Welcome to the MPLX first quarter 2022 earnings call. My name is Elan, and I will be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Press star one on your touch-tone phone to enter the queue. Please note that this conference is being recorded, and I would now like to turn the call over to Kristina Kazarian. Kristina, you may begin. Good morning, and welcome to the MPLX first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. The slides that accompany this call can be found on our website at mplx.com under the Investor tab. Joining me on the call today are Mike Hennigan, Chairman and CEO, John Quaid, CFO, and other members of the executive team. We invite you to read the safe harbor statements and non-GAAP disclaimer on slide two. It's a reminder that we will be making forward-looking statements during the call and during the question-and-answer session that follows. Actual results may differ materially from what we expect today. Factors that could cause actual results to differ are included there, as well as in our filings with the SEC. With that, I'll turn it over to Mike. Thanks, Kristina. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining our call. Earlier today, we reported first quarter results, which continues to demonstrate the cash flow resiliency and stability of our business. We delivered adjusted EBITDA of $1.4 billion, which was up 3% from the prior year, and we returned over $850 million of capital to unit holders through distributions and unit repurchases. Our logistics and storage business benefited from the recovery in consumer demand, and our gathering and processing business benefited from higher NGL prices. This quarter, we also advanced several organic growth projects. In L&S, we progressed crude gathering projects in the Permian and Bakken, as well as a number of smaller expansion and debottlenecking projects. We are investing in our Permian natural gas and NGL takeaway systems, including yesterday's announced expansion of the Whistler Pipeline to 2.5 billion cu ft per day, driven by growing demand from producers. In GNP, our growth capital focuses largely on projects in the Permian, Marcellus, and Bakken basins. In the Permian, our fourth processing plant is ramping up to full capacity, and we're progressing construction of a fifth processing plant, which will take our total capacity in the basin to 1 billion cu ft per day. With higher commodity prices, we are seeing a pickup in producer activity across our focus basins. We will maintain strict capital discipline as we assess these inbounds. Let me also highlight several pipeline contracts that we have with MPC, which are coming up for renewal. Because these pipeline systems are so critical to both MPLX's stable earnings and cash flows and MPC's operations, we're in the process of finalizing agreements to renew and extend them for 10 years, and we'll finish papering them up in the next several weeks, well ahead of their scheduled year-end expiration. We believe renewal of our contracts with MPC makes economic and financial sense for both entities. Our logistics assets under contract with MPC are fit for purpose and integral to its refining and marketing system. We also remain focused on maximizing the utilization of all of our logistics assets through business with MPC and third parties. Shifting to slide four, we remain focused on leading in sustainable energy by lowering the carbon intensity of our operations and products, improving energy efficiency, and conserving natural resources. Through last year-end, MPLX achieved an approximate 45% reduction in its methane emissions intensity across our natural gas gathering and processing operations. As a result of our progress, in February, we expanded our goals with a new 2030 target to reduce methane emissions intensity by 75%. We are also participating in a project led by Cheniere Energy to further the deployment of advanced monitoring technologies and protocols to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the midstream sector. As the energy industry evolves, we're working to continuously improve our environmental performance while meeting society's energy needs, focusing on sustainability, and positioning ourselves to continue to deliver positive results in an energy-diverse future. Now let me turn the call over to John to discuss our operational and financial results for the quarter. Thanks, Mike. Slide five outlines the first quarter operational and financial performance highlights for our logistics and storage segment. L&S segment adjusted EBITDA increased $8 million when comparing first quarter 2022 to first quarter 2021. Pipeline volumes were up 4%, and terminal volumes were up 13% year-over-year. The benefits of these higher throughputs were largely offset by environmental costs incurred in the quarter. Moving on to our gathering and processing segment on slide six, G&P segment adjusted EBITDA increased $33 million compared to first quarter 2021, largely due to higher NGL prices. For the quarter, NGL prices averaged $1.15 per gallon, which is $0.42 per gallon higher than the average in the first quarter of 2021. Overall, gathered volumes were up 4% as compared to first quarter of 2021, while processing and fractionation volumes were down 1% and 6% respectively. Focusing on our largest region, the Marcellus, gathered volumes were up 1%, while processing and fractionation volumes decreased 3% and 4% respectively. In the Marcellus, the changes in processing and fractionation volumes were primarily due to the timing of new production. Looking at the other areas, we saw growth in processing volumes in the Southwest as we've added capacity in the Permian. Moving to slide seven, our first quarter financial results demonstrate the earnings and cash flow resiliency and stability of our business. For the quarter, total adjusted EBITDA of $1.4 billion was up 3% from the prior year, and distributable cash flow of $1.2 billion was up over 6% from the prior year. As a reminder, while we strive for stable and growing financial results, our operating expenses can fluctuate quarter to quarter depending on the timing of various regulatory, maintenance, and other project-related work. As we look forward in 2022, these project-related expenses could be as much as $50 million higher for each of the remaining quarters of the year as compared to the first quarter as we complete this work over the balance of the year. Looking at other financial highlights for the quarter, MPLX declared a first quarter distribution of $0.705 per unit, resulting in a distribution coverage ratio of 1.65 times for the first quarter. In early March, we issued $1.5 billion of 30-year senior notes, and proceeds from this offering were primarily used to repay amounts borrowed under our intercompany loan with MPC. We ended the quarter with total debt of around $20 billion and a leverage ratio of 3.7 x. In closing, given current business conditions, our commitment to strict capital discipline, and our continued adoption of a low-cost culture, we expect to continue generating strong cash flows, enhancing our financial flexibility to invest and grow the business while also supporting the return of capital to MPLX unit holders. Now let me turn the call back over to Kristina. Thanks, John. As we open the call for questions, we ask that you limit yourself to one question plus a follow-up. We may re-prompt for additional question as time permits. With that, Elan, we're ready for questions. Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you wish to be removed from the queue, please press star then two. If you are using a speaker phone, you may need to pick up the handset first before pressing the numbers. Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. Our first question today is from John Mackay from Goldman Sachs. Hi, everyone. Thanks for the time. It's nice to hear you on the call, Mike. Why don't we start on the recontracting? I think it makes sense we're around the ten-year anniversary of the IPO. Can you maybe just share a little bit more on maybe what some of the puts and takes you guys are looking at, how those contracts work now? Are we talking about kind of the whole portfolio or just the initial set of pipes, so things like the fuels distribution might not be being looked at yet? Thanks. Hey, John, it's John. Let me start with that, and then Mike can add on if he has any additional comments. In Mike's prepared remarks, what we're really referring to, there are the pipeline contracts, right, that would have been part of the initial IPO. In 2012, here we are in 2022, end of this year, those contracts were set to expire. Really based on maybe feedback from investors, there were questions on whether or not we were gonna renew these. Again, we've continued to say these are integral assets fit for purpose for MPC. The parties really kinda discussed this a little bit earlier in the process. That contract would have had two five-year automatic renewals. We're going ahead and renewing it for 10. That's how we've handled the pipeline contract. You know, we'll look to future contracts as we move forward. Again, I think you would have heard Mike in his prepared remarks that we think, you know, renewing these contracts is beneficial economically and financially for both entities. Mike, anything you wanna add? Yeah, John, it's Mike. You know, I often ask people, you know, is there anything we're doing that we shouldn't be, or is there anything we're not doing that we should be? To our surprise, we kept getting some questions around contracts with MPC. Now, as I said in my prepared remarks, it makes financial and economic sense for both entities. MPC is gonna use MPLX assets, you know, it's a given. We were surprised that people, you know, were concerned about that. Our normal cadence, as John just said, would have been when they come up. Since people have asked us about it, we said, "Okay, since it's a question in people's mind, we'll take that question off the table." MPC and MPLX are gonna continue to do business. It's integral to both entities, and it's a win-win for both entities. All right. That's great. I appreciate that. Maybe just as my follow-up, I'm sure someone will ask on the buyback, so maybe I'll do something kind of more on the macro. It's obviously a pretty strong backdrop for refining. But at least in the second quarter, we've seen product exports pick up pretty hard, and you guys have talked in the past about actually having lower product exports is better for the MPLX L&S portfolio. Wondering if you can just spend a little bit of time on kind of talking about what the refining macro should mean for L&S kind of, you know, through the balance of the year. Thanks. Hey, John, this is Timothy J. Aydt. I'll take that question. First off, we do see demand for re-refined products remaining very strong. We expect as well that refiners are gonna continue to have high utilization rates, and they're gonna try to meet those market needs that are out there today. Our pipeline utilization, it remains very high, and our terminal volumes are actually in record territory. You know, I think you've kind of noticed from the past that you know, we have some pretty strong MVCs, so you know, our contract structures are pretty solid. As a result, we don't really have a lot of, I'd say it's a muted sensitivity to changes in refinery utilization. I think that's a little bit on maybe the backdrop. If you talk about maybe the exports a bit, and we have a large portfolio of assets, and that includes docks in several locations that support these exports. You know, it could be Garyville, could be Mount Airy, could be the Galveston Bay docks, et cetera. In general, we don't really expect major swings within L&S revenue based on shifting product patterns. We have a very flexible system that can swing, you know, to the pipe in the U.S. Gulf Coast, or it can swing to the water as needed. Again, the MVCs back up several of those systems. I think if you look at the crude side, you know, we're similarly well-positioned, I would say, to participate, you know, on the crude exports. We have the South Texas Gateway, and we have our LOOP ownership, interest, and both of those have those capabilities. Hopefully that's helpful. Hey, hey, John, it's Mike. I just—I don't know if you were looking at the first quarter results, but if you weren't aware or others weren't aware, you know, MPC had two outages on the Gulf Coast that impacted our business. One was the Texas City power outage. The entire city took out our Galveston Bay facility, and the other was an unplanned outage at Garyville. If you're looking at those quarterly results, I just wanted to point that out as well. No, that's helpful. Appreciate both those thoughts. Makes a lot of sense. I'll leave it there. Thanks for the time. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Jeremy Tonet from J.P. Morgan. Hi, good afternoon. Hey, Jeremy. I just want to touch base on processing needs across your footprint, particularly, I guess, in Appalachia and the Permian. In Appalachia, I'm curious with incremental NGL egress with Mariner East online, with the Shell cracker coming, do you see more of a move towards liquids rich production there, and how could that impact your processing? Similarly, in the Permian, we see tightness in processing there and just wondering what type of opportunities that might breed for MPLX. Greg, you wanna take that one? Sure. Thanks, Mike. Jeremy, yeah, to address the question, starting with Appalachia. You know, so the Monaca plant is something we've been anticipating and are excited about. We are, you know, in the process of building our the latest in our de-ethanizer fleet at Smithburg in West Virginia, which is coinciding, you know, early third quarter to come online, along with that cracker. But that'll increase our ethane production capacity over 300,000 barrels a day. If you combine the, you know, the four pipelines that take away ethane out of the basin, along with Monaca, the recently completed expansion of Mariner East 2 and Mariner East 2x, which frees up more ethane capacity and the ongoing increase in prices for ethane, I think there is a, you know, an opportunity for producers to recover more ethane in the basin. In terms of overall activity, you know, I think it's been publicly announced by a number of our larger producers that they are still in maintenance to low single-digit growth mode. In terms of liquid production, or propane and heavier products, we expect that, you know, to stay pretty stable. The takeaway lines are fairly well in balance. Switching to the Permian, obviously a big growth area for us right now, completing our fifth plant later this year and in the process continue to ramp up, you know, utilization into our fourth plant, Preakness, which was put in service late last year. I think that, you know, it's gonna continue obviously with crude prices being where they are and gas prices, there's gonna be continued growth in that area we would expect, tied to the takeaway volume. Tim, you may want to add, you know, on the downstream part of the Permian. Hopefully that answers your question, Jeremy. Yeah, Jeremy, I would just add that, when you look at the Permian, you know, there's a lot of forecasts out there that are predicting up to 6 Bcf a day of increased demand by 2028. That's gonna obviously be a big pull on the not only the processing but also the pipeline takeaway capacity. I think you're starting to see that as it moves, you know, the LNG markets are growing. I think you're gonna continue to see investments needed across the midstream in that regard. Got it. Thank you for that. Just pivoting back towards the contract renewals as you laid out there. Just wondering, how would you say the market today compares to the market when those contracts were first signed? Just wondering if you'd say the market's better or worse than when those rates were first struck. Hey, Jeremy, it's John again. Remember, these are pipeline contracts, right? A lot of them are gonna have FERC-based rates or other rates that have been moving, frankly, year to year. It may be a little bit different if you're thinking of our marine contract, which we renewed about a year ago. You know, that would have had a completely different structure than what's in these pipeline contracts. Got it. Is it fair to assume no real change in the rates of material size? Is that the right way to think about it? Well, yeah, I guess what I was saying, the rates have already been changing every year, based on other factors. You know, we're really just looking to, you know, kind of maintain the terms and lock in a term that we had already planned on renewing, so. Got it. I'll leave it there. Thank you. Jeremy. Oh. Let me just add that most of them are indexed, just like many pipelines are. As John mentioned, it can be indexed to FERC or something else. You know, over time, you know, there's a change, but you know, it's still a very market-related rate. Got it. Thank you for that. You're welcome. Thank you. Our next question is from Brian Reynolds from UBS. Hi, good morning, everyone. Mike, it's good to hear you on the call as well. For my first question, wanted to dig into the capital allocation framework, you know, as it relates to MPLX's return of capital strategy. You know, it appears there's roughly $200 million or a little more left on the share buyback authorization. I was curious if you could share some thoughts around future return to capital, including, you know, potential reauthorization of that buyback program or potential special distributions similar to what we saw in 3Q of last year. Thanks. Hey, hey, Brian, it's John. I'll maybe start with that one, and then Mike can add on some comments. Again, our kind of framework that we've talked about before remains, right? We're gonna, you know, look to maintain a strong balance sheet. We're gonna look to invest for the safety and security of our assets and our employees. We're gonna secure our distribution. We're gonna look at growth capital, where can we grow the business? Then as we look at, you know, capital that's left over, then we get to a point of how do we think about returning that either via distributions, whether that be base or, perhaps a supplemental distribution, or unit repurchases. If you look at this quarter, right, we've always said, "Hey, we're gonna look at the cash flow we're generating each quarter." You know, this quarter we had about, as Mike said, $850 million of free cash flow. Our base distribution was $758 million, and we did $100 million of unit repurchases. We effectively, you know, kind of looked at where we were there. Now, one of the things we said last quarter, which I just wanna reiterate this quarter as well, I'm not sure you can look at the programmatic unit repurchases we did last year and assume that's what we're gonna do this year. I think we're looking is how we think about creating value for all unit holders. I think as part of that, right, a supplemental distribution is certainly, you know, a tool for us as we think of return to capital. Great. I appreciate all the color. Maybe I'll just a follow-up on some of the growth projects questions as we start to look at 2023 and beyond. You alluded to finishing up your fifth processing plant in the Permian, at year-end. You know, maybe could you talk about potential further growth projects? You know, would that include a BANGL pipeline expansion? And when could we see that? And then what are your thoughts around participation in a new greenfield natural gas pipeline out of the Permian post the announced Whistler expansion as well? Thanks. Yeah, I'll take that one, Brian. Obviously, you're right. We did announce yesterday the expansion of the Whistler Pipeline to 2.5 Bcf. We obviously, as I just mentioned earlier, there's a lot more growth anticipated on the natural gas side, beyond what the Whistler expansion would do and some of the other expansions that are being announced. I would say that most forecasts call for a second Permian gas pipeline to be required by 2025 and a second one by 2028. Certainly there's opportunities there to continue to look for incremental investments. We've been very public about the fact that we're gonna continue to look at the extensions into the natural gas and NGL value chain. As for BANGL, obviously, we continue to monitor that. We did announce in January we brought on another partner in the former Rattler Midstream. With that comes additional dedicated acreage, et cetera. I think that over the course of time, you're gonna continue to see NGL volumes grow. With that, we have various cost-effective expansions we can put in place. Great. Appreciate the color. Have a great day, everyone. Thanks, Brian. Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. Our next question is from Keith Stanley from Wolfe Research. Hi. Thank you. First wanted to ask on the Whistler expansion. I think the initial project was fully contracted under 10-year terms. Should we expect a similar approach here? Just any thoughts you can give on how to think about the tariff for an expansion and how that might compare to how you would look at a new build overall? Keith, this is Tim. I'll start that. I might not be able to answer all your questions specifically. Again, as we did announce yesterday, we are expanding that. I think maybe a few things by way of background in case others have questions. I mentioned in the first quarter that we were evaluating that. Obviously, we concluded that evaluation. I think one of the things that's important is that the system was originally designed and permitted with potential expansion in mind. It is very capital efficient, does not require any rights of way or any redesign. You know, from a status standpoint, our compressors are on order. We anticipate the expansion is gonna be in service in September 2023. You know, as for the contract terms and, you know, potentially, you know, we're not able to really talk about contracts, but I would provide some maybe assistance with that, and I would just characterize those as long-term take-or-pay, and they're fee-based, which means they're very ratable cash flows for the JV. Again, being in an expansion, it is capital efficient and lower risk. It's a strong investment, but I'll probably just leave it there. Okay, great. Then second one, I just wanted to follow up on volumes in the quarter. Your G&P volumes were down a little bit versus the fourth quarter, kind of across the regions. I feel like we've heard some consistent commentary from others today, especially in Appalachia. Just how are you thinking about volumes over the balance of the year in G&P, both Appalachia and then Southwest also looked like it was down a little bit, even with Preakness presumably ramping up a little. Greg, you wanna take that? Sure. Keith, starting with Appalachia, you know, the Utica has continued as far as processing volume, it continues to decline as focus has been on some of the dry lean gas in that area. Generally, the gathering in the Utica swings up and down. It's most affected by some of the new dry lean wells that come on and the timing of those pads. We did have some weather-related impact on our processing and gathered volumes, which also affects fractionation in Marcellus, most of that in early February, related to you know, ice and power and freeze-offs, which drove most of the Marcellus impact. Yes, in and if you go to the West, and focus on that, yes, we have continued to have growth in, you know, the Permian Delaware, but we also do have some other areas that were either impacted by weather, or by timing of pads coming online. The Bakken, for example, you know, continues to have weather issues and as well as the Rockies. I think the key point is that weather does impact us a lot in first quarter. The other thing that you'll see is that most of the even on a maintenance level drilling program, for the full year, that doesn't necessarily mean flat levels quarter to quarter. A lot of the production because of weather and construction and drilling schedules tends to be more back-end loaded. There will be some more natural decline just due to pad, the timing of new pads coming online, you know, measured against just the ongoing decline of existing wells. Thank you. That helps. Sure. Thank you. Our next question is from Michael Blum from Wells Fargo. Thanks for taking my question. Just really one. Commodity prices are obviously very high right now. We've seen some M&A transactions in the G&P space, the last you know few months. Just curious if any updates on your you know long-term initiatives to divest some of your non-core assets. Are you seeing any changes in the market? Thanks. Yeah, Michael, it's Mike. We don't really have anything new to report there. You know, we had mentioned a while back that we wanted to change our portfolio a little bit, but, you know, the market was not at the same place we were. You know, since that time, you know, we're now looking at, you know, currently $8 gas. I've said a couple of times on calls, you know, our basins are generating free cash flow. Even though some of them are not gonna get a lot of capital in the future 'cause they're not long-term strategic. In the meantime, though, they're generating, you know, free cash. You know, we're still steadfast in what we believe is the, you know, right valuation for the assets. You know, if others, you know, met it, then something could happen. Right now, we don't have anything going in that regard at all. Thank you. You're welcome. I am showing no further questions at this time. All right. Well, thank you everyone for joining us today. If you have any questions that were not answered during the call today, please feel free to reach out afterwards. We're here to help out anytime. Operator, thank you. Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect at this time.