Earnings Labs

ONEOK, Inc. (OKE)

Q3 2008 Earnings Call· Fri, Nov 7, 2008

$90.09

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Third Quarter 2008 ONOEK and ONOEK Partners Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, there will be a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Mr. Dan Harrison. Sir, you may begin your conference.

Dan Harrison - Vice President of Investor Relations and Public Affair

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning and welcome, everyone. As we begin this morning's conference call, I remind you that any statements that might include ONEOK or ONEOK Partners' expectations or predictions should be considered forward-looking statements, which are covered by the safe harbor provision of the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934. It's important to note that actual results could differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. For a discussion of factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to ONEOK'S and ONEOK Partners' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And now, John Gibson who serves as CEO of ONEOK and Chairman and CEO of ONEOK Partners. John?

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Thanks, Dan. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us and for your continued interest and investment in ONEOK and ONEOK Partners. Here with me today are Jim Kneale, President and Chief Operating Officer for ONEOK and ONEOK Partners; and Curtis Dinan, Chief Financial Officer for both ONEOK and ONEOK Partners. And also joining us will be is Terry Spencer and Pierce Norton who will be available to answer questions at the end of the call. During our previous conference calls, we have shared with you are plans and progress for growing both ONEOK and ONEOK Partners. And while execution of these plans has not been without challenges, we have and we will continue to do as we say and continue to meet or exceed our shareholders and our unitholders expectations. So while everyone's mind is on the issues of liquidity, commodity prices and other market uncertainties, it is important we think to provide perspective of how we will approach the future by acknowledging our actions and our successes of the past. So as we begin our call this morning, I'd like to review our more significant and recent accomplishments. Both ONEOK and ONEOK Partners had terrific quarters, ONEOK's net income more than tripling and ONEOK Partners more than doubling. The completion of Overland Pass Pipeline, the largest pipeline construction project in the company's history, is another significant accomplishment. NGL barrels are now being received at our fractionation facilities in the Mid Continent. A congratulations and thanks to all of the employees and contractors who helped us complete this very important project. Construction is also well underway on the other NGL and natural gas pipeline projects, as we wrap up $2 billion of internal growth projects which will provide ONEOK Partners and ONEOK with additional earnings next year. ONEOK…

Curtis L. Dinan - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK, Inc. and Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Thank you, John. Good morning, everyone. Before I review the Partnership's financial results, I'd like to provide a little more detail on ONEOK Partners' liquidity position, which is excellent and more than adequate to meet our currently forecasted capital funding needs well into 2009. Through October the Partnership has invested approximately $950 million in growth capital projects during 2008. Based on our current forecast, we expect to invest an additional $250 million this year, bringing our total investment for the year to $1.2 billion. These investments have been financed with the Partnership's revolving credit agreement, the equity offering completed in March of this year, as well as the distributable cash we have retained during the first three quarters of the year. For the first nine months of 2008, we have generated $527 million in distributable cash and paid $332 million in distributions to our general partner and our unitholders. This excess cash flow of almost $200 million was used to fund capital expenditures, which reduced the amounts borrowed under our revolver. As John mentioned, since the end of the third quarter, we have increased our cash position by drawing down a portion of our $1 billion revolver. At the end of October, the partnership had $400 million of cash and $130 million of remaining capacity on its revolver. This exceeds our remaining planned capital investments in 2008, providing us with financial flexibility as we enter 2009 when we expect our growth capital expenditures to drop significantly to the $350 million to $375 million range from this year's expected $1.2 billion level. As a result, we do not anticipate the need to access the capital markets until the latter part of 2009. However, when market conditions become more favorable, we will be opportunistic as we have done in the past. In…

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Thanks Curtis. Now Jim Kneale, ONEOK Partners President and Chief Operating Officer, will discuss the partnerships operating performance. Jim?

James C. Kneale - President and Chief Operating Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. I'm going to review the performance of the Partnership's four segment and also update you on our growth projects. I'll start with our natural gas segment. The natural gas gathering and processing segment had another great quarter, with operating income increasing 43% over last year. This increase was driven by higher NGL, crude oil and natural gas prices, improved contract terms and increased volumes. Partially offsetting this increase were slightly higher operating costs. We have connected a record number of wells this year. Through September, we have connected about 330 wells to our system, a 25% increase over last year. As you are all aware and Curtis just mentioned, as the fourth quarter has gotten underway, we have seen a decrease in crude oil and natural gas prices and a corresponding drop in NGL prices, and it appears that these lower prices may continue into 2009. However, as Curtis also mentioned, we do have hedges on about two thirds of our NGL and condensate production for the remainder of 2008 and 20% in 2009. There has also been talk by producers about cutting their capital spending. Through October, we haven't seen a change in volumes or the number of rigs running in our areas. However, it is possible that if capital spending reductions are made by producers in the areas where we operate, they could have an impact in 2009. The natural gas pipeline segment's third quarter operating income increased 18% as compared with the same period in 2007. This increase came primarily from the impact that higher natural gas prices had on our retained net fuel position and slightly lower operating costs. Construction continues on our 119 mile Guardian Pipeline expansion into Green Bay, Wisconsin. At the end of October, we had…

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Thank you, Jim. Excuse me. Before I turn the call over to Curtis and Jim to review ONEOK's third quarter operating performance, I'd like to make a few comments about energy services, where we are and where we're headed. We are not satisfied with energy services results and lower earnings guidance. While this business generates attractive returns, we always understood that its earnings and working capital needs have swings to them. Although, these results in our lowered earnings guidance are a reflection of the market conditions, as Jim will explain further, we are working to limit this segment's exposure to those conditions, and the resulting uncertainty regarding its earnings. Let me highlight the changes we are making to reduce those earnings swings and volatility, in order to create more value for our shareholders and for our customers. We will continue to focus on our demand business, which is primarily with local distribution companies, keeping and growing those contracts with customers that create the most value, and letting those contracts that don't expire. We are evaluating our lease storage and transport positions, and will reduce or eliminate capacity that does not align with our core business of marketing natural gas to our customers. We remain committed to improving this business and we remain committed to our customers. As a result of our efforts, this segment will have more predictable and less volatile earnings and reduced working capital requirements, ultimately rewarding our shareholders and customers. These efforts are underway with the benefits of our efforts becoming more apparent next year. We remain focused on providing our customers with the quality service they expect from us, especially during the upcoming heating season. As I reflect on these challenges facing energy services, and in particular the earnings volatility, I see relevant similarities between it and our natural gas gathering and processing segment, earlier this decade. As you know, with that business, we recognized early on the need to reevaluate the business, which in that case, led to restructured contracts and the sale of certain assets, and we did all that. Today, the natural gas gathering and processing segment has significantly reduced its exposure to the natural gas processing spread and is less sensitive to downside market pressures, while being able to capture upside opportunities. This took time and a lot of hard work, but our unitholders, our shareholders and our customers are better for it. We are committed to doing the same with energy services and believe we have the right strategies in place to achieve this goal. Now, let's turn to Curtis Dinan, who will review ONEOK's third quarter financial highlights. Curtis?

Curtis L. Dinan - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK, Inc. and Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Thanks John. ONEOK's net income in the third quarter of 2008 was $58 million, or $0.55 per diluted share, more than tripling net income of $14 million, or $0.13 per diluted share in the third quarter last year. As previously mentioned, the ONEOK Partners segment had exceptional results, leading the way for ONEOK's strong third quarter performance and reinforcing the benefit that ONEOK partners provides to ONEOK in the form of both earnings and cash flow. Following the Partnership's recent distribution announcement, the annualized distribution increased by $0.28 per unit relative to a year ago. This distribution increase results in an additional $12 million of annual cash flow from the limited partner units that ONEOK owns. Also, compared with a year ago, the incentive distributions ONEOK receives as general partner have increased by $29 million annually. We expect a growth of EBITDA anticipated at ONEOK Partners as a result of the current slate of growth projects will provide the Partnership the opportunity to increase future distributions, creating additional earnings and cash flow growth for ONEOK. As Jim will discuss in more detail in a moment, the distribution segment's third quarter operating income was comparable with the same period in 2007. Energy services operating income was lower than expected, primarily as a result of lower storage and transportation margins, lower financial trading results and a net loss of $9.7 million related to a write-down of natural gas inventories to the lower of cost or market. ONEOK's standalone cash flows from operations excluding the effects of working capital exceeded capital expenditures and dividends by $62 million for the nine months in 2008. For the full year of 2008, we anticipate that free cash flows will be in the $160 million to $180 million range, giving us additional investment flexibility. As John mentioned,…

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Thanks, Curtis. Now, Jim Kneale will review ONEOK's operating performance. Jim?

James C. Kneale - President and Chief Operating Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Thanks, John. I've already talked about ONEOK Partners' segment, so let's start with the energy services segment. We experienced an operating loss of $3.5 million during the third quarter of 2008, compared with an operating loss of $700,000 in the same period last year. As we've discussed in the past, the energy services segment typically follows a similar earnings pattern as its largest customers, the LDCs, which experienced higher earnings in the first and fourth quarters during the winter heating season and lower earnings in the second and third quarters. As you know, and we've already mentioned, during the third quarter, there was significant downward movement in natural gas prices. The NYMEX July contract closed at $13.10 per MMBtu and the November contract closed at $6.47, a change of almost $7. We also experienced daily natural gas prices in the Mid-Continent trading well below $2. This significant price reduction and lower projected summer/winter spread resulted in the energy services segment recording a $9.7 million write-down of our natural gas in storage. The movement in natural gas prices did provide some opportunities during the quarter, as we were able to capture optimization margins during these periods of price volatility. As a result, storage and marketing margins improved over last year, even though they were reduced by the inventory write-down. We've also contracted higher demand revenues related to our peaking services with our LDC customers than we had last year. However, as we look to the rest of the year, we've been significantly affected by the unusual pricing environment and weak summer/winter spreads. If you recall, at the end of the second quarter, I indicated that we would have to have summer/winter spreads of $1.50 to $1.80 to meet our earnings guidance. Those spreads have not materialized. As a result, we lowered…

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Thanks Jim. As discussed, we have increased ONEOK Partners' 2008 earnings guidance and reaffirmed and narrowed the guidance range for ONEOK. ONEOK Partners' increased guidance reflects the strong performance of the NGL gathering and fractionation business. ONEOK's guidance reflects the strong performance of the ONEOK Partners segment, which offsets the lower energy service guidance, clearly demonstrating the benefits that ONEOK receives from its general partner and its 47.7% interest in ONEOK Partners through these increased earnings and cash flow. Our success this quarter with ONEOK's net income more than tripling and ONEOK Partners' more than doubling, as well as the completion of Overland Pass and continued progress on the other growth projects, is the result of the contributions and the commitment of our employees as well as hundreds of contractors. Without their hard work and commitment to getting the job done, our performance would not have been possible. And our thanks go to all of them. Operator, we're now ready to take questions. Question and Answer

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. The first question is from Louis Shamie from ZLP.

Louis Shamie - ZLP

Analyst

Hi. Good morning, everybody. Congratulations on a great quarter. I had a quick question regarding the write-down of the gas in storage of $9.7 million. Is that a true economic hit to you guys or is that something that's expected to reverse at some point?

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Curtis, why don't you respond to that one.

Curtis L. Dinan - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK, Inc. and Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Louis, this is Curtis. It is, the $9.7 million does reflect the… it is an economic hit or an economic decrease in earnings.

Louis Shamie - ZLP

Analyst

Okay, great. And then the other question I had was regarding gathering and fractionation, and capturing that spread between Conway and Mont Bellevue. Were you able to I guess, utilize more pipe capacity during this quarter and capture that spread on a higher amount of volumes or was it basically the same amount of volumes that you trade on that business in previous quarters?

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Why don't… Terry, why don't you answer that?

Terry Spencer - Executive Vice President of ONEOK and Executive Vice President, Natural Gas Liquids of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Louis, we did see overall… on our systems, we did see increased volume during the period. But as it relates specifically to this optimization activity, our volume has actually stayed fairly consistent and so, we did not, as it relates to optimization, increase the capacity we utilize on the barrels that we own, that come through that sterling pipeline.

Louis Shamie - ZLP

Analyst

Okay, great. So it's purely just the increase in the spread that helped you guys there.

Terry Spencer - Executive Vice President of ONEOK and Executive Vice President, Natural Gas Liquids of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

That's correct.

Louis Shamie - ZLP

Analyst

Okay, thanks a lot.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

And that spread that we are describing is a geographic spread between two points.

Terry Spencer - Executive Vice President of ONEOK and Executive Vice President, Natural Gas Liquids of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Yes, regional. That's right.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Right.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Rebecca Followill from Tudor, Pickering, Holt.

Rebecca Followill - Tudor, Pickering, Holt

Analyst

Good morning. On your $180 million to $160 million cash flow in '09, does that include anything from return of capital that you would get from gas coming out of storage? I'm assuming it doesn't, but if it doesn't then by reducing your capital obligations on storage and on pipelines and gas prices being lower, should you have a big swing in working capital next year?

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Curtis, why don't you go ahead.

Curtis L. Dinan - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK, Inc. and Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Yes, Rebecca, when we talk about the free cash flow, that $160 million to $180 million number, that's exclusive of changes in our working capital. So, for example, if inventory is increasing or decreasing, it's not a part of that equation. So it's above the line for that. I'm sorry, could you repeat the second part of your question?

Rebecca Followill - Tudor, Pickering, Holt

Analyst

That's what I assumed, but I wanted to make sure that's so. If that's the case, and so next year on a working capital basis, if you're reducing your obligations on storage, you're not putting as much in so you don't have that working capital obligation and prices are lower and you're reducing your transportation obligations, wouldn't you guys see some net return of working capital next year?

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Yeah.

Curtis L. Dinan - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK, Inc. and Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Yes, that is correct.

Rebecca Followill - Tudor, Pickering, Holt

Analyst

Any way to quantify that at this point?

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

If you want to take a stab at --

Curtis L. Dinan - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK, Inc. and Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

How much do you think the prices will be?

Rebecca Followill - Tudor, Pickering, Holt

Analyst

I'm waiting for you to do it.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

We're not price predictors, that's why we have structured the business so that we minimize that impact. But I think the math is correct. And the way the logic that you're thinking through it, we agree with that.

Rebecca Followill - Tudor, Pickering, Holt

Analyst

Okay.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

And that's one of the reasons we're specifically looking at our storage capacity and our transport capacity and energy services.

Rebecca Followill - Tudor, Pickering, Holt

Analyst

Okay, thank you.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Yes. Thank you, Rebecca.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from John Olson from Houston Energy Partners.

John Olson - Houston Energy Partners

Analyst

Gentlemen, good morning. Several questions. One, what is your idea or rough idea if you can come up with one as to what your actual capital spending will be next year? Secondly, including ONEOK Partners and the like, but… secondly, what is your… what are the rating agencies telling you lately?

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Okay. Well the answer to the first question is that we've not come out with our 2009 plan, but we have, when we were in New York, shared with the audience that as it relates to OKS, and I think Curtis might have mentioned this, we're around $350 million to $375 million of anticipated growth capital. Our maintenance capital, I think, runs around $80 million to $90 million per year. So that OKS, and on OKE, I'm not sure that we have announced that. But we know no reason why it would be dissimilar to last year, or the year that we are currently in, okay? And then as far as the rating agencies, I think probably Curtis is the best person to address that.

Curtis L. Dinan - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK, Inc. and Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

John, just last week Moody's reaffirmed the rating for both ONEOK and ONEOK Partners, and earlier this summer S&P had done the same thing. Both of those were following our reviews with each of them earlier this year, as well as several follow-up calls in the interim. And both of those are a stable outlook as well.

John Olson - Houston Energy Partners

Analyst

Thank you very much.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

You're welcome.

Curtis L. Dinan - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK, Inc. and Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Thank you, John.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. The next question is from Dennis Coleman from Bank of America.

Dennis Coleman - Bank of America

Analyst

Yes, thanks, good morning. I wonder, you mentioned that you have added liquidity to get through the spending cycle. You drew done your bank line, so I wanted kind of two things. If you could talk about your thought process in preemptively drawing down the bank lines and the logic there, and then perhaps a little bit on your views of what changes, or how much better the capital markets would need to get before you would consider terming out some of those needs?

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Oh boy. That second one's a doozy. First, probably, on the thought process, Curtis, why don't you take Dennis through that.

Curtis L. Dinan - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK, Inc. and Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Yes. Dennis, it was really just looking at what was happening in the overall credit markets. We were coming in to fairly critical times, both in terms of our highest working capital needs at ONEOK because of, we were finishing or we were at the time finishing our injection season and wanted to make sure that we had the availability to complete that. As you probably, or as I'm sure you know, kind of the end of September, early part of October, we were starting to see the commercial paper markets getting a lot tighter. We've typically accessed the CP markets to fund working capital needs for ONEOK. But once that started we decided to start using the revolvers because of that illiquidity. As well, it was just cheaper to borrow under those facilities directly. As far as the thought process of getting ahead, it was just to make sure that if the overall credit markets continued to worsen from that September, early October timeframe, that it wouldn't have an impact with us, we would have already pre-funded. The working capital that we needed for ONEOK as well has pre-funded the capital we were getting ready to spend at the partnership.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

I think on the latter question, really, you have to look to the first… and the answer to the first. To have a view as to when we think the capital markets will grow stronger to the point where we resume more normal activities, that's a tough one for us to predict. And so, what we will do, since we're not able to predict it, just like we're not able to predict pricing, is remain as flexible as we can, which is evidenced by what we did drawing down our revolvers.

Dennis Coleman - Bank of America

Analyst

Okay. Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Rajul Aggarwal from Marathon Asset Management.

Rajul Aggarwal - Marathon Asset Management

Analyst

Good morning. Sorry, my phone was on mute. Quick question, you're usually, you said that there is short-term debt of about $1 billion in the ONEOK level. Just wanted to see if the credit markets don't improve from here or if they get worse, how do you manage to tackle or how do you plan to tackle that $1 billion short-term debt?

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Rajul, I'm sorry, was your question at ONEOK?

Rajul Aggarwal - Marathon Asset Management

Analyst

Yes, at the ONEOK, the corporate level.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

At the corporate level. Well, the majority of those borrowings are funding our working capital needs. So, as I mentioned, we have about $900 million of gas in storage at energy services and the distribution companies. As we head into the heating season, we begin withdrawing that gas, and obviously start converting it to cash. And so, that's how that will be repaid as we start to come out of the heating season and again, have converted that to cash.

Rajul Aggarwal - Marathon Asset Management

Analyst

Got it. Have you specified, I mean, as to the $900 million of gas, at what price of gas is that $900 million, or is it completely hashed?

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

That's natural gas we have in storage. It's not purchases. A portion of that is with the regulated entities, so that's a pass-through cost. And then a portion of it, the larger portion of it is with energy services.

Rajul Aggarwal - Marathon Asset Management

Analyst

What I meant for is, I mean, in the dollar amount there is an inherent price of gas embedded in there. Could you share with us as to what that embedded price of gas on the energy services side would be?

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

No, we do not provide that information.

Rajul Aggarwal - Marathon Asset Management

Analyst

Got it. A similar question on the Partners side as to the short-term debt and how do you plan to tackle that?

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Well, in these credit markets we plan to continue to carry it as part of the revolver. As I mentioned in my comments, the cash that we have on hand as well as the capacity that we still have on the revolver, we'll use both of those to carry us through our capital spending program for the balance of 2008 and until the latter part of 2009. The partnership's a little bit different from ONEOK in the sense that it does not have the peak working capital cycles. So really, its revolver is used primarily to support that growth capital program. And so as we continue to build those projects and incur those costs, it'll continue to fund that, again, until the latter part of 2009.

Rajul Aggarwal - Marathon Asset Management

Analyst

Okay. Just one last quick one. If need be, could you give us an estimate as to how much gas ONEOK could provide to ONEOK Partners, just to manage the short-term liquidity needs?

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

I mean, I think again, maybe perhaps you could look at the past, see the appetite that ONEOK has had in buying OKS units, which I would say is the most logical way in which there would be a cash infusion, would be in purchase of equity. And I think you can look at the historical and get some sense as to a pro rata share. And I think we mentioned that in the last equity offering in March, that ONEOK purchased three quarters of the amount that was issued.

Rajul Aggarwal - Marathon Asset Management

Analyst

Okay. So what you're saying is there's no reason to believe that the historical plan will be changed either for more or for less?

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Well ONEOK Inc. will always look at its alternatives of where it's going to invest its cash, its dollars. And one of the more attractive investments has been buying ONEOK Partners' units, but that due diligence in thought process will continue. My comment is that, speaking from ONEOK perspective is that, that investment continues to be a very attractive investment. It doesn't mean it won't change over time.

Rajul Aggarwal - Marathon Asset Management

Analyst

Understood. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Yves Siegel from Aroya Capital [ph].

Yves Siegel - Aroya Capital

Analyst

Thanks and good morning.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Good morning.

Yves Siegel - Aroya Capital

Analyst

Could you just define what the transportation charge is between Conway and Mont Belvieu. I guess what I'm trying to figure out is at what point in time does that arbitrage sort of go away?

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

We've never shared that information. But I will let Terry Spencer attempt to describe as close as he can how that arrangement works.

Terry Spencer - Executive Vice President of ONEOK and Executive Vice President, Natural Gas Liquids of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Well, we really don't transport under transportation arrangements, barrels, through those pipelines. We hold, gathering and frac holds that capacity and enters into exchange arrangements with its customers, and then it redelivers those purity products out of the field and then into the market areas. So we really don't have classic transportation arrangements.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

See, and that's how we provide a service to a producer, by taking their barrel in the Mid-Continent and redelivering, say taking a raw barrel in the Mid-Continent, and redelivering a finished product in different markets. And we do that by bundling all these services together.

Yves Siegel - Aroya Capital

Analyst

Okay. Obviously I didn't do that well on the tutorial that you guys gave.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

But Yves, I mean, if you just look at the ethane differential between Conway and Belvieu, I think it was like $0.24, $0.25 on average. In 2007 it was a nickel. And you can look at the profitability of that segment when it was a nickel versus the profitability of the segment when it was $0.24, and you can see that even at a nickel, it's still profitable.

Yves Siegel - Aroya Capital

Analyst

Okay.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

So you could draw some conclusions if… but that's not a completely inaccurate analysis or conclusion.

Yves Siegel - Aroya Capital

Analyst

Okay. I appreciate it. And two more quick ones. Jim, in his comments, mentioned that he didn't see any shut-ins or diminishment in volumes from producers as of yet. What areas would you be most concerned with? Or I guess the other way to think about it is, what are the high cost areas that would probably go down first?

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

We actually like our position in all of our areas. We think that the lifting cost from a natural gas perspective and a crude perspective is very attractive in all of our areas. One thing I might point out, is that if you look back over the last five years, we have experienced different levels of pricing on crude and natural gas, and we've been able to keep our volumes in a very close tolerance, to within plus or minus 2% so we don't see that materially changing for that.

Terry Spencer - Executive Vice President of ONEOK and Executive Vice President, Natural Gas Liquids of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Okay.. So you might repeat what basins or regions we're in.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Okay. The basins that we're in, we're in the Williston Basin, we're in the Wind River Basin, the Powder River Basin, the Anadarko Basin and the Central Kansas Uplift, which is around the Wichita Kansas Basin.

Terry Spencer - Executive Vice President of ONEOK and Executive Vice President, Natural Gas Liquids of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

So that diversity is providing that benefit that you're referring to.

Yves Siegel - Aroya Capital

Analyst

Are you concerned at all about the Rockies.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Well, our exposure to the Rockies, Yves, is from a natural gas perspective and the I'll kind of throw that over to Terry, but is in the Williston Basin, and we're not seeing an impact up there, and the Powder River also. So, no I'm not, the answer is no.

Yves Siegel - Aroya Capital

Analyst

Yes, but, I guess, I was thinking about the liquids?

Terry Spencer - Executive Vice President of ONEOK and Executive Vice President, Natural Gas Liquids of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Yes, Yves this is Terry. In the Rockies, we really like our position there primarily because of the quite frankly, the low natural gas values, the low fuel and shrink values for our processors. So I really don't have a great concern about that region as it relates to ethane extraction or producing NGLs for that matter.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

So said it another way, your lower cost of fuel and shrink in the Rockies, because of the lower net back on pricing is an advantage to a processor as they produce a barrel that has ethane, propane, butanes in it.

Terry Spencer - Executive Vice President of ONEOK and Executive Vice President, Natural Gas Liquids of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

That's correct. I think the areas that you have to be more concerned about are in the Texas Gulf Coast, Louisiana, where fuel and shrink values are very high, relative to the other regions. So those are areas where processors are going to be challenged and we really don't have facilities operating in those areas, other than of course, our fractionation facilities at Mont Belvieu.

Yves Siegel - Aroya Capital

Analyst

And then the last question is, given the pain that some guys are feeling, how would you describe the consolidation opportunities for you right now.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Much greater today than they were a year or two ago, actually. Just in the last month, we have had more inquiries and conversations with the people about opportunities to acquire assets or groups of assets, and there's even some perhaps opportunities to buy entire businesses. So as we've said before, we'll be financially disciplined, but it does appear that opportunities are presenting themselves.

Yves Siegel - Aroya Capital

Analyst

To say it another way, you have an appetite.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

And we have an appetite.

Yves Siegel - Aroya Capital

Analyst

Okay. Great, thanks a lot guys.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Yes sir.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. The next question is from Gracie Juan [ph] from JPMorgan.

Gracie Juan - JPMorgan

Analyst

Hi, good morning gentlemen.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Good morning Gracie.

Gracie Juan - JPMorgan

Analyst

I was just wondering if you could help us by walking through your hedging program, quite possibly in '09, in your amount because I'm just trying to figure out how do you guys balance risk mitigation versus higher pricing.

John W. Gibson - Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK, Inc. and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

First thing I would point you to Gracie, is that the segment of the partnership that is subject to exposure to commodity price change, is our Gathering and Processing segment. And we provide in our press release specific sensitivities as it relates to crude and gas and to condensate, or crude oil. So we've provided that information, that sensitivity and our hedging program are focused on our Gathering and Processing segment in OKS. And I would ask Pierce Norton to run us through where we… what our larger gas and how employ that.

Pierce Norton - Executive Vice President ONEOK and Executive Vice President, Natural Gas of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Okay. Gracie, this is Pierce. What we do is we take a look at all the different products all the way from methane down to gasoline and condensate, and when you look at in the future at various times those… each of those products have different backwardations. So on the light ends one of the things that we look at is your crude to gas ratio that John just mentioned, we also look at how that relates to natural gas. And so, what we saw this past year is as we looked out, we often saw that the models told us that we would actually be an ethane rejection if we were to lock in some ethane process at the time. So the other thing is that we will end with various levels of products. So right now we have a waiting as you can tell from our current model, that's more weighted towards the heavier products and that's what driving up those prices there. So that's basically it. And we have a group that actually looks at this on a daily basis and we use a layered in approach.

Gracie Juan - JPMorgan

Analyst

Okay, thanks. And my second question is, how do you see the ramp in potential producer CapEx cutting would be affecting new contract roll-offs or for example contracts in terms of the legacy systems, for example has there been more leverage on the supplier side in terms of negotiations?

Pierce Norton - Executive Vice President ONEOK and Executive Vice President, Natural Gas of ONEOK Partners, L.P.

Analyst

Gracie, this is Pierce again. I will take that question. As far as capital goes toward funding the drill bit, it tends to be more towards those companies that fund their drilling out of their cash flows and we have a wide range of producers in our portfolio and that does not seem to be a problem with us. They tend to set their budgets and tend to stick to them, so we are not as concerned about that, that doesn't say that they couldn't have some decreases in their drilling budgets. But as Jim has mentioned in his comments, we have not seen that through October and a follow-up to the comment I made a while ago, we have experienced different pricing levels and we have been able to keep our volumes in a very close tolerance over the last five years.

Gracie Juan - JPMorgan

Analyst

Okay. That's it. Thank you.

Dan Harrison - Vice President of Investor Relations and Public Affair

Analyst

Okay. Well, thank you all. This concludes the ONEOK and ONEOK Partners call. As a reminder, our quite period for the fourth quarter will start when we close our books in early January 2009, and will extend until earnings are released. We'll provide a reporting date and conference call information for the fourth quarter at a later date. Christy Williamson and I will available throughout the day for follow-up questions. Thank you for joining us, and have a good day.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect. .