Earnings Labs

Targa Resources Corp. (TRGP)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Tue, Aug 4, 2015

$249.47

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Targa Resources’ Second 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 follow at that time. [Operator instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Jennifer Kneale, Senior Director of Finance. You may begin.

Jennifer Kneale

Analyst

Thank you, Nicole. I'd like to welcome everyone to our second 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 at 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 turn it over to Matt to review the Partnership’s 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 · Clarkson. Your line is now open

Thanks, Jen. Welcome everybody and thank you for joining us this morning. I’d like to remind you that this is the first reported quarter that includes the full quarter of results from our Targa Pipeline or TPL assets, which were a partner on merger that closed on February 27. As we describe our results from the quarter, the inclusion of TPL in Field Gathering & Processing segment, naturally will be the biggest factor in a number of increases as we compare results to last year and to last quarter. Turning to Targa’s second quarter results. Our reported second quarter adjusted EBITDA was $303 million as compared to $229 million for the second quarter of last year. This 33% increase was driven primarily by the inclusion of TPL’s assets for the full quarter, which more than offset lower commodity prices. Our distributable cash flow for the quarter of $219 million resulted in distribution coverage of approximately 1.1 times based on our second quarter declared distribution of $0.825 or $3.30 per common unit on an annualized basis. The Partnership’s second quarter distribution represents a 6% increase compared to the second quarter of 2014. At the TRC level, the second quarter dividend of $0.875 or $3.50 per common share annualized represents a 27% increase compared to the second quarter of 2014. Through the price swings we have seen to-date in 2015, our Field Gathering and Processing volumes continued to grow through the first six months of the year compared to the fourth quarter of last year. Natural gas inlet volumes increased in the second quarter compared to fourth quarter across eight of our nine systems. Overall, Field Gathering and Processing volumes were up more than 5% second quarter of 2015 over fourth quarter of 2014. For the second quarter versus fourth quarter, we…

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

Thanks, Joe Bob. I’d like to add my welcome and thank you for joining our call today. As Joe Bob mentioned, adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $303 million compared to $229 million for the same period last year. The increase was driven by the addition of the TPL assets, which are reported in our field GMP segment. Overall operating margin increased 17% for the second quarter compared to the same time period last year and I’ll review the drivers of this performance in the segment reviews. Net maintenance capital expenditures were $28 million in the second quarter of 2015 compared to $20 million in the second quarter of 2014 driven by the inclusion of TPL operations offset by some of the cost savings Joe Bob discussed across all of our operating areas. Turning to the segment level, I’ll summarize the second quarter performance on a year-over-year basis, and we will start with our downstream business. In our Logistics and Marketing division, our second quarter operating margin increased 1% compared to the first quarter 2015 driven by partial recognition of the payment received from Noble related to our condensate splitter project, increased terminaling and storage activities and higher fractionation volumes. Fractionation volumes increased by 3% versus the same time period last year and overall operating margin from fractionation was down slightly as a result of lower system product gains and higher maintenance cost. We loaded an average of 5 million barrels per month of LPG for exports and second quarter 2015 operating margin from LPG exports was approximately flat compared to the same time period last year. In our Gathering and Processing division, our Field Gathering and Processing segment operating margin increased by 41% compared to last year largely driven by the inclusion of TPL. Second quarter 2015 natural gas…

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

Thank you, Matt. Five months have passed since we acquired TPL. We really like the assets, our people are working as one team and the target team is continuing to mine opportunities across our combined footprint. We are working on connecting West Tex and SAOU later this year, enhancing options for producer customers and allowing us to spend capital even more efficiently with West Tex, SAOU and Sandhills connected together in the Permian Basin. These interconnections, you will recall that we connected SAOU to Sandhills last year for buy more flexibility to meet customer needs and to access existing capacity for growth. Along with the connection of West Tex and SAOU, we may also restart the idled 45 million cubic feet per day Benedum Plant in Upton County. These projects do not require much capital. Given that we are operating at near capacity in the Permian Basin, the flexibility associated with connecting existing systems and existing plants and having an idled plant to restart is very valuable. We also expect to complete the Buffalo Plant in Martin County in 2016 with timing dependent on volume growth. We can have that plant completed and running in six months, six months after we make the decision with our joint venture partner, Pioneer Natural Resources to go ahead with the final stages of construction. Similarly, activity around our Versado system in the western part of the Permian Basin continues. We are adding another compressor station and lined a new 16-inch line to better access available capacity at our Monument Plant, serving additional volumes from the Delaware Basin to the Southwest. This is an example of capital spending that isn’t significant enough to be a single line item on our published CapEx projects, but it is a capital well spent given the returns associated…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Matthew Phillips of Clarkson. Your line is now open.

Matthew Phillips

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

[indiscernible].

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

Hey, good morning.

Matthew Phillips

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

A quick question on the hedge book. You have an add-back on DCF of $24.8 million. I was wondering how that squares with the $17.1 million in gross margin on the commodity derivatives activity?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

Yeah, sure, good question. The $17.1 million in the other operating margin is essentially a legacy Targa or existing Targa hedge add-back. The TPL hedges in acquisition accounting were put on the book with fair value and so, as we collect those proceeds, it’s not hitting the income statement. So, we’re adding back the cash received in a quarter as those contracts settle. So, you’ll see that on a quarterly basis as we essentially receive the cash from the TPL hedge book.

Matthew Phillips

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

So, the TPL hedges are added back whereas the legacy Targa hedges are on the income statement?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

Yeah. They’re already in there. Yes.

Matthew Phillips

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

Okay. Great, thanks. And then moving on to LPG exports, you’ll add about 15% decline from 2Q - from 1Q and 2Q. However, looking at the vessel data, it looks like July was a record month for the U.S. Can you confirm if you’ve seen an uptick in July exports and what that might mean for margins?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

We have seen some continued - I’d say seen some strong activity here thus far third quarter. As Joe Bob said, there were - we would the back half of the year to approximate Q2. Things might get a little bit better for us but that’s kind of what we’re seeing right now.

Matthew Phillips

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

Approximate to Q1 on a margin basis or both?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

What we said was approximate Q2 for the back half of the year on a volume basis. I’d say, we’ve seen things a little bit stronger than we had in the previous few months, but we expect volumes to kind of approximate the second quarter.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

We also said that performing better than that was a potential upside and we said that our guidance continue to remain for the downstream to perhaps be modestly lower in 2015 than 2014. We like to outperform expectations.

Matthew Phillips

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

Yeah. Well, I mean margins from this have fallen off since 4Q, the past two quarters. But I mean, if volumes are coming back, I would think that might give you a little margin strength. Is that reasonable?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

I think we’ve kind of trying to relate it all.

Matthew Phillips

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And then the next question comes from Sunil Sibal of Global Hunter Securities. Your line is now open.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Your line is now open

Hi, good morning guys, and congrats on a good solid quarter.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Your line is now open

Thanks, good morning.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Your line is now open

A couple of questions from me. In terms of the LPG export volumes that you saw second quarter, is it fair to assume they were all primarily contracted volumes or you had some spot volumes in there too?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Your line is now open

We haven’t given a detailed breakout of what is spot and what is contractive. I would say, we have seen as we’ve continued to over the previous quarters, a significant portion of our volumes loaded or contracted but we were able to load some shorter-term or spot cargos as well in the second quarter.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Your line is now open

And then on the hedge book for 2016, seems like on NGLs, you maintained your hedge positions from the first quarter. I was wondering if you could give us some - in terms of your thought process on that and what levels you feel comfortable hedging that ex-player?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Your line is now open

Yeah. We have layered on some hedges. In the first quarter, we layered on some hedges, in the second quarter, we actually layered on some additional hedges here early in the third quarter. We’ve added some costless collars, we’ve added some swaps for the various products, crude, NGLs and natural gas. In this environment, I don’t think we’re looking to kind of catch up to get back to those targeted levels all that once but we do continue to take a disciplined approach to try and continue to layer on some amount of hedges where it makes sense.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Your line is now open

Okay. And then lastly, some of your producer customers have been pretty vocal about economics of drilling even in the wake of this commodity price weakness. I was kind of curious does that jives activity levels you are seeing in your assets?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Your line is now open

We obviously read the same public statements and then we have communications that aren’t public. I would say that our broader knowledge is consistent with the public statements of our customer base and we even referenced in our comments that, for example, some producers intent to increase their activity levels at, for example, $60. We are encouraged by the activity levels to-date, but we are not very good at predicting prices.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Your line is now open

Okay, that’s very helpful and that’s all I had. Thanks guys.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Your line is now open

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brandon Blossman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company. Your line is now open.

Brandon Blossman

Analyst · Brandon Blossman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company. Your line is now open

Good morning, guys.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Brandon Blossman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company. Your line is now open

Good morning.

Brandon Blossman

Analyst · Brandon Blossman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company. Your line is now open

Follow on to the gathering and processing throughput volume, so the comment was 3% to 5% up ‘15 over I believe Q4 ‘14.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Brandon Blossman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company. Your line is now open

Yes.

Brandon Blossman

Analyst · Brandon Blossman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company. Your line is now open

Is that just producer - your current customer base’s volume increase or is there some presumption of market share - incremental market share grab there?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Brandon Blossman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company. Your line is now open

The actuals achieved to-date have been both. We tend to be conservative about our projections going forward. I would like to believe that we continue to benefit from takeaway gas, but we haven’t overestimated that.

Brandon Blossman

Analyst · Brandon Blossman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company. Your line is now open

Okay, fair enough. I will try the LPG export at slightly different angle here, is there anything in the back half of ‘15 into ‘16 that would point to your volume throughput being different than kind of the US in total numbers as we see those data - that data role out?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Brandon Blossman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company. Your line is now open

I am not sure we’ve got a real good projection of forward US data. We’ve got a pretty handle on how our volumes are likely to behave and we’ve built that into our comments in the answers to the last question.

Brandon Blossman

Analyst · Brandon Blossman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company. Your line is now open

Okay, fair enough. And then more discretely, on a per unit basis, GMP OpEx looks like it’s trending down very nicely over the last two or three quarters. What should we expect as far again on a per unit basis the trajectory through the back half of ‘15 on that metric?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Brandon Blossman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company. Your line is now open

We are going to continue to work on maintaining the cost reductions that we’ve achieved and realizing additional cost reductions. I don’t have a prediction for you in terms of a percent trend, but the efforts are going to continue and our people are very focused on it.

Brandon Blossman

Analyst · Brandon Blossman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company. Your line is now open

So, flat to down is a fair takeaway there?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Brandon Blossman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company. Your line is now open

We are pleased with the downward trend that we can see from our internal numbers and that are harder for you all to see from reported numbers despite increases in volumes and that’s pretty extraordinary in the gathering and processing patched. And with expected continued growth for 2015 in those important areas we still expect to do so without increasing our cost.

Brandon Blossman

Analyst · Brandon Blossman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company. Your line is now open

Okay, awesome. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Darren Horowitz of Raymond James. Your line is now open.

Darren Horowitz

Analyst · Darren Horowitz of Raymond James. Your line is now open

Joe Bob, couple of quick questions on field GMP and I appreciate the comments around the plus 3% to 5% overall volume growth even that of what’s going on in North Texas, but what I am more concerned about is the margin expectation to the extent that you can comment, I am just trying to get a feel for the lower operating expense, expected to continue through the back of this year. With the regard to the aggregate impact on gross operating profit for field GMP, how much lower or what’s the variability in terms of your back half of ‘15 margin versus what you’ve already experienced in the first half of ‘15?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Darren Horowitz of Raymond James. Your line is now open

As we look second half versus first half, we expect to achieve similar or better. I think that’s about as precise as I can be.

Darren Horowitz

Analyst · Darren Horowitz of Raymond James. Your line is now open

Okay. Let me jump over to North Texas, specifically the amount from a contractual perspective, POP contracts, I think previously you had said it’s somewhere around 30% of the 2015 margin was going to be POP and a lot of that was really around North Texas. I am just curious, now that you’ve got half of the year behind you and you are looking forward with the TPL assets, what’s that level of expectation for POP exposure in the back half of this year and then into ‘16? And from a re-contracting perspective as maybe you think about shifting some of that exposure to a more fee-based composition of cash flow, how do you think about the margin degradation maybe being offset by volume improvement or cash flow security?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Darren Horowitz of Raymond James. Your line is now open

Hey, Darren, it’s Matt. I want to talk just about North Texas just to clear one thing up there first. The North Texas is a POP business up there, so we do have some fees kind of embedded in those contracts whether it’s gathering or compression or others, but we think of North Texas as POP and we don’t really see that changing as we come back of this year and into 2016.

Darren Horowitz

Analyst · Darren Horowitz of Raymond James. Your line is now open

Okay. And then last question from me and Joe Bob, again I appreciate it being difficult to predict crude oil prices, we struggle from the affliction. But I am wondering just with regard to the balanced assets McKinsey down in Montrose counties right, like a lot of that hinges not just on the absolute price but on the discount to TI, because I think that’s probably where the greater challenge is. So what are producers telling you just from a net back perspective in terms of where the cash price gets more economic?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Darren Horowitz of Raymond James. Your line is now open

As opposed to me describing what producers are telling me and not telling the public, what I can see is activity at the price levels that we’ve seen since the first of the year and that activity as you know isn’t driven by the spot price in the particular month, but their outlook for those prices. It’s one of the best oil basins in the world. The differentials as a percentage have moved around since the first of the year.

Darren Horowitz

Analyst · Darren Horowitz of Raymond James. Your line is now open

Thank you.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Darren Horowitz of Raymond James. Your line is now open

That’s about as best we can describe. And like we said, we have several reasons in the Bakken to be optimistic about volumes even at low North Dakota activity levels. The activity levels around our system are better and given the activity levels around our system, we still have some backlog of volumes that we are going to be getting to, thanks to progress on right of way on the reservation. That’s going to take us a little while and thanks to the progress at the Little Missouri 3. The Little Missouri 3 plant provided for helping to put out players and meet customer needs of gas production that was already there and not being captured.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of TJ Schultz with RBC Capital. Your line is now open.

TJ Schultz

Analyst · TJ Schultz with RBC Capital. Your line is now open

Hey, good morning.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · TJ Schultz with RBC Capital. Your line is now open

Good morning.

TJ Schultz

Analyst · TJ Schultz with RBC Capital. Your line is now open

On field GMP volumes, I guess just questions on 2016, I think the optimistic outlook that you guys kind of commented in the remarks, is that just a fact that you are likely to have a better beginning level or is there something specific maybe you guys gleaned here more recently with the swing and grew to 60 and now back down that gives you more optimism maybe about producer activity kind of within this oil range that we have been bouncing around?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · TJ Schultz with RBC Capital. Your line is now open

Our feeling a bit better about it has to be in the context of lot of those things you just mentioned, but it wasn’t kind of the short term movement in prices. Number one and the primary reason is volumes have performed better than we expected despite prices over the first half of the year. If you took our last quarter call, for example, spot prices and forward prices are lower than our last quarter call, but given those prices, the volumes have exceeded our expectation. So the volume to price relationship is important in our feeling a bit better. And then, yes, the US data around supply and demand and a break over on crude volumes which occurred a little later than we thought it would, I think works into the mix as you referenced. But that primary thing and we try to say it as we feel a bit better because volumes have done a bit better in spite of pricing.

TJ Schultz

Analyst · TJ Schultz with RBC Capital. Your line is now open

Okay, thanks. On exports, I think you said you are adding contracts, just any color on the appetite for short term versus long term contracts and then also just any update on constraints that ship availability is having for you guys through the rest of the year?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · TJ Schultz with RBC Capital. Your line is now open

We’ve guided both since our last call. We are more contracted than not contracted in the near term. We know that ship constraints are a factor. Our ability to predict exactly how fast those additional ships come on or where they come on is not as good as other analysts out there, but we know our customers have felt the ship constraints. We sort of gave you an expectation and then also pointed to it as a potential upside relative to our overall expectations.

TJ Schultz

Analyst · TJ Schultz with RBC Capital. Your line is now open

Okay, thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan. Your line is now open.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst · Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Good morning.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Good morning.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst · Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Congratulations on the good quarter there. Just I had a question on the TPL hedge book. It came in a bit stronger than what we were anticipating. So just want to see if you have static commodity price environment, whether the pace of cash gains is going to be stable through ‘15 or if it is more front half of the year weighted.

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan. Your line is now open

So we will be filing the Q here shortly and it will have an update of all the hedges that we have on, so it really depends on your commodity price expectation for the amount of cash that we will receive in any quarter.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst · Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Exactly, I was just curious if there was - the contracts were more weighted to the first half versus back half for the TPL hedges you picked up?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Yeah, we will have less amount hedged and at lower prices kind of generally as we go through time. So I think that’s a fair assessment.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst · Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Got you. I appreciate that. And Joe Bob, want to touch on some of the things you are seeing before I know it’s a very difficult question, but I am just wondering system-wide, if you are looking at the futures curve, is there a number in your mind where you feel good about continued growth? Is 16, is that 50 versus 60, is there any goal posts you could give us there as far as how you think the target assets would react in when you’d see growth?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Well, I wish I was that smart. I think I kind of admitted already that our first of year expectations, volume connected to price, volume was a little better than the price connection. I don’t have a magic milestone or goal posts for you out there.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst · Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Fair enough. Just one last one from me. As far the Noble payments around the splitter, I was just wondering for modeling purposes does that stop at a period of time, should we be taking that into consideration.

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Yeah, it stops in the third quarter, partly through the third quarter.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst · Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Got you. And is there anything material that we should know just so we don’t overestimate there?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Yeah, good question. We haven’t’ given the specific number, so it’s going to be tough for you to triangulate. I will just say it’s not large enough so we had to disclose it as a dollar amount variance

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan. Your line is now open

And we only disclose what we have to disclose as we put that out when we first - recognize we have confidentially - we’ve first of all good relationship with Noble and we have confidentiality requirements. Those confidentiality requirements say we disclose what we have to report and we spend a lot of time with accountants to make sure we got that right.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst · Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Fair enough. Makes sense. Thank you for the color.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Schneur Gershuni of UBS. Your line is now open.

Schneur Gershuni

Analyst · Schneur Gershuni of UBS. Your line is now open

Hi, good morning, guys. I was wondering if we can expand on the integration process with Atlas a little bit. It sort of sounded like if I heard correctly that you might be seeing some very large capital efficiencies. I believe you said at one point that you’ve got a plant that you can start up and connect and so forth. I was wondering if you can sort of lay that out for us as to how that could possibly impact margins on a go-forward basis. Is there lot more opportunities like this where you can have capital efficiencies or I guess capital avoidance and start pickup volumes? Does your margins further expand with capacity utilization picking up? I was just sort of wondering if you can sort of expand on that a little bit for us.

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Schneur Gershuni of UBS. Your line is now open

I certainly understand the question. Five months have passed since we did the acquisition. Assets are terrific, particularly in the Permian Basin mix terrifically with our existing assets. People are working as one team, one target team for target bottom line. We did sort of give early conservative synergies to you all which makes you want more and I understand that. You’d like more detail, you’d liked the variance analysis against the plans. What’s really going on is we want to have a separate report of the progress on those synergies instead, the way we are managing it, the way we are working it, as those become embedded in our results. It’s one of the ways we’ve kind of outperformed our expectations and it will continue to be. You pointed to a couple of the factors and we alluded to them. When you combine those systems, you have capital efficiency opportunities, you have the opportunity that we’ve always had but even more so of getting gas to available capacity and we started up idle plants throughout our whole history, it’s just another opportunity to do so for the benefit of the combined system. Hope that’s helpful but I also know it’s not exactly what you wanted.

Schneur Gershuni

Analyst · Schneur Gershuni of UBS. Your line is now open

Maybe I’ll ask this a little differently. Classic analyst question, ex-commodity impacts, I mean the commodity is going to move up and down and so forth, but should we expect the IRR on capital deployed at least over the next six to nine months to be significantly higher than it has been in the past or so differently, should we see ex-commodity impact margins improve just as you’re able to take advantage of these capital opportunities, is that a fair way to be looking at it?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Schneur Gershuni of UBS. Your line is now open

I understand that question and it’s an easier question to address than the question from like last quarter, are your IRRs going to go down in this environment. In reality, when we’re working hard in this environment doing a lot of smaller projects taking advantage of the low hanging fruit, benefiting from takeaway gas with small expenditures, those returns are very attractive, okay, they’re very attractive, they need smaller dollar amount and that’s showing up in our bottom line. I like expanding on the answer to your question because it works against kind of hypothesis which is not, we’re not seeing as the case that our returns are going to go down. We may not be spending this larger chucks of dollars, which is good and proper in this environment to takes those and defer them until needed but the dollars we’re spending are getting attractive returns and I think that flows to our bottom line.

Schneur Gershuni

Analyst · Schneur Gershuni of UBS. Your line is now open

Okay, now that’s actually a great answer. As a follow-up to all the questions about your positive outlook with respect to the Permian, I think you started off by saying hey; we were surprised on the volume side, so therefore we’re sort of carrying it through and so forth. I was wondering if maybe you can expand a little bit as to why the volumes are outperforming expectations. Is it producers using better completions, are they targeting better wells or they’re drilling more wells than you initially thought and I was just wondering if you can sort of carry that through as to why the volumes have actually been performing better or not, if that’s a bad thing and as to why that will continue to be the case over the next six to nine months.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Schneur Gershuni of UBS. Your line is now open

First of all, kind of the last factor, it’s not because they’re drilling more wells than we thought, not appreciably to any extent. But it is a combination of some of the factors you mentioned and some others. I would start with their drilling with a more limited budget in the best spots and their technology has improved such that the best spots are more productive than they have been in the past. And those best spots are where our systems are and that to a great extent and that’s the reason for us having underestimated it. Maybe we’re too conservative, I’m not terribly surprised but it is a pleasant surprise on the margin for the volumes to be outperforming where the prices have been. Secondly, we have been successful because we are working hard, willing to selectively spent capital and have a very good reputation with customers out there that we’re winning packages of gas that are coming up for renegotiation on the margin. And strong competitors do that during tough times, those two factors maybe a little bit of when you have a little less activity and you’ve been working to catch up all along and get pressures down where you want them to be in the field that benefits our customers and it benefits us on volumes. Those are kind of the three areas that are in my head and it’s not because drilling was a lot higher.

Schneur Gershuni

Analyst · Schneur Gershuni of UBS. Your line is now open

So weaker competitors with poor balance sheets are basically at disadvantage, right relative to somebody like yourself, is that a fair way to think about the volume or market share comment.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Schneur Gershuni of UBS. Your line is now open

I think I had put it a little softer than that. It’s not just the balance sheet; it’s also the reputation for customer service.

Schneur Gershuni

Analyst · Schneur Gershuni of UBS. Your line is now open

Okay, great. Alright thank you very much, I really appreciate all the color.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Blum of Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.

Michael Blum

Analyst · Michael Blum of Wells Fargo. Your line is now open

Hi, thanks, I’ll try to be brief here. Just curious for what you’re seeing from the impact of ethane rejection, is there has been any change in the way you’re running your plants?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Michael Blum of Wells Fargo. Your line is now open

For running our plants, we’ve looked at that every day and we’re doing more not less ethane rejection where we can.

Michael Blum

Analyst · Michael Blum of Wells Fargo. Your line is now open

Would you say that’s from what you see out there from other volumes that are coming to your system, is that sort of consistent?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Michael Blum of Wells Fargo. Your line is now open

Yes, broadly so. We see a lot of pipelines as you know coming into our CBF fractionation facility. And certainly across the board you would characterize it as getting lower on ethane content meaning that more ethane is being rejected.

Michael Blum

Analyst · Michael Blum of Wells Fargo. Your line is now open

Okay, great. And then, you gave some pretty good updates on the various projects that you have in the backlog or the potential backlog. So it is fair for me to just take away from that that effectively you’re still seeing pretty good demand for incremental projects, we haven’t seen any really material change which I think is something that a lot of people are thinking about.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Michael Blum of Wells Fargo. Your line is now open

Our backlog is a list of those defined projects that people have seen in the permitting process or customers have talked about us working on for the most part. There is not a decrease demand for any of them, as we said really back to the first year; it’s a matter of when not if for almost all those projects. Increasing NGLs coming into Mont Belvieu continue, they’re coming a little bit slower than we might have expected in the early part of 2014 but demand is still there back to that, when, not if.

Michael Blum

Analyst · Michael Blum of Wells Fargo. Your line is now open

And then, Matt I apologize if I had missed it, because I was writing quickly. Can you just repeat what was the Q2 ATM equity issuance?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Michael Blum of Wells Fargo. Your line is now open

Yeah, I said that in the script, I think it was $263 million and that also includes July, which I think I’d - it will be in our queue as a subsequent of that about $23 million or something.

Michael Blum

Analyst · Michael Blum of Wells Fargo. Your line is now open

Okay, great. Thank you.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Michael Blum of Wells Fargo. Your line is now open

That includes the GP stuff?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Michael Blum of Wells Fargo. Your line is now open

That was ATM, so the GP amount is a separate number we gave, which we also put in the queue. That’s why my number was so high.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John Edwards of Credit Suisse. Your line is now open.

John Edwards

Analyst · John Edwards of Credit Suisse. Your line is now open

Yeah thanks for taking my questions. Back to the LPG export, just asking it a different way, I think you said there was a mix of spot and contracted, would it be fair to say the majority is contracted.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · John Edwards of Credit Suisse. Your line is now open

[indiscernible] setting a record, I’m trying to drill down on that. I know that some of our competitors may give more details than we do on our export volumes and our mix of contracts, but we’re really making a competitive decision on how much we want to say for the good of our unit holders and the good of our shareholders. So I appreciate you drilling down but --.

John Edwards

Analyst · John Edwards of Credit Suisse. Your line is now open

Okay. Fair enough.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · John Edwards of Credit Suisse. Your line is now open

If the mix is correct, there is a mix. Yes.

Matt Meloy

Analyst · John Edwards of Credit Suisse. Your line is now open

The thing I wanted to make sure we take away, as we have said the majority of our volumes are on contracted volumes, because I don’t want you to take away that the majority is short term or spot con.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · John Edwards of Credit Suisse. Your line is now open

Sounded to me like we’re trying to figure out, if on the increment that was added what was the percentage of increment.

John Edwards

Analyst · John Edwards of Credit Suisse. Your line is now open

No, no, no, okay. Alright fair enough. And then just kind of extending some of the earlier questions asked but you have expressed optimism in 2016 based on the volumes that have materialized so far and I was just curious to what extend pricing might impact that optimism. If we stay in this sort of sustained price environment that we’re currently in rather than the improvement that a lot of people are calling for, I’m just wondering, how would that temper your optimism if at all, I mean, as perhaps people are responding to things based on price expectations going forward not the current sloppy environment that we’re in.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · John Edwards of Credit Suisse. Your line is now open

Our feeling a bit better about the volume outlet for the remainder for the year and for 2016 is not based on looking at a single case or a single - it’s based on us looking at multiple forecasts related to multiple pricing and what we think is likely. The most important thing that we are communicating is that our volumes and our volume outlook at whatever price scenario we’re looking at has done better, it did better against the actuals, which actually were lower prices than we expected and going forward in price environment that’s flat for today, are volume feeling would be better than it was at the beginning of the year for that same price outlook. And if you get to the higher price outlooks, would have volumes greater than we expected for higher price outlooks. Does that make sense to you? Otherwise we’re trying to predict the prices and I’m not trying to predict the prices.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of [indiscernible]. Your line is now open.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Thank you. Congratulations on a good quarter in a tough market. If we could just continue on the volume question for just one second if I could because I haven’t pretty kind of addressed this and I understand your cautious outlook on volumes and you’re pleased with the way things came in but in terms of just a forward look, anyway to talk about what the weather impact for this quarter in terms of your volumes?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

This quarter’s weather impact was primarily a North Texas and we pointed to it because it was a fact in some of the producers in the area have pointed to it. It’s difficult to extract, we might have been flat quarter-to-quarter in North Texas if it weren’t for the weather impact, I don’t know that for a fact, I do know that I project where we are and where we’re going and it was appropriate to signal that unless there is some bump due to price, North Texas is likely to continue to decline not dramatically but continue to decline. When we said weather impact, it was not just the flood, it was the impact post flood on electricity connections even some washed out pipelines that took a while to repair primarily on the electricity side because they just didn’t have the cruise to take care of everything it wants and some of them more remote locations didn’t get taken care for a quite a while.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Thank you very much. On the terminaling and storage fees, there was some incremental, is there more to be reprised or is there any additional color you can give there?

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

I think that comment Joe Bob referred to is just an environment where you have some contango in the forward curves, as storage becomes worth more and there are some opportunities for additional income.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And then the last one from me, on your coastal plants, is there any outlook for idling any more plants there or shall we assume that’s done?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

The consolidation of the coastal straddle has been going for in many ways much of our career. We’ve said before that Target is well positioned to benefit from those consolidations. We have one of the strongest positions we like to call it a catcher’s mitt and as less efficient plants are idled we tend to capture a lot more than our share of the remaining gas and I just want to credit the people working the coastal gathering and processing for figuring out ways to save dollars make more money with less volumes get richer gas when it’s available and the producers are working to get richer gas. It’s a small part of our operating margin but boy did they work hard to keep that small part as high as possible.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line Faisel Khan of Citigroup. Your line is now open.

Faisel Khan

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

Thanks its Faisel from Citigroup. Just a few questions from your press release, the condensate pricing were different quite substantially from field gathering from the coastal gathering systems and that difference was sort of wider in the quarter versus last quarter and even on a percentage basis versus last year. Can you kind of discuss what’s going on there, is that a quality differential, is that sort of a real transportation differential, it just seems a little bit wide even looking at WTI versus LLS [ph]?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

Yeah. Coastal is usually different than the field, it gets priced more of LLS, so if you look at the differentials from where we’re picking up that coastal of a field relative to the LLS which is typically a track closer to Brent. So it’s just those various differentials, I will say that the condensate does not have a big impact on our operating margins. So it’s not something that we focus a lot on. But it is due to this impact.

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

And occasionally there are quality differentials that might impact a single quarter. It’s - we market it the best we can, relative to supply and demand in the localized markets.

Faisel Khan

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

I’m just - because the differential has obviously narrowed in the quarter, so I just want to understand if maybe there is a constraint there, in the, I guess your field gathering system?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

No. I don’t have. I think we’re more talking about market dynamics than anything.

Faisel Khan

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

Okay. Fair enough. And then in your press release, you guys mentioned that the fractionation results were sort of impacted by lower system product gains, can you discuss exactly what that means, is that just you talking about rejecting ethane or you’re talking about sort of

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

It really has more to do with our Mont Belvieu complex and volumes going through our fractionators. There are opportunities to blend the various products at the back of our fractionators before we sell those spec products to market, so there are pluses and minuses throughout the system and those amounts vary from quarter-to-quarter.

Faisel Khan

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

Okay. And then also you guys discuss in your results also lower refinery LPG supply, I would have thought with refiners sort of running all out in the quarter that LPG supply would have been up over the quarter, but because you’re talking about it being down, I didn’t sort of understand that dynamic too?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

I understand directionally what you’re describing, but what we always see in practice is about the time we think we’re going to be getting higher supplies from refineries, we don’t. It is pretty difficult to predict what we’re really good doing as managing it in the short term to do the best with what we get. There were some refining downtimes on the west coast, don’t really want to point or pick at any particular customer, but that shows up in our overall results.

Faisel Khan

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

Okay. So did you guys have access to the California refining LPG?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

Yeah. Some of those are our customers and what we also know on the margin is that not just pointing to West Coast, some refinery customers have actually used some of those products as fuel on the margin. So it’s a difficult trend to track, but we are as very opportunistic in adding that refinery services business to the overall propane wholesale marketing business.

Faisel Khan

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

Okay. And then last question from me, on your hedges, just want to make sure, is there a lag effect from the hedges or is it, as you guys show the volumes in the quarter, those volumes sort of are represented through your hedge contracts, I mean there is no difference from quarter to quarter, how to recognize that?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

No, there is no lag. The cash comes in for the month that we’ve had, we’ll recognize that as either income or we’ll put it as an addback in the cash flow statements to the extent the cash is received.

Faisel Khan

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

Okay, makes sense. Thanks for the time. Appreciate it. Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Sighinolfi of Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Corey Goldman

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

Hey, guys. Corey Goldman for Chris. Just a quick question, sorry to go back to Noble really quick, what is the threshold, I had a curiosity for what you have to disclose?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

Sorry. Good try. I understand the question. I can’t answer, and by the way, absent the Noble contract, I’m not sure that I would get a concrete answer from our internal accountants or auditors anyway, they sort of know it when they get there and at some point, we say okay, I think I understand and we report accordingly.

Corey Goldman

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

Got it. And I guess just to dovetail in that, I’m assuming because you’re recognizing revenue before any things in the ground yet, do you assume the projects that go, just had a curiosity, what would be the impact to you guys positive or negative, if the project is a no go?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

I’m not prepared to discuss that either. What we said when we announced the deal is that relative to the original channel view splitter agreement, we were not economically disadvantaged by renegotiating the agreements and that’s all I can say.

Corey Goldman

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

Okay. That’s helpful. And then just the last question for me, and I apologize if I misunderstood what you said, I think you said with respect to contracts, you’re more contracted than non-contracted in the near term, that implies let’s call 3.25 between, just wondering how you compare that what you said last quarter about more than 4.2 million, is it 1 million barrels a month for ‘15 and then around 4.2 million a month in ‘16?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

Okay. Just to be clear, we didn’t say, we said more which is greater than half, so we’re not saying we’re more or less in that previous number that we gave, we just said we’re not going to kind of get in to the dialing in the exact amount that we’re contracted in the exact amount of spot. So I wouldn’t read from that that we’re less.

Corey Goldman

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

Okay. So you can’t reiterate if you’re in line with the 4.2 million about a month in 15?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

Oh, I could but I’m not going to.

Corey Goldman

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is now open

Okay. I appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Gregg Brody of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is now open.

Gregg Brody

Analyst · Gregg Brody of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is now open

Hi guys. Just a quick one for you. I think you mentioned when you gave your hedge numbers for the NGLs that you were 80% hedged in ‘16, versus 30% for the rest of this year, did I hear that right and if I did, what’s the…?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Gregg Brody of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is now open

No, we’re not 80% hedged, I think for ‘16 for NGLs, I think I said 15%.

Gregg Brody

Analyst · Gregg Brody of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is now open

15, then that would explain what I misheard, that’s perfect. Thank you, guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of [indiscernible] of Citadel. Your line is now open.

Jeff Mccarter

Analyst

Hey, guys. This is Jeff Mccarter with Citadel. I was hoping you could elaborate a little bit on the point you made about transitioning packages of gas, what basins are you seeing those in and were there further opportunities?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

Okay. You may have interpreted transitioning from a term I used as takeaway, kind of going back, mostly, we’re finding volume increases from our dedicated contracts with existing producers and those volumes were better than we thought in our important basins, battling on the entire Permian basin. West, south, surprised us to the positive. Particularly those large Permian basin positions in bad lands are coming from our existing acreage, but across the board, we’ve also been successful and that’s a complement to our people of winning a whole lot more, many, many more deals and much, much more volume on takeaway than we have lost, takeaway being a contract came up for renewal with someone else and we got it. Now, that’s on the margin, it’s a positive on the margin. It’s part of the positive surprise, but I don’t have more information to provide you other than to say we track it by deal and track it by volume and report back to our board and the wins are a whole lot better than the losses. But mostly, the positive volume surprised us from our existing contracts and our existing dedications.

Jeff Mccarter

Analyst

Okay. So no real color that you can offer on, is that part of what drove the Eagle Ford volumes or is it producers shifting to different processors in the Permian, nothing more you can offer?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

I will say that my win loss ratio on volumes or deals is weighed to the target side on every basin.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ethan Bellamy of Baird. Your line is now open.

Ethan Bellamy

Analyst · Ethan Bellamy of Baird. Your line is now open

Bob, how would you handicap the potential for elimination of the crude oil export band and if that occurred, what would that be to your strategy?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Ethan Bellamy of Baird. Your line is now open

Everybody frowned at me, because they were afraid I would start talking.

Ethan Bellamy

Analyst · Ethan Bellamy of Baird. Your line is now open

I’d love to hear you do that.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Ethan Bellamy of Baird. Your line is now open

I won’t, I don’t handicap anything moving fast in Washington if it were to happen, we’re always trying to help as a midstream player. Everybody just did a big sigh of relief, I think that’s as much as I can dig in to.

Ethan Bellamy

Analyst · Ethan Bellamy of Baird. Your line is now open

So just to follow up there, how does that potential outcome factor in to your risk analysis on things like the condensate infrastructure and the agreement with Noble?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Ethan Bellamy of Baird. Your line is now open

That question, I can’t address. Recognizing even with export bands or opening up condensate, you still have needs for particular assets. Student body won’t go right or left based on a change in the law and our customers with their contracts and their portfolio of opportunities will decide whether those investments continue to make sense. That’s what we’ll respond to. And absent near term moves in Congress, that’s impacting people’s longer term outlook about assets. Even with the opening of selected condensate exports, you continue to need splitters on the US Gulf Coast to some extent within refineries, outside refineries, whereas going to splitters on the other side of the water. Where is the best place to be importing products, and moving it around, that’s a global, it’s a global market with lots of solutions.

Ethan Bellamy

Analyst · Ethan Bellamy of Baird. Your line is now open

Thanks so much. I guess I’m asking the right questions if you tell me no.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Ethan Bellamy of Baird. Your line is now open

I’m going to get a bad reputation. I’ve really tried to answer all the questions. We can only answer some of them so much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Charles Marshall of Capital One Securities. Your line is now open.

Charles Marshall

Analyst · Charles Marshall of Capital One Securities. Your line is now open

Two quick follow-up on your opening comments regarding distribution growth for the year, expected to come in at the lower end of the range, given your sort of better expectations on the back half of the year and field GMP volumes, et cetera, is your guidance range at the low-end, that includes your updated forecast for the remainder of the year or could that slide more to the right on the higher end of the range.

Matt Meloy

Analyst · Charles Marshall of Capital One Securities. Your line is now open

NO, we took in to consideration both our outlook in the field and our logistics and marketing business in to that 4 to 7% and then towards the lower end of that, we’re also part way through the year, we had a distribution increase of a penny in the first quarter, and then half a penny in the second. So then, we’re part way through the year, so we have a better handle on just kind of how the average is going to shake out.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Charles Marshall of Capital One Securities. Your line is now open

And we try to drive it smoothly.

Charles Marshall

Analyst · Charles Marshall of Capital One Securities. Your line is now open

Okay. I appreciate that. One last quick one. Regarding potential ethane export projects, is there any update there you can provide for us?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Charles Marshall of Capital One Securities. Your line is now open

No update.

Charles Marshall

Analyst · Charles Marshall of Capital One Securities. Your line is now open

Okay, thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And I’m showing no further questions at this time. I’d like to hand the call back over to Joe Bob Perkins for any closing remarks.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Clarkson. Your line is now open

Thank you, operator. Thank you everybody for your patience and your interest and to the extent you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to contact Jim, Matt or any of us. Good day.