think that if you tried to mark to market, which, of course, we haven't done publicly, but if you just looked at some of the pieces, one, we've seen some costs a little bit higher, right? We've just received a couple of questions around tariffs. And so you've got costs that are a little bit higher. We, of course, have a much bigger footprint today than we did when we published. That back in February of 2024. But we're not talking about meaningfully higher. You could call it modestly higher. And then the other additives are when we came out with that framework, we didn't have residue spending, and we didn't have CCUS spending included in that.

And again, we've got some modest projects underway on both fronts there. So I'd say that it's very much still helpful. I think that particularly when you think about what Matt talked about, which is a much higher EBITDA base now, even if the capital is a little bit higher than what we put out back in February 2024, it just highlights that across environments, we have a very robust, very strong, and strengthening free cash flow profile.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Yeah. And just to add on to that too, the framework we put out was multi-year average. So kind of baked into that $1.7 billion capital number was an average spending for downstream. We're going to be above average here kind of through. Speedway coming on. And then once Speedway comes on, we'll be less than that average. So it'll be a little bit higher in the short term, and then the medium term will be below. And then it'll really just be dependent on the GMP side of things.

Speaker 4: Okay. Thanks for that. And then it seems like there has been some growing interest among the data center community to. Tap onto the Permian gas. I was curious, is that something that has kind of crossed your interest? And if you have any thoughts on that?

Tana, Conference Operator: This is Jen, Sunil. I just say that we're having a ton of conversations with a lot of people. From our perspective, given our position in the Permian and the amount of natural gas that we aggregate and transport every day, we're well positioned to help supply the increasing demand for natural gas. And the tailwinds of incremental demand for power generation for data centers alongside the doubling of LNG capacity in the US, those are all really good for Targa. And we've got a lot of conversations underway about how we can help customers all the way along the value chain.

Speaker 4: Got it. Thanks.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: All right. Thank you.

Speaker 3: Our final question comes from the line of Brendan Bingham, Wisconsin Bank. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6: Hey. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions here. Just wanted to maybe go to the NGL's outlook. You announced a plant for 2027 today, not long after announcing the prior one. So is it just possible that maybe some of those illustrative plants outlined in the slides starting in 2028 could be pulled forward. Into earlier years, or is maybe there a way to, instead of a one to two a year cadence, that might shift to two to three for a little bit? Just trying to figure out some of the potential upside to that, call it medium, longer-term outlook.

Tana, Conference Operator: Brendan, this is Jen. Ultimately, the medium and longer-term outlook will be supported by activity from our producers, both on all the contracts that we already have in place and then our commercial execution going forward. I think what you saw us talk about last fall was that we were needing to accelerate some plants because of that incremental commercial success that we've had. I think we've heard us talk today about continued commercial success. But ultimately, over the medium and long term, are we continuing to talk about low double-digit growth? Are we talking about high single-digit growth? Ultimately, that's what will drive the gathering and processing spending, both for gathering lines, compression, as well as plants, and dictate the cadence of plant adds that we need to think about going forward.

Speaker 6: Okay. That makes sense. And then just maybe shifting over to the free cash flow inflection, call it late '27 into '28, and just how we can maybe think about the. Payout target of 40 to 50 percent and how that might shape up. Through that point. And then if maybe we're understanding it's a multi-year outlook and it's an average, but just if there might be some catch-up that could happen once that free cash flow inflection hits, if the payout ratio might be a little bit below over the next couple of years in light of the anticipated spending profile.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Yeah. As we outlined that 40 to 50 percent return to capital through a combination of growing dividend and opportunistic share repurchases, you're right. It's over multiple years. So there could be some years we're on the low end or even lower than it, and some years we're on the high end and above it. I think once we get. Into that back half of '27 when Speedway and our export project are completed, we're going to be in a really good position to be deciding what to do with all the free cash flow. I think you'll see continued dividend increases. I think you'll see continued opportunistic share repurchases. And we've kind of talked about it years ago. We talked about being at the lower end of our leverage ratio range.

I think giving ourselves a little more flexibility and perhaps lowering our leverage ratio a bit is also something. Our primary focus will be continuing to invest in the business. So organic growth, returning capital to shareholders, and reducing leverage, I think we'll be in good position to do all of those things.

Speaker 6: Great. Thank you very much.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources: Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 3: And with no further questions in queue, I will now hand the call back to Tristan Richardson for closing remarks.

Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, Targa Resources2: Great. Thanks to everyone for joining the call this morning, and we appreciate your interest in Target Resources.

Speaker 3: Thank you again for joining us today. This does complete today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

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