Maryann Mannen
Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is open
Yes, Neil, certainly. Let me try to answer those questions for you. So first and foremost, when we think about this NGL wellhead-to-water strategy, you're right, we do expect mid-teens returns. You may know that, over the last several quarters, we have been talking about the opportunity set, but frankly, we've been looking at this project for a period of time. So, underlying assumptions with respect to overall capital that we need to spend, timing of that, markets that we will serve, costs to get implemented, are all things that we have considered and evaluated to be sure that when we look at this project, that we're confident in these mid-single-digit returns. I think the next project, sorry, question that you asked was really about capital and whether or not the capital that we would be spending in MPLX has implications for MPC. So the answer to that is no. As you know, MPLX has really solid balance sheet flexibility. One, when you look at the debt-to-debt ratio, we've talked about our ability to be kind of in the range plus or minus four times. We're somewhere in a range of three, so we absolutely have balance sheet flexibility there. Really, all of that $2.5 billion multi-year capital in MPLX is largely MPLX. There's a $70 million piece that is MPC. And then the last part of that is, as we continue to grow that MPLX distribution, you've heard me talk about the 12.5% increase. That's a $2.5 billion distribution to MPC. It covers the 2025 MPC dividend and the 2025 capital that we just announced of 1.25, therefore giving MPC the flexibility to return capital via share buyback. So balance sheet flexibility in MPLX will support the growth of those MPLX projects. Hope that gets you.