Western Midstream Partners LP (WES) 2025 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Welcome to Western Midstream's first-quarter 2025 post-earnings call fireside chat with our Chief Financial Officer, Kristen Shults.

歡迎參加 Western Midstream 2025 年第一季財報後電話會議，與我們的財務長 Kristen Shults 進行爐邊談話。

Kristen, can you give us an overview of West's first quarter financial and operational results?

克里斯汀，您能向我們概述一下 West 第一季的財務和營運業績嗎？

Sure, Daniel. So first quarter was a very strong quarter for us financially. Our first quarter adjusted EBITDA was $594 million. That was an increase relative to fourth quarter of 2024. Our adjusted gross margin decreased slightly because of decreased throughput, but the revenue recognition adjustment we had in Q4 of $9.2 million also contributed to that decrease relative to Q4. Our operating expense also decreased, driven mostly by lower O&M and G&A, and our free cash flow after distributions was $58 million. The Board formally approved a 4% distribution increase like we telegraphed as part of the year-end call. And so the distribution per unit now sits at $0.91.

當然，丹尼爾。因此，第一季對於我們的財務狀況來說是一個非常強勁的季度。我們第一季的調整後 EBITDA 為 5.94 億美元。與 2024 年第四季相比，這一數字有所增加。由於產量下降，我們的調整後毛利率略有下降，但第四季 920 萬美元的收入確認調整也導致了這一下降。我們的營運費用也有所下降，主要原因是營運與維護費用和一般及行政費用下降，分配後的自由現金流為 5,800 萬美元。董事會正式批准了 4% 的分配增加，正如我們在年終電話會議上所宣布的那樣。因此，現在每單位的分配額為 0.91 美元。

From an operational perspective, we had very high levels of system operability over 99%. Fourth quarter was very strong in the DJ, and so from a gas perspective you actually saw a decrease in our gas volumes quarter over quarter because the DJ went back to what I would call a more normalized level. For oil, a slight decrease there on an operated asset basis, mostly driven by the DJ again as well as a little bit from the Delaware Basin. And then water decreased 2% just because of the timing of wells and then some more volumes being taken off for recycling purposes.

從營運角度來看，我們的系統可操作性水準非常高，超過 99%。第四季 DJ 表現非常強勁，因此從天然氣角度來看，我們天然氣產量實際上環比下降，因為 DJ 回到了我所說的更正常的水平。對於石油而言，以營運資產計算，石油產量略有下降，這主要再次受到 DJ 的影響，還有一點來自特拉華盆地。然後，由於水井的使用時間以及為了回收目的而抽取的更多水量，水量減少了 2%。

We announced that the North Loving plant is now fully online. How does this impact West going forward?

我們宣布，North Loving 工廠現已全面投入運作。這對西方未來有何影響？

Yeah, so really exciting. Obviously we've been working on that plant for a while. This is our first major greenfield construction project. It'll bring our total processing capacity in the Delaware Basin up to 2.2 Bcf a day. That plant itself is a 250 million cubic feet per day Train. And so it's going to help on the gross margin side slightly because we won't be burdened by the offloading fees that we previously had. We'll also see an increase on the OpEx side as we actually bring in people to run that plant, maintain it, so we'll reduce the need for offloads on a go forward basis.

是的，真的很令人興奮。顯然我們已經在那家工廠工作了一段時間了。這是我們的第一個大型綠地建設工程。這將使我們在特拉華盆地的總處理能力達到每天22億立方英尺。該工廠本身每天可生產 2.5 億立方英尺的產能。因此，這將對毛利率略有幫助，因為我們將不再承擔先前的卸載費用。我們還會看到營運支出方面的成長，因為我們實際上引進了人員來運作和維護該工廠，因此我們將減少未來卸載的需求。

And so what you'll really see from a throughput perspective is no real changes there because we're just taking those volumes and putting them back on our system. That plan has actually been full since we started it up. Obviously we need a little bit of spare capacity within the system as we do turnarounds or different maintenance activities, so we have some of that in the system today, but the plant's full.

因此，從吞吐量角度來看，您實際上會看到沒有真正的變化，因為我們只是將這些磁碟區放回我們的系統中。事實上，自從我們啟動該計劃以來，它就已經安排得滿滿的了。顯然，當我們進行檢修或不同的維護活動時，我們需要係統內有一點備用容量，因此今天我們的系統中有一些備用容量，但工廠已經滿了。

The macroeconomic environment has become much more volatile since West initially announced guidance in February. Can we expect any changes to West's 2025 plans?

自從韋斯特在二月首次宣布指導意見以來，宏觀經濟環境變得更加不穩定。我們能預期韋斯特的 2025 年計畫會發生任何變化嗎？

So we actually reaffirmed our guidance. We stay obviously in very close contact with our producing customers, being primarily focused on the GMP side of Midstream. What they do and their change in forecast obviously directly impact us. And it very much impacts our capital programs.

所以我們實際上重申了我們的指導。我們顯然與生產客戶保持著非常密切的聯繫，主要關注中游的 GMP 方面。他們的所作所為和預測的改變顯然會直接影響到我們。這對我們的資本計劃影響很大。

So as of right now with those conversations we have had, we haven't seen any material changes from a forecast perspective or throughput perspective for this year. If for some reason that does change in the future, our first lever that we're going to start pulling is on capital because obviously once again being on the GMP side. If they stop a rig or they stop drilling in the acreage that we're in, we're going to quickly drop capital from the from the plants.

因此，截至目前，根據我們進行的這些對話，從預測角度或吞吐量角度來看，我們還沒有看到今年有任何重大變化。如果由於某種原因，未來情況確實發生了變化，我們首先要採取的措施就是資本，因為顯然我們再次站在 GMP 這邊。如果他們停止鑽井或停止在我們所在的區域鑽探，我們將迅速從工廠撤資。

I'd say from just taking a step back and looking at West on where we are now, you'll see that we've also done a lot in the past few years to put West in a really strong position to go into some type of market downturn or commodity price downturn. Our balance sheet and our leverage is sitting underneath 3 times right now, we've instilled a lot of just best practices and efficiencies processes within the company that weren't there prior to COVID. And just feel like we are in a great place if you know the cycle does turn and we do see some changes in customers forecast.

我想說，只要退一步看看西方現在的處境，你就會發現，過去幾年我們也做了很多工作，讓西方在某種市場低迷或大宗商品價格低迷時期處於非常有利的地位。我們的資產負債表和槓桿率目前低於 3 倍，我們在公司內部灌輸了許多在 COVID 之前不存在的最佳實踐和效率流程。如果您知道週期確實在轉變，而我們確實看到客戶預測的一些變化，那麼您就會覺得我們處於一個很好的位置。

Do you expect any changes to the Pathfinder pipeline project at this point based on the recent market volatility?

根據最近的市場波動，您預計 Pathfinder 管道項目目前會發生任何變化嗎？

No, we don't. The issue we are trying to solve with Pathfinder is around pore pressure issues within the basin and us needing to relocate that water to another part of the basin. That's not going to go away. And so we're still moving forward with that project. Once again we have that underwritten with a very large commitment by Oxy. So as we're looking at our '25 budget and our '26 budget, those costs related to Pathfinder that we discussed last time, that $400 million to $450 million dollar range for Pathfinder, those are fixed, and we're going to spend that money. We're going to continue to build out that pipe.

不，我們不知道。我們試圖用 Pathfinder 解決的問題是盆地內的孔隙壓力問題，我們需要將水轉移到盆地的另一部分。這種現像不會消失。因此我們仍在推進該項目。我們再次獲得了 Oxy 的巨額承保承諾。因此，當我們審視 25 年預算和 26 年預算時，我們上次討論過的與探路者相關的成本，即探路者 4 億至 4.5 億美元的範圍，都是固定的，我們將會花掉這筆錢。我們將繼續建造那條管道。

From a producing customer perspective, we've seen -- we've had and have seen a lot of excitement from producers around the pipe itself and other midstream companies. So I think as the issues that we're trying to solve for become more noticed and more recognized within the basins by others, then more demand for that pipe will start to show up. And so we're we're very optimistic and really excited to continue building that.

從生產客戶的角度來看，我們已經看到——我們已經看到管道本身和其他中游公司的生產商表現出很大的興奮。因此我認為，隨著我們試圖解決的問題在盆地內得到更多關注和認可，對該管道的需求就會開始增加。因此，我們非常樂觀，並且非常興奮能夠繼續建立這一目標。

Kristen, thank you for joining us today. For our listeners, if you have any additional questions, please feel free to reach out to us. Our contact information is located in the investor relations section of our corporate website at westernmidstream.com.

克里斯汀，感謝您今天加入我們。對於我們的聽眾，如果您有任何其他問題，請隨時與我們聯繫。我們的聯絡資訊位於我們公司網站westernmidstream.com的投資者關係部分。