Alan, thank you for joining us for today's retail fireside chat. How are you doing today? I'm great. Thanks, Danilo. We've got a lot of exciting questions from our retail investors. This is obviously an opportunity for us to tell our story to them. I'll start here with the first question. They're all interesting questions, but the first one is in the long run, does Williams look to play in the M&A game as either an acquirer or an acquiree? How are we thinking about M&A long term for this? Sure. You know, today we handle about 33% of the nation's natural gas. Scale is something that really adds a lot of value. Our ability to be the most efficient operator in a big, mature, high capital business like this is really important. Making sure that we've got scale in the basins that we operate. We've always talked about the advantage of being at least the number one or number two in a gathering basin or getting out of the basin if we don't see a path to that. The reason for that isn't just to have bragging rights about how big we are. It's because our ability to keep our costs super low and invest in things like technology and automation in an area, you really have to have scale to be able to do that. Another key element of having that scale is making sure that we're connecting our customers to the very best markets. You can only afford to attract the best markets and be connected to the best markets if you have scale. That's been a powerful tool for us for a long time in terms of generating the kind of returns that we do, which is outsized to the market, to the general market in the midstream, but that scale is really important to us. The other thing to think about is we've been around for over, well over 100 years now, and we are very focused on being the reliable, safe operator. We think the industry needs to have the big, reliable, safe operator that has a good reputation with regulators, with the permitting agencies. That is really critical. Doing things in a way that people don't have trust in you is a really bad thing for our industry. Williams has been really leading the way on that trust front. Most recently, when we think about the M&A front, we've done three transactions last year that were about a 7.5 multiple. Let's say we trade around a 10 multiple. Obviously, those are nice accretive transactions. One of them that I think is most important to really think about is we acquired MountainWest Pipelines earlier this year, and that was on the heels of Berkshire Hathaway trying to acquire that from Dominion. The Federal Trade Commission stepped in and stopped that acquisition. We came in behind that and bought the asset for less, $200 million less than what Berkshire Hathaway had offered for it. We are a very disciplined and patient investor. I exercise that patience, as does our board, and it really helps us make sure that we're not out to buy something just to buy something. Right. We're buying it because we have a very strategic intent, and we absolutely are seeing that with the MountainWest acquisition. We just, so happen to be in the right spot at the right time, and we're patient and came in and got a great bargain on that acquisition. No, thank you for that. A lot of investors right now are really asking a lot of companies about stock buybacks. From a Williams perspective, what parameters does Williams utilize to decide whether or not to buy back the stock? Well, you know, we do have a one and a half billion stock repurchase program that's been approved by our board. The way that that is set up is we've put it right along with our capital allocation stack. One of the really unique things about Williams is we have a very large opportunity to invest in our rate base to modernize our assets. When we do that, we have a very secure return, and that's roughly in the 12% range in terms of an allowed return in that rate base. That kind of sets the floor, if you will, of the, of the returns within our capital stack. Anytime we see the combination of our yield and the growth- Right. in our yield, then we see that as a good investment opportunity. Effectively, that becomes a better investment opportunity than the bottom of our capital allocation stack. We bought $83 million. We bought, I think, $74 million in the first quarter of this year, as we saw our stock price dip and get to a yield, that that yield plus a very attractive growth that we've had and that over a five-year basis, we've had a, on a five-year CAGR, we've had an 8.5% CAGR on our EBITDA and a 6% CAGR on our dividend. That kind of sets that level that we're looking for to invest in our company and invest in the stock. We're happy to do that when the opportunity allows it. The one thing that makes us a little bit unique versus a typical stock repurchasing program, is we have so much capital opportunity and growth, and particularly within our rate base at very low risk, very predictable returns. A lot of companies just don't have that. That's a little bit different for us. But anytime we see that opportunity to step in and capture that kind of return, we will likely do that. Next question is pretty interesting. As CEO of Williams, what keeps you awake at night when you think about the long-term prospects of the company? Yeah, you know, the good news is that we have such a great dedicated operating team. You would think that it would be related to issues like that when you're operating a business that is in heavily populated areas. You've got high-pressure transmission. Our team does their very, very best to make sure that the integrity of our assets is there. I'm very thankful for the dedication and loyal employees that we have that take care of that every day, and I'm very confident in their capabilities on that front. When I think about the longer term business, and you know what, on the business strategy side Our business is so well contracted on the base business that that's not really a big worry either. I think the worry turns to, well, how are you gonna make sure you take advantage of the incredible position that our assets are in? Nobody is better positioned in this incredible time of need for natural gas than we are in terms of having the right infrastructure in the right spot. It's not a matter of kind of the downside, it's a question of are we really positioned and are we gonna take on the regulatory issues, some of the public challenges that exist around infrastructure? Are we going to do a good enough job communicating with the public and with regulators to really be all that we can be as a company? That to me is really the one of the things that makes me worry the most is are we doing our very best to really maximize value for our shareholders? Understood. This is very sort of volatile backdrop in the stock market. Certainly investors want some certainty and stability. As they sort of demand more from companies, they wanna see healthy returns, right? As you lay out the company's long-term plans, how do you assure investors that we can actually meet, their long-term expectations? Well, I would say most importantly is having a track record of doing it. Yeah. We've worked hard to build our credibility on that front. We now have 10 years of year after year after year of adjusted EBITDA growth, and of course, that is through a tremendous amount of volatility in the commodity space. We've been able to prove it even during the pandemic. We've released our guidance ahead of anybody knowing anything about COVID-19 or at least any of the public, I should say. Right knowing anything about. We were able to actually come in above the top end of the midpoint of our range of our guidance, even with the onslaught of. Remember, we had negative oil prices. Yes. Had, you know, gas prices that stayed extremely low for a long period of time. Yet, Williams, we were able to deliver because we have such stable, predictable earnings in our business. I would just say, first of all, you have to speak from a position of track record and credibility. Our ability, we've said for a long time, we think this 5% to 7% growth rate is very achievable for us, and we've continued to deliver on that. Even through times where we had customers going bankrupt, which a lot of investors, and particularly the hedge fund side, thought was a big risk to our company. Right. We actually delivered right through that, took full advantage of that situation. I would just say, you know, we've continued to deliver, and we remain very confident in our 5%-7% growth trajectory that we have out there, while maintaining a very low lever balance sheet. I think we're, you know, we've delivered time after time after time on that front. I would just say we think that the growth rate that we have is very achievable. Natural gas right now, it's really, if you really stop and study the fundamentals, it's really hard to argue with our strategy. It is the most important tool from our perspective in taking on the challenges that we have right now, which is reducing emissions around the globe. Yeah. At the same time, making it affordable and equitable energy source. There's just not very many things that can do that. I think our strategy is rock solid, and I think we've been executing in a way that deserves people to pay attention to what we have to say. Interesting. That stability and predictability that you just mentioned is probably one of the other reasons why you sleep well at night. Energy transition. A lot of investors are concerned about what Williams is doing to keep up with the latest and greatest technologies. What is Williams doing on that front to make sure that they are in fact keeping up? Yeah. With all things related to the energy transition? You know, this has been a, this has been a very interesting source of energy within our organization. A lot of young people coming into the organization who wanna try to, you know, help out where they can to reduce emissions, and it's been amazing to me to see the kind of energy that's been created around that. We are and we're gonna continue to be the leader in making sure that natural gas, first and foremost, is seen as a reliable, low-emissions fuel source we're gonna contain and reduce the emissions associated with the delivery of natural gas, and we have been doing that. We'll continue to do that. I would say that's job one. One of the challenges to that is when we say, "Hey, our emissions are really low, just trust us on that." That doesn't exist in today's environment, the trust associated with all of the angst that exists between the fossil fuel industry and environmental opposition. We know that. That's, you know, we're not blind to that. We have been developing very unassailable information and credible information by going to third parties to work with them to really be able to carefully document what we're doing around our emissions and using actually blockchain technology to be able to show all the way along the line, from the point of production to the point of delivery, we know what emissions are associated with that path of gas. That's a system that we've developed with a group called Context Labs, and it's called NextGen Gas. We've been actually, we've been having that certified by outside auditors, outside auditing firms. We're really excited about that. We are actually seeing customers in the Northeast, utility customers in the Northeast paying a premium now to our upstream producers for delivering that low emission and certified natural gas. Just doing it on a halfway or a basis that's gonna be scrutinized, it isn't gonna have all the facts there, is not gonna cut it. We've been very robust about how we're doing that. In fact, last month, as part of our investment with Orbital Sidekick or OSK, we launched satellites, and those satellites will start monitoring our facilities. We have an investment in Orbital Sidekick, and we're also a customer of Orbital Sidekick in terms of our satellite technology or using their satellite technology to monitor and observe our facilities. That's an important investment for us. Additionally, we have investments through what we call our corporate venture capital program. In fact, I got a chance to meet with one of our big fund groups there yesterday, EIP, and it is really interesting to see all of the investments that are going on in that space. While a lot of those investments, you know, will fail because they're, you know, they're startups, and that's just the nature of it. The good news is we are right there in the room with that innovation, learning from that innovation. We're not gonna get surprised by something new that comes along that we weren't aware of. We're gonna be right there investing alongside of it. Again, we've been around for well over 100 years. We didn't start in the gas pipeline business, you know, we've changed over time as it's been required to change, and we'll continue to do that as we need to. Right now, it is very clear to us, even with all the insight and the investments that we have in new technologies, there is nothing that is as powerful as natural gas. We're gonna continue that as our core business because there is nothing that has that kind of scale and that kind of capability to reduce emissions around the world right now. With the public now heavily focused on low carbon emissions, decarbonization, and so forth, what investments, I mean, you mentioned some of them here. Are you looking to make sure that you're gaining momentum on that front? Obviously, you mentioned the satellite opportunity, NextGen Gas. Are there others? Hydrogen? We are doing some of our own solar projects, where we can around where we have big electric-driven units, so big, high voltage equipment. The interesting thing about that is that, you know, as we've looked at that, putting in solar is a, is a great addition where we have the advantage of the backup power available from the utility, and that's really key, and usually, that backup power is coming off of natural gas. We are investing in solar. We're involved with six different hydrogen hubs that have gotten through the Department of Energy's screening process, and we're working with partners on developing those opportunities as well. One of the great things about hydrogen for us is that hydrogen is only about a third of the density of natural gas. Well, what does that mean in practical terms? In practical terms, that means you'd need three times the amount of pipeline capacity if we were to use hydrogen as replacing natural gas. Obviously, that is a big positive for us in terms of the demand for pipeline capacity that would be required out there. We're involved in a lot of different areas. We're involved in carbon capture projects in our Haynesville operations, and the Inflation Reduction Act bill certainly supercharged those investments, and so we're looking to make those investments in that area as well. I think you'd be, it'd be hard to say that we are not staying at the edge of those opportunities, but we're also, you know, run a very disciplined capital allocation program, and any of those investments have to compete with the investment opportunities and the long-dated contracts that we have in our base business. Right. Right. With respect to just Williams' overall strategy, we oftentimes talk about the company being a unique investment opportunity. How do we compare with our competitors? What is our advantage over other competing midstream companies? Well, first of all, nobody is more focused than we are on the natural gas strategy. We've been at that for a long time. We've committed to it. You know, we're not, we're not a jack of all trades. We are hyper-focused on being the very best operator in that space, and we've been able to prove it. When other people haven't been able to get permits in the Northeast, we just recently got a Regional Energy Access project permitted, which is a very large-scale billion-dollar project that comes out of Pennsylvania and into New Jersey. Those are not easy places to operate to get big regulated pipelines permitted, but we did. We actually did that right after one of our competitors failed in the same area with a project. One of the reasons that we've been successful is our team gets it, that these aren't just technical solutions. These are going into the local communities, understanding what their needs and concerns are, and addressing those up front, and also working with the local politicians and regulators to understand what they're hearing and what their concerns are and making sure that we're addressing those. The team's just been doing a fantastic job of moving from just being a bunch of engineers that know how to go efficiently build a pipeline to how to go into a community and understand what their needs are and deliver on that. When we go to the FERC, and we've got people standing in support of us for our project, that makes a lot of difference. The FERC is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Right. That's who permits all these big projects. We've got a great reputation that we've built with them. I would say, you know, the great thing about Williams from a unique perspective is we love doing things the right way, and we've found a way of doing the right things in a way that actually adds tremendous shareholder value. Because the regulators know we do things the right way, and that's actually opened up doors for us and our ability to get things permitted when others haven't been able to. To the extent that you've talked about Pretty significant hydrogen hub in Wyoming. You mentioned hydrogen being one of the energy transition investments that Williams is looking at. Is there something that we can see in terms of scale from a hydrogen standpoint comparable to what we see in natural gas today? You know, here in the U.S., now maybe in Europe, where the cost of energy is so much higher. Yeah We are blessed here in the U.S. with very low-cost natural gas. It's really hard to compete with it. You know, hydrogen is a third of the BTU of natural gas, so in other words, its density, energy density requires a lot more pipeline capacity. As we inject or we blend hydrogen into the system where we would see that opportunity, it's gonna take more and more pipeline capacity, which is again, what we sell. We are looking at a number of areas where we can utilize our existing infrastructure because hydrogen is very challenged from an economics perspective. After you've produced it, thinking that then you also have to build new infrastructure, new pipeline infrastructure on top of that in an environment where it's so hard to get stuff permitted, means that we really need to take advantage of our existing infrastructure and blending hydrogen with natural gas. We've been very focused on that. We've worked with a company called Daroga Power to look at customers that are willing to pay this higher price for hydrogen for the benefit of having no emissions associated with the production of the hydrogen. We're working with a number of partners to try to identify people that are willing to pay that much higher price for hydrogen. Where we can find that, we will be utilizing our existing asset base and our critical infrastructure and core right of ways throughout the nation that go into these heavily populated areas that will be the point of demand. We think hydrogen, you know, will be an opportunity for us to the degree that people raise their hand and say that they're willing to pay that much more for hydrogen, we're gonna be there and ready to serve them, and we think that'll be a good growth additive to our business. The next question is related to LNG. How does Williams plan to participate in the next wave of LNG growth? Well, first of all, LNG is so important, around the world. The U.S. is already the largest, and we are gonna surpass by a very large degree, be the most important LNG provider to the world. Just real quickly, some metrics on that. Today, the U.S. market is about 100 BCF a day. The world, the global consumption of LNG today is about 50 BCF a day. Today, the U.S. exports about almost 11 BCF today, in 2022. That number we expect to double by 2027, so that 11 go to 22, and then we expect about another 15-20 BCF a day of growth on that over the next 15 years. Tremendous amount of growth coming here in the U.S., and it's gonna take very large-scale infrastructure, and it's gonna take connecting the very low-cost basins like the Haynesville, the Marcellus, and the Utica to be able to supply that long term. Williams, nobody is better positioned than Williams to do that. We're by far the largest gatherer in the Marcellus and the Utica, and we are coming up on being number two now in the Haynesville as a gatherer. We're growing that infrastructure very rapidly to be able to serve that LNG export. Really importantly, as I said earlier, one of our strategic goals is to make sure we keep our customers connected to the very best markets. We think LNG is gonna be the very best market for a lot of that production. Our Louisiana Energy Gateway project connects our Haynesville gathering system. Louisiana Energy Gateway is a project that is underway right now. It's a 42 in line that'll go down from the Haynesville and connect into the Transco system, where the Transco system then distributes gas to big LNG facilities along the Gulf Coast. This is gonna be a really important tool because it's gonna give our customers the very best price signals. We're gonna give them access to those price signals. In turn, they're gonna have the capital and the market signals to further grow those gathering systems. The Haynesville's really clear right now how that's gonna happen. We've already got that construction underway. The trickier part is getting the Marcellus and the Utica, where we're the largest gather, and getting that connect to the best markets. It's already connected via our infrastructure. It's already connected to Cove Point, which is the largest LNG export facility on the East Coast. That facility is already connected, but that's not big enough, and it's not gonna be expanded anytime soon enough to really take away that. We've got to get our infrastructure expanded, moving gas from the Marcellus and the Utica, which we're already connected to, and having that connected and having enough capacity to move that gas to LNG export facilities in the Gulf Coast. That's gonna be a huge opportunity for our company. Really, I think is gonna be a game changer in terms of putting us in even in larger scale position than we are today. Natural gas prices were higher in 2022 than they are in 2023. What does that do to the Williams EBITDA profile? You know, we have a really nice graph that we keep and we produce for our investors that shows tremendous price volatility over time. Yet the thing that our EBITDA and our cash flows actually correlate to is the amount of contracted transmission capacity. In other words, the amount of long-term obligations we have that we get paid whether gas moves or not, we get paid for that. On the one hand, gathering volumes on the other, which is where producers are paying us to gather their gas. Those two components are by no mistake and absolutely by our strategy, those are the things that drive our profitability over the long haul. We did pick up some properties, some E&P properties through the bankruptcy process that we, frankly, just took in lieu for negotiations associated with those bankruptcies that turned in to be a huge positive for us in 2022 and drove a 14% growth rate. In 2023, we've got some, you know, remaining exposure on the gas price there, certainly, but it's really all to the positive above our base business. It's not a, it's not a big part of our deal. There's a lot of focus on it by the investing community. Just like here in the first quarter, even though gas prices were low, we showed a 19% quarter-over-quarter. Q1 of 2023 over Q1 of 2022, we showed a 19% growth on that despite a low gas price environment. We're showing growth in our guidance again this year in spite of knowing what the gas price is. We're very confident in our ability to continue to grow the business in spite of the pricing. All you have to do is look at history and look at the price cycles that we have continued to deliver growth through, and I think that should give investors confidence. The last question from our retail investors. You basically made the case that the Williams platform is pretty steady and reliable. What do you think is most misunderstood about the business? I think, you know, one of the key issues that we try to communicate on is, People are concerned about, well, with all the electrification that's gonna go on, isn't that gonna take your business away? Couldn't be further from the truth. Actually, the electrification actually takes more and more power generation, obviously, even if you've got enough renewables installed in a market, which we're a long ways from being there today, even if that occurs, you have to have that backed up. The only real economic way to back that up today is natural gas generation. What we sell as Williams, we sell capacity. We don't really care how much actual gas gets consumed. We just care about the infrastructure and people paying us rent basically to have the rights to that capacity. That's what we sell is that capacity on our transmission systems. That actually, as renewables have been coming into our markets aggressively, our peak days and the demand for our capacity has been going right up with it. We're really excited to see the demands coming for natural gas and the demand for clean energy, because it's actually driving more and more business our way right now. Thank you for joining us in our retail fireside chat today. Enjoyed it. Thank you, Danilo.