Earnings Labs

Targa Resources Corp. (TRGP)

Q1 2015 Earnings Call· Tue, May 5, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Targa Resources’ First Quarter 2015 Earnings Webcast and Presentation. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will be given at that time. [Operator instructions] I would now like to introduce the host for todays’ conference call Miss Jennifer Kneale. You may begin Ma’am.

Jennifer Kneale

Analyst

Thank you, Kevin. I'd like to welcome everyone to our first quarter 2015 investor call for both Targa Resources Corp. and Targa Resources Partners LP. Before we get started, I would like to mention that Targa Resources Corp., TRC, or the Company and Targa Resources Partners LP, Targa Resources Partners or the Partnership, have published their joint earnings release, which is available on our website www.targaresources.com. We will also be posting an updated investor presentation to the website later today. I would like to remind you that any statements made during this call that might include the Company’s or the Partnership’s expectations or predictions should be considered forward-looking statements and are covered by the Safe Harbor provision of the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934. Please note that actual results could differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements. For a discussion of factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to our SEC filings, including the Partnership’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2014 and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Speaking on the call today will be Joe Bob Perkins, Chief Executive Officer; and Matt Meloy, Chief Financial Officer. Joe Bob will start off with a high level review of performance and highlights. He will then it over to Matt to review the partnerships consolidated financial results, segments results and other financial matters. Matt will also review key financial matters related to Targa Resources Corp. Following Matt’s comments Joe Bob will provide some concluding remarks and then we will take your questions. There are also several other members of the management team available who may assist in the Q&A session. With that, I will turn the call over to Joe Bob Perkins.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · UBS

Thanks, Jen. Good morning to everyone. Before we turn to Targa’s first quarter results, I’d like to remind Jen that we closed the acquisition of Atlas Pipeline Partners, L.P and Atlas Energy L.P. on February 27. Atlas Pipeline Partners is now Targa Pipeline Partners or TPL. And we are still training ourselves to use the appropriate name and acronym internally and externally. Given the end of February effective close, our first quarter reported financials include one month of contributions from TPL, but we will also provide on this call some pro forma full quarter data points. In many ways pro forma full quarter adjusted EBITDA, full quarter adjusted distributable cash flow and full quarter coverage or more representatives for the combined entity. Under the terms of the merger agreement, net cash from operations did not leave the Targa Pipeline Partner System prior to closing except for things like first quarter distributions and onetime merger related expenses. And therefore, what we are calling pro forma full quarter adjusted EBITDA DCF [ph] and coverage or more representative of the combined business performance. We will carefully label such pro forma numbers when we refer to them this morning. So let’s dive into results and highlights. Our reported first quarter adjusted EBITDA was $258 million as compared to $234 million for the first quarter of last year. The Logistics asset segment produced quarterly reported operating margin of $125 million up 30% compared to last year, primarily driven by partial recognition of the renegotiated commercial arrangements related to our condensate splitter project with Noble, which we have discussed before plus higher LPG exports as we benefitted from a full quarter contribution from the fully completed second phase of our LPG export facility. In the Field Gathering and Processing segment reported operating margin was $79 million,…

Matt Meloy

Analyst · UBS

Thanks, Joe Bob. I'd like to add my welcome and thank you for joining our call today. As mentioned, reported adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $258 million compared to $234 million for the same period last year. The increase was driven by the addition of TPL, higher gathering and processing volumes, partial recognition of our renegotiated commercial arrangements related to our condensate splitter project with Noble and higher LPG exports, offset by significantly lower commodity prices. Overall, reported operating margin increased 9% for the first quarter compared to the first quarter last year. I will review the drivers of this performance in the segment reviews. Reported net maintenance capital expenditures were $20 million in the first quarter of 2015 compared to $14 million in the first quarter of 2014. Included in the revised outlook for 2015 provided in April was an expectation for $110 million of reported net maintenance CapEx in 2015 which includes 10 months of maintenance CapEX related to the TPL systems. Turning to the segment level, I’ll summarize the first quarter's performance on a year-over-year basis, starting with the Logistics and Marketing division, first quarter reported operating margin increased 19% compared to the first quarter of 2014 driven by partial recognition of our renegotiated commercial contract arrangements related to our condensate splitter project at Noble and higher LPG and fractionation activity. For the quarter we loaded an average of 5.8 million barrels per month of LPG exports compared to 3.5 million barrels per month during the first quarter of 2014. Fractionation volumes increased by 9% in the first quarter of 2015 versus the same time period last year. Turning to the Gathering and Processing division, reported operating margin decreased by 28% compared to last year primarily due to significantly lower commodity prices, partially offset by one…

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · UBS

Thank you, Matt. Thank you to my team and for a few listeners sending me an email correcting a speaking error. I really apologize. But before I go on to some more color I want to correct that. As I repeated our volume guidance from a few weeks ago, I should have said that we believe that Field Gathering and Processing Operations will likely have flat to single digit 2015 average volume growth compared to fourth quarter 2014. Currently an inability to read I said first quarter 2014; it did not change our guidance. But that’s actually kind of a nice opportunity incase you got distracted by my inability to read, to repeat that we are also the same, just sharing the facts with you that you can see now Q1, 2015 versus Q1 2014 volumes were up across Field Gathering and Processing. There were a few business units in Gathering and Processing that were a little down due to the kind of normal seasonal cold weather and freeze also that affected them. But I also will add that current volumes today over the last week that those current volumes which aren’t published anywhere are up in total in the Field Gathering and Processing versus what we just published for Q1. That’s true for essentially all of our systems across the combined companies and it is true for all of our Texas and Permian Basin business units, and that’s when I said that’s good news. The volume in those business units has exceeded our first review expectations and that’s supportive of our strong beliefs about 2015 and the multiple scenarios we’ve earned. Now with a little bit more color and then I’ll wrap it up for your Q&A, please feel free to email any other questions you have about my…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Schneur Gershuni from UBS.

Schneur Gershuni

Analyst · UBS

Hi. Good morning, guys.

Matt Meloy

Analyst · UBS

Hey, good morning.

Schneur Gershuni

Analyst · UBS

I guess my first question and maybe you touched on this in your prepared remarks. But given that you have had the assets now for about two months with respect to Atlas and so forth, and it sounds like so far the flavor has been positive rather than negative, but is there any way to sort of give us some color in terms of incremental opportunities that you were talking about, beyond what you were thinking about when the assets were put together? You had mentioned high-return, low-multiple type projects. Can you give us a little bit of a sense of where those returns would shake out and so forth in how they relate? Just a little bit more color would be great?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · UBS

I understand the question Schneur. Targa standalone frequently had high return projects that didn’t hit the radar scope of our investors or kind of the large board approved projects. When we put these together we have even more of those. The Atlas standalone list was the same. And the combined list comes with things that we want on either one of the individual list. Even in this price environment and maybe even more so in this price because we don’t have to run as hard for some of those big project, we get engineers and commercial people, operations people looking for those opportunities. And we can certainly fund high return opportunities, whereas outlays by itself may have add a little bit more cash constraints. Our people like going after those opportunities and that collaborative effort across the teams just keeps turning them up. I expect that will be – will continue to be exceeding our expectations and I know you would like more numbers around that but you ask for more color around it.

Schneur Gershuni

Analyst · UBS

Okay. As a follow-up question, lot of your peers talked about it during their fourth quarter calls, about pulling off the playbook from the last time we had commodity collapse and efforts that they were taking to reduce cost and so forth and recognize that you’re in the process of going through the merger and so forth. Can we sort of expect this playbook out of Targa and especially with opportunities as you look at rationalizing both sets of businesses?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · UBS

I’m quite sure that other companies use the term playbook as well. We use the term playbook in an employee presentation in December of last year that became public as it happened to have the word Atlas in it, and I think we talked about it in our year-end call. We absolutely are using that playbook and coming up with other ways of attacking it. And I think because of the experience and urgency of the situation post-Thanksgiving given at last year I’m very proud of our employees. If you look at our financial results just the published you can see traction on the cost reduction scenario. It doesn’t show up everywhere but what I know is we’re making real and significant progress on operating expense reduction, G&A reduction, maintenance cap door reduction all with out reducing safety or reducing our ability to meet environmental regulations and additionally we tell people to think about the small dollars to spend to retain the options to grow, but we’re still getting that cost and cash savings. So, I’m proud of the efforts I’m not comparing myself to others, but internally continue to keep – we intent to keep working on that through 2015 and 2016.

Schneur Gershuni

Analyst · UBS

Great, one last final question, you distribution growth rate for NGLS is fairly wide. You had a pro forma coverage ratio at 1.2 times. Is it fair to assume that if you hold this ratio throughout the balance of the year that we can see the growth rate towards the top end of that range?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · UBS

A range that we thought was a likely range. I feel pretty good about it.

Matt Meloy

Analyst · UBS

Yes. We made our best estimate kind of given current conditions, prices, volumes that we’re seeing. We thought we would be at about 1.0 times distribution coverage. And so with that 1.0 distribution coverage we thought we would at 4% to 7%. So, it is maybe a bit of a wide range but finding kind of clarity on where things are going to shake out with balance of the year we wanted to give ourselves some cushion.

Schneur Gershuni

Analyst · UBS

Great. Thank you very much guys.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Brian Lasky with Morgan Stanley.

Brian Lasky

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Hi. Good morning, everyone.

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Hi, Brian.

Brian Lasky

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Just to start out, have you guys disclosed what the benefit of the commercial arrangement renegotiation was within your logistics segment for the quarter?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

No.

Brian Lasky

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Is that a number we can get or no? Just order of magnitude?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

The way I would like to put it is, we’ve got a very important commercial arrangement with Noble.

Brian Lasky

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Okay.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

We got a close relationship with them. We probably could assume that we’ve got some confidentiality arrangements with them. Sometimes in confidentiality arrangements what you say publicly is driven by what you’re required to say working with accounts and auditors we’ve published what we believe is appropriate for disclosure.

Brian Lasky

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Fair enough. In terms of -- I just if you could just kind of talk about the change in your tax rate at the TRC level within your most recent guidance and how that could potentially change, maybe just kind of walk through kind of the major moving parts there?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Yes. There are really two large buckets, one of them is the additional benefit from the depreciation we’ll get approximately $1.6 billion amortization of let’s call it goodwill over 15 year straight line in conjunction with closing the Atlas ATLS acquisition. So that’s one piece. The other piece is the amount of taxable income that slows up from NGLS up to TRC through its ownership in the LP units and with the EBITDA on taxable being lower than previous expectations when we put the merger estimates out there for EBITDA and income and the like taxable income is down from there as well. So it’s really those two buckets that brought our tax rate down. It was close to about 2% and Q1 we’ll expect that to kind of increase over the year and we’re currently expecting give or take 5% to 10%, although probably more – probably closer to the low side of that range.

Brian Lasky

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Got it. Got it. So relative to your previous guidance that you provided post the merger, the second bucket there is the biggest delta. So if your taxable income goes up here, you’d expect to kind of migrate back toward the previous level there?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Yes. And its also IDR growth and distribution growth at the partnership, so whereas the previous estimates were 11% to 13%, now 4% to 7% distribution growth, lower associated IDR associated with that you get no depreciation, that’s all taxable income at the IDRs. So with the lower distribution profile that also brought the tax rate down.

Brian Lasky

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Got it; makes sense. And then in terms of your volumes, you guys mentioned in your deck the volumes could be down in 2016 relative to 2015. I was just wondering what assumptions were baked in there. Maybe if you guys can just break it up by region how you are thinking of volume trajectories from the balance of the year, particularly in the Bakken which was obviously up pretty strong in the first quarter here?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Yes. I would say it reflected our current discussion we’ve had with our producers across the multiple basis. So we haven’t -- producer the discussion down the Permian and Mid-Continent, South Texas, North Dakota, across all of our systems and that factored in our best estimates given those producer discussions that we had. And it pointed to potentially lower 2016 volume versus 2015.

Brian Lasky

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

And then, just one final one from me, in terms of you guys mentioned about different factors for your – for why your export volumes came in where they did, how much of do you think was driven by the environment versus kind of ship availability and pricing and the other factor that you mentioned there?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

When we describe the environment, okay and market dynamics, it’s including that full combination, global prices, ship availability, ship availability and supply/demand impact the freight costs, so it’s intertwined and I don’t think I can break it apart for you.

Brian Lasky

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Okay. And then just in terms of frac volumes, is there anything specific this quarter that occur?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

No, nothing specific, the frac volumes across CBF are impacted by volumes out in the field which we saw the weather, cold weather can impact volume. It hit our fields a little bit too and it will hit the associated NGL production.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

We have – our own maintenance work like everyone else, but I won’t say there was anything out of the norm at all particularly for our Q1.

Brian Lasky

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Perfect. I will jump back in queue. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Brad Olsen with Tudor, Pickering.

Brad Olsen

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering

Good morning, gentlemen.

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering

Hey, good morning.

Brad Olsen

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering

Just a relatively big-picture question here. As we see liquids inventories start to move up or beyond uncharted territories and we had the release on Force Majeure at Hattiesburg, can you just outline what this year and maybe the next hold as far as NGL supply/demand and the process of maybe taking a little breather here on production growth versus export terminal capacity builds?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering

Actually I'm going to the question again, maybe I just didn’t hear the last part of it correctly.

Brad Olsen

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering

I’m just looking for a near term supply demand outlook on liquids as we move through this year, volume growth versus export terminal capacity growth?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering

The export terminal capacity across the U.S. has expanded. There are now three LPG export facilities in the Gulf Coast and those are connected to the market hub. Our crystal ball on supply for LPG across the U.S. and supplies for LPG’s to U.S Gulf Coast comes with the pretty wide range and we’re trying to work multiple scenarios for it. Broadly I think your question somewhat provided the directional answer and that is decreasing number of wells being drilled and either slower growth or slightly reduced production depending on where you are looking specially as lowered overall supply, but the export terminal still are higher necessary for balancing supply to U.S. demand and then to global demand. You use the term I think of something like a cooling down of U.S. driven supply that helps with the inventory problem you were talking about and it slows the need for additional export facilities but probably says that the export facilities are still necessary to balance supply and demand that’s what exports from the U.S. has always done and I probably don’t have anything more specific in that podium.

Brad Olsen

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering

Fair enough. Appreciate the color, though. And then second question going down at the micro level, Buffalo expansion, presumably tied to Pioneer's plans for the back half of this year. Can you just – so you pushed that project, the incremental capacity, out into 2016? Is Pioneer or just kind of how does that sync up with the potential for Pioneer to add another 12 rigs in the back half of this year? Does that timeline change? Or is that anticipating that ramp back up in activity?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering

Our official timeline of sometime in 2016 is unchanged. We have some options for capacity out there, not only the Buffalo plant but there is also 45 million embedded plant out in that area. And then potential they connect to the legacy Targa SAOU systems for capacity as well. So we’ll be working through all of those scenarios and trying to come up with we’re not only meeting pioneers needs but the other producers in the area.

Brad Olsen

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering

Again thank for the color. Helpful. Thanks guys.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Sunil Sibal with Global Hunter Securities.

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities

Hey, Sunil.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities

Hi. Good morning, guys. Congrats on the good solid quarter. Couple of questions from me, changing the track little bit. I was kind of curious with regard to you ethane export project, do you think this slowing down of discussions, is it primarily driven by Brent price or the other factors like slow demand in Asia and all that, which is contributing to that?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities

I think its multiple factors and uncertainties slowed it down. Some of those are related. But I still believes it’s a question of if, not when and it’s certainly will be driven by customers.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities

Sure. Any guess you would like to take in terms of where you need to see Brent prices to be for discussion to become really active again?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities

No. I think it’s more complicated than just Brent pricing.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities

Okay. Fair enough. And then just one clarification with regard to where your current volumes are tracking in the field G&P, so seems like you had some weather disruptions in the Q1 which impacted those volumes and that’s of course been resolved ex those disruption would you say you’re still tracking higher or even with the Q1 volume?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities

We believe that we’re up on almost every business unit, kind of no matter how you parse it.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities

Right. And we’re up over – current volumes are up over Q1. They are also up over Q4 as well.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities

Okay. That’s helpful. And then lastly on the Badlands side on the crude gathering volumes, any specific trends you’re seeing currently with all activity level going on?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities

We’re foreseeing some reduced activity and completions in that area. You saw sequentially the volumes down a bit, up in that region, part of it is due to the cold weather and just being the winter there is less activity in the first quarter. So far currently we’re seeing volumes not continuing that decline. So far we kind of add or above where we were in the first quarter. We’ll see if that hold, but that’s what we really seen here over the last few lines.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities

And we continue to have opportunities for backlog volumes can quality, I’m not going to quantify them for you, but we are working hard on projects to help with that on the gas side and the crude side.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities

All right. That’s very helpful and that’s all I had.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from J.R. Weston with Raymond James.

J.R. Weston

Analyst · Raymond James

Hi. Good morning, guys.

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Raymond James

Hi. Good morning.

J.R. Weston

Analyst · Raymond James

Just thinking about the Field G&P segments, what do you think are maybe the geographic segments that you are most concerned about, just on the unit volume side. And then may asking another way with all your discussions you been having with producers what are some of the areas that maybe that taking a little bit higher on the cost curve would be maybe for Western or Southern Oklahoma segments or somewhere else?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Raymond James

My biggest concern just kind of the way you described it continues to be North Dakota because it’s hard to see where pricing shakes out and what that means for longer term activity in the Bakken. I think its got greater challenges because of the differentials to WTI as well as where WTI might shake up, but it also had some compensating opportunities. More cost reduction available to help producer activity levels. But we aren’t a whole lot smarter than the past few months when we talked about this. We’re trying to work through multiple uncertainties, understanding and getting a better understanding why Basin or how producers are likely to drive their activity levels relative to different price scenarios. But the price scenarios are still uncertain.

J.R. Weston

Analyst · Raymond James

Okay, sure. Thank you. Then maybe switching gears a little bit to the downstream segments, are you guys seeing anything at all in terms of more opportunities with butane? Just with the overall move in crude and purity product pricing the last six to nine months, maybe exporting a little bit more butane as a portion of overall LPG exports, or maybe moving a little bit further downstream and getting into some products like maybe high-purity isobutylene or something like that, where you can kind of arbitrage maybe the, I guess, pricing there between normal butane and isobutylene. Or then also capture the fee for loading either one onto the vessels through your docks?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Raymond James

I don’t have specific projects to describe like that. I would go back to your comment on butane. We have opportunities to export butane, have some long-term options with our shippers to do so. We continue to export butane every quarter. These changes one month to the next about where is the best arbitrage will drive. Our shippers request to use those options and we’re prepared to provide that service propanes, butanes and we sometime look it other projects.

J.R. Weston

Analyst · Raymond James

Okay, great. Thank you. That's all I had.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from TJ Schultz with RBC Capital.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · RBC Capital

Hi, TJ

Matt Meloy

Analyst · RBC Capital

Hi, TJ

TJ Schultz

Analyst · RBC Capital

Hi. Good morning. Maybe Matt, can you just explain on the distribution coverage outlook, against the interim one time this year? As volumes are trending higher and I guess the simple read-through is that you may trend higher or to the higher end of your revised distribution growth range, can you get there -- to the higher end of that range and have some excess coverage? Or what is your view on coverage? You've said before you would have comfort with a one times coverage for a period of time if you have a view that prices are going to improve. So are you still comfortable there? Or has that view on commodity prices changed at all into 2016?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · RBC Capital

You know, TJ, I think I’d just say, we baked in to that assumption kind of flat to low single-digit volume growth. Where we stand today maybe things are looking up bit better but its still early in the year, I think we’re still comfortable that at a 4% to 7% distribution growth range we’ve covered almost all the likely outcomes for our distribution growth for the year and under a range of those scenarios we get to around one, if we’re on the high side of that I think we’re still around one, maybe a little higher. If we’re in the low side of some of those estimates maybe we’re at one or maybe a little below, but we didn’t put a range on distribution coverage for those it takes a fair amount of op margin change to move that needle from around one.

TJ Schultz

Analyst · RBC Capital

Okay. Maybe just clarify for me the comments on volume. I guess the press release two weeks ago read a little bit more conservatively on volumes than what I think I am hearing today, that it seems like things are exceeding your expectations. So, I guess if you could just clarify that for me?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · RBC Capital

And TJ I think the point we wanted to draw was in several of our systems Q1 was sequentially lower than Q4, so we didn’t want to just give you that information and not provide you an update. We aren’t seeing that continued decline we saw in Q1. The Q1 decline we saw in some of our field volumes was due to seasonal weather effects, so we’re bit higher than that, that doesn’t mean we’re bullish and where volumes are going to be for now for the rest of the year. We just wanted to share that data point that you necessary just draw straight line as things have peaks and rolled over. But it’s still early and we’ll have to see where volumes shake out.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · RBC Capital

And just in case anyone is parsing the text or parsing the answers to the questions TJ, we haven’t changed our outlook from the time we gave guidance with the last distribution declaration. We did provide some additional information and consistent with when we gave distribution declaration additional outlook/guidance, we had seen volumes behave better than our first of your expectations, that was into that guidance of multiple scenarios and what we should provide as a likely occurrence for distribution and dividends, does that help a little.

TJ Schultz

Analyst · RBC Capital

Yes. No, that does; I appreciate the clarification. Just one last thing I think to follow-up. I guess like some constraints for export on ship availability. Is that something that continues as a headwind, or how much of a constraint other ships? Supply/demand are impacting ship availability for our customers and other international buyers. With the current fleet, I mean, we know of some of the fleet being moved to longer hauls. If you take a portion of the fleet and it’s taking longer hauls, you certainly have less capacity like, because the turnaround takes longer. All other ships coming on that will relieve the constraint on ship probably lower vessel freight cost over time. It is a market dynamic than we try to use that term challenging market dynamics, some of which will get better for customers and other international buyers every time.

TJ Schultz

Analyst · RBC Capital

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from John Edwards of Credit Suisse.

John Edwards

Analyst · Credit Suisse

Yes, good morning, everybody.

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Credit Suisse

Hi. Good morning, John.

John Edwards

Analyst · Credit Suisse

If I could ask about just on your distribution guidance, just parse that a little bit. So you are basically saying 4% to 7% given a range of commodity price scenarios and volume scenarios that you are considering. And so, I don't think, unless I missed it, I don't think you've given us any guidance beyond that. But I am just thinking, I mean, if you were looking at, say, you are at the upper end of your range, would you hold back a little bit so you could, say, smooth it out going forward? Or how are you thinking now about sort of the three-year outlook, if you will?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Credit Suisse

Fighting over who would answer the question.

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Credit Suisse

Back and forth on who's going to answer the question? Of course we look – first thing, we’re not provide 2016 or beyond guidance. But I would say with each quarterly distribution, recommendation we make we look out multiple years and we’re trying to move a distribution growth rate and dividend growth rate appropriately smooth. So, we’re looking out one, two, three, four even five years under multiple scenarios, growth scenarios, sensitivity scenarios, so of course we look at those years, but I’m going to – we’re not going to provide any early indication in the 2016.

John Edwards

Analyst · Credit Suisse

That’s helpful. And that’s it from me. Thank you.

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Credit Suisse

Okay. Thanks John.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Michael Blum with Wells Fargo.

Michael Blum

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Good morning guys.

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Hey, good morning.

Michael Blum

Analyst · Wells Fargo

A couple of quick questions. One, maybe just one more question on the coverage. Can you – so now you have Atlas inside the family, so to speak, I understand what's going on in 2015. But in terms of your long-term target for coverage, where would you say that is now?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Yes. I’d say that remains unchanged in the 1.1 to 1.2 times target distribution coverage.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Mike, I think there one could make an argument that the increase scale and diversity might be worthy of a lower target than that, but we haven’t change that target and weather sounds a whole lot like a phrase use with the rating agencies right after the announcement and then the next one the sort of agreement about that but we haven’t changed it and we’re probably not that smart.

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Wells Fargo

And we think it’s still appropriate. It makes sense.

Michael Blum

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Okay. And the thought for this year, having a one times coverage is that we're in a low commodity price environment?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Yes.

Michael Blum

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Okay. Another question, just a comment you made in talking about the LPG export business, you talked about anticipating for this year lower fee margins. And I just want to know, does that mean you’re seeing lower spot margins? Or is that that you – as you are signing up short-term contracts they're at lower rates? Just trying to?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Wells Fargo

I had understand the question. We try to signal about as much as we want to do commercially, but that is an appropriate conclusion to come to that with near term lower demand for the short-term contract volumes, those lower spot margins are probably been under more pressure than the term margins. And we got the benefit of some of those higher short term contract margins in the back half of 2014 and we were therefore contrasting what we’re likely to report in 2015 back to the second half of 2014 and I think you have come to the right conclusion.

Michael Blum

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Okay, great. Then last question. Just looking at the trend in volume in the Permian, both at SAOU and Sand Hills, we can keep the Atlas stuff out of this for now. So you saw volumes sequentially down, but now you are seeing them uptick here in I guess early second quarter. I guess, what do you attribute that to?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Well, so as you got those the pieces there, Michael I know your point is Sand Hills, Sand Hills is essentially full, so there’s some minor moves a few million a day up and down, but its all and it has been basically full. So we’re moving 20 plus million a day closer to 525 million a day over the pipeline over to High Plains SAOU. So – and then we’ve seen SAOU quarter-to-quarter relatively flat down slightly due to some weather and seasonal effects but we’re backup a little bit now.

Michael Blum

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Broadly Permian basin activity is pretty darn good given the price environment and the uncertainty and our volume increases have been robust. We’re looking for little ways to create capacity. I like using the little ways, because they don’t hit your radar scope. How can we add capacity to the Sand Hill system perhaps with small plant tack-on plant, small acquired plant. Heck, we're adding capacity to Sand Hill system by moving gas from Sand Hills to the High Plains, that’s added capacity on the East side and then help a lot on the west side and we move gas around. We now have an expanded and increasingly overtime interconnected footprint of the super system and that allows us to create ways to add small capacity for the benefit of the Sand Hills opportunities. But that’s not the only place that’s growing. I mean, I can’t tell you how happy I am to see the growth in Versado. Michael, you remember how many years we went saying that flat is slightly down. We’re just building up existing capacity there.

Michael Blum

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Got it. Thank you, Joe Bob.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Jerren Holder with Goldman Sachs.

Jerren Holder

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Hi. Just wanted to start off with -- is there any change as far as the commodity hedging strategy now that you have Atlas combined in there?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

No, I’d say no change to our strategies. I think going forward put in I’d say maybe slightly more programmatic approach disciplined approach to be kind of putting some on quarter to quarter but it will be the similar you hedge more volumes kind of in the first year and then declined volumes in year two and three for crude NGLs and natural gas.

Jerren Holder

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

I know before you guys had for ethane and propane, you were leaving those mainly open. Is that how we should think about it still, going forward?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

I would say for NGLs even in ethane and propane we could possibly add some hedges and look at some hedges down there. I don’t know that we will get all the ways that kind of made up into our target range 75% year one, 50% year 2, 25% year 3 I don’t know that we get all the way there [Indiscernible] but probably more than zero.

Jerren Holder

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Okay, that's helpful. Just in terms of M&A strategy, obviously there are a lot of assets out there; and of course there have been buyers or potential bidders for you guys as well. How has that strategy changed on bought angles, at all? How should we think about the Targa approach in this environment?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

How has it changed on what?

Jerren Holder

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

How should we think about your current M&A strategy in this environment, whether or not you would be looking at some of the midstream assets that are out there? Or is the focus just more internally integrating the Atlas system and getting through this environment?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Our strategy is not really any different. We look at acquisitions every day. In this environment kind of a little uncertain everyone was trying to be a little conservative and prudent. The acquisitions we like to best are smaller tack-on ones because that won’t have any real impact on our leverage and has an immediate impact on our cash flows. Those are wonderful ones when you find them. Strategic acquisitions that make the current businesses we have better, that gets most attention. A step out without leverage to our existing assets, we still look at but it’s get less of our attention today. And all of that’s fairly natural. Also in the cycle of buyers and sellers before everything starts gets rosier that may be some – be the time for some of the best bargains and we would want not be looking for.

Jerren Holder

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Thanks, that's helpful. Then lastly, I know you mentioned on the synergies that you see in the G&A; this is definitely an area where you've seen like immediate savings. The run rate that we are seeing here in first quarter, should we use that as to -- maybe in the next few quarters use that as a guideline? Or should we expect that number to go up, down over time? How should we think about that?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Q1 is going to be tough. We only had one month of TPLs in there. So I think if you look at APLs previous G&A and then you’ll have to – it will be lower than – because they have some allocations from APL unless they are going to be going away. There is a line item you can see that essentially says New York and Philadelphia G&A charges on it, that’s not there anymore, but you just have not seen enough and we are going to be working the synergy spread sheet for you and it will be shown in our overall results and very encouraged by how that will all account.

Jerren Holder

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

All right. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The last question comes from Andy Gupta with HITE hedge.

Andy Gupta

Analyst · HITE hedge

Well hi congratulations on your quarter. A couple of questions, one is in South Texas, I was curious if you can give some more color on activity there you’ve got a really good plant that can potentially give you some volumes. What are you seeing in terms of prospects for that?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · HITE hedge

I understand the question; our employees on the TPL side were sort of used to providing business unit by business unit detailed in with South Texas being one of dozen business units listed there. I’m not going to go into more detail other than to say based on our past statements we feel good about South Texas and what we paid for it upside potential from where it currently exists and a stronger ability to compete that as the combined companies then Atlas on – with by themselves. If there is anything to announce there or sub sense of materiality we’ll report that in due course but not how it’s going.

Andy Gupta

Analyst · HITE hedge

Understood. No, thanks for that color. And one last question is, in terms of funding plans for your growth CapEx, can you give us a sense of -- given where your leverage levels are, how do you plan to fund this? Would it be through an ATM? Do you plan to come to market for equity, or it's going to be more debt?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · HITE hedge

You know our growth CapEx for the year is about $700 million to $900 million in growth capital. We’ve – our target is about 50% debt, 50% equity and if you look over the last several years we’ve been pretty good at staying for that target. But in any given year we can vary those percentages. So in a year like this, it’s likely to be more skewed to the equity side. Then I’ll just say on equity raises we’ve been active in the ATM. We’ve have good success there. But I am not going to handicap or tip my hat on what we may or may not do. We have all options available to us and we’ll continue to look at all available options and what the best way to raise that equity is. The ATM has been working and with the ATM working that makes those other options even more available if you wanted them.

Andy Gupta

Analyst · HITE hedge

Yes. This is great. Thank you so much.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · HITE hedge

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes the question and answer portion of today’s conference. I’d like to turn the call back over to Joe Bob Perkins.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · UBS

Thank you, operator. Thank you everyone for your patience and interest in what maybe our record long call. If you have any other questions, feel free to give Jen, Matt, me or any other rest of the team at call. Have a good day.