Earnings Labs

Enbridge Inc. (ENB)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Fri, Jul 31, 2015

$53.37

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Enbridge, Inc. 2015 Second Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Bakiba and I will be your operator for today's call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Adam McKnight, Director of Investor Relations.

Adam McKnight - Director-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Bakiba. Good morning and welcome to Enbridge Inc.'s 2015 second quarter earnings call. With me this morning are Al Monaco, President and CEO; John Whelen, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Guy Jarvis, President, Liquids Pipelines; Leigh Kelln, Vice President Investor Relations and Enterprise Risk, and Chris Johnston, Vice President and Controller. This call is webcast and I encourage those listening on the phone lines to view the supporting slides, which are available on our website. A replay and podcast of the call will be available later today, and the transcript will be posted to our website shortly thereafter. The Q&A format will be the same as previous calls. We'll take questions from the analyst community first and then invite questions from the media. I would ask that you wait until the end of the call to queue up for questions and please limit those questions to two per person. Then please re-enter the queue if you have additional queries. And I'll remind you that Lee and I will be available after the call for any follow-up questions that you might have. Before we begin, I'd like to point out that we will refer to forward-looking information in connection with Enbridge and the subject matter of today's call. By its nature, this information contains forecasts, assumptions and expectations about future outcomes, so we remind you it is subject to the risks and uncertainties affecting every business, including ours. This slide includes a summary of the significant factors and risks that could affect future outcomes for Enbridge, which are discussed more fully in our public disclosure filings on both the SEDAR and EDGAR systems. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Al Monaco. Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Thanks, Adam.…

Operator

Operator

And our first question is going to come from Paul Lechem from CIBC. Please go ahead.

Paul Lechem - CIBC World Markets, Inc.

Analyst · CIBC. Please go ahead

Thank you. Good morning. A couple of questions related to the mainline, so given the Clipper expansion was completed post quarter end. I just wondering were there any impacts to shippers on Flanagan South and Seaway similarly to Q1 where you couldn't get the volumes down to those pipelines, was there any capacity issues in this quarter?

Guy Jarvis - President, Liquids Pipelines

Analyst · CIBC. Please go ahead

Hi, Paul, it's Guy. So yeah, we have had continuing issues related to the heavy apportionment on the mainline and its impact to shippers on Flanagan South but with bringing on this extra capacity on Alberta Clipper is helping to alleviate that. I think, it's well known we were had heavy apportionment in excess of 40% earlier in the year. I know the number is out publically for August where it's looking like its going to be down in the 25% range. So we see it improving as we bring that capacity on.

Paul Lechem - CIBC World Markets, Inc.

Analyst · CIBC. Please go ahead

Okay. Thanks, and then on Line 5 there was a report out from the Michigan Environmental Department on the crossing of Line 5 under Lake Michigan. I was just wondering if you guys have any comments about that and any potential impact if they impose more restrictions around that going forward? Thanks. Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, Paul. In some ways it was a little bit surprising to see the report because we had gone through a number of weeks and months of engagement with them. On the other hand, I think it reflects the overall scrutiny that we're seeing on all energy projects generally and obviously the Great Lakes are very important to the people of Michigan as they are to us, so we share the concerns on it. I think the report is a good step though in the process where we can increase the dialog here and we're going to continue to work very closely with the state. Obviously, we've been doing a tremendous amount of work on the line over the years and we feel pretty confident in its safety but certainly we'll continue to engage with the state on this as we go through. The line itself, just to remind everyone very much a strong system built to very high standards. When it was built extra heavy thickness pipe coated and waterproof enamel. With that there is many aspects of this line actually that make it extremely strong and we're confident in it and one of them is that it operates at very low pressure, less than 25% of its maximum operating capability. So overall we feel pretty confident in this crossing but we'll continue to work with the state to ensure that we're having a good dialog on this and address the concerns.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is going to come from Rob Hope from Macquarie. Please go ahead.

Robert Hope - Macquarie Capital Markets Canada Ltd.

Analyst · Macquarie. Please go ahead

Yes. Thank you. Congratulations on another quarter, another good quarter. Just if we could look a bit more broadly though, in terms of the acquisition market we're seeing some large corporate M&A in the U.S and potentially some attractive assets being forced into the market in Canada, maybe can you can update us on your acquisition strategy, are you looking to diversify your business by I guess by buying more similar assets and then building around that or would you look more towards groupings of assets or even corporate transactions? Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Well you know the answer, the short answer is all of the above and I think you've heard us say before that you know although we've got such a tremendous Liquids Pipelines franchise, if you look at the contribution its making now and over the next five years it's clearly going to make up the lion's share of the earnings and cash flows. So with that though we do feel very strongly about the fundamentals of both natural gas and power generation, renewables being one part of that, so I think it's our desire to expand the diversity of the asset base that we have. Now the question is how do we do that? You know traditionally the business at Enbridge has been focused on organic based growth. Obviously that provides the best opportunity for value, but I think we are going to have to start looking more and more at other opportunities if we want to make a dent in the outlook for natural gas and power generation at Enbridge. So that's our desire. That's always going to be subject to the opportunity set at the time and I think you have known us to be pretty disciplined investors so it's going to depend on what the value that we can add is and what we've been most concerned about in the past when we look at the larger scale transactions is that when we layer on top of our existing plan which is as you've just heard very robust sometimes it's hard to make these larger scale transactions work economically for our shareholders. And so, we'll continue to look very carefully at all of these. We're scouring every opportunity out there and we'll continue to do that. And I think once we get through the dropdown process for the Canadian pipeline business and we see hopefully some improved valuation relative to the group then that will give us an even more powerful currency to move forward with some of these initiatives.

Robert Hope - Macquarie Capital Markets Canada Ltd.

Analyst · Macquarie. Please go ahead

Thank you for the color. And then, maybe just as a very quick follow-up, are you seeing attractive opportunities right now in the gas or power side? Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: There is a few out there that we're looking at and obviously as I said we're scouring to see if there is anything that we could add value for our shareholders with and we'll continue to do that. Obviously, I can't get too specific on what those are but it's our job to keep looking and that's what we're doing.

Robert Hope - Macquarie Capital Markets Canada Ltd.

Analyst · Macquarie. Please go ahead

Great, thank you for the color. Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is going to come from Brian Zarahn from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Brian Joshua Zarahn - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead

Good morning. Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning.

Brian Joshua Zarahn - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead

I appreciate the clarification on the EEP dropdown strategy and certainly understandable. Given the MLP market performance this year in terms of not pursuing a large scale transaction now but it still remains your intention to transfer some of the assets over time to the MLP. So, I guess my question is, is a more likely a scenario no dropdown this year and then, Eastern Access, U.S. mainline expansion up size options more likely. And then maybe something relative to – similar to the size of Alberta Clipper that type of a transaction looking ahead? Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think that's pretty much right in how we would look at it. I think the call options that EEP has on Eastern Access and mainline, I think those are the two most obvious candidates as I said in my remarks there. There would be low multiple drops there, I mean I wouldn't say they're huge but they total about $700 million and those call options come due in 2016 and 2017, so that's a natural set of drops to occur in those two years. And then, as I said earlier opportunistically we'd look to see what else is available for a dropdown, obviously a lot of assets that could head down there, but it will be as I said on a more selective basis depending on what we see on the valuation and how we can manage it from a financing point of view. One thing that I think sometimes that we probably need to communicate a little better is that EEP is a little bit different than a pure dropdown story because we've got large organic programs that we're carrying through in our case through 2017. So, that's the $5 billion I talked about earlier, that requires obviously a lot of financing. So, we need to manage between the organic story and the dropdown story and hence the desire to move to a more selective approach at this point.

Brian Joshua Zarahn - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead

I appreciate the color Al. So as a follow-up looking broader at the CapEx backlog for Enbridge. Given the commodity price environment and expectations that it will probably be lower for longer, any change to the unsecured backlog or it seems like you're still sticking with the $10 billion but could that actually be pushed out much farther beyond your time period or you still think that's an achievable target over the next few years? Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. That's a good question Brian. Brian by the way is referring to the $10 billion that we showed on that one chart that we call risk unsecured. So basically that's a collection of projects that we're working on, that we risk – apply risk numbers to and we add it up to $10 billion. And the reason we do that by the way is to ensure that from a financing point of view, we are taking into account that we're going to be successful on some projects going forward, which our history has shown that we can be. I feel relatively bullish on that $10 billion and the answer to the question as to whether we can extend that further, I think we can. There is a lot of opportunities out there. The fundamentals of energy development in North America, I think are very positive long term. So I think there's going to be opportunities. As I alluded to earlier, it's really going to depend on whether or not those opportunities can fit the value proposition. And I think it really emphasizes the need in our business when you're putting so much capital to work, to make sure that you're really testing these opportunities against your capital allocation discipline I guess in terms of how does it match up against other opportunities, including increasing the dividend or doing other things with the cash flow that's going to be coming at us. So a long answer to your question maybe, but I think we'll probably get into a little bit more detail on this $10 billion and how we see that number going forward once we get to Enbridge Day, and we'll probably bring that down to the business unit level, and the guys will give you some transparency into the opportunity set there.

Brian Joshua Zarahn - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead

Thank you, Al. Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is going to come from Ted Durbin from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Ted J. Durbin - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thank you. I'm wondering if we can just dig in a little bit on some of the forecasts that were in the circular out through I think 2021. Maybe just the assumptions that you're making there, the key assumptions on whether it's volumes or costs or project timing that get you to three different cases? Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Let me see, Ted, what -- can you be more specific as to...? Ted J. Durbin - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Yeah. Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Maybe what we should do actually, maybe we'll start with volumes, Guy, do you want to just give where we are on that?

Guy Jarvis - President, Liquids Pipelines

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Yeah, I think the chart that we've included in this presentation around the volumes is really premised on the fact that we're continuing to see this near-term front-end growth on the heavy side of things. And to-date, year-to-date in 2015, we're really pleased that our heavy volumes are bang on. We think that's providing support to that near to medium term outlook. Our conversations with our customers who are developing that production in the next two to three years have indicated that it's all progressing, and in fact in some cases they're trying to get there a little bit sooner rather than later. So, I think we've got a good plan through that 2018 timeframe. Beyond 2018, as you get to the end of the decade, there is more certainty that begins to emerge. But one of the things that we believe is that our mainline is really well positioned to continue to do some marginal expansion along the way over a range of production outcomes. So, we feel that with the uncertainty that's emerging out in that period, it actually strengthens our competitive position. Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, and maybe the other points, I think the easiest way to look at this is in term of -- like Guy has given some comments on the volumes, but from the capital side it's really pretty much the same as what we've just described in our update here. Those projects that are secured will drive the outlook for Enbridge Income Fund and Enbridge Income Fund Holdings for the next five years. So, I think that's pretty transparent. After that of course, the Income Fund does, will effectively have acquired the business, and so all of the opportunities that go with the Liquids Pipelines business today…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is going to come from Robert Catellier from GMP Securities. Please go ahead.

Robert Catellier - GMP Securities LP

Analyst · GMP Securities. Please go ahead

Hi, good morning. I just have a couple of questions to clarify the situation on EEP here. I understand why the market conditions may not warrant a large scale dropdown currently, but is that option really effectively off the table now for the foreseeable future given the timing of the call options they have on some of the other assets, or is, if market conditions improve, can you go back to that strategy? Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, Robert, anything is possible. I think, to be clear though, I think for the immediate term, we wouldn't see that being an opportunity based on where we see the valuations today. I suppose things could change in the future, but that's where we are today, and I think you're right to point out the call options and the selective opportunities that we could bring to bear on an interim basis to bridge us through this period of time. We recognize that we need to bolster the growth in the next two to three years because I think, if you look out to 2017 when these big projects come out, that's where the organic cash flow growth transparency of that really comes to bear. So we recognize that in this interim period, we may be able to take some opportunities to drop down some assets depending on what the valuations looks like.

Robert Catellier - GMP Securities LP

Analyst · GMP Securities. Please go ahead

Okay, I think I understand the message there. And then just, I think you mentioned previously that in that strategy you would consider taking back some equity from EEP, and you did again restructure the series one preferreds to defer some of the cash payments. So I am wondering what the appetite is on any equity you take back to have that payment in kind or a cash pay equity? Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, the short answer is yes we'll be flexible on that. As I've alluded to earlier, we've got lots of capital in front of us that we need to execute on in the partnership and to the extent that we see an opportunity that we can see going down into EEP on an existing asset we might do that and certainly we would consider taking back units just to manage the amount of equity financing in the partnership. That's an approach that we've taken in the past and we could do that again. John is there anything else you want to add to that? John K. Whelen - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: No, I think we will strike a balance obviously to the extent we would do that it wouldn't be material at the Enbridge Inc. level in terms of the degree of deferral or the amount of deferral, that's something that we would always look to balance at the end of the day, because we're focused on cash at Enbridge as well. Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. So, but you were referring I think Robert to the ability for us to take back equity back in EEP and I think the answer to that is yes, if we see that fitting at the time. John K. Whelen - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Right. And we do have precedence for doing that.

Robert Catellier - GMP Securities LP

Analyst · GMP Securities. Please go ahead

Yeah, the equity was part of the question but also the balance between payment and client and cash, and I think John just answered it as well. Thank you. John K. Whelen - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Okay, good. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is going to come from Andrew Kuske from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Andrew Kuske - Credit Suisse

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Please go ahead

Thank you. Good morning. I guess if you look back in the last few months a large part of the MLP underperformance was really been driven by interest rate concerns in the U.S. And so would you sort of step back a little bit, clearly the U.S. is facing a rising rate environment, Canada's environment a bit more benign. So how do you think about your financing strategy throughout North America and just capital market access and primarily looking at the debt markets? John K. Whelen - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, you raised a good point, Andrew and I think that's partly why we have this strategy of being able to issue in multiple markets through multiple vehicles. At the end of the day, we'll be going to look to raise the capital and we'll need to do that, but I think we will do it selectively over time. As I mentioned during my part of the discussion a little earlier, in the prepared remarks we are substantially hedged on the interest rate side which makes quite frankly, gives us a lot of flexibility in terms of when we want to time issuances to make sure that we've got the right sort of supply demand perspective. And the plan that you will see us talk about at Enbridge Day coming up reflects quite frankly the impacts of all of that hedging activity and so on. So, we've built it into our plan. We want the flexibility to be there. So, we've got more full markets, we've got more full issuers and we've got a substantial amount of debt if you will risk management in place and liquidity in place to give us the flexibility. So that is how we will approach the market. It will be methodically but selectively, so where market windows exist.

Andrew Kuske - Credit Suisse

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Please go ahead

Okay that's helpful. And then just related to the interest rates, obviously the interest rate parity theory and starting to think about the currencies, how are you positioned on the currency? John K. Whelen - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, that's the other side of it. Quite frankly is that obviously, forward foreign exchange rates are reflections of differential interest rate. We've done a lot already quite frankly to lock-in our foreign exchange exposure substantially. Hedged quite frankly over the next three years and really throughout our planning horizon. So, we aren't meaningfully exposed at the end of the day. We've noted on the call that we've had a little bit of an uplift but quite frankly we're probably in the order of close to 90% hedged over the balance of 2015, so, very little variability going to come out of that. So, we put ourselves in a position where we don't have all heck of a lot of upside but frankly but we've also taken care of any exposure which is our typical approach.

Andrew Kuske - Credit Suisse

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Please go ahead

Okay, very helpful. Thank you. John K. Whelen - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Okay, thanks, Andrew.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is going to come from Robert Kwan from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Robert Kwan - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Good morning. Just on funding as it relates to Enbridge Income Fund, excuse me Enbridge Income Fund Equity. You've got the luxury of time here just with all the credit availability but I'm just wondering if you can just update what your thinking is on timing and along with if you got a sense as to how sensitive the Enbridge Income Fund share price issuance is to the 18% ACFFO growth? John K. Whelen - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: It's John again Robert, not very sensitive at the end of the day. There is a little bit of sensitivity but the overall Enbridge Inc. growth rate is not overly sensitivity to that. The answer to timing is I guess it comes back to we'll be selective and opportunistic at the end of the day. We're certainly watching the market. We want to get that strategy up and running and humming and so we will certainly be working in the market, getting the investor story out quite frankly on Enbridge Income Fund Holdings, Inc which is a very attractive story we think. It's been an interesting period here because we haven't had the ability to go out and fully market that but we'll be doing so. But in terms of actual market access we'll pick our spots. Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think just to tag on to what John said on the market work that we need to do over the next little while, I think that will be very important particularly with respect to the U.S. side of things. Because, we see an opportunity here to tell a story that really is quite strong. You know obviously relative to the peer group in our view but just generally in most environments that we're in even the interest rate environment that we're probably heading into if you think about what the income fund could generate on closing it's 10% dividend growth plus another 10% in early 2016 is what we have said, that's a pretty attractive proposition right out of the gate with very high transparency and dividend growth beyond that. Not to mention a huge strategic business that, that it will be overseeing. So I think that it's a great story and I think we need to do some more work particularly on the U.S. side to make sure that important story is told and understood.

Robert Kwan - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

That's great. And I guess the second question I've got is just on the ACFFO guidance, there is a $0.70 a share range there is $0.30 in your EPS, I don't know if some of that's cash tax but can you just talk about what some of the major drivers are from the top to the bottom of the range and the magnitude between now and the earnings driver? John K. Whelen - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, sure Robert it's John again. I think you're right is it a somewhat wider range both on absolute basis and even on a percentage basis it's a snick wider. And I think that gets a little bit to the variability of some of the other components of cash flow and probably and our newness quite frankly to regular cash flow reporting and regular cash flow guidance. But I'd say the variability you've nailed them, cash taxes would be one and the range that we would see there, the other might be maintenance capital and our ability to project maintenance capital that's something that we are fine-tuning over time. So, we think there is a little bit more variability naturally that you will see in some of those numbers and that variability also comes about because of revenue project timing and everything else like that. On an absolute basis, obviously cash flow would be higher than earnings. So, we are working through that, but I don't think that you should read anything into variability in the underlying business in terms of where we set those parameters for the range.

Robert Kwan - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Okay, that's great, thanks Al, thanks John. John K. Whelen - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Okay, thanks Robert.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is going to come from Steven Paget from FirstEnergy Capital. Please go ahead.

Steven I. Paget - FirstEnergy Capital Corp.

Analyst · FirstEnergy Capital. Please go ahead

Well thank you and good morning. A bit of a more macro question, sorry, I hope you can hear me okay. Would the opening of the U.S. to crude oil exports be positive or negative for your earnings outlook and why? Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, as far as the near-term outlook, I don't see it being material now from time-to-time we will for our customers arrange exports I guess in the current circumstance but I think your question is more broadly what happens if U.S. crude exports open up. I think it's probably a net positive for us and that's simply because at the end of the day, if there is more connectivity of domestic production in North America to the rest of the globe then that will be positive for infrastructure in North America, so, and particularly from a Canadian point of view. So, I would see that generally positive to infrastructure development and our opportunities at least on a very broad basis Steven.

Steven I. Paget - FirstEnergy Capital Corp.

Analyst · FirstEnergy Capital. Please go ahead

Well, thank you, Al. Maybe a little bit more on connectivity as a follow-up. Other than crossing or exports out of Western Canada, are there any major connectivity bottlenecks in North America that you're seeing in crude oil?

Guy Jarvis - President, Liquids Pipelines

Analyst · FirstEnergy Capital. Please go ahead

Steven, its Guy. I think clearly the biggest bottleneck is the one we're experiencing here in Western Canada in terms of apportionment on the heavy side of our system and we're chipping away at that day by day by day. The outlook however is that there still could be apportionment on our system through 2017, so, I think that's the biggest issue. Obviously, there is a bottleneck for pipeline access out of North Dakota. I think the last numbers I saw suggested that in excess of 600,000 barrels a day were still being railed out of North Dakota. Our Sandpiper project is going to take a good chunk of that out of play. I think down along the Gulf Coast, there had been a lot of existing to be purposed in some of those more prolific areas down there. There are still new opportunities that I think people are pursuing in the Permian and what not, we'll have to see how those play out in the current environment. But I think the biggest ones are ones that are not new to us in Western Canada in the Bakken. Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, it still feels to us Steven that although we've made some decent in-roads into the Gulf, and talking about connectivity all the way from Western Canada now. I think longer-term bigger picture, we think there still is some opportunity there especially given the Eastern Gulf Coast is really not that well connected right now. So that's probably in the big picture sense where we would see things going in terms of connectivity from the Western basin and so that's what we'd like to see. The North America market particularly in the Gulf Coast is very competitive with 8 million barrels per day of refining capacity. So generally, we would see more connectivity into the Gulf as positive.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is going to come from Linda Ezergailis from TD Securities. Please go ahead.

Linda Ezergailis - TD Newcrest

Analyst · TD Securities. Please go ahead

Thank you. I will go back to some micro economic questions. I appreciate the cash flow guidance for 2015, just to help us sharpen our pencils a little bit. Can you update us on how you see maintenance capital trending beyond 2015 as well as the cash taxes? John K. Whelen - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Linda, it's John, maintenance capital would be something in the order of $800 million to $850 million annually going forward. That's what we see as we work through some of our new planning material and so on and so forth. So we work with that a sort of a run rate at the momentum. Cash taxes is...

Linda Ezergailis - TD Newcrest

Analyst · TD Securities. Please go ahead

Is that fully consolidated or... John K. Whelen - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, that's across the organization consolidated out.

Linda Ezergailis - TD Newcrest

Analyst · TD Securities. Please go ahead

Okay, thank you. John K. Whelen - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: And on cash taxes, it is a bit of a variable, I think that's a number that we will refine over time at the end of the day, and probably try to give you a little bit better guidance over time, it will move around a little bit simply by virtue of existing tax pools et cetera, et cetera. So I think that's one that we are going to refine over time before we get out with a very specific guidance at this stage.

Linda Ezergailis - TD Newcrest

Analyst · TD Securities. Please go ahead

Is it reasonable to assume at a very high level with all the growth projects that you have underway that cash taxes should be fairly modest for the next number of years? John K. Whelen - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes.

Linda Ezergailis - TD Newcrest

Analyst · TD Securities. Please go ahead

That's helpful. And just a follow up related question with respect to depreciation and amortization trends as well, what sort of a reasonable trend line for new projects, a 40 year amortization on average straight line? John K. Whelen - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Maybe a little lighter than that, but you're in the zone, Linda.

Linda Ezergailis - TD Newcrest

Analyst · TD Securities. Please go ahead

Okay, some more clarity around that would be helpful too over time. Thank you. John K. Whelen - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: You're welcome.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is going to come from Matthew Akman from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Matthew Akman - Scotia Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Thank you, good morning. Most of my questions have been answered, but I wanted to just circle back on one item Al, you mentioned that there is still a lot of appetite among producers for low cost incremental capacity which Enbridge can deliver profitably. I am wondering if you could just make a comment on the business environment vis-à-vis larger scale, new infrastructure, we've just been through a period where Canadian producers are clamoring for everything from big new oil pipes to liquefaction and large scale processing of gas. I am just wondering in your conversations with your customers whether you're seeing that wane a little bit due to just confidence over the next few years on balance sheet issues? Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay, that's a good question Matthew, so in terms of the larger scale solutions that are out there and being proposed, I don't hear any sort of big concern around you know not needing those projects, I think at the end of the day the producers have lived with and are expecting to live with an inability to get to tight water particularly in Canada. So, I think the downturn here is obviously creating a lot of caution and a focus on cost reductions. So, they're working feverishly on that. But I think there is a recognition that we still need more pipeline capacity. I think my comments were really focused on if the production profile is going to be more variable and the sanctioning of new oil sands projects is uncertain along with the fact that we have a two to three-year period here of pretty proscribed oil sands production growth. I think that there is still some immediate/near-term need for new capacity. So, when we look at our system and we've got a big chunk of capacity across the border right now. We're looking at every opportunity to see if we can optimize that. So, I think really the issue is how can we manage in the near-term and what can we do that has a high degree of transparency for new capacity that can be low cost and that can be done with very little incremental throughput commitment. So, I think that's really where the focus is, it's this near-term. I think the long-term is still a fair degree of optimism going forward. The resource in the oil sand is obviously very robust and it's a question of getting some price recovery.

Matthew Akman - Scotia Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Thank you, guys, that's all I had today. Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay, Matthew, thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is going to come from John Edwards from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. John Edwards - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I guess one of the things, from listening to the EEP call yesterday. I was just curious about plans to talk about what kind of EBITDA will be available to dropdown and, understood that you can't do a full scale dropdown now given market conditions. But, a lot of the other MLPs out there have provided guidance as far as EBITDA eligible for drop and provided say a trajectory, just kind a of broad trajectory for delivering on that dropdown over time subjective to certain market conditions, and that's led to a lower cost of capital for that captive MLP if you will. And I was just wondering what the thought process is or if there is plans to ultimately disclose the EBITDA, eligible EBITDA. You guys have indicated to spend about $10 billion of book value for pipelines maybe if you could comment on what the plans are for talking about EBITDA available to dropdown in the future to EEP? Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, John, I suppose, let's put it this way, that I don't think that would be that difficult to do. But maybe just to loop back a little bit and to the premise of your question as to why that trajectory is not there. I think we've explained why the large scale opportunity doesn't make sense for us right now. But it has, I think it has more to do with the fact that some MLPs I think are strictly dropdown stories. And a lot of those MLPs are, let's call them, in the smaller market cap…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And at this time, we would like to invite members of the media to join the queue for questions. For everyone to benefit, please limit yourself to one question and one related follow-up as appropriate and return to the queue for additional lines of questioning. And our final analyst question is going to come from (1:18:04) from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Unknown Speaker

Analyst

Hi, this is actually (1:18:11) speaking. The question that I had is looking at your announcement about the postponement of the dropdown strategy, I'm looking at the relative share price performance, you look at dividend yield multiple, really any metric, it appears that the arbitrage between EEP and ENB is really for ENB to be the buyer rather than the seller. So the question I have is at what point would ENB look to do a stock for stock transaction on EEP and EEQ? John K. Whelen - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Okay. So, I think your question is Enbridge taking out EEP and EEQ, okay. Obviously, we would, we're always looking at those opportunities, as you can imagine. At this point, we don't have any plans to do that, and the reason for that is we believe that EEP has some very good runway ahead of it. It's got some great organic growth, and we believe that it can be still be a very effective funding vehicle for Enbridge, and I think at this point that's the plan. So there's no immediate plans to do that, and that's where we are today.

Unknown Speaker

Analyst

Thank you. Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay, are there other questions, operator. Hello? I think somebody must still have their phone queued up. Operator, are you there? Okay, it looks like the operator has dropped. Oh, okay here you go.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is going to come from Ashok Dutta from Platts. Please go ahead.

Ashok Dutta - Platts, Inc.

Analyst · Platts. Please go ahead

Hi, good morning just a few couple of quick questions. Al, I know it's probably not in your hands, but any kind of indication as to when the court filling could start on Line 9 please? Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Well, the timeline on this is really going to depend on when we can get into the field to do the additional confirmation testing that the NEB is requiring us to do. We've planned that out now. The NEB has approved the confirmation testing plan. So that's underway. After we complete that testing, then from there the NEB will review the results and then they will determine when we can start operations. At that time, we hopefully will be ready to fill the line with crude. And so in general terms, you know it's probably going to be into the fourth quarter before we get full clarity on that, so that's where we are.

Ashok Dutta - Platts, Inc.

Analyst · Platts. Please go ahead

Okay, the second question is the startup of Sandpiper, any kind of indication, when you are going to complete that? Albert Monaco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: The project, Guy can correct me here, is in-service date is into 2017. I think we are assuming sort of mid to fourth quarter 2017; that's assuming that we get through the regulatory process here that I referred to earlier on the call. Guy?

Guy Jarvis - President, Liquids Pipelines

Analyst · Platts. Please go ahead

No, that's correct. I think it's within the back half of 2017 and the current regulatory process and schedule, as we understand it, will support that in-service date.

Ashok Dutta - Platts, Inc.

Analyst · Platts. Please go ahead

Okay, and the last question, Northern Gateway, any kind of updates on that at all?

Guy Jarvis - President, Liquids Pipelines

Analyst · Platts. Please go ahead

You know this particular project has been a long time in making but we are still looking at it as a strong long-term opportunity for producers in Western Canada and for us. The goal right now is to continue to work with the communities, continue to work with First Nations and as well work with our producer customers, so that's we will continue to do. There is as you know a number of conditions that had been put in place through the joint review panel report that we are also working on at the moment, so I guess the bottom line is we continue to work on the project and that's where we are.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And as there are no further questions, I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Adam McKnight for any closing remarks.

Adam McKnight - Director-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Bakiba. We have nothing further to add at this time but I'll remind you that Leigh and I will be available for any follow-up questions that you might have. Thank you for joining us this morning. And have a great day.

Operator

Operator

And thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.