Mike Hennigan
Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open
So it's a great question. So obviously, our distribution philosophy is a Board decision. And it's something that we debated very heavily this time because a lot of our competitors have taken advantage, if you want to call it that, to lower that distribution. We, as a Board, talked about it and we felt the right thing for us to do was to keep the distribution but hold off on the growth and leave it in a flat mode. So that's what we decided to do this time. Very much like Christine's question, this is going to be a really interesting year to see how it plays itself out. We don't have a crystal ball, nor does anybody else to know how the pandemic will play itself out, whether there'll be an extended time here. Obviously, the most important thing is, the health and safety of everybody who is involved in this. And as a result, the economy is having a reaction to that. So, it's kind of like the question that was asked earlier, we don't have a strong conviction around that 2021 capital number right at this point, just because we think there's possibilities for it to change, depending on how this plays itself out. So -- but as a general rule, as we looked at the business, assuming full payout of distribution, and assuming getting our capital to the level that we want it to be, that's why we stated we thought that would be achieved in 2021. As you heard from Shneur’s comments, depending on how this plays itself out, and what recovery you have and how the gas production occurs, we could be close to it in 2020. We'll see. So all those dynamics come into play. I'll just leave you with, our view has been that it’s a goal to get there. There's a couple levers that can be pulled. And right now, our position has been we wanted to get our capital down to a level that we think develops, very strong return projects. So hydrating the capital portfolio has been our focus and having a distribution remain flat to where it was before we thought was the right answer for now.