Earnings Labs

Targa Resources Corp. (TRGP)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 25, 2016

$249.47

+0.44%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Targa Resources Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2015 Earnings Webcast. 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] As a reminder this conference is being recorded. I would now like to introduce you host for today's conference, Ms. Jennifer Kneale. Ma'am, you may begin.

Jennifer Kneale

Analyst

Thank you, Laura. I'd like to welcome everyone to our fourth quarter and full year 2015 investor call for both Targa Resources Corp and Targa Resources Partners LP. Before we get started I’d like to mention that Targa Resources Corp., TRC or the company and Targa Resources Partners LP, Targa Resources Partners or the partnership have published the joint earnings release which is available on our website at www.targaresources.com. We’ll also be posting an investor presentation on the website later today. I’d also like to remind you that on February 17, Targa Resources Corp posted its acquisition of all the outstanding public units not already owned by TRC of Targa Resources Partners LP. 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. Joe Bob Perkins, Chief Executive Officer; and Matt Meloy, Chief Financial Officer will be our speakers today. And other members of the management team are available to assist in the Q&A session if needed. With that, I will turn the call over to Joe Bob.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Thanks, Jen. Welcome and thanks to everyone for participating. Before we turn to the Targa’s results, I’d like to briefly discuss the closing of our buy-in transaction and also discuss our recently announced $500 million preferred private placement. Targa’s management team and our Boards of Directors are very pleased that we closed TRC’s acquisition of outstanding common units of TRP on February 17. From our perspective the simplification of Targa’s ownership structure may have been one of the most important transactions in Targa’s history and I want to thank our shareholders and common unit holders for their strong support of the transaction. But overwhelming the positive results of our shareholder and common unit holder votes reflect investor understanding that this was the right move for Targa. Targa is now better positioned from a leverage credit profile and dividend coverage perspective and that positioning creates financial flexibility as exceedingly important in uncertain markets. Looking forward we recognize that there are continued investor concerns around every company in the energy industry related to risk associated with capital markets access, risk from lower prices, risk of lower producer activity levels and volumes, counterparty credit risks and high interest in how each company will manage their balance sheet and dividends. We’ll try to address each of these topics related to Targa in some detail during the call. And we’ll try to provide you with color on our views of our risks, mitigation, how we think about the industry challenges that we face today. Let’s start with our financial flexibility and our financial strength. When we announced that TRC was buying TRP on November 3rd, we provided two illustrative scenarios. The street consensus case and the price sensitivity case showing those cases over a three year forecast period. Additionally, in our public presentations before and…

Matthew Meloy

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Thanks, Joe Bob. I'd like to add my welcome and thank you for joining our call today. Before we cover Q4 results, I just want to make sure there's nothing fusion about the goodwill issue mentioned in our press release from February 9. As discussed in that release and quantified today, the partnership identified the material weakness in the control related to its review of the purchase accounting calculations used to estimate the preliminary fair value. As of the accusation date of the assets and liabilities acquired in the ATLS Merger. Goodwill at the merger date has been restated and we subsequently recognize a non-cash provisional loss of $290 million associated with the impairment of goodwill in our Field G&P segment. This loss was non-cash and does not affect EBITDA. Now, turning our attentions to Q4, other Q4 results. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was 325 million, compared to 258 million for the same time period last year. The increase was primarily driven by the inclusion of TPL. Overall, operating margin increased 14% for the fourth quarter, compared to last year. And I will review the drivers of this performance in our segment review. Net maintenance capital expenditures were 25 million in the fourth quarter of 2015, compared to 24 million in 2014 bringing full-year 2015 maintenance CapEx to 98 million. And for 2016, we expect approximately a 110 million of maintenance CapEx. Turning to the segment level of summarized fourth quarter's performance on a year-over-year based is starting with our downstream business. Fourth quarter 2015 logistics and marketing operating margin was 15% lower than the same quarter last year driven a lower fractionation in LPG export margin. LPG export margins were down 15% from the fourth quarter of 2014, when we benefitted from record volumes. On our third quarter…

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Thanks, Matt. Okay. I'm never going to live that down. That was my phone that rang just a second ago, after often being the one who reminds people to have their phones off. Taking a step towards your asked questions, one of the most consistent questions that we've got from analysts and investor is related to counter party credit exposure. From my early days, is a start-up midstream company, we've always taken our counter party credit exposure very seriously. And always focused on understanding and managing the implications of each contract, going both directions to a significant extent we benefit from a highly diversified portfolio of customer positions across our multiple businesses and across our multiple geographic areas. Our forecasting process takes into account the financial position of our counter parties and we try to appropriately risk volumes and margins as their situation changes. We also monitor and manage our customer exposures on a customer-by-customer in contract-by-contract basis and we always have. And in this environment, those normal processes are on high alert. We try to not publicly discuss specific customers or customer contracts, but believe we are well positioned to manage through risk associated with potential counter party default or bankruptcy and will continue to stress our forecast with full consideration to credit risk and lower commodity price environments. Just as we constantly try to assess the volume implications of those price scenarios. I understand your concern and I believe that the best way to summarize our current situation is to state that separate from the volume and activity level when certainties that we've already talked about, we do not currently believe that Targa has any significant unmitigated producer contract exposures, nor do we have any significant unmitigated fractionation contract exposures that we should highlight to our investors. We…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from TJ Schultz from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Good morning, TJ.

TJ Schultz

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Good morning.

Matthew Meloy

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Good morning.

TJ Schultz

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

I understand the commentary that you've bought some time to discuss dividend policy going forward. We can extrapolate, there's some headroom on coverage, if we assume flat dividends and you certainly have other levers you can still pull. So, how's your view over the medium term of walls to point where there is a specific dividend coverage level that you see as most appropriate for the business or is there a level of coverage too low that now you just don’t want to operate that and then would push you to change dividend policy. Just anything further you can provide on stability of the current dividend in this commodity environment?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Thanks for the question, TJ. I would say that us thinking has not changed dramatically, and that we have time to listen to the markets. There are disparate views in the markets. Our equity in our debt are certainly dislocated in the markets. And that we don’t have additional clarity to the extent that your question suggests.

TJ Schultz

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Okay, fair enough. You have a lot of levers on the cost side. How much more room is there on this lever in 2016, whether through OpEx or G&A, just trying to gauge how hard you've already pushed this through the fourth quarter result?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

First of all, I'm very proud of what's been pushed through, good term, in 2015. Smart, well thought out cost reductions, really across our companies, across the multiple businesses, to continue to drive, for example, operating cost reductions, savings on maintenance capital without sacrificing safety or saving dollars that will cost us to spin more dollars later. That continuous performance improvement, for example, root cause analysis are taking the best performance of the top [indiscernible] of those business and rolling it to the other businesses is ongoing. Operations team has stretched targets that they believe they will achieve for 2016 [Audio Gap] continued performance improvement in those areas. We expect continued performance improvement in those areas.

Matthew Meloy

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

And just to add to that, I agree with Joe Bob in all those front. There are some factors that are going to lead in the opposite direction to higher OpEx, right. The CBF Train 5 coming on Buffalo point. We have some additional facilities coming on. So, if you're looking at in terms of run rate, you're going to have to increase for additional expansion at facilities coming online.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

And now, I'll go so far as to say, now with those additional operations coming out and they're not insignificant, you may not see increases, right, yes, okay.

TJ Schultz

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Okay, got it. Just one more. Joe Bob, in your prepared remarks, you did walk through the potential the benefit from several things to the upside if and when things turn and you also mentioned some of the levers that you have to act on right now. And one of those that was kind of in both buckets was the potential from possible contract restructurings to your benefit. If you can expand on that opportunity where you may be seeing some need to restructure now or the potential to restructure some of the contracts and how some of that impacts EBITDA?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Sure. First of all, I'd expand on it by saying that's not really new for Targa. And we sometimes get questions because of companies that are sort of going from zero to 180 on a portfolio change. Ours is more like one contract at a time across our businesses and we see that as influential in today's environment. It's been part of the improvements we had in 2015 and we expect it to be part of the improvements we have in 2016. It insures that individual projects achieve an attractive return or they're not done for example. And it is on every commercial person's right on scope, but they don’t have any EBITDA estimate for you. It will be one of the mitigating factors and part of the results that we deliver.

TJ Schultz

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Darren Horowitz from Raymond James. Your line is open.

Darren Horowitz

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

Joe Bob, I've got a G&P question for you. You had mentioned the 30% or less forecast of 2016 margin, that obviously has a little bit more POP contract exposure. And I understand the commodity price sensitivities that you previously detailed. If we were to back out the benefit of the fee-based projects that you guys have coming to service over the course of this year. And just look at the base business. Where do you want that fee-based profile to be exiting this year? And as you look to next year, upon some of those contract restructuring opportunities, how do you balance that fee-based component of cash flow versus the ability to participate in what you said a price upside potential scenario should it occur?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

I think the short answer to your question is that all of our investor would like to see that fee-based component go down, because commodity prices went up. But what we don’t have is a magic dial of saying where do we want it to be. We're managing at in the context of the opportunities that have been presented to us over a multiyear of path. The balancing is sort of one opportunity at a time, not a magic formula that we can change from quarter-to-quarter.

Darren Horowitz

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

Okay. And then my last question. Just with regard to counterparty risk. In near terms you said that you don’t have significant unmitigated contract exposure. And I'm just wondering if you could quantify the threshold either in EBITDA o revenue terms that is co-significant by your definition?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

Okay. First of all, the traditional measure of counter parties on revenue terms is not terribly useful. We can provide those rankings, but it doesn't help when you think about EBITDA exposure, which is what we're trying to manage and you are interested in. Way I characterized it was reviewing it with our commercial leadership in our credit committee, one contract at a time, I don’t see a significant one, meaning hitting the radar scope of a discussion with our investors as being out there and unmitigated. I understand other companies and the issues that are being discussed and published, we don’t have anything that comes close to those levels. So, I'm not giving you a magic number. I'm giving you that consistent with what we bring to these earnings calls consistent to what we bring to our investor presentations, which is a level of interest in significance and changes to expectations. There is not anything out there. Okay?

Darren Horowitz

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

Thank you.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

I should say there is not currently anything out there, because I just looked at it three days ago. Okay. And I know commodity prices are getting worse and that a lot of EMP companies are in trouble. But we don’t have a significant unmitigated position that I would feel should have been brought to this discussion.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Brandon Blossman from Tudor, Pickering, Holt and Company. Your line is open.

Brandon Blossman

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt and Company. Your line is open

Good morning, guys.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt and Company. Your line is open

Hi, good morning.

Brandon Blossman

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt and Company. Your line is open

Let me start with something positively easy. What's the objective here as we go through the bottom of the cycle in terms of hedging and leading some exposure to the upside for '16 and '17?

Matthew Meloy

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt and Company. Your line is open

Yes. We have had as it going to track quarter-to-quarter we've added some hedges, but we really have not added much, where we see rally and your relative rally is anyway gas or crude. We may layer on some additional hedges. We're not at this point looking to catch up to make up to our targeted exposures. So, we can find pockets where it may make sense to hedge an NGL component or maybe some additional gas or crude. We'll take a look at that so sort of a significant rally in those commodity prices, I don't see us looking to make up our head position.

Brandon Blossman

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt and Company. Your line is open

That's fair enough and any general estimates down where your mark-to-market on 40% hedge positioned for 2016 you are?

Matthew Meloy

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt and Company. Your line is open

That will be the case that we file you will see full details on the mark for assets and liabilities when we file that.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt and Company. Your line is open

we got a question last call about make that already see road down on a estimate of how, it's positive no surprise it's positive whether we would take that off the table that's unlikely to occur.

Brandon Blossman

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt and Company. Your line is open

Okay fair enough. And then Joe Bob, I appreciate the need to -- here but just purely conceptual not from a defensive perspective needing to reflect the balance sheet or providing amount of cushion at dividend policy on a go forward basis as it relates to where the equity is trading at and what the markets telling you about their expectations of the dividend policy how do you spread that needle between giving cash out when the market doesn't at this point in time appreciate that cash in terms of dividend?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt and Company. Your line is open

I understand your question, I think it's interesting describing threading the needle of what the market, I pulled them with strain, cut your dividend to zero or cut it to x and other people on the call would scream you should say you would never cut your dividend that's not much of a needle that's a giant gap in market perceptions and we hear them both constantly as I am sure other midstream companies are hearing. So we are trying to listen to the market, the market on the margin right now the market on the margins is irrational about Targa's equity pricing in my opinion and with cushion we have time to see how things are sorting out without making rash moves I think that's a luxury, I am not trying to parse words I am trying to tell you exactly how I am thinking about it.

Brandon Blossman

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt and Company. Your line is open

Okay understood and actually appreciate that color Joe Bob that's all from me.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt and Company. Your line is open

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Sunil Sibal with Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open

Hi good morning guys and congrats on nearly a strong quarter.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open

Thanks good morning.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open

Couple of questions from me, first off starting off with some of the areas which I mentioned seeing lot of weakness in terms of producer activity, I was kind of curious if you have any thoughts about around industry consolidation in some of those areas any opportunities you see either way?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open

No I ran into a friend of mine at breakfast, why am I answering this way he is from the oil field services industry and talks about this is the time to oil field services industry will shake out and the opportunities will occur before the upturn. Having been through multiple cycles we believe there are opportunities in downturns even without trying to pick the particular time and consolidation is naturally occurring now without even transactions. Volumes are moving to the strong from the weak. You can see on the MP side struggling companies there were ownership will change in the midstream side ownership of assets in companies will change. We have said before that we are mostly looking our round, our strong asset footprint that's the best place for us to look for opportunities. That may just be an opportunity to consolidate a volume from someone who can't service it. It maybe a minor asset acquisition, it maybe a deal with another midstream provider to more efficiently do something those are the kind of opportunities that fall in that bucket you described this consolidation and we will keep an eye out for and part of our financial flexibility, part of the benefit of that financial flexibility is try not to turn down high return opportunities.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open

Okay that's helpful and then if you could talk a little bit about the Stonepeak transaction, how it kind of came about was that something again you are looking at for some time and how it really going to precipitated?

Matthew Meloy

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open

Yes sure. We have been talking about preferred and looking at about is kind of a tool in our financing toolkit back, it’s the acquisition so that's been years we have been considering whether it makes sense to do a preferred or convertible preferred. As industry conditions worsen over the course of last year as Joe Bob said earlier, I think it was early September we putting our presentation with NGLS common unit price frustrating, we were looking at alternate financing. And that included preferred, convertible preferred, potential asset sales and we executed on retail preferred offering shortly thereafter of $125 million. Really since we said that at the conference in early September we received a number of term sheets whether they are assets level preferred up to the corporate level whether it's TRP or TRC, we had a lot of incoming and a lot of term sheets about potential structures and ideas so we have been working that really pretty hard all through last fall and the transaction with Stonepeak came together relatively quickly over in 2016 period but we have been, this is something we have been working on for months and the structure and exact terms of course change as you are going through the process but this is something general like this we have been working on for quite a period of time.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open

Okay that's helpful. And then couple of bookkeeping questions from me, in terms of your OpEx, I was wondering if you could provide some sensitivity of that OpEx to gas prices or even NGL prices?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open

When I am talking about OpEx savings, our primary focus has been on the controllable OpEx savings much of operating cost associated with natural gas or in the case of electric power driven facilities, much of that is passed onto our customers. We keep an eye on it, we manage it to the greatest extent we can but all of the cost savings descriptions that I gave earlier in my comments we are not focused on pass through fuel type saves.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open

Okay got it. And then, lastly how much was the cash interest expense this quarter?

Matthew Meloy

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open

Yes, I think we are getting to, it looks that interest expense line you will see it looks relatively low, if you look through some of the details there we had a $30 million non-cash interest income which was an offset to the interest expense and that was due to change in the redemption value of our JV partnership for the West Oak and West Texas assets they are in a JV partnership and so there were redemption value change flows to interest expense so there is additional $30 million of non-cash interest income in that line.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open

Okay got it, thanks guys and congrats once again.

Matthew Meloy

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open

Okay thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Chris Sighinolfi with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Chris Sighinolfi

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

Good morning Joe Bob.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

Good morning Chris.

Chris Sighinolfi

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

Thanks for the added colors. Just a couple bookkeeping questions Matt with the preferred offering you have the option to take those distributions in the first couple of years and I was just curious what we should assume or if you had made a formal assumption in your modeling on what you’re going to do?

Matthew Meloy

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

No, we have not determined whether we are going to pay in cash or pick, we will determining that in our normal quarterly distribution and I guess now dividend declaration so that will be a decision made by management and the board at that time.

Chris Sighinolfi

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

Okay. And then, I apologize from my events on this, but what does the board observer mean, what I mean Scott being added to your board but you have mentioned in the release and then today on the call as an observer and I was just curious what the distinction was, as he is not sitting on a committee that he have a voting position could you just help clarify that?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

Yes, I am happy to help clarify that the primary distinction between an observer and other board member as we will operationalize it, is just official ability to vote. We’ve had a board observer in the past at TRC it was a Merrill Lynch private equity a board observer when they joined on the midstream acquisition through interest sold by over thinkers and without mentioning that person's name they did just sit an observer on the board they contributed and brought their experience and industry understanding and that's what we expect Scott to do as well. When you have a board vote he doesn't officially vote and he would not be officially part of creating a quorum to vote and he will not be assigned to our compensation or audit committee, would not qualify to serve on this.

Chris Sighinolfi

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

Okay, thanks a lot. Kind of what I expected but appreciate the clarity. And then Matt, I am sorry if I missed this if you had said it in your prepared remarks, but I think typically you gave a hedge percentage on the products?

Matthew Meloy

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

Yes that is 40 and 20 for gas and 15% and 10% 2017.

Chris Sighinolfi

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

Okay and do you did you say at what levels.

Matthew Meloy

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

No that will be in our K when we file.

Chris Sighinolfi

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

Okay. And then finally, and I just wanted to quickly go back to Joe Bob so I could understand if I am interpreting what you have said correctly obviously with the roll in the cash savings associated with the roll in and then the preferred offering you have an incredible amount of head room certainly relative to much of your peer group on the compliance leverage covenants, significant amount of current liquidity not a terrible amount in terms of the near term growth CapEx that's you have to do. And then, somewhat schizophrenic market view as to what you should do with your dividend and so am I just to interpret that flexibility is going to be forward you an ability to sort of wait and making major decisions overtime as conditions either improve or do not improve?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

There was the first part of your statement that was talking about the context I think you nailed it. And I am not trying to put new words in your mouth, I believe that the measured response that's thoughtful response overtime trying to weigh the factors we see today and the factors we will be seeing tomorrow is the right way to interpret what I was saying. And it is a luxury to have that space to not be forced into a rash decision and that's not poking at you, companies that were hanging on or being forced into those rash decisions that's not where target is. We have the luxury of being thoughtful about how we balance sheet strengthen which we have and intend to keep and how we are serving our shareholders over time with dividend policy if you put it.

Chris Sighinolfi

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

Okay. Thanks so much for the time this morning, I really appreciate.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

Thanks a lot.

Matthew Meloy

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

Okay thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Helen Ryoo from Barclays, your line is open.

Helen Ryoo

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

Thank you, good morning. I have just a couple of questions when you talk about the…

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

Your phone broke up a lot, can you start over.

Helen Ryoo

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

Sure, sure. Could you hear me better?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

That's better.

Helen Ryoo

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

Okay great. Thank you. So yes, on your CapEx comment just to clarify I guess the 175 you referenced does that imply there is about 75 million of sort of wiggle room to reduce your CapEx budget for the year and also on that 175 is mostly [indiscernible] related and what’s the lead time for that the project in that 175 number?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

Okay let’s start over a bit what Matt pointed to was other projects currently showing at about 250 million and our prediction that we would spend debt lease to 175. First of all, any dollar we spend in that category is an attractive return and almost all will be immediate 2016 cash flow. So as an investor you want dollars being spent there and I just want to make sure that's clear to everybody we are not going to be spending dollars in that category that aren't well spent. And that investors don't want us to spend and we have the luxury in that category of looking and being careful about the dollars we spend. That probably includes the category of unidentified projects if something comes up it will need to be very attractive return compared to the funds that will require to support it and quick cash flow is better than delayed cash flow. What Matt said was the largest piece of projects was from the battle, and then he used that as an example of immediate cash and attractive return and then said that other expenditures in that category would be similar. Does that help?

Helen Ryoo

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

Yes that does. But just to clarify so 250 is a sum of the four projects that were already identified that will cancel in 2016?

Matthew Meloy

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

No ma'am, no.

Helen Ryoo

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

Okay sorry so that's the additional 275 is and 250 is outside of that number?

Matthew Meloy

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

Right 275 is the four projects, 250 is just coincidence that they are about the same magnitude. 250 is our estimate for a set of identified projects from a few months ago and 175 or more is the estimate of how much of that we will spend in 2016.

Helen Ryoo

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

Got it. Got it okay that is very helpful. And then the noble project it's not coming online till 2017 but are going to get that cash flowing starting 2016 so are you…

Matthew Meloy

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

That's not right either. Noble projects expected to come on the first quarter of 2018, but we will get cash flow in 2016 as a function of what has been a couple of renegotiation around the terms of that project or projects. We said from the beginning that we would not be economically disadvantaged by essentially one year auction as noble re-evaluated exactly what they wanted to do and payments in 2016 are a function of that.

Helen Ryoo

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

Okay that's helpful. Just going back to your comments on counterparty risk just curious I guess you did have a little bit of Quicksilver exposure and it seems like that contract got rejected pretty early in their bankruptcy process just curious how was there anything special about that contract that made vulnerable or should we think a lot of these just transmission type of projects or contracts or typically more vulnerable in that situation if you could provide your view?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

you mentioned Quicksilver contract -- currently other don't have a problem with that what I can say is what I told you previously there is nothing significant that I need to talk to you about and if that particular contract were included I would still say there is nothing significant I need to talk to you about. That's really the best I can do with that one right now. And I would certainly not characterize any relationship I might have with that company or we are in renegotiation around that contract as being at all typical or having duplicates in line fractionation contract portfolio.

Helen Ryoo

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

Okay. And then just lastly Joe Bob on your comment about 130 million of negative effect with the commodity downturn after Atlas acquisition is that pre, does that take into account the hedge protection that came with Atlas or is that without that number?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

Well, first of all it was only looking at performance relative to a single forecast which was the official board approved plan and yes it was after taking into effect hedge.

Helen Ryoo

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Barclays, your line is open

Yes, thank you.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Jeff Birnbaum from Wunderlich, your line is open

Jeff Birnbaum

Analyst · Wunderlich, your line is open

Yes, good morning everyone. I got kicked off the call so I apologize if I duplicate any questions, but Matt did you mention if there were any deficiencies payments that you guys received in the quarter and if not were there?

Matthew Meloy

Analyst · Wunderlich, your line is open

No we didn't give a break out, we typically do receive some deficiency payments on our take or pay contract whether it be fractionation or on the GMP side, we didn't provide that detail. We didn't feel it was significant enough to give that color. So there is some seasonality to our logistics business where we get some of those payments in Q4, but we didn't give detail on that this time.

Jeff Birnbaum

Analyst · Wunderlich, your line is open

Okay. Thank you and then just on the, back to LPG exports obviously you have, as you commented you seen some good strength the fourth quarter it seems like the first quarter to-date has been strong, I guess just given your comment about five million barrels a month being a good number to use this year relative to those kind of a more recent results. Can you talk a bit about how you see that driven either by seasonality or perhaps the first half relative to the back half and I mean you guys loved talked about this but have you added contracted balance since you last updated the market or not and then is that something you can quantify for us?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Wunderlich, your line is open

I love to cross the table and Scott Pryor runs that business smiled at me. You don't have anything long enough to hit me with so I am going to, but he can find me. Our five million barrels per month average for 2016 we believe is a good number for you and we gave that number actually some time ago. We said that 2016 was all to a good start there is some published reports where people look at ships leaving docks and that sort of thing and I guess we are saying yes, those published reports are probably right and our 2016 has gotten off to a strong start. We haven't had a whole lot of annual performance from our docks, it's relatively new business but there is a little bit of seasonal effect, the light first quarters going into second quarter as a function of global seasonal usage of water borne LPG and impacts something on the margin. You can see it in the last year's performance we kind of half way expected and this year’s performance and I think that's why either Matt or I mentioned some seasonality on average for 2016, we expect five million barrels per month I do not expect five million barrels every month. Is that help at all?

Jeff Birnbaum

Analyst · Wunderlich, your line is open

Yes, Joe Bob thank you, it does help I guess just sort of as we think about sort of the current rate and then sort of once you get pass that seasonality I guess would you I guess the question is, do you expect a normal impact from seasonality or is there something greater this year that is taking it to the I guess what you call the five million barrels a month and accurate, a conservative number or a best guess number perhaps?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Wunderlich, your line is open

Yes, I think you are parsing my statement. I think I said towards end of last year that I don't better about that five million barrels a month estimate then we first put it out there and I feel at least that good. Does that help?

Jeff Birnbaum

Analyst · Wunderlich, your line is open

It does. Okay thank you.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Eric McCarthy from Citadel, your line is open.

Eric McCarthy

Analyst · Citadel, your line is open

Hi good morning. Thanks.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Citadel, your line is open

Good morning.

Eric McCarthy

Analyst · Citadel, your line is open

You touched on ethane recovery in prepared remarks earlier, can you quantify or approximate ethane rejection across the system occurring?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Citadel, your line is open

How much rejection is occurring?

Eric McCarthy

Analyst · Citadel, your line is open

Yes.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Citadel, your line is open

I don't have that number for you I would characterize it as there is still significant amount of that thing rejection occurring among gathering and processing facility Targa and others who come into our systems where they can most economically do so you should assume that all participants are making economic decisions every week or every day about what they should reject or recover and that most of those parties are thinking about what some cost they might have in NGLs, when they make those decisions we are on a long way from significant ethane extraction relative.

Eric McCarthy

Analyst · Citadel, your line is open

I guess, your peers talk about how big the opportunity is over the next three years and if I think back to how much ethane out list was rejecting and then compare that to you system or just look if I take the approximately 250,000 barrels a day of NGLs being produced, I would say it's 50% - 75% I think rejection because that's along the order like 50,000 – 60,000 barrels a day they are being rejected?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Citadel, your line is open

Yes, not providing a Targa number I have got a question for you when people are quantifying that what price do you think they are using for OpEx?

Eric McCarthy

Analyst · Citadel, your line is open

I would imagine by 2018, 2019 if there is big demand there is going to be some uplift of those residual fuel value right.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Citadel, your line is open

Well, I think you definitely got to the key, you have to inset the ethane to be extracted and if the ethane is being incentive to be extracted you got to increase in ethane prices ethane won’t go up by itself there will probably be a propane response propane and ethane will probably go together. The potential for that is a combination of volumes for fractionation and volumes and price for other NGLs and you said some upside potential for Targa, but there are a lot of variables to assume to come up what is that dollar potential. And it doesn't make sense for Targa sort of pick one volume and one price and one outcome in 2018 to try to quantify for you right now. I don't think.

Eric McCarthy

Analyst · Citadel, your line is open

Okay. On the build out of that system do you have an approximate number of the current volumes that are being trucked out either on your acreage dedication or nearby?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Citadel, your line is open

Its 1000 of barrels, okay.

Eric McCarthy

Analyst · Citadel, your line is open

Okay so it's and when you talk about building that system out further is that the opportunity is to capture those volumes currently being trucked or is it to expand to the wells that are scheduled to be completed over the course of the year?

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · Citadel, your line is open

What Matt was characterizing relative to capital investment on the band lands. Primarily additional infrastructure on the Indian reservation where we have been working for some time to capture both gas volumes being flared and oil volumes being trucked. And I think what I think you also heard and this is part of the equations is that we still expected gas to be up 2016 versus 2015 in the band lands and that all factors included, well declines we expected oil to be similar 2016 versus 2015 that are current view of activity levels.

Eric McCarthy

Analyst · Citadel, your line is open

Okay alright that's it from me thank you.

Operator

Operator

At this time I am showing no further questions I’d like to turn the call back over to Mr. Joe Bob Perkins for closing remarks.

Joe Bob Perkins

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Thanks operator. To the extent anyone has any follow-up questions you are free to contact Jen, Matt or any of us. Thank you again for your time today and your interest and look forward to speaking with you again soon.