Targa Resources Corp. (TRGP) Q3 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Targa Resources Corp. Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Webcast and Presentation Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Tristan Richardson, Vice President, Investor Relations and Fundamentals. Sir, please go ahead.

Thanks, Michelle. Good morning, and welcome to the Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call for Targa Resources Corp. The third quarter earnings release, a supplement presentation and our latest investor presentation are available in the Investors section of our website at targaresources.com. Statements made during this call that may include Targa's expectations or predictions should be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in forward-looking statements. For a discussion of factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to our latest SEC filings. Our speakers for the call today will be Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer; Jen Kneale, President; and Ben Branstetter, Chief Financial Officer. Additionally, members of Targa's senior management will be available for Q&A, including Pat McDonie, President, Gathering and Processing; Brent Secrest, President, Logistics and Transportation; and Bobby Muraro, Chief Commercial Officer. I'll now turn the call over to Matt.

Thanks, Tristan, and good morning. We delivered another strong quarter with record Permian and NGL transportation and fractionation volumes. Our Permian natural gas volumes increased more than 900 million cubic feet per day from a year ago, or the equivalent of more than 3 processing plants of growth. Volume growth this year has tracked slightly ahead of our expectations despite greater-than-anticipated price-driven curtailments in the first half of the year. Through the first 9 months of the year, we are on pace to deliver another year of strong double-digit percentage Permian volume growth. We now expect adjusted EBITDA to be at least $6 billion in 2026, more than $1 billion higher than 2025, a more than 21% increase year-over-year. Looking ahead, we see volume growth on our Permian footprint in 2027 looking similar to 2026, and our visibility into existing customer activity and recent commercial wins support an expectation of years of double-digit percentage Permian volume growth, an exceptional growth profile given the scale that our Permian business has already reached. A significant contributor to that long-term outlook is our recently expanded relationship with ExxonMobil. In August, we announced new 20-year, fee-based integrated agreements for gathering and processing and downstream services with Exxon, supported by significant acreage dedications in the Delaware and Midland Basins. These agreements reflect our proven execution capabilities, expansive integrated footprint and strong operational reliability. This commercial success is additive to our outlook and extends the duration of Targa's growth. Our focus at Targa is consistent: to safely deliver industry-leading operating performance to our customers, use that track record to win new contracts with existing and new customers, execute on our major projects underway and support our customers across the value chain. Executing on these priorities is driving Targa's next transformation. As our major projects in progress come online, we expect to emerge as an even larger, more integrated company capable of delivering compelling growth with significant and growing free cash flow. We now have more than 3,700 employees at Targa. And before I turn the call over to Jen, I want to thank all of them for what they do every day. We have talked this morning about record volumes, about our growth and continued execution, and we are proud of those accomplishments. But none of those records matter if we are not operating safely. Safety has to come first in every decision we make and every task we perform every single day. Nothing we accomplish is more important than making sure everyone goes home safely at the end of each day. Lastly, I want to briefly highlight the leadership changes that we were excited to announce in August which added experience and depth to our team, positioning us well for future growth. On September 1, Brent Secrest joined Targa as President, Logistics and Transportation. Brent brings more than 20 years of midstream experience and adds depth to Targa's leadership team. In the past several weeks, Brent has already brought a lot of thoughtful leadership and perspective, and we are very pleased to have him on the team. Also on September 1, Ben Branstetter was appointed Targa's Chief Financial Officer. Ben has been at Targa for nearly 10 years leading different functions across the organization and will continue to provide strategic leadership across our finance team. Lastly, Will Byers announced his retirement after a 30-year career. We thank Will for his contributions to Targa and wish him well in his retirement. Jen?

Thanks, Matt. Good morning, everyone. Third quarter Permian volumes were a record 7.5 billion cubic feet per day, up approximately 5% from the second quarter and 14% from a year ago. Our year-to-date Permian volumes have increased 13% year-over-year, which is pretty remarkable given the overall Permian Basin has increased approximately 7% year-over-year, highlighting our track record over the past many years of outperforming the overall basin. With new Permian natural gas egress capacity online, Waha prices improved meaningfully during the third quarter. As a result, the price-driven curtailments we saw from some producers in the second quarter returned to our system across the third quarter. Activity behind our assets remain strong, supporting continued momentum into 2027 and beyond. We have also seen higher NGL prices given strong domestic and global demand. With recent natural gas prices at Waha around $1.50 per MMBtu and our average NGL barrel north of $1 per gallon, we expect modest margin above fee floors in the fourth quarter and may benefit from some commodity price tailwinds in 2027. Meeting the growth we are seeing from our customers requires disciplined execution across our integrated system, and we are focused on several important years of project delivery for Targa. In the Permian Delaware, our Copperhead plant is currently in start-up ahead of schedule, and our Yeti and Yeti II plants are now expected to start in the second quarter of 2027 and the third quarter of 2027, both ahead of schedule. Our recent commercial success supports 3 new Delaware natural gas processing plants: Wrangler, Ranger and Ranger II. Together, these plants will provide much needed Delaware Basin capacity when online in the second quarter of 2028. We are also moving forward with ordering long lead items for our next 2 processing plants in the Permian Delaware and are evaluating the timing and location for these next plants. In the Permian Midland, the addition of East Driver in the second quarter of 2026 gave us much needed capacity, and we are now moving forward with long lead items for our next plant in the Permian Midland. These long lead orders in both the Midland and the Delaware give us great visibility to our next 3 plants across the Permian Basin. We are evaluating the timing and expect these plants will likely be needed in 2028 or early 2029. We also continue to execute on our residue natural gas strategy, adding intra-basin connectivity across our Permian footprint. Our Bull Run Extension residue pipeline was placed in service early in the fourth quarter ahead of schedule. Our Buffalo Run, Forza and Bull Run II projects remain on track and will further add natural gas connectivity across our system, expanding our producer customers' access to multiple premium markets. Blackcomb and Traverse, 2 natural gas pipelines in which we have an equity interest, remain on track for the fourth quarter of 2026 and mid-2027, contributing to continued improving natural gas egress in the Permian for the near to medium term. Shifting to Logistics and Transportation. Permian growth continues to flow through our integrated footprint, contributing to record NGL transportation volumes of 1.17 million barrels per day and record fractionation volumes of 1.26 million barrels per day. Our LPG export loadings averaged 13.7 million barrels per month during the third quarter, an increase of 10% year-over-year. While below the record second quarter level, loaded volumes were our third highest quarter ever, again demonstrating Targa's ability to respond quickly to changing global demand for U.S. propane and butane to support our customers. Against the backdrop of continued supply disruption in the Middle East, our commercial teams have also added to our portfolio of long-term contracts. The growth outlook we see behind our Permian system will create meaningful incremental supply of NGLs, and we have several key downstream projects underway. Our Train 12 NGL fractionator recently commenced operations in the fourth quarter, ahead of schedule and much needed. Train 13 remains on track for the first quarter of 2028, and we expect it will be fully utilized when online, given our Permian plant additions currently underway. Today, we announced that we are moving forward with our 14th fractionation train at Mont Belvieu, which we expect will begin operations in the first quarter of 2029. Once Train 14 is complete, Targa will have operated fractionation capacity at Mont Belvieu of approximately 1.8 million barrels per day. Speedway, the large expansion of our NGL transportation system connecting our Permian G&P position to our leading Mont Belvieu fractionation footprint, remains on track for the third quarter of 2027. Our existing NGL transportation system has effectively been operating at capacity since Speedway was announced. Continued volume growth reinforces our capital-efficient approach, with increasing NGL supply from our own G&P systems expected to baseload Speedway when it is completed. Our large LPG export expansion, which will increase our export capacity to around 19 million barrels per month, will be much needed and remains on track for the third quarter of 2027. Our wellhead-to-water strategy is translating, growing Permian production into attractive opportunities across our integrated system. With the projects underway and our recent commercial wins, we believe Targa is exceptionally well positioned to continue delivering for customers and shareholders. I'm incredibly proud of Targa's employees and what our teams are accomplishing across the organization. The cross-functional execution behind our commercial success, the projects we are bringing online and the record volumes we are handling is exceptional. I will now turn the call over to Ben to discuss our financial results and outlook in more detail. Ben?

Thanks, Jen. Targa's reported adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter was $1.5 billion, 6% lower than the second quarter. The benefits of record volumes across Permian G&P, NGL transportation and fractionation were offset by lower marketing and optimization opportunities and lower LPG exports. As Matt noted, based on our performance through the first 9 months, we now expect full year 2026 adjusted EBITDA to be at least $6 billion, representing growth of more than 21% over 2025. To support customer growth, including our new agreements with ExxonMobil, we announced 3 Delaware plants and Bull Run II in August and increased our 2026 growth capital outlook to approximately $5 billion. This outlook also contemplates the projects we announced today, and we continue to estimate 2026 net maintenance capital spending of $250 million. We are currently working through our plan for 2027. And with our major growth capital projects underway, plus the visibility to long lead items for our next 2 Delaware plants and our next Midland plant, 2027 capital is likely to remain elevated, with these investments expected to generate attractive returns. We continue to have visibility to a meaningful profile of growing free cash flow in 2028 as a number of our larger growth capital projects come online. At the end of the third quarter, we had $2.9 billion of available liquidity. And our pro forma consolidated leverage ratio was approximately 3.4x, well within our long-term leverage ratio target of 3x to 4x. Turning to capital allocation. Our priorities remain consistent: maintain our strong investment-grade balance sheet, continue to invest in high-returning integrated projects and return an increasing amount of capital to our shareholders. In October, we declared a third quarter common dividend of $1.25 per share, which is a 25% increase relative to the third quarter of 2025. Additionally, today, we announced our intention to recommend to Targa's Board of Directors a 20% increase to our annual common dividend in 2027 to $6 per share. Through the first 9 months of the year, we opportunistically repurchased approximately $187 million in common stock at an average price of approximately $261 per share. Despite completing a bolt-on acquisition early in '26, funding a substantial organic investment program, we have remained active in repurchasing shares. Buybacks continue to complement dividend growth and organic investment as part of our all-of-the-above capital allocation strategy. With record operating performance, a visible growth portfolio and significant financial flexibility, Targa remains on track for another record year, and we remain well positioned to continue to create long-term shareholder value. And with that, I will turn the call back over to Tristan.

Thanks, Ben. [Operator Instructions] Operator?

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is going to come from the line of Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan Securities.

Maybe just kicking off here, we're starting to hear a bit more about new benches in the Permian, the Wood -- Barnett here. And just wondering, I guess, if you could share any thoughts on what you're seeing and what you think this could mean to Targa over time?

Jeremy, this is Jen. I think that it's exciting. As we've gone across the last several quarters, I think publicly, you've heard more and more producers speak with confidence about the ability to complete the Woodford and the Barnett zones and have good results. And I think we are seeing some of those results on our system, which is great. From our perspective, a lot of that, I believe, we would characterize as upside going forward. So I wouldn't say that, that's something that is well enough understood yet that we have a lot factored into Targa's growth outlook moving forward over next year and the next several years. But certainly, everything that we're seeing so far indicates that there is a lot of hydrocarbons that can be produced in those zones. And producers are having good results and are investing more in trying to prove out both the Woodford and the Barnett, and it really kind of goes across the whole basin. So I think we've got a lot of optimism that there is going to be a lot of incremental upside to the potential deeper zones that aren't contemplated in forecast right now.

Got it. That's helpful. And I was just wondering if you might be able to provide a bit more kind of outlook on the longer term post the Exxon deal here, very meaningful for the company going forward. And does this kind of change like, I guess, the cadence of processing plant additions you might expect? And how does this impact 2027 as well? It seems like you guys are primed for double-digit growth again.

Yes. Jeremy, we just continue to be very excited about our prospects. We're seeing really strong activity from our producers in both the Midland and the Delaware Basins. We're seeing more growth across the Delaware with just really strong results when you look at the year-over-year growth rate there. We have a broad set of customers across both basins. We view this Exxon announcement, the recently announced 20-year agreements on both G&P and downstream with Exxon as really additive to a really strong growth rate that we already had. And so that's why when we look at '27, we see that growth being kind of similar to where we shake out here in '26, which is a very strong growth rate. And then that also gives us the confidence to say we see multiple years of double-digit, at least double-digit Permian growth, which just sets us up very well.

And our next question comes from the line of Spiro Dounis with Citi.

Maybe I want to pick up on that last question, but perhaps ask from a different perspective and hone in on the gas egress that's coming. Obviously, been topical again, just given all the project announcements. So I just wanted to get your take on the 15 Bcf a day or so of egress, how that translates into G&P growth? I believe your market share in the basin is about 1/3, implies you get about 5 Bcf of that, which would imply another 7 plants beyond what you've announced and ordered. So maybe I'm oversimplifying here a little bit, but just curious, what you think that means for G&P growth?

Spiro, this is Jen. I think from our perspective, anything that is supportive of producer ability to get to markets and benefit from a higher Waha price at the end of the day benefits us. So I think that we've been very pleased to see the announcements that have been made in terms of long-term natural gas pipeline egress and what that will mean for the basin. We're also, I think, doing a really good job of utilizing our intra-basin infrastructure on the residue side to aggregate volumes to benefit our producers as we move forward over the next several years as well. So I think that, that's really just providing what I'd characterize as a supportive backdrop to just continued strong producer activity levels. Obviously, at Targa, we've got a lot going on. We're adding 2 plants in 2027. And then we've got 5 plants that we're currently in progress building right now that will be added in 2028. And then, of course, this morning indicated long lead items are being ordered for our next Midland plant and 2 Delaware plants after that, which we think we'll need in 2028 or early 2029. So clearly, for us, a lot of short-term volume growth is expected on our assets. And I think a lot of the egress projects that are underway will support those projects as well, which is great. Longer term, I think we've got a ton of visibility to a lot of growth. Matt said in his scripted remarks that we've got years of double-digit growth that we've got visibility to. I think the Exxon announcement provided a lot of visibility to the sustainability or the durability of our growth that we've got going forward. So we really just feel like we're sitting in an exceptional position at Targa to continue to deliver value for our shareholders by doing what we're very good at, which is building plants in the Permian, bringing incremental volumes into our system and then moving them through that integrated system. And the incremental third-party egress pipes will help all of that be facilitated.

Got it. That's great color, Jen. Second one, maybe just going to that Exxon deal. Curious, since that was announced, has there been a change in discussions with your other customers on how they approach future growth plans with you? It seems like E&Ps more broadly just have a lot more visibility than they used to. They're obviously signing up for a lot more firm transport than they have in the past, longer out. So is that deal something we could see repeated with others, maybe not at the same scale, but something that does continue to create more visibility for you guys?

I think any time there's a deal like that, that's announced, it gives everybody on both sides of the table the opportunity to look at what else could be considered and see if it could be a fit for them. Each producer has their own individual situation, their own set of contracts. But of course, we pride ourselves on commercially trying to be as commercial, as strategic, as flexible as possible and working to satisfy whatever it is that our producer customers need the most and are focused on the most and then delivering for them. So I think from our perspective, it's just another really nice data point out there of what else we could be thinking about. And then, of course, the flavor of contracts that we have with producers are sort of all across the board. Again, us trying to work as best as we can to align with our producers to really satisfy what it is that they need most out of their midstream partners.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question will come from Theresa Chen with Barclays.

I actually wanted to turn to the downstream business for a minute. With disruptions at several competing LPG export facilities, including Freeport and Nederland, what are you seeing in terms of incremental demand for your export capacity? Have the outages created opportunities to capture some spot cargoes above normal or optimization margins? How meaningful could this upside be?

Theresa, this is Jen. I think from our perspective, it's been an exceptional year on the LPG export side. Record volumes in the second quarter, third quarter volumes down a little bit, frankly, because in the second quarter, we were able to move a lot of incremental butane across our dock for our customers, which was great. But even the third quarter being a little bit down sequentially, still our third highest quarter ever, and you can expect that the fourth quarter is going to be very, very strong as well. So I think the dynamics that are playing out for a variety of reasons are really working in our favor, both short term and then really medium and longer term when you think about contracting. I think shorter term, one, we're very well contracted. So what our team is doing is trying to figure out how we can move any incremental vessel across our facility. And hats off to our guys because they're doing a great job of trying to work through that. We'll have to see how the fourth quarter and the first quarter plays out. Of course, fog sometimes becomes a little bit of an issue in the ship channel and you can have day or multi-day disruptions, but we're sitting in a great spot to really continue to help our customers by moving increasing volumes across our dock. And then, of course, with our big expansion that comes online in the third quarter of 2027 and all the visibility that our customers and potential customers have to increasing supply in the Targa system from all of our G&P expansions underway, we're just sitting in a really good spot on the LPG export side to continue to be an important player in exporting propane and butane to international markets.

And looking towards the full chain economics for your downstream customers and the industrial users on the other end, with higher contract LPG prices raising the replacement cost for Asian buyers of Middle Eastern supply and increasing the relative attractiveness of U.S. molecules, how do you see the market balancing stronger replacement economics against buyers' ability to absorb further price increases, understanding that the volumes on your system will continue to flow as those NGL barrels have to be priced to clear through cycles? But near term, do you think there's a point at which we test the inflection point of demand elasticity for LPGs?

There's a lot there, Theresa. I guess I would say from our perspective, what we see is really strong demand for propane and butane across our dock, and we're seeing it not only in the short term, but also as we're looking at multiyear contracts. We see that continuing with the supply disruptions. The Gulf Coast is just going to be more advantaged. Now when prices move up, could that cause some other pricing out of some incremental demand? Perhaps. But I think as our system, as we look through our supply from our gathering and processing through our transport frac, we're exporting the supply across our dock. And the LPGs coming from the U.S. are going to be priced to move across our dock. And so whether that's in the terminal fee or whether that's in the nominal price, it will depend on who captures those economics, but our volumes are going to move across our dock. And we're just seeing really strong incremental demand at this point for LPGs. And so we just think it's going to be just some tailwinds for that business for a while.

And our next question is going to come from the line of Keith Stanley with Wolfe Research.

I wanted to start on the fee floor contracts. Can you remind us, is that solely for the Midland assets? Any sense of how much of the Midland assets it applies to? And any way to think about how to track this from a commodity mix perspective, recognizing the contracts vary a bit?

Yes. Sure, Keith. Yes. Most of the fee floors that we have are on the Midland business. I don't know if I want to say exclusively, but it's the lion's share, the majority are in the Permian Midland side of the business there. Yes. And then mix, we have different -- we still have some fee-based, some hybrid, but I would say likely, the majority of the contracts on the Permian Midland side are the POP with the fee floor.

And then I said in my scripted remarks, Keith, that we expect a little bit of, call it, modest margin in the fourth quarter from fee floors given where prices have rallied to, particularly on the NGL side, which hopefully will provide us with some momentum heading into 2027, particularly when we think about maybe early 2027, while there's significant capacity on the egress side to continue to get residue volumes out of the Permian. Hopefully, we might see some nice tailwinds in terms of incremental margin above fee floors heading into 2027 as well.

Got it. Second question, the 2 new Delaware plants you're ordering the long lead items for, should we think of that as part of the previously communicated 5 additional plants that you would be building around the Exxon area? Or are the 2 plants you're ordering long lead items kind of separate from that Exxon area?

I think at the end of the day, it's going to be pretty hard to separate going forward what are Exxon plants versus plants for our very diversified suite of other customers in the Delaware, Keith. And so I'd say that this will be a mix, right? When we made the Exxon announcement in the middle of August, we announced that we were moving forward with 3 plants. That was largely to make sure that we are positioned to handle Exxon's growth when those come online in the second quarter of 2028. As we think about incremental plants from there, even in that initial press release related to Exxon, we described as 5 more plants likely to help us process growth in the area. So again, trying to sort of broaden out from just being Exxon-specific. And then, of course, in terms of actual volumes running through facilities, those will be a mix of producers as well. So I'd say that this is really a combination in terms of the long lead items that we're ordering for the next 2 Delaware plants.

And our next question is going to come from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies.

This is Andrew on for Julien. Maybe the first one on my end is, given we're seeing a lot stronger growth from the processing side of the business, can you maybe speak to what is your latest expectation around potentially needing a new NGL pipe in the early 2030s, which then could relay some CapEx kind of later on this decade as well?

Andrew, this is Jen. I think the visibility that we have to Speedway being a home run project is really exceptionally strong. When we announced Speedway, it's a 1 million barrel a day pipe, but we announced initial capacity of 500,000 barrels a day, and then we can put pumps in as volumes increase ratably over time to get it up to 1 million barrels a day in a very capital-efficient manner. We've now announced, including the plant that we announced when we announced Speedway, 10 processing plants. So really just, again, a lot of good visibility to growth. Of course, we've also had increasing volumes on our system ahead of those incremental plants coming online, too, that are additive to the outlook for Speedway. We have already ordered incremental pumps to put into Speedway to help increase that capacity as we think about the visibility that we have to a very strong volume growth outlook. So ultimately, I think Speedway gives us a lot of operating leverage. And then it will just be what's the cadence of growth in the Permian and the cadence of growth of Permian volumes on our system and what will that mean in terms of how quickly we're able to fill up a 1 million barrel per day pipe, which, if we're able to fill that up more quickly than anybody is anticipating, that is going to be one great outcome for Targa and our shareholders. And then, of course, we'll turn to similar decisions that we were making ahead of announcing Speedway, which is, is there available other third-party transport on the NGL side that we can potentially leverage to be capital-efficient as we think about that next incremental decision. So ultimately, it's going to be the cadence of growth that will dictate when we will need another pipe. But we're really excited about Speedway, very much looking forward to that coming online in the third quarter of 2027. But that will provide us with some operating leverage as we ramp up to that 1 million barrels per day over time.

No, sounds good. This is very clear. And maybe the second question I have, just to kind of go into the details of the Exxon deal a bit more. Can you maybe kind of speak to the margin side of the profile? Obviously, a very strong commercial win. Does that kind of require any concession on a fee basis kind of across the G&P and T&F integrated portfolio? And how does the margin on the volume itself compare against your current portfolio?

Yes, sure. Good question. Look, Exxon, there's a lot of volumes associated with that contract, and Exxon does a very good job of negotiating their position and drove a hard bargain with us. So we had to get -- it was a competitive process. And so we had to be competitive on our pricing as well as just our other terms. But what we offer is, in our view, is better run time reliability, which allows us to provide other value to Exxon that perhaps other gatherer and processors can't. And so we think the deal that we struck with Exxon, while it was a competitive process, still generates attractive returns for Targa on our capital investment, and it will be a good deal for TRGP shareholders.

Our next question is going to come from the line of John Mackay with Goldman Sachs.

I wondered if I could just take the kind of multiple years of double-digit growth, and I think you talked a lot about kind of your level of confidence in that. Is there a way you could tie that into your views around kind of multiyear EBITDA growth from here? I know you don't typically kind of point to multiple years on that front, but the volume side or the volume conviction feels pretty high. So anything there would be interesting.

John, this is Jen. I'd just say that we have a really strong outlook really across the board. So when you think about the incremental Permian plants that we're adding, the visibility to years of double-digit Permian growth and what that's going to mean in terms of moving volumes through the rest of our integrated system, we clearly have a very strong EBITDA growth outlook as well. We're in the middle of working through our planning process, as Ben mentioned in his scripted remarks. So February, we'll come out with our formal guidance for 2027. But at this point in time, I think we're just comfortable saying that we've got a really strong outlook. And we are very excited, and it's largely driven by bringing those incremental volumes in on the Gathering and Processing side, which we think we've given you all pretty good visibility to, given some of our comments as well as the major projects that we have underway, plus the incremental long leads that we're ordering for the next few plants. So hopefully, there are enough breadcrumbs there on the volume side to help you build up that our outlook on the EBITDA side is really strong as well.

No, that makes sense. And then maybe just going back to maybe Theresa's questions, but more directly, when could you think about moving forward on a kind of a larger expansion on the export side? And what would the steps you would need to see to move that forward? Would it be from the supply side and kind of visibility in NGL growth? Or would it be kind of customer success on the contracting side?

I think we've consistently talked about the fact that for us, a huge differentiator and who can be successful on the LPG export side is who has the supply in their system available for exports. Given the volumes we already have, plus again, the visibility to volume growth that we have, I think we've got great visibility to a lot of increasing supply of propane and butane in our system. And that's going to put us in an exceptional position when we think about that export expansion that comes online in the third quarter of 2027 beyond that expansion, which takes us up to almost 19 million barrels per month. And hopefully, our team will continue to do what they're very good at, which is get a little bit more out of each asset. So maybe we'll be able to move a little bit more than that. I think as we move forward beyond that expansion, it will really be looking at the supply that we have in our system, the expansions that we've got on the fractionation side. We've got -- Train 12 just came online full, very grateful to the team that brought that up and online early. That's performing exceptionally well for us. Then we've got Train 13 coming online first quarter of 2028, just announced Train 14. So all of the incremental frac expansions that indicate that we'll have more propane and butane in our system is part of what goes into our thinking about, therefore, what can we do on the other side of the water in terms of being comfortable contracting long-term supply. So I think we've got a really strong outlook on the LPG export side. But that next expansion beyond the 19 million barrels will really be based on bringing incremental volumes into our footprint based on the cadence of frac adds that we have. And that's why I think we've been very consistent in saying Speedway gives us a lot of operating leverage on the NGL transportation side. We believe that this LPG export expansion to 19 million barrels a month also gives us a lot of operating leverage on the LPG export side.

Yes. And just to add on to that, too, what is nice, we do have the capabilities to expand further when it's needed on the export side. So with all the infrastructure Jen talked about coming online, to the extent we need more LPG export capacity beyond this one coming on mid next year, we have the ability to do that, and it will be more efficient. So the expansion now, we're putting in oversizing a pipeline and putting in refrigeration. The next expansion, we'll just need to add refrigeration. So it will be, give or take, half the cost and get a similar amount of capacity adds.

And our next question comes from the line of Jason Gabelman with TD Cowen.

I wanted to go back to the long-term double-digit Permian growth. Does that visibility extend into next decade? And at what oil price do you think you would need to revise that outlook?

Yes. I guess I'll -- Jen, we can both hit this one. I mean, I think we said multi years of growth. What we've done, we do a 5-year plan. We have strong growth. And then as you get into the out years, it usually tails off some. But we have a really good commercial team, and we keep adding incremental volumes to that plan. So I'd expect as we move a year forward or 2 years forward, we can kind of keep pushing out and extending that growth rate even longer. So I think what we're comfortable saying now is we see multi years. We'll see how that develops. And I think what's great about our position now is we're not seeing a lot of variability in production because oil is at $90 or $80 or $70 or even $60. We -- our producers are continuing to drill and continuing to remain active on our system, kind of across various different commodity price environments. So that's what gives us the confidence to say multiple years of double-digit growth. It's not tied to -- we necessarily need oil to be at x price. We see it across multiple different commodity prices. We think we'll still be able to deliver that. Now obviously, at higher prices, if you're at $90, we do see some of the smaller producers ramping up and some incremental activity. And so sure, it's going to be perhaps a bit higher at higher commodity prices, but we think we have pretty robust growth across multiple commodity price environments.

Great. My follow-up is on the acceleration of some of your plants, and it seems like you're making good progress on the construction. So just trying to understand if there's something kind of more structural that's enabling you to accelerate the start-up time lines? Or is it just some conservatism baked into the initial plans? And do you expect the plants to still come online fully even though they have been accelerated a bit?

This is Jen, Jason. I'd say that our engineering team and then working with our operations team on handoff of new assets does just a phenomenal job. I think we do forecast with a little bit of conservatism, probably especially here recently over the last, call it, 12 months or so, given we have seen lead times for certain elements of what we are building, they're just taking longer to get certain infrastructure to site. So I think that's informed some of what I could call some conservatism. So I wouldn't say that there's anything structural that we are accelerating into can you get it online a week faster or a month faster or things like that. I think this is just the natural progression of a team that is very good at building plants in the Permian continuing to be able to figure out ways to do it a little bit quicker as we announce each plant. And then again, I think it just has to do with the fact that we've been able to get the construction materials that we need when we need them. And everything else has lined up well, which is why I think we've been comfortable now saying that some of our plants are going to come online a little bit earlier. And I know you didn't ask about it, but on the downstream side, it's the same thing on frac Train 12, the team there on both the engineering side and then handing it off to operations working together to get Train 12 on more quickly. There, I'd say that was the result of some creativity and some thinking about what could we do differently to maybe get Train 12 online a little bit quicker. And so kudos, hats off to that team that was successful doing that because getting Train 12 online in this market is, I think, a big advantage for Targa.

And our last question will come from the line of Brandon Bingham with Scotiabank.

I wanted to maybe go back to the topic of secondary bench development and try to frame it up a little differently here. As you look at maybe what's being incorporated into 2027 plans or what you're hearing from your producer customers, how does that compare versus maybe at the beginning of this year? Just what is the evolution of sentiment there? And what does that maybe look like moving forward?

This is Jen. I'll start. I'd say that from our perspective, it's been pretty consistent as we've moved across the year in terms of what producers were expecting to drill and complete this year and the visibility that we have to next year. I wouldn't say that we have seen a ton change. And of course, we've added incremental contracts, and that's part of what has changed our complexion of growth when we think about next year and the years after. But I'd say that we haven't seen producers materially change their drilling plans for 2027 around development of deeper benches. I'd say that what we've seen so far is more additional wells being added to the schedule in -- I wouldn't say in a very large magnitude way on our footprint. We're definitely seeing some producers that are drilling deeper, but it's largely consistent drilling plans with what we'd heard about earlier this year with some additive development. Which, again, is why we largely are not forecasting a lot of Barnett and Woodford development in our forward outlook, frankly, just because we don't have the visibility yet to it. But all the early results we're seeing is that, that will absolutely be upside as we move forward over the next several years, given the success that producers are having both on our system and elsewhere in the basin.

Okay. Great. Very helpful. And then maybe just quickly turning to the dividend framework, very nice increase for next year. How should we think about dividend growth moving forward? And maybe how do you view that as opposed to share repurchases or just how it fits into the total capital allocation plan?

Brandon, this is Ben. I'd just go back to what we said in the script, which is our priorities around capital allocation remain unchanged. We want to maintain a strong investment-grade balance sheet, invest in high-return integrated projects and return increasing amounts of capital to our shareholders. I think this year is a perfect example of why we like to remain flexible and be able to create value for our shareholders. And then we've repurchased shares. We closed a bolt-on acquisition. We've invested significantly in organic growth, and we've increased our dividend 25% this year, and like we mentioned, guided to requesting a 20% increase from our Board for 2027. So we like that framework. We think it's worked really well over the last few years. As we grow and as we continue into 2028 and continue to point to that free cash flow and growing free cash flow inflection in the business, despite all of the capital we're spending and the Exxon deal, we still see that exciting free cash flow inflection. We will just have even more flexibility and the ability to lean into all those levers. And it won't be formulaic, but it will be the levers that create the most value at the time for our shareholders.

Thank you. And I would now like to hand the conference back over to Tristan Richardson for closing remarks.

Thanks to everyone for joining the call this morning, and we appreciate your interest in Targa Resources.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.