Williams Companies Aktie

Hello, and welcome to Williams Third Quarter Earnings 2026 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to Caroline Sardella, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us and for your interest in Williams. Yesterday afternoon, we released our earnings press release and the presentation that our President and CEO, Chad Zamarin, and our Chief Financial Officer, John Porter, will speak to you this morning. Also joining us on the call today are Larry Larson, our Chief Operating Officer; and Rob Lengo, our Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategic Development. .

In our presentation materials, you'll find a disclaimer related to forward-looking statements. This disclaimer is important and integral to our remarks, so please review it. Also included in the presentation materials are non-GAAP measures that we reconciled with generally accepted accounting principles. These reconciliation schedules appear at the back of today's presentation materials. So with that, I'll turn it over to Chad.

Thanks, Caroline, and thank you all for joining us today. This was another strong quarter for Williams. We delivered record third quarter results, closed the Momentum acquisition to enhance our premier position in the Haynesville and placed 4 more expansion projects into service. And we are excited to announce that later this week, we will bring the second phase of [indiscernible] online. That's the story of this quarter, a team that delivers on commitments made while advancing the next set of opportunities. I and the management team are incredibly proud of how our teams are executing and building long-term value for shareholders. .

So starting with the numbers. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA grew 6% over the third quarter of 2025 and 9% year-to-date and achieving over $2 billion in EBITDA in Q3, sets an all-time record for third quarter earnings. Based on our performance through the first 9 months of the year, we continue to track towards the upper half of our 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance and we are well positioned to deliver on the long-term growth target we raised last quarter to 11% plus compound annual EBITDA growth through 2030.

On September 3, we closed our acquisition of Momentum Midstream 1 month ahead of schedule, and the momentum assets integrate seamlessly into our existing Haynesville position and tie into our Transco footprint along the Gulf Coast. Integration is well underway, and our teams are already moving on the growth this combination unlocks starting with the Shelby Connector and Delta Access pipeline projects, both of which will expand the delivery of Haynesville gas into Transco for transport to power and LNG customers along the Gulf Coast.

Also during the quarter, we successfully placed 4 expansion projects into service. Gilles West, Warton West, the Huntington Connector and the Rickman Creek lateral, together adding over 400 million cubic feet per day of fully contracted take-or-pay pipeline capacity. Projects like these may not make major headlines on their own, but the growth compounds. Each project strengthens the reach and reliability of our system and together, they drive base business growth quarter after quarter.

In our Power business, you'll recall that last quarter, we brought the first phase of Socrates into full service in under 18 months from commercialization. Later this week, and again, ahead of schedule and within budget, our teams will place the second and final phase of Socrates into service. Socrates shows that when customers need comprehensive energy solutions combined with speed to power, Williams is a partner that will deliver. And the Williams team continues to do things the right way, delivering pipeline and power projects in a way that benefits communities and customers. Our teams prove every day that we can do both.

And Socrates serves as a blueprint for commercializing and scaling the next wave of power projects. On that note, we expect to announce 1 to 2 more power projects by year's end, so stay tuned and we expect those projects to expand our customer base with additional high-quality counterparties, along with significantly longer contract tenures.

Across our pipeline system, we continued to expand our growth runway during the quarter. On Transco, we announced a follow-on project to [indiscernible], the Southeast Supply Enhancement project -- and recall, [indiscernible] will be the largest project in the company's history by earnings contribution. The follow-on project creatively referred to as [indiscernible] is a 150-plus million cubic feet per day expansion project. We also upsized our Garden Connector project to 144 million cubic feet per day, just 1 quarter after signing initial customer agreements. That's the power of the Transco footprint. Every expansion lays the foundation for the next.

And now shifting to natural gas storage. As we've discussed, gas storage becomes increasingly valuable as natural gas demand continues to grow, especially as demand increases from LNG and power customers who need gas at the moment they call for it. During the third quarter, we commercialized another gas storage expansion project a 9.4 Bcf expansion of our Mountain West Clay Basin facility. We continue to benefit from our advantaged storage footprint, and we expect storage values to continue to increase and expansion opportunities to continue to commercialize.

So to sum it up, the team delivered record third quarter results while executing on projects that will drive growth through the end of the decade and beyond with a growing backlog that now extends well into the 2030s.

And with that, I'll turn it over to John for a deeper dive into the financials.

Thanks, Chad. Our third quarter 2026 EBITDA was up 6% over '25, and we also delivered 10% growth in both adjusted EPS and AFFO for the quarter. For EBITDA, we are now up 9% over '25 for the first 9 months of the year. Bridging from last year's $1.92 billion to this year's $2.04 billion, our overall financial performance continues to be led by our transmission power and golf businesses, which improved $83 million or about 9%. Growth in this segment was led by the initial contributions from our Socrates project and continued growth from our natural gas storage businesses and pipeline expansions.

Our Northeast G&P business grew $37 million or 7%, primarily due to higher volumes across our major liquids-rich and dry gas systems. The West grew $34 million or about 9%, including initial contributions from the Momentum acquisition, which closed in early September as well as other higher Haynesville results, including a full quarter from our Louisiana Energy Gateway Pipeline and other Haynesville volume growth. Our sequent marketing business was a bit lower than last year with continued seasonally lower opportunities for this business.

Finally, our Other segment, which includes our upstream businesses, was down about $28 million, primarily due to our divestiture of the upstream Haynesville assets, which closed in January of '26. So again, third quarter EBITDA is up 6% with 10% growth in adjusted EPS and AFFO and EBITDA now up 9% year-to-date. So now, I'll offer a few thoughts on how we expect to finish for 2026. Turning to the full year outlook. Our strong financial performance and execution on the Socrates project gives us confidence in updating the full year outlook.

For full year 2026 adjusted EBITDA, our existing businesses continue tracking toward the upper half of our $8.3 billion to $8.5 billion range. On leverage, excluding the impacts of any additional power innovation projects that we announced prior to year-end, we would expect year-end leverage to be around 3.75x with the momentum acquisition on a full year run rate basis. And as we previously discussed, 3.75x provides another $2 billion of incremental capacity versus our internal 4x leverage ceiling to cover the initial spend on any additional power projects we announced before year-end.

Most importantly, though, as we previously discussed, the balance sheet leverage tightness is primarily an issue for '26 and '27 before the historic earnings growth we expect in '28 and beyond. But before we get to '28, we also expect to see sector-leading growth in '27. So ultimately, our financing plan for '27 will be guided by the scale and speed of our next power projects. In advance of those future announcements, our growth CapEx guidance remains unchanged. We're encouraged by the performance of our base business, our Momentum acquisition, the ongoing strong execution across our project portfolio and the continued commercialization of new business and we feel well positioned with our flexibility to fund additional power innovation opportunities, which will fuel an expansion of our targeted 11% plus EBITDA CAGR through 2030.

And with that, I'll turn it back over to Chad.

Thanks, John. Before we open the line for questions, I want to come back to the message on Slide 4. The Williams story is one of making commitments and delivering results. And while we focus on delivering a strong finish to 2026, we also remain laser-focused on driving our growth through the end of the decade and beyond. As discussed, we expect to finish 2026 in the top half of our guidance range, and we are entering the next chapter of growth from a position of strength. Natural gas remains our country's most important, most abundant and most affordable domestic energy resource. And as a result, demand for natural gas continues to accelerate.

LNG exports are growing along the Gulf Coast, industrial reshoring is happening and power demand is surging for the first time in decades. Our country's growth will continue to be fueled by our ability to produce low cost, low emissions and highly reliable energy. Natural gas checks those boxes better than any other energy resource in America. And with the Momentum acquisition, our expanding pipeline network, our growing storage portfolio and our unique backlog of power projects, we have more ways to capture the demand for energy and translate it into value for our shareholders.

None of this happens without the dedication of our people, to the Williams team, thank you for working safely for serving our customers reliably and for building infrastructure, our country will depend upon for generations to come and thank you to our customers, partners and investors for your continued trust in Williams.

And finally, since today's election day, I want to encourage everyone on the call, including our Williams employees. If you haven't voted yet, I encourage you to make time to head to the polls. Decisions made at every level of government shape whether America can build the infrastructure it needs and whether energy will be reliable and affordable for the homes and businesses that depend on it. Our industry serves every community in this country. So all of us have a stake and should make our voices heard.

And with that, we'll now open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet from JPMorgan Securities.

Just wanted to start off, I guess, talking about the behind-the-meter commercialization, as you discussed, I'm not more deals expected by year-end. Is -- how should we think about, I guess, customer conversations here? Is this broadening out your counterparties? I mean, would these customers be similar to who you've signed so far. Just wondering, I guess, about the opportunity set if it's another large customer and if that leads to the potential for subsequent deals post ease?

Yes. Thanks, Jeremy. Yes, the answer to your question is we have been advancing opportunities with additional customers -- we're only focused on really the highest quality hyperscalers and projects that we think fit really well within our strategic capabilities. And so I mentioned in the prepared remarks that we expect to expand and diversify the customer base will continue to be large, high-quality customers. And we also expect contracts to significantly extend in term [indiscernible].

And importantly, I know we've been asked about timing of announcements. I think that we -- I think the market -- I think our customers have seen the success of the team on Socrates. So I think we've got a very credible capability and solution. And we're also working on projects now that in addition to the speed to power also provide our ability to scale over time. And so part of what I would expect us to deliver our projects that not only look a lot like what we've announced so far, but provide more clarity into the length of the backlog and the scaling of projects over time.

Got it. That's helpful there. Maybe just continuing. These are kind of some first-of-the-kind type of projects for Williams, and you've had Socrates running for a little bit here. Just wondering, I guess, any learning so far. Your comfort here and if you think about kind of expanding your solution offerings here, how you think about that? .

Yes. Thanks, Jim. I'll start, and I'm going to let Larry fill in. I'd tell you, we are just so proud of the team. Williams has a long history. I mean company for almost 120 years has been building complex, critical infrastructure, solving, frankly, some of the world's most challenging energy problems and the team did a great job building this business. The nice thing is it is a pretty clean extension of our existing capabilities. But yes, the team is learning every day. I mean, I've said this before, we're somewhat solving a new challenge, a new problem with existing technology. So every project will get more efficient. Every project will become more optimized and we're taking those lessons learned from every element of every project and deploying those to the next. But I'll let Larry speak to some of what he's seeing.

Yes. Thanks, Jeremy. This is Larry. Yes, I mean, as Chad said, really proud of the team. We've done some amazing work being able to deliver these projects. I mean they are complex, some of the first of its kind, be able to work with our customers on be able to manage the load following, and it's been great to see these projects to deliver exactly the way that we anticipated. We've now had some run time with Plato South, and we've seen that ramp up in utilization and it's performed exactly the way we want to and really excited for the team to get through the final commissioning this week on PLAY-DOH North and have the facility fully up and operational.

As Chad mentioned, there's always lessons learned as we go through these, both on how we commission and execute the projects, and we're taking those efficiencies into the next phase of projects, even the ones that we've commercialized to continue to further provide a better solution for our customers. And so I think you'll see that continue to play into the solutions we provide for the next wave of projects we're commercializing. And I think the great thing is counterparties are out there looking for people to work with, I think our ability to continue to deliver on projects at this scale, the speed, the complexity and navigate through all of the different things that come up on these types of projects. It's just continue to demonstrate Williams ability. And I think that's helping on the commercial front.

Our next question comes from the line of Praneeth Satish from Wells Fargo.

So I guess with election day here upon us, when you look across your power backlog, particularly the projects that are closer to commercialization, I guess how sensitive is the timing of those projects to the elections? And specifically, the governor races, I guess, I'm really curious about Texas given the size of the opportunity there and whether that has any bearing on your time lines and backlog.

Yes. I wouldn't say that, that's a gating issue for any of the discussions that we've been having. I think everybody is keeping an eye on the election and looking forward, I'd say, to getting through an election cycle. But I do believe, at the end of the day, places like Texas are going to be important for our country. We've got a very large energy resource. We've got a place where there's a lot of land available. And so we do think that Texas will be an important a part of the infrastructure story for data centers. But just in general, I mean, the Permian Basin, West Texas is our obviously, one of our most important energy resources in the country.

But we also spend a lot of time making sure we're focused on places where we can build with supportive communities. We can build projects that fit right within our existing kind of capability set. And so we feel really good about the projects that we're advancing, and we don't see the election being a gating item. Again, we've just been focused on making sure we can properly scope and design and optimize the projects that we're going to bring to market.

Got it. And maybe switching gears on [indiscernible] can you talk about maybe the potential to upsize this project over time? And how large it could ultimately become? And then I guess from a capital efficiency standpoint, should we think about the economics of [indiscernible] similar to [indiscernible], which I think, was something like a 3 to 4x build multiple, if I remember correctly. Could this get to that level as well? .

Yes, Puneet, this is Larry. Thanks for the question. Yes, as we've announced right now, we've got 150 a day contracted on that, which is with the high credit utility counterparty. We did have a binding open season on that, that articulated the scope up to 390. We do have an additional customer for the remaining capacity on that. We've got some things to work through with that customer to firm up. So Ideally, we think there's a project that makes a lot of sense in that [ 3.90% ] range. Could it be expanded down the road definitely, but I think that would be done in a future phase of the project from a maybe a sassy Phase III if we stay creative with our naming convention. But as far as returns, I mean, these are pretty capital-efficient projects.

I would assume you would see this in a similar type of range that we've talked about in the 4 to 6x build multiple, but a lot of that's going to be dependent on once we finalize the scope and capital for this next phase of the project as we work through that final commercial contract.

Our next question comes from the line of from Spiro Dounis from Citi.

I want to start with the compensation framework, this new disclosure in the 10-Q seem to point to a 10% to 16% EBITDA CAGR through 2030. So first, great to see alignment there on some of these targets you said that low end is congruent with the 11% plus target, but I wanted to dig in a little bit more on that high end I suspect it's a deliberate and achievable target by 2030. So I wanted to understand, I guess, what it would take to achieve that? How much M&A is contemplated versus organic? And then John, on the leverage side, this compensation target also requires leverage to be at or below 4x. Can you just maybe talk through the rank order of tools available to fund growth while keeping leverage in check?

Yes. Thanks, Miro. This is Chad. I'll start and I'll let John then fill in the rest. First thing, yes, I mean, you picked up on -- we, as a management team and the Board are very focused on aligning the entire organization with the goals that we've articulated and what we think will be the sector-leading growth and delivery of shareholder value. And so the compensation structures are set to do that. We've talked about -- that doesn't change our existing compensation structures as well, which return on invested capital is the single most important metric that we measure for executive compensation.

So when you think about our growth, those numbers, I think, reflect what we do believe is achievable. If you look at the business and you look at how we've grown over the last 5 years, we've had 9% compound annual growth in earnings over the last 5 years, and we've done that with high-return projects. That creates a tremendous amount of capacity to to invest capital over the next 5 years and beyond. And so I think if you run the model on Williams, we've built a platform that can invest capital at attractive returns and can generate the type of growth that we're guiding towards. And so we feel really good about that range. And I would just say that we and the Board have made sure that the entire organization -- that's obviously we disclosed what was required for the officers, but the entire organization, we are making sure is highly focused on delivering the commitments that we're making to our shareholders. And John, do you want to fill in?

Yes. Thanks for the question, Spiro. Really excited about the financial flexibility we've got for this pathway to 2030 and all this growth that we're chasing. For one, we've talked about it, our targeted leverage is 3.5 to 4x. So you see in the new goal that there's no payout if our balance sheet is over 4x. So we have to land sub-4x in our range that we're trying to navigate to is 3.5 to 4x. And we've talked about this before that we do have some tightness up against that 4x leverage primarily in '26 and '27.

But importantly, I think as you give beyond '27, we see enormous capacity that opens up. Chad just mentioned it as a result of all of the projects that are coming online and the earnings growth that we're going to see. I mean we're going to start seeing pretty great earnings growth even in '27, but it picks up even from there. So I think when you think about capacity and flexibility, we're going to have a lot of internally generated cash flow and we're going to have a lot of balance sheet capacity to continue to fuel additional growth. And as we chase that 16% high end. I'd tell you, everybody on our management team is super focused on winning at a 16% level. And it could include some bolt-ons along the way. But I think as we focus in on our plan, we're most focused in on our backlog and winning more than our fair share of the backlog primarily in the pipes and power parts of the business.

We think we've got really good line of sight into enough of an opportunity set to win again, more than our fair share in those spaces and achieve that 16%. We do have things in terms of financial flexibility, the Blackstone deal proved out that there's tremendous appetite to partner with us. So if along the way, we need to bring in partners, we can certainly do that as well. So we've got a lot of financial flexibility. We got, I think, big backlog as Chad mentioned, we're going to stay super focused though on the cash returns on invested capital. We don't want to get to the end of this and find that we've lost any ground in terms of the great track record we've had on cash returns on invested capital.

So we're going to have the growth. We're going to have the balance sheet strength and that's going to be because we've generated really strong cash returns on the capital we're investing.

Got it. That's great to hear. I appreciate color on that front. Second question, just going back to power innovation and maybe sticking with the theme of some data points in the 10-Q. It looks like I pointed out almost $6 billion of long lead equipment purchases for projects not sanctioned yet. And so I'm trying to reconcile what that means with respect to your 6 gigawatt plus opportunity set. How to think about delivery time frames for this equipment and maybe the conversion rate so far on what's gone from an order turning into a sanctioned project.

Yes. Thanks, Spiro. Yes, those 10-Q disclosures can be sometimes a little murky. In this case, I think you're talking about the $5.9 billion that's referred to in terms of commitments. And that does sort of pick up the aggregate -- yes, the aggregate sort of overall commitments that have been made around equipment that we would use to commercialize additional projects. .

I would say there's, again, murkiness around those kinds of disclosures because some of those have cancellation fees and things like that. And so we're not absolutely committed in that kind of that kind of plays into the way we've described how we've been able to build this really strong inventory of equipment. We've done it with backstop agreements. We've done it without really exposing company to the risk of loss associated with that equipment.

As far as the direct sort of relationship between the $5.9 billion and the 6 gigawatts, I wouldn't think that there's -- or 6 gigawatts plus. I don't think there's a real strong connection between those 2.

Yes. And I would just add that those layer in our equipment that is on order and John think did a good job in describing how we've done that. We've worked collaboratively with customers to secure equipment and Frankly, I think we've said that we've got enough equipment secured on order in partnership with customers that would support the entire backlog that we've guided to and even a bit more. And those deliveries would layer in within -- from now, frankly, until, call it, the early 2030s, which when we talked about our backlog, we've kind of guided towards that being the targeted time line for projects, layering in projects in a disciplined way so that we've got predictable growth through the end of the decade. And now we're even seeing those opportunities crystallize into well into the 2030s and doing it in a way where we can be efficient in moving talent and capabilities from project to project. And so that's how we think about the equipment that's on order and the backlog that we have guided towards. .

Our next question comes from the line of Elvira Scotto from RBC Capital Markets.

I want to pivot to the Momentum acquisition that closed ahead of schedule in September. Can you share some early integration learnings, any unexpected synergies or challenges you've encountered? And just how integration is progressing relative to your original plan?

Yes, sure. Thanks for the question, Elvira. No, I mean look, integration is off to a really strong start. Really no surprises after the first 2 months of ownership. The performance of the business has been tracking with expectations. No, it's still early, but we are starting to capture synergies ahead of our -- of what we modeled and commercial and business development engagement is off to a strong start, both with existing and potential customers. Look, we've got lots of experience with acquisitions and integrating and we've worked out the bugs over the years. And so far, I'd say everything is going as planned. .

Okay. Great. And then my next question, I'm going to pivot here again. So it looks like there's a bigger call on U.S. LNG, especially given for the security of supply. Obviously, you [indiscernible] on the pipeline side or your Haynesville assets. But this should also increase the value of that 1.5 million tonne per annum SPA you entered into with Woodside, the Louisiana LNG facility. How are you thinking about that capacity now as we kind of move closer to that start date?

Yes. Look, I mean, when we took that capacity as part of the Woodside investment, we did it for a couple of reasons. One, because we like the pairing of that with the pipeline and the marketing piece of the deal. We felt like the capacity was really going to be something that we could help bring additional volumes through our midstream system. And that's how we've been approaching it. And with the Momentum acquisition, it really puts us in an even stronger position to be able to interface with customers and offer international pricing as a service offering. And so we've already heard and seen interest from producers in the basin. -- that want international exposure. And so one of the things we're doing is talking about pairing that with gathering and compression and those types of services.

Yes. And I'll just add, I think Rob said it well. We've got time. We can be patient. I think the project is on track. I know some of the team here actually went out to the Woodside project and got to go to site and Woodside is doing a great job on the LNG side. Our team is well underway on the pipeline side of the project. But we're going to be patient and disciplined. But I would expect, again, yes, that capacity has certainly increasing value, but our strategy will likely be to term out that capacity, make sure we capture fixed margin. We're not I think we've made it clear -- that is not an attempt to create a large international price exposure position. But I think Rob said it well. It's really a tool that allows us to offer more opportunity, a window into international markets for some of our producer customers that might not otherwise be able to access it. I don't know, Larry, anything you want to add on line 200 and how projects going?

Yes. I mean right now, everything is moving as planned. As the project is moving forward. We've gotten through all the permitting. Construction is online to be targeted for end of 2028 timeframe. So on that front, everything is going well. And I think now you'll see further opportunities for us to, as you think about our Haynesville position, continue to do further expansions as we see additional LNG demand grow within that corridor. .

We do see additional interest. We announced the Shelby Trough Connector project last quarter. And obviously, we're seeing a lot of additional interest on that. So I think you'll see not only with Line 200 and the Woodside LNG facility, but as we see additional LNG demand grow in that corridor, we're seeing definitely a lot more interest to get molecules from the Haynesville down into that corridor, which we're excited is going to really, I think, play into the advantage of the Premier Haynesville position that we built up.

Our next question comes from the line of John MacKay from Goldman Sachs.

I appreciate the comments on [indiscernible] Phase II earlier, but just wondering if you could talk broadly about kind of the remaining expansion capacity on Transco as a whole. And you kind of talked about potential later phases. Just anything you can frame up timing or maybe ultimate sizing would be helpful.

Yes, I think as we've highlighted before, I mean, the expansion opportunity on Transco, it's almost limitless. I mean, there's so many different opportunities that you're seeing us continue to commercialized projects across the footprint on Transco. And not even just on Transco across all of our pipeline assets as we've obviously just announced the storage expansion on Mountain West earlier this year, we did the Silver spur expansion on Northwest Pipeline. So think on Transco, the [indiscernible] Phase 2 is just another example of ways that we can continue to optimize as our customers' demand grows in those regions, and we have very strategic bolt-on brownfield expansions that can continue to serve those markets.

So we've definitely got more projects in the backlog that we're working on, optimistic that we'll see additional projects commercialize as we go into 2027. And there'll be probably a myriad of some of them smaller scale, like we've seen like with [indiscernible] Access that we commercialized earlier this year to potentially some larger scale, larger capital expansions that the team is working on as well.

Yes. One of the nice things I've been mentioning to folks, and Larry mentioned it, we will continue to see some of the near-term smaller projects that can be delivered between now and the end of the decade. But we're already having really encouraging discussions regarding the next wave of large expansion projects that will help fuel growth, frankly, well beyond 2030 as we've seen a next wave of power projects that we expect our utility customers to need to supply with natural gas. Transco is the nation's most important artery for supplying utilities along that corridor, both Gulf Coast, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, up into the Northeast.

And then LNG demand, we've been watching to see kind of the next wave of capacity. And again, we're seeing really strong signs that the next round of projects will commercialize. And so not only do we feel really good about the growth through the end of the decade, but we're starting to see projects and focus a lot of energy with the team on projects into the 2030s.

That's great. Second one for me. Can you just catch us up on where Nessy stands right now, kind of next steps to watch how you're feeling about the time line.

Yes. Thanks for the question. This is Lane Wilson. I'm sure beware the Third Circuit remanded our Jersey certificate. But there's nothing in that reman that has really jeopardize the projects. We're reevaluating right now the direction we're going to take, but there's -- as I said, there's nothing in that opinion that we think jeopardize that project. It's probably going to depend more on the level of cooperation we get from New Jersey, and we're working with them right now to figure out the next steps.

Yes. I would just say, I think this reinforces the importance of permitting reform. I think had we seen the bill that is hopefully going to make it to the floor of the Senate, and Lane can give an update on that if you want to provide additional color. But that would have addressed what happened with this third circuit decision. And frankly, what this does is it's not going to have an impact on us from a financial forecasting perspective, we feel really good about the need for the project. but it could put at risk our ability to get it online in time for next winter.

And again, won't have a material impact on us, but will have an impact on affordability in New York and in that region. And so -- we are hopeful that the Senate is successful in voting on the bill, the bipartisan affordable affordability and Jobs Act, the Baha bill. And I don't know if you want to give a quick update on that, but it has some really strong provisions that would address I think a lot of the challenges that we've seen and would bring a lot more certainty and predictability to permitting projects.

Yes. I just don't think there's any doubt that had the Baha been in effect at the time the third circuit considered our permit, we'd still have that permit. So -- this is really critical for the country from all avenues in terms of energy, no matter where you look at it. There's a vote scheduled for November 9 closure vote in the Senate. I think it's going to get more than 60 votes. -- how many more than 60 votes it gets probably determines how quickly it makes it through the house. So we're optimistic. This is as good a chance as we have ever had to get meaningful permitting reform kind of across the full scale of infrastructure in this country. There are Democrats and Republicans have come out in favor of this, and we think it's going to happen.

Our next question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith from Jefferies.

Look, maybe to take a couple of different directions here. First, going back to where we started at the top of the call, as it pertains to the project coming, just the size of the projects contemplated, -- are we seeing an increase? Or is just more about the cadence here and getting 1 to 2 before the end of the year? And then related within that, some discussion out there about just obtaining the adequate gas lateral easements, et cetera. Just where are you in just executing against that side of the equation across the portfolio projects underway today? If you can just update us briefly.

Yes. Thanks, Julien. First, on the size of projects. I think I alluded to the fact that we are taking some time with the next round of projects to not just scope and commercialize the front-end speed to power component similar to the size and scale in scope of what you've seen so far out of the 5 projects that we have announced. But we are taking some time on several of our projects to to plan the further phasing and scaling of those projects.

Look, I think should even mention that on the first 5 projects we've announced, Larry was speaking to kind of the optimization lessons learned. There is also significant upside opportunity at each of those projects to unlock more capacity and scale those projects we sanctioned those projects based on very conservative assumptions to make sure that we can deliver the front-end speed to power. But there's a lot that we can unlock and scale over time.

Now as we look at projects where we have the time to plan, additional phases, I think you can expect that some of the projects in the backlog will have larger scale and we'll have phasing of capacity over time.

Your question about easements, -- maybe just expand on that a little bit. Was that on pipeline projects that you were referring to?

Or just the laterals for the will power side of the equation, right, and as much as you have a litany of these underway. Just if there's any issues, if you can be able to secure everything thus far.

Yes. I would just say that our team does a great job of when we're citing, we're working very collaboratively. I think 1 of the capabilities that's really important that we bring -- and Rob has showed a slide before that shows the extent of the sequence footprint. Obviously, we've got an incredible core business footprint. I think one of the unique capabilities we bring is helping hyperscaler site projects and locations where we have high confidence that we can deliver gas supplies. And so we feel really good about the projects that we've been developing and teams had a lot of success. That has not been an issue that has prevented us from advancing projects.

And when I think about the projects that are in the backlog, all of them are [indiscernible] locations where we have high degree of confidence, either we've -- we've got a location that is rightly situated or we've got what we need or would expect to need from a pipeline capacity perspective.

Excellent. And just to say it even more directly, you would contemplate these which these are announced that the larger -- the future scope and phases would be announced simultaneously such that we could see overall a larger project announcement to the extent to which these have been a little bit longer in the weight they should indeed at least initially be announced as a longer duration, but also larger scope and project at the outset?

Yes. Not every project, but I think that I would expect that you will see projects from us that that make that crystallized, commercialize a larger portion of the backlog and show larger scale phases within a single project. So yes. .

Got it. And just to clarify, even amidst the backdrop, do you feel confident on return staying the course here on these larger scope projects as defined earlier. .

We do teams doing a great job. Yes. I do think we expect return framework to hold. I will say that 1 of the nice things about scaling projects is you can layer in larger equipment and more efficient power. And over time, the speed to power units can become more of your peaking units. And so you can also drive down the cost for the customer, preserve return, become more efficient As Larry discussed, bring the lessons learned from every project we're delivering. So the goal is to keep driving down the cost for the customer while preserving returns, expanding the customer base and extending contract duration. .

Our next question comes from the line of Robert Catellier from CIBC Capital Markets. .

Maybe a question here for John. I just wondered if what the ability and appetite is to the joint venture structure for future power projects. I asked the question because maybe the market's moved a tiny bit since the first agreement. So I'm curious about the level and the depth in the market given prices may have moved a little bit. .

Yes. Thanks, Robert. Definitely, the prices have moved a bit from the 6.35% that we got on the deal with Blackstone back in July. And just the underlying movement in the 10-year treasuries has caused there to be a shift in the cost of capital for that. for that kind of arrangement. So we'll keep an eye on it. It certainly remains an option. We definitely hear all the time that there's very strong demand. We ran a very competitive process. I think we could reboot something like that. fairly quickly as well and again, drive toward the lowest available cost of capital for that kind of financing. But whether we decide to do that or not, I think it just depends on -- again, on the size and scale and speed of the next power projects that we are commercializing and definitely could be something that we do again but it's just one of several options, including just perhaps running the balance sheet a little bit hotter for a short period of time before all the earnings kicks in. But -- we have a lot of options. The insurance capital will continue to be something we'll be definitely looking at.

Okay. And maybe just a quick follow-up here on Momentum Midstream. It looks like it's off to a pretty good start and on a small sample size. But what do you see the the most upside, the most strategic upside when you look at how it interfaces with lag of Transco and some of your other U.S. Gulf Coast footprint. .

Yes. I mean, look, I think the inventory and the breakeven prices and the price at which producers are going to act I mean 75% of the inventory behind that system is economic and virtually all of it is economic at 3.75. So we don't need $4 gas prices to support growth there. So as you see LNG and you see power demand continue to come online over the long term, we think that demand is going to provide a signal to bring that economic inventory into production. So it's really the strength of the inventory behind the system, combined with the demand from LNG and power that we see over the long term.

Yes. And this is Larry. I'll add to it. I mean, obviously, we only got a couple of months under our belt, but we do a very good job of integrating those operations teams. The commercial team is really under the hood now and really looking at the broader opportunity set in front of it. And I would say with this combined footprint and asset mix that we have across the Haynesville, both in Eastern Texas and Western Louisiana, I mean it's creating a lot of opportunities, not only on just winning new dedications and opportunities to expand, whether that's leg or [indiscernible] to be able to serve that growing demand, but it's also creating some great opportunities to optimize across the footprint we have.

We've got several projects right now both on our legacy system and momentum that are ramping up for growth going into next year. And so -- right now, everything is really positive. It's still early, only a couple of months in, but the integration with the team's operations organization is going extremely well. And the opportunity set that the commercial team is seeing is really robust. And so I think there's some great upside that will then, I think, layer into some hopefully downstream expansions as well as you think about Transco and the Delta Access project that hopefully will continue to upsize.

Yes. I'll just add credit to the team. There is a large team working the integration. Rob mentioned earlier, we're pretty conservative when we plan bolt-on transactions. We had assumed that synergies would start to materialize in 2028. But I can tell you, the team is focused on capturing every ounce of that now and as early as possible [indiscernible] synergy capture. But we've got a very large cross-functional team working every day on that integration and then also on unlocking those additional commercial opportunities. And I think been really excited to see the possibility start to emerge.

Our next question comes from the line of Manav Gupta from UBS.

Can you talk more about Clay Basin and your outlook for further storage expansions, please?

Yes, man, this is Larry. Thanks for the question. Yes, Clay Basin, I mean, this has been a nice expansion opportunity the team has been working on through the course of this year. Obviously, we've highlighted that we feel like storage capacity has lagged development over the last decade, and we're really starting to see additional interest in storage. This is a nice project on Mountain West system. We do have some additional projects that we're working on in the Gulf region. And I think we'll see some additional announcements on that in the upcoming quarters as the team is working through commercializing additional expansions in that space.

But I think we've seen a really strong response since we've done the acquisition of the Gulf storage business and Norte contracted rates continue to go up as demand for storage is increasing, and that's helping us facilitate some of these expansion projects.

And just so that everyone kind of knows Clay Basin is the largest storage asset in the Rockies. And Larry mentioned is part of our Mountain West system. Mountain West really serves as a gateway between the Rockies and Western markets, there's really just no longer production when you go west of the Rockies, but there's tremendous demand. And that storage asset provides an incredibly important function as really a gateway between production and market. And so we think we'll continue to see the Mountain West asset has been a great asset. That team has done a great job. We've integrated those operations with our Northwest pipeline. So we gain a lot of synergies there and we can add additional services for customers.

And so -- and then as Larry mentioned, we still see strong value and growth across the Gulf Coast and our the remainder of our storage assets. So we would expect to continue to see these projects commercialize over time.

And how are you thinking about your remaining gathering portfolio post the divestiture of the Cook well gathering assets.

Yes. I'll let Rob speak to it, but I think we really like it. So I think we mentioned we had a couple of small divestitures that show up, I think, in the reports throughout the course of the year. I think we recorded a gain or 2 as a result of those sales. But those were really small, I would say, almost off-system nonstrategic divestitures. Rob and the team are always looking at portfolio optimization, but I think we feel really good about where we sit today from from a gathering footprint perspective. We're talking about 35% to 40% demand growth for natural gas over the next 10 years, that's going to drive a tremendous amount of supply response that's going to be required. And so I think team has done a really good job of making sure we're -- we've got the right assets in the right locations.

Our next question comes from the line of Jason Gabelman from TD Cowen.

Two on the power innovation side, if I could. The 1 to 2 projects by the end of the year, does that indicate that you have a much higher degree of confidence in 1 project than another? Or is that more just timing and 1 can slip into the beginning of 2027.

Yes. I think importantly, thank you. That's a good question because we don't time announcements based on earnings call dates or even New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. But we feel pretty good about our ability to commercialize projects over the course of the next few months. And I think at the end of the day, that doesn't mean the projects aren't still moving. We kind of -- we don't like to get public with our announcements until we have a fully signed and executed commercial agreement.

And also with our customer partners until we're permit ready and we've made sure we've got sites secured and we've got a lot of the the derisking of the project already complete. And I think we've continued to say we expect 1 or 2 of those to hit the finish line by the end of the year. But I think that, that also means that you will see additional projects we would expect commercialized into 2027 and beyond. And so we're not just specifically targeting a date, those projects continue to advance, but we do feel pretty good that 1 or 2 of those will likely be signed by the end of the year.

Great. My other is just on the financing of these projects. And -- it sounds like you're evaluating different options and the right balance sheet size. But to the extent that you do think that financing or additional capital inflows are necessary to move projects forward. Should we expect that to be announced concurrent with positive FIDs on new power innovation projects? Or is it something that we should expect after projects are sanctioned similar to what happened with the earlier -- with the financing earlier this year.

Yes. This is John. Thanks for the question. And I think a little bit of it depends on the specific size, again, at scale and speed associated with the particular projects. But -- in a case where we're talking about a large-scale project that maybe scales over time, we'll definitely be trying to give some color about how that project scales over time. We'll also be trying to give some real clarity about, generally speaking, how we plan to finance the project. I can't say how specific that would be at the time, but we'll definitely try to give you a good sense of how we're thinking about financing, especially around the bigger projects. .

Our last question comes from Craig Shere from Touhy Brothers.

Just wanted to briefly dig into a little further the sustained 5x economics for new power innovation projects. So the legacy projects were overengineered and the PPAs themselves have 5x EBITDA economics outside of synergies with other assets and the ability to monetize the excess generation capacity. Is it fair to think about the potential new project announcements with much longer-term tenors as significantly derisking the assets because of longer tenors, but also to some small degree at least, minimizing some of the upside beyond 5x because the excess capacity is called for.

Thanks, Craig, for the question. No, I think that we're going to target maintaining economics through efficiency. But at the end of the day, our business is making sure we've got predictable fee-based take-or-pay cash flows that are the foundation for the returns that we're sanctioning and then we look to create upside beyond that. So we're not embedding kind of extremes speculative upside into the base economics of a project, but we are working hard to drive efficiency, drive down the cost for the customer, make the project a much more optimized design and scope and scale. But I would still expect that with each of these projects, we're creating a platform upon which we're going to find additional upside and opportunity.

Maybe I could just quickly ask you slightly differently. -- on these longer-term scaling projects -- prospective opportunities, would they be as proportionately overengineered as the legacy projects?

Okay. No, I think that's a good question. I do think we'll learn over time how to be more efficient with excess capacity. So I do think that is an opportunity for us to -- as we operate and learn load profiles, we may be able to have less of redundancy from an efficiency perspective. So I do think that, that is a fair observation.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call over to Chad for closing remarks. .

Great. Thanks, Haley, and thank you, everyone, for your participation in today's call. Have a great day, and we look forward to seeing you soon.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Williams Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded.

At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Mrs. Caroline Sardella, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us and for your interest in Williams. Yesterday afternoon, we released our earnings press release and the presentation that our President and CEO, Chad Zamarin; and our Chief Financial Officer, John Porter will speak to you this morning. Also joining us on the call today are Larry Larsen, our Chief Operating Officer; and Rob Wingo, our Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategic Development.

In our presentation materials, you'll find a disclaimer related to forward-looking statements. This disclaimer is important and integral to our remarks, so please review it. Also included in the presentation materials are non-GAAP measures that we reconciled with generally accepted accounting principles. These reconciliation schedules appear at the back of today's presentation materials.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Chad.

Thanks, Caroline. This was another quarter of accomplishment for Williams with strong execution and meaningful growth across our business. I want to start by recognizing an awesome milestone for our Power Innovation business. Last week, we achieved in-service for Phase 1 of Socrates, delivering a utility scale 200 megawatts of power to our customer in under 18 months since commercialization.

This is how America wins the race for the next generation of technology. A huge shout out to the Williams team and the incredible group of engineering, equipment and construction partners that have worked to make this possible. We remain on track to deliver the next phase of Socrates before year-end with many more projects to come thereafter. With the first phase of Socrates completed on time and within budget, we have proven our ability to deliver and we are well positioned to advance the commercialization and scaling of future Power Innovation projects.

On Transco, we signed customer agreements for the Leidy Access and Garden Connector projects, two pipeline expansions that serve residential, commercial and power demand in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. We also further upsized our Transco Power Express project, which now represents an 800 million cubic feet per day expansion of Transco to serve load growth, power demand and data center growth in Virginia.

Additionally, the team commercialized an extension of Line 200, which you'll recall is the 3.1 Bcf per day transmission pipeline that Williams is building from Gillis to serve the Woodside LNG terminal. The extension of Line 200 includes a new lateral to serve growing power demand in the Lake Charles, Louisiana area and is a nice upside to the Woodside partnership. In the second quarter, we also executed on 2 strategic transactions, including a Power Innovation financing joint venture with Blackstone and the strategic acquisition of Momentum Midstream.

I'll let John provide more color in a minute, but I want to highlight that our financing JV creates a flexible source of low-cost equity that will enable us to continue the rapid growth and ongoing commercialization of near-term Power Innovation projects. I want to congratulate the Williams and Blackstone teams as well as key partners, Apollo and KKR for achieving a great outcome and for supporting this exciting business.

And as noted in our earnings release, we announced the highly strategic acquisition of Momentum Midstream. This bolt-on acquisition complements our Haynesville gathering and Transco Gulf Coast pipeline footprints, and strengthens our position in the most important natural gas growth basin tied to the fastest-growing and largest natural gas demand corridor.

As a result of 1 financial quarter of assumed ownership of Momentum and improved performance across our base business, we are raising full year 2026 EBITDA guidance by $200 million at the midpoint and we are increasing our long-term EBITDA growth rate target to 11-plus percent compound annual growth through 2030 versus our previously announced 10-plus percent compound annual growth target. Just as important, we are preserving near-term investment capacity with forecasted leverage of 3.75x debt-to-EBITDA, which preserves our ability to execute on additional near-term power and pipeline projects. So Williams really is firing on all cylinders.

I'll now turn the call over to John to talk about our Power Innovation financing JV and to provide an overview of our quarterly financial results. After John is done, I'll come back to provide additional color on the Momentum acquisition, and I'll highlight 2 exciting pipeline expansion projects that we are announcing alongside the acquisition. John?

Thanks, Chad. I'm happy to spend a moment on the Power Innovation joint venture. It's an important example of how we are enhancing shareholder value with our unique growth opportunities. I also think it's important to emphasize that as attractive as this joint venture is, we would not have done it at all if not for the expectations we have in driving substantial additional growth in our Power Innovation business. So let's talk about the value this joint venture creates.

First, our high-quality Power Innovation business attracted a highly efficient source of equity capital while preserving Williams operatorship, key decision-making authority and upside participation. The joint venture provides $5.34 billion of committed capital, including $4.4 billion for 49% of the expected total growth capital expenditures plus $900 million of additional consideration to Williams. Importantly, that capital comes at an attractive capped 6.35% cost of equity, which is a very efficient way to fund these near-term Power Innovation projects without diluting the value of the platform we are building.

Second, that $900 million of additional consideration significantly enhances our compelling project returns across the 5 Power Innovation projects currently underway. Lots of different ways to illustrate how this joint venture enhances our project returns but the effect on the multiple on invested capital over the primary term of the underlying contracts is pretty striking. Specifically, if you look at the ratio of the total cash flow Williams will see from these 5 projects, to the total invested capital, that ratio improves about 56% with the joint venture. And again, that is only over the primary term of the contracts and doesn't include any of the upside we expect to develop both within the primary term and well beyond.

Additionally, the joint venture includes an attractive buyout option at the remaining partner investment balance beginning in 2033. And then back to where I started, the full equity treatment creates immediate balance sheet capacity for the expected continued growth in our Power Innovation business. I'll walk you through that capacity when I cover our updated '26 guidance later in the presentation. So with that, let's move now to a quick look at our second quarter financial performance.

We've continued our strong start to '26, with second quarter '26 EBITDA up 6% over '25 and now up 10% year-to-date, bridging from last year's $1.8 billion to this year's $1.92 billion. Our overall financial performance continues to be led by our Transmission and Gulf businesses, which improved $56 million or about 6%. Growth in this segment was led by our Gulf businesses, which grew 23%, reflecting the combined effects of our recent Gulf expansion projects. And we also saw a 23% increase from our natural gas storage businesses and we had growth from expansion projects at Transco and MountainWest pipeline. Our Northeast G&P business grew $39 million or 8%, primarily due to growth in the rich gas areas. The West grew $18 million or about 5%, led by our Haynesville investments, including our Louisiana Energy Gateway Pipeline.

Our Sequent Marketing business did a bit better than last year, although second quarters present seasonally lower opportunities for this business. And finally, our Other segment, which includes our upstream businesses was down about $14 million, primarily due to our divestiture of the upstream Haynesville assets, which closed in January of '26. So again, continuing our strong start to '26 with second quarter EBITDA up 6% over '25 and now up 10% year-to-date.

Now I'll turn it back over to Chad to discuss our strategic acquisition of Momentum Midstream.

Thanks, John. Looking at Slide 6, I want to start by highlighting the importance of the Haynesville basin as it will be the single most important U.S. supply basin in answering the near-term call for natural gas especially in order to supply the growth of LNG exports along our Gulf Coast Transco footprint. Over the next decade, the Haynesville is expected to grow by over 10 Bcf per day, and LNG exports are expected to double from where they are today. The combined Williams and Momentum assets will form the backbone that connects our country's fastest-growing supply basin with our fastest-growing demand corridor.

With this combination, we solidify our position as the largest gatherer of Haynesville gas connected to Transco, the largest gas transmission pipeline system along the Gulf Coast corridor coupled with our leading Gulf Coast natural gas storage system and our relationship with every LNG export facility along the Louisiana Gulf Coast, including our partnership with Woodside LNG, Williams provides the most integrated set of capabilities to connect U.S. natural gas supply to premium, domestic and international markets.

You can see on Slide 7 that the Momentum acquisition significantly expands our East Texas and Louisiana footprint into areas that are rapidly emerging as the next horizon of U.S. natural gas supply growth. The Momentum footprint extends our reach into the rapidly growing Shelby Trough in Western Haynesville, where we see incredibly deep upstream inventory, a strong foundation of high-quality dedicated customers and a large opportunity for new customer growth. We add to our Haynesville footprint roughly 6 Bcf per day of gathering capacity and over 4 Bcf per day of take-or-pay pipeline capacity.

With a balanced mix of gathering and take-or-pay earnings that fits squarely within the fairway of our existing core business mix, the $5.5 billion acquisition is being funded by $3.5 billion in cash and debt and $2 billion of equity. We are forecasting an accretive transaction at an attractive acquisition multiple of approximately 8.5x, which we expect will quickly compress over time as both growth and synergies are realized.

The combination of Williams and Momentum is exciting for the existing assets we bring together and even more exciting for the new opportunities that we unlock to even better serve customers along the Gulf Coast. So alongside the acquisition, we are announcing 2 strategic expansion projects. The first project, Shelby Connector, is a large diameter pipeline expansion from the footprint of the Momentum gathering system connecting into the Williams Louisiana Energy Gateway or LEG system. And the second project, Delta Access, is a large-scale transmission project from the combined Momentum and Williams systems to LNG and power customers along the Transco corridor.

On Slide 8, we highlight the strategic expansion projects. The Shelby Connector represents an expansion of our LEG system to reach into the footprint of the Momentum system with initial customer committed capacity of up to 750 million cubic feet per day, with an expected in-service date in the first half of 2028. We have the potential to further expand the Shelby Connector by doubling the pipeline capacity to up to 1.5 billion cubic feet per day. This project connects the Shelby Trough, which is expected to be one of the most rapid growth areas for natural gas supply over the next decade through our LEG system and into Transco at Gillis, Louisiana.

And from Gillis, we are adding the Delta Access pipeline project, a fully contracted transmission pipeline along the Transco corridor with initial capacity of 2.25 Bcf per day, and an in-service date of early 2029. Delta Access is expandable to up to 3.5 Bcf per day and is underpinned by capacity commitments from customers representing both LNG and power demand along the Louisiana Gulf Coast.

So to recap, the Momentum acquisition is an accretive bolt-on transaction at an attractive multiple that will compress over time due to attractive growth and highly strategic synergies. And the combined Williams and Momentum platform will serve as a springboard for high-return expansion projects in the most important Gulf Coast supply basin as well as along the Transco pipeline and Gulf Coast natural gas storage corridor.

Before we close, I'll pass it back to John to discuss our enhanced growth outlook.

Thanks, Chad. Our strong first half financial performance and execution on the Socrates project gives us confidence in updating the full year outlook. For full year '26 adjusted EBITDA, our existing businesses continue tracking toward the upper half of the guidance framework we discussed earlier in the year. On top of that, the accretive Momentum acquisition adds incremental EBITDA, taking the full year outlook to $8.3 billion to $8.5 billion. We've also provided revised guidance for EPS and AFFO, reflecting the effects of the Power Innovation JV and accretion from the Momentum transaction.

On leverage, we expect year-end leverage to be around 3.9x, but importantly, that only includes an assumed 3 months of contributions from Momentum. On a full year run rate basis, leverage would be around 3.75x. So that's really the right way to think about the amount of additional capacity we now have to add additional Power Innovation projects through the remainder of the year. 3.75x leverage opens up in excess of another $2 billion of incremental capacity versus our internal 4x leverage ceiling. And that's without considering bringing in any partners on future power innovation opportunities, which will remain an attractive and relatively easy thing to do. Most importantly, though, as we previously discussed, the balance sheet leverage tightness is primarily an issue for '26 and '27 before the historic earnings growth we expect in '28 and beyond.

Finally, we've also updated our growth CapEx guidance primarily to reflect initial spending on the projects that we announced today. Overall, we're encouraged by the performance of our base business and excited about the Momentum acquisition, the ongoing strong execution across our project portfolio, and the continued commercialization of new business, and we feel well positioned with our flexibility to fund additional Power Innovation opportunities in the near term.

Turning now to our latest thoughts on progress toward our long-term growth targets that we presented back in February. As you'll recall, our initial announcement in February was a 10%-plus CAGR for EBITDA and EPS for 2025 through 2030. And at that time, we said our current book of contracted business supported around an 8% CAGR estimate. And then in May, we announced additional projects that moved the 8% up to about 9%. And now after layering in the Momentum transaction as well as the other projects we've announced today, we feel confident in moving our target up to 11% plus. Additionally, our long-range plan assumes continued strong project execution on our current backlog of projects, plus winning new opportunities and driving more value out of the legacy business, which leaves us well positioned to exceed this new target. So stay tuned.

And with that, I'll turn it back over to Chad.

Thanks, John. I want to again congratulate and thank the Williams team for another outstanding quarter of execution, and I want to warmly welcome the Momentum Midstream team to the Williams family. This is actually the second time we have partnered with the team at Momentum. As we worked together more than a decade ago to build and grow key assets that became the bedrock of what is now a major portion of our Northeast Marcellus and Utica system.

I want to personally thank Frank Tsuru, Brant Baird, Bill Pritchard and the entire Momentum team for building things the right way and for developing critical infrastructure that will endure and serve our country for generations to come. Bringing together great talent and strategic infrastructure is how we serve the world's growing energy needs. Fueling LNG exports to friends and allies around the world, enabling the resurgence of American industrial expansion, empowering homes, businesses and the AI revolution across our great nation. Of course, none of our progress happens without the dedication of our people and the strength of our partnerships. Thank you to our employees, our customers, our partners and our investors for your continued trust in Williams.

And with that, we'll now open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Praneeth Satish of Wells Fargo.

Maybe John, going back to your comments. So the EBITDA CAGR here was increased to 11% from 10% 5-year EBITDA CAGR. I guess if we just simply layer in EBITDA from Momentum and Delta Express (sic) [ Delta Access, ] I mean, it seems like on our math, those projects alone would add 200 basis points to the CAGR, take it up to 12%. So I'm just -- is that 11% target incorporating a degree of conservatism? Or are there other kind of headwinds, puts and takes to consider in the forecast?

Thanks, Praneeth. Thanks for the question. Yes, I mean, like I said in my comments, we do feel well positioned to exceed 11%. And so like I said in February, plus is plus. But just to give a little more color to that, I mean, again, this 11% plus -- the 11% that we're discussing really serves as an update to the 8% we gave back in February and the 9% we gave in May. And specifically, we're really talking about a number here that continues to be centered on our existing contracted book of business.

And so we're excluding the commercialization of any additional power or pipes projects, which you're aware of the extensive backlog we've got in both the power side and the pipes projects. And I would say we also do continue to have a degree of conservatism across a pretty broad swath of all of the other parts of the business that we're working on as well, including the Northeast, which is over $2 billion of EBITDA today. And we're continuing to be pretty conservative in terms of how we're modeling the growth in some of those areas.

Got it. And then maybe switching gears to the Momentum. So I guess beyond the organic projects that you've identified, Delta Access, are there specific operating or cost synergies that you expect to get from Momentum? And if so, can you help quantify those?

And then just as a point of clarification on the deal, the 8.5x acquisition multiple, is that multiple calculated based on Momentum's consolidated EBITDA? Or is it based on Williams' net share after reflecting -- 35% interest?

Yes. Thanks, Praneeth. This is Chad. First off, I'd say we're not going to quantify yet what those synergies will be. But I think if you look at the footprint and the overlap between the 2 companies, there will absolutely be operational synergies. But I think even more importantly, I mean we're talking about what is expected to be the most important growth area for our country in serving the more than doubling of LNG demand that we're going to see. I mean, we're at about 18 Bcf a day of LNG export capacity today. I mean, forecast models are showing that going above 40 [ Bcf in next ] 10 years. And so the Haynesville is going to have to respond.

And the other thing that I think is important to know about the Haynesville is that it's been producing a lot of gas out of what has been the traditional core area. So we see the inventory moving West. And so we expect this integrated footprint to be really in the heart of what's going to be called upon for growth. So you will see operational synergies, but we also expect to see significant growth, both from existing dedicated customers, but also from new projects that we will launch.

And that, I think, helps support the acquisition multiple. You're right. The multiple is based on consolidated EBITDA. There are some noncontrolling interest. You mentioned there is the primary noncontrolling interest, which is the joint venture structure of NG3. But even with the net effect of that, it's still approximately a 9x multiple, the way we're looking at next year's expected performance. And again, we expect that to compress over time as this asset continues to grow within the business.

Our next question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan Securities LLC.

I was just wondering if you could talk, I guess, a bit more on the behind-the-meter backlog as far as how you see the opportunity set at this point in how deals might materialize? And curious, I guess, if you're dealing with one hyperscaler, is it possible to do deals with a different hyperscaler? Are you in conversations with others of similar size or each hyperscaler picking their own solution provider here?

Yes. Thanks, Jeremy. I would say we've continued to see strengthening of the commercial interest in our projects and what we can provide, I think, further supported by Socrates coming online on time, within budget. Again, a huge shout out to that team. And the large number of partners that are supporting us in these projects. I think as we've continued to see the challenge of delivering grid capacity, the concerns about how we develop this really important infrastructure. I think our solution of bringing very tailored infrastructure to data center projects is just gaining additional momentum.

So we do have conversations ongoing with multiple different counterparties. We expect to commercialize additional projects between now and the end of the year. I will say, I know everyone is excited about and looking forward to the next announcement, but the team is also doing a really good job of pacing the commercialization of projects so that we can maintain this steady growth throughout the end of the decade and beyond.

And so Socrates is a great example. Those crews that just delivered that project are moving on to the next site and we'll be ramping up even further the work. And so a lot of, I'd say, responding to the commercial momentum, but also being deliberate about making sure we can phase in projects the right way. And so I'd say, again, stay tuned, but our backlog continues to be strong, and it is supported by multiple customers beyond just our first primary customer.

Got it. And just to confirm, I guess, with -- doing business with 1 major hyperscaler, you don't think precludes your commercial negotiations with signing up another major hyperscaler.

No. Look, we're a big company. I mean, we want to provide energy infrastructure solutions for every business in America. And I think that we know how to do that. We want to support the utility and the growth of our grid. We want to support data centers and technology companies getting access to energy, so that we, as a country, can win the race for the next generation of technology. And so no, we do not see the discussions that we're having with customers as something that needs to be exclusive to any one or the other.

Got it. That's very helpful. And if I could -- just as far as the Transco [indiscernible] I was just wondering if you can give us a flavor, I guess, of what you're seeing as far as more kind of your laterals still being potential here? Or do you think that that's kind of played out more [indiscernible] smaller parts. Just trying to think of the larger projects that -- like the ones you announced today, how much inventory...

Sorry, Jeremy, you were breaking up on us there. Can you repeat that?

Yes, just the potential for large Transco projects coming to fruition like what we saw...

Yes. Thanks, Jeremy. This is Larry Larsen. Just -- yes, I mean, we continue to have great discussions with our customers across the Transco footprint. We, obviously, are doing a great job executing on the projects we have right now with Southeast Supply Enhancement progressing forward. You saw the upsizing of Power Express. And so yes, there's tremendous opportunity. If you think about the backlog that we talked about at Analyst Day, I've highlighted previously that a lot of those projects that we've been working on in the backlog are Transco-related.

I think the Delta Access is a great first step on a large-scale project in the Gulf region, but we're continuing to look at additional demand response across the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast. And so we're continuing to work those. It's just a matter of pacing with our utility customers as they look at kind of firming up their demand and timing of projects. So hopefully, we'll continue to see things in the backlog commercialize at a pace that seems reasonable.

Our next question comes from the line of Spiro Dounis of Citi.

I want to start with Power Innovation, I guess as we think about this next wave of projects that you guys see coming, just curious a high level, if you can walk us through maybe what those -- what might look the same or different from the first wave, specifically, just thinking about new geographic locations, maybe longer contract tenors. It sounds like we can see some new customers show up.

And Chad, you mentioned pacing these projects, so trying to get a sense of your plan to recycle the capital to the next project. You've announced $9.6 billion or so in the last 18 months. So is it crazy to think you could allocate most of that $5 billion or so over the next 12 months?

Yes, Spiro, thanks. A great question. And I think you're thinking about it the right way. I mean -- and again, credit to John and the entire team, Blackstone and our partners there. I mean, the JV is, I think, a great tool that allows us to preserve our capacity, but also to recycle that capital into the next round of projects.

We do see those continuing to evolve. I think that our first 5 projects are a great example of achieving speed. And they have scale. I mean these are big projects, certainly relative to what we used to think about a large power project but they're primarily focused on scale and flexibility, and we are seeing projects evolve to having both that element of speed looking like our first 5 projects on the front end, but also layering in over time, scale and even hybrid projects that would include how we better optimize and frankly, support grid expansion as well.

And so I think you will continue to see projects and we've demonstrated our ability to get projects up and running fast, but also I think we've got the ability to then further scale projects over time. And so you will see, I think some of our projects have that phased approach to scaling over time.

Geography, we continue to focus on areas where you have, I think, supportive places to get things built. And so we continue to guide to our footprint, but, also, you think about we're building in Ohio, Utah, but certainly, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, our entire footprint, I think, but also think about the states where things are getting built more easily than in other parts of the country will continue to be our focus. And so I'd say that's been our primary model there.

As far as pacing, you kind of mentioned it, I mean, I would say, again, stay tuned. We do expect additional commercialization of projects between now and the end of the year. And I think we'll demonstrate pretty quickly that we will -- with our partnership with Blackstone, we will put those resources to work on very attractive projects. And I do think the term for those projects as we continue to validate the model of both bringing your own power, having islanded behind-the-meter, but also evolving over time to be a more optimized and tailored power solution, you will continue to see contract terms extending duration as I think we recognize these are going to become integral infrastructure solutions for our entire ecosystem.

Got it. It's good to hear, Chad. Second one, maybe sticking on this theme but focusing more on Socrates. Can you just maybe give us a sense of how that start-up process went and how it's going so far? And I ask in the context of all this being somewhat novel to us and the investor base and really trying to see the proof of concept here. So curious, is it operating, ramping as expected? And is there an ability to maybe apply the learnings on Socrates forward on these remaining start-ups and maybe even accelerate those time lines?

Yes. Thanks for the question. This is Larry. I'll hit on it. And again, as Chad said, major kudos to our team and the way they worked closely with our customer through commissioning as well as all of our equipment manufacturers and contractors. And the commissioning has gone extremely well. We did a lot of load testing prior to actual start-up to facilitate to make sure that we actually could see the AI load following actually the work the way it was intended to. So those tests went really smoothly. We've made adjustments as we needed to, as you always do through commissioning and start-up. And as of this week, we're delivering first power to the facility and expect to see that ramp up over the course of the month. And so far, so good.

So excited to see that ramp up to full capacity in the near term. But yes, the teams are constantly taking learnings from these first projects, both on design and efficiencies on how we commission and approach that. I'm not sure it's going to really translate directly into kind of earlier in services at this point on the projects. Right now, all of our other projects, Aquila and Apollo and others, they're all trending on schedule and on budget right now, similar to Socrates. So yes, I think we'll always take those lessons learned into the next project and hopefully make it even that much more efficient.

Our next question comes from the line of Ameet Thakkar of BMO Capital Markets.

Congrats on all the progress and the updates today. I appreciate it. I was just going to maybe turn back to kind of the Woodside LNG kind of transaction and Line 200 now kind of with Momentum. I was just kind of thinking like how much of that -- of Line 200 capacity do you think you'll kind of be able to source from Transco LEG and now Momentum?

Yes. So Line 200 obviously originates from Gillis. And you're hearing a lot about Gillis, I mean, it is an important supply point. Both the NG3 pipeline that Momentum had built and is operating and our LEG system deliver into the Gillis area. There are several other pipelines that deliver and the largest, most important trunk line system running across from west to east in that corridor is the Transco system.

And so those pipes connect into Transco at Gillis and that is the supply source for a lot of different customers, including -- we mentioned the Delta Access project is going to take off and move east across Louisiana, serve power plants along the way, even serve LNG further east across Louisiana and even power demand in the Mississippi River corridor. And so it truly is an expansion of that entire artery and thoroughfare across Louisiana.

And then Line 200 as it takes off. I mean, obviously, the Haynesville is going to be the primary supply point for that area, which is again why we think the growth both in our traditional footprint, but in the Momentum footprint is going to be really important for serving all of that Gillis supply pull that's going to happen from those demand customers, but also we'll be sourcing the lowest cost, most abundant supply for Line 200 and Woodside. The project from a take-or-pay perspective is fully subscribed. So now it's just a matter of making sure we can find the lowest cost supply to support the LNG customers and our partner there. And so that will be the focus.

The lateral, and Larry can give a little more color, that's an expansion off of Line 200, where the team was able to basically free up additional capacity and build a lateral to a power load along the way. I don't know, Larry, if there's anything else you want to share about that.

Yes, I can add. I mean it's basically a 7-mile extension going right into Lake Charles to serve incremental power demand in the corridor. So I mean it's a really great success story. If you think about Line 200, it's really anchored around the Louisiana LNG. And it's just the importance of having this infrastructure as we're seeing growth across Louisiana, both from power and industrial loads that's going to create more opportunities for us. And so great job by the commercial teams identifying this opportunity and continue to upsize and find ways to invest further in these facilities going forward.

And if I could just ask one quick housekeeping question on the Power Innovation JV. I know like when you announced this, and again, on Slide 35, you kind of indicated that $5.34 billion supports 59% of the expected JV project capital. How do I -- I think that implies something closer to $9 billion. How do I reconcile that with the $9.6 billion? I think, on Slide 30, I know certain items like capitalized interest rate is excluded, but that seemed like a pretty big delta for just capitalized interest. If you could just help us bridge that, that would be helpful.

Yes. I think capitalized interest is the biggest component of that. So a noncash from the standpoint of the partnership.

Our next question comes from the line of John MacKay of Goldman Sachs.

You touched a little bit on this, but I just wanted to run through again. So in terms of funding the next set of BTM projects, John, wondering if you could kind of walk us to the $2 billion you framed up. And then more broadly for incremental funding options, can we think about the existing JV with Blackstone being expanded, so more kind of assets being brought into it? Could the next ones be a different structure? Maybe just walk us through some of the options.

Yes. Thanks for the question, John. Yes, so the -- I said in my comments that we feel like we've got in excess of $2 billion available now to fund near-term Power Innovation projects between now and the end of the year. And that's really working off the 3.75x leverage number that we cited in the presentation, which does normalize the Momentum contribution across the full year versus just, call it, roughly 3 months of Momentum that we would expect in sort of our base case forecast getting through HSR and closing and having basically about 3 months of contribution in '26 gets you to the 3.9x roughly at year-end. But again, we're focused more on a normalized full year Momentum leverage number of 3.75x.

And so really, it's just the math between 3.75x and the 4x, which is sort of our -- as we've discussed before, is sort of our internal ceiling around leverage, 4x -- 3.5x to 4x is the range that we're working within. 4x is not a hard and fast number. We've -- at times, we've talked about ticking over it, maybe a little bit for a short period of time. So that's always an option. We could always look at the potential to run things a little bit hotter. But in general, and as we've said before, this leverage issue is really just a '26 and '27 issue.

I think relative to the JV, Chad mentioned it, it's a fantastic platform. We spent a lot of time really investing this year in a very competitive process where we really canvassed all of the potential parties and worked very hard to stand up the diligence around the business. And I think we invested a lot in that process that will be transferable and make things much more efficient if we do want to bring in partners in the future. And so I think we'll be able to run a process in a much, much faster time frame and get to the similar kind of attractive results.

I think in general, though, it's probable in my mind that each one of these deals could perhaps be a unique separate partnership just because I think each partnership sort of has to price the opportunity in a somewhat unique manner. That being said, we're -- as Chad mentioned, we love the partnership we formed now with Blackstone, with KKR, with Apollo. There were others at the table too who were very close.

And so we feel like we've got real depth in this market, tremendous depth in this market. And if that is something we want to do, I think we will be able to do it quickly. And I think we'll be able to continue to achieve very, very positive results. And as I mentioned in my comments, I mean, this structure is really enhancing the returns on these projects. So I think it will continue to be a pretty attractive option if that's the way we want to go.

Yes. And John, maybe I'll just mention that the $2 billion that you're referencing is through year-end, call it, '26 and '27, as earnings continue to grow, we open up additional capacity. Again, we've got a lot of -- a pretty healthy backlog. And so we may use that capacity and then evaluate whether or not additional joint venturing makes sense. But then you also pointed out, come 2028, a lot of growth kicks in. And so we're kind of solving right now for what's been commercialized, what we see in the very immediate near term with the scale of the first power JV.

Really clear. Second one for me, I just wanted to ask on Delta Access. It's a big project. I guess my questions are, is this coming as part of Momentum. So maybe this was kind of originated on their side and you're picking it up. Maybe you can just walk through that and what you'd expect in terms of return profile.

Yes. Thanks, John. Yes. But I would say this has been an area where we've been actively engaging with the counterparties in this area, both from the power and the LNG side. And so we've been working the market for some time. We, obviously, have known the Momentum team a long time. I mentioned in my prepared remarks. We've got a great relationship there. But yes, that team did a great job of commercializing the project and in a way where it just fits really well within the combined platform, but also with what we can do to support customers along the Transco footprint. And so we're really excited about that coming together and actually creating an even better solution that either of us could have done on our own for the customers in Louisiana. And so I think a lot of positive on that front.

Our next question comes from the line of Jason Gabelman of TD Cowen.

I wanted to pick up on the Momentum deal, if I could. I know you referenced the kind of 9x multiple, but it does seem like we should be looking at the acquisition net of the LEG connector and then the Delta expansion project. So I'm wondering if you could provide kind of an EBITDA multiple on that entire suite of opportunity that you're now gaining as a result of the deal?

Yes. So to be clear, the multiple we've been speaking to does not include -- that's a current run rate multiple. So that does not include any consideration of the future growth that you would see from the Shelby Connector, Delta Access, any additional growth within the platform.

And I'd say that -- and sorry, John Mackay had asked the question, the investments fit squarely within our targeted build multiple range. And so you will see over time that we continue to have high-return, attractive investment projects that will further compress the multiple over time. The gathering expansions will be very high return because it's such a large existing platform. So you'll see high-return gathering expansion projects, but then you'll also see this as a springboard for pipeline projects that, again, we're focused on return on invested capital. So our projects are going to fit within that attractive build multiple that we've been targeting and that will further compress the multiple over time. So I'd say for now, you see the acquisition multiple as the current kind of run rate multiple. And then you'll continue to see that compress over time as you see the projects and growth kick in.

My follow-up is on kind of broader Transco opportunities and it was touched on in a prior question. But as I reflect on kind of this Transco expansion and then the one you announced last year, they were both a result of some M&A. And so it leads to the natural question of do you see kind of large-scale organic Transco opportunities that are still available within your backlog? Or do you need these kind of outside deals to unlock some of that attractive growth?

Yes, this is Larry. I'll take that. And yes, definitely, we see organic opportunities on Transco. We're continuing to have those discussions. I mentioned earlier. It doesn't require M&A transaction to help facilitate those. The deals that we've done with SESE and Power Express, those are all organic opportunities. And as I mentioned in the comments before, we continue to have great discussions with our core customers, a lot of it is driven by power demand along the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast. And a lot of that's just around timing and scale of what they plan on building out the time line of it.

And so most of the larger projects we're talking about are more in the 2030-plus time frame. And so trying to line-out the regulatory certainty and timing for that is what's taking a little bit of time right now, but don't see any other requirements besides just continuing to engage with our customers and put together projects that makes sense.

Our next question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith of Jefferies.

I appreciate it. Maybe a first easy one here, if I can. How are you thinking about the lockup here on the shares here being issued as part of the transaction?

Yes, this is Rob Wingo. I'll take that. I mean instead of a traditional lockup, we'll be releasing the shares over a 180-day period. And then once those shares are released, we'll have a trading restriction that basically will limit their trading to a small percentage of our average daily trading volume. So we really don't see any negative pressure on the shares as a result of this transaction.

Awesome. All right. Excellent. And then secondly, if I can, just when you think about the Power Innovation, I know you've said this perhaps a little bit, but to hit it more squarely here. You've effectively equity-financed the transaction in front of you here. The proceeds from the latest financing a few weeks ago, how should we think about the timeliness of putting that back into the Power Innovation opportunity and/or, frankly -- I know you've delineated some opportunities right in front of you that you're FID-ing here today, separate and apart from the transaction. But basically, the timeliness of the Power Innovation and the scope and size of what's possible here. It seems like the opportunity is accelerating. You guys are preemptively deleveraging. It would seem as that this is an interesting signaling about the cadence of the opportunity ahead.

Yes. Thanks, Julien. I'll start and then let John provide any color. Look, I think we're trying to guide, and in his comments and in mine, I mean, you kind of see what capacity we have between now and the end of the year. I mean, we're down to 6 months remaining, even less than that, I guess, now 5 months remaining in the year. So that's a pretty significant amount of capacity that we have to keep projects -- new projects moving along that haven't yet been announced and commercialized. And then you can think about the remainder of as proceeds supporting, we talked about 2027 also being a bit of a high watermark from a capital perspective relative to earnings before the growth really kicks in, in '28.

Now there's always the potential for an even more bullish case, but I think we're going to remain -- as John mentioned, I mean, he and the team have set up a construct here that, if needed, we can go back to and I think further upsize. And so we feel really good about being right in the middle of the fairway on the pace that we think we can confidently achieve. And if we need to do more. We've got a solution that allows us to do more. John, anything you want to add?

Not much. I mean, we've been working to make sure that we've got a financing plan that can keep pace with what we're seeing in terms of the opportunity set, which is pretty amazing and pretty tremendous. And so based on the things we've done so far this year, I feel like we're situated very well. If we do land some of the bigger opportunities, which, again, as I mentioned back in February, are pretty enormous. And the minute we sign up those PPAs we've got to load up the capital for the equipment that will be assigned to those PPAs. And so I feel really good about the amount of capacity that we have right now relative to the -- coming to the end of the year and some of the initial capital we can see on some of those bigger opportunities.

Got it. Small nuance here. Any ability to actually accelerate the time lines on some of the stuff, especially with Meta using modularity here? I mean -- and/or just even upsize some of these sites even more so, the existing sites you've announced?

Yes. Look, I think Larry said it well. I mean, we are absolutely going to optimize every next project based on the learnings that we have from the prior projects. But I would say, generally, we are tailoring our projects to meet the equipment delivery schedules as well as the customer. They've got a lot of their own equipment and facility construction to accomplish. And so we're always going to look to be ahead of schedule, but we're also going to want to make sure that we shape the investment and the delivery just to be as optimal as possible.

And so look, I think delivering a utility-scale power plant really well under 18 months. I mean, from the time that we were handed over the property from our customer. It was actually closer to 14 months that we delivered a utility-scale power plant. And so I joke, but I tell the team, I'm a kid of the '90s, not since Bruce Willis flew with a group of upstream drillers onto an asteroid and drilled a nuclear bomb into the asteroid to save the planet have we seen that kind of execution. So I think we'll continue to see incredible execution, but we're also going to make sure we deliver quality and we can deliver it every time.

Our next question comes from the line of Gabe Daoud of Truist.

I was hoping maybe, I guess another question around pace of your BTM efforts. As Socrates enters service this year, sounds like maybe another project will be commercialized. So will bring you back to running 5 at once. Is there anything that we should be thinking about that would also impact your ability to accelerate and run or execute more than 5 projects at once? I know the capital recyclability on these is pretty quick. But is there any additional equipment shortages that we should be thinking about or maybe even anything on the talent side that would impact your ability to execute more than 5 projects at once?

Yes. Great question. This is Larry. I mean, as we've highlighted before, at the end of the day, we want to make sure we're able to deliver projects to meet our customers' needs and the high quality that we're able to do and make sure we meet both budget and schedule. And so as we look at the next wave of projects, we're going to continue to keep that in mind as we think about the capacity that our team has.

And it's not only just the turbines. We've highlighted that we've locked up the turbines to be able to support our backlog, but it's the rest of the balance of plant. And our team has done an amazing job being able to put all those pieces together. So it's not really necessarily a pace, but it's some of the timing of when that equipment comes in, it's really going to be setting some of the pace as we think about commercialization of these projects. I think you'll see that kind of evenly spread out over the remainder of the -- kind of this decade.

Yes, I would say we are scaling up. So Larry, and the entire team, I mean, we've been adding talent and scaling up the capability to deliver, John mentioned, even larger projects. I mean, the Power Innovation team was formally started about 2 years ago. We've been working on scaling up in anticipation of a larger growth cycle now for several years, but that's really been accelerating over the last 6 to 12 months.

And so yes, our capacity to do more will increase, frankly, if you think about the power of the platform that we've built, the expanding capacity that we have especially as we get through this next 2-year cycle, we're going to have a lot more capacity to invest. And so we are preparing the organization to be able to appropriately speed up, not run faster than we're ready to. But yes, we are scaling up through this process.

Got it. Got it. Okay. That's very clear and helpful. And then I guess the follow-up would be clearly bullish on Haynesville supply through the decade and I guess, maybe even beyond. Curious if we could just get some updated thoughts around your Appalachia G&P business. So smaller E&Ps have indicated near term, looking to potentially grow in '27 and '28. But just curious maybe if we can get an update on what you're seeing on the ground there.

Yes. We're continuing to see some players move into the space and pick up leases. And I think we're excited to see the activity level. I think as John mentioned in his comments, as we look at our outlook, we've been somewhat conservative on our growth for the Northeast, but we're seeing a lot of demand in and around each -- the region that's going to help support pricing and activity. And so I think there's definitely some potential for upside on that front.

But for the near term, we've been fairly conservative on just total growth in the G&P space. And although we've seen this last quarter, we've seen a little bit of outperformance in volumes in some of our rich volumes -- rich gas areas. And so I think there's more upside potential than what we have out there right now, but we've been somewhat conservative right now.

Our next question comes from the line of Robert Catellier of CIBC Capital Markets.

I just wanted to go back to Momentum Midstream again for a sec here. You gave a pretty good picture of the opportunity that's there. I wondered if you could summarize that into what we could expect as an EBITDA CAGR for Momentum specifically? And what level of basin production growth do you think you need to see to support that outlook?

Yes. Thanks, Robert. I mean, look, what I would say is think about us as very focused on the long-term growth rate that we've targeted as, frankly, a floor. And so you can expect us to be bringing in opportunities that would at least meet or exceed the growth rate of our target growth rate. Otherwise, it would be dilutive to growth.

And so we're not, I think, going to give precision today on what that CAGR is, but I can tell you that it is additive to our growth rate through the end of the decade, and that's what we're going to be focused on is making sure that we can deliver that long-term growth.

Yes, that was the point of the question. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't dilutive to your long-term growth rate.

So second question for me then. You've had a number of transactions here with the JV funding for power and innovations and obviously putting more capital to work in the midstream and pipeline. So how are you looking at balance between your various business segments through the end of the decade in that -- the forecast horizon you provided? Where do we end up with the power business roughly as a percentage of the total with what you know today?

Yes. I think John showed some of this during our Analyst Day. But I've talked about -- think about the next 5, frankly, 10 years being the decade of pipe and power. And so we expect to continue to see just the need to both catch up and keep up from a pipeline and a power infrastructure perspective in our country. And so you think about our business today is about half-and-half pipe and gathering and processing. Gathering and processing will be really important, we'll have to respond to this growth in demand, but the big infrastructure build-out that's going to be required is going to be the pipe and power side of the business.

And so you can think about through the end of the decade and beyond, us continuing to grow pipeline business at a very healthy clip. The power business emerging and growing alongside it has a relative overall share. Gathering and processing will shrink. It won't shrink on an absolute basis, but just relative to those other 2 faster growth areas. I think, John, at some point, will probably update that forecast to give a little more clarity. But if you go back to what we showed at Analyst Day, I think, it kind of showed how we changed and frankly improve the business mix over time, both from a mix of business, but also if you think about the counterparty to credit, what we're going to look like is going to be, I think, a well-balanced business as we move forward.

Our next question comes from the line of Manav Gupta of UBS.

This is Manav. I just quickly wanted to understand the guidance was raised for 2026, which is very positive. What could drive you towards the top end of that $8.5 billion guidance versus the midpoint or the lower end, if you could help us with that?

Yes. Thanks, Manav, for the question, our 2026 guidance and the range that we have out there. Yes, it's still early August, and there's still quite a few things to play out for the year. So those are some of the reasons why we try to stay, I'd say, fairly conservative. Still, at this point during the year, we always talk about things that can come along that can impact our business, for one, hurricane season, which is early on here in -- and then we are continuing to see pretty weak gas prices through the summer months.

And so just continuing to be a little bit cautious about optimism. But I think some of the things that could be impactful would be what kind of hurricane season we have, what happens to prices here as we move into winter and overall levels of rig activity, things like Sequent, obviously, occasionally can have pretty fantastic early winter results but not something we count on when we do these guidance updates.

And again, all of the project stuff is progressing well. The second phase of Socrates progressing well. So we're assuming that, that comes online on time. And some of the early in-service payments will be amortized, although those are pretty substantial cash payments, they are amortized over the duration of the contract. So they don't have as big of a blip in the year of in service.

Perfect. My quick second follow-up is, you have, I think, 5 transmission projects coming up in 2027. Could we get an update on some of the progress over there? And the 2 ones I'm particularly interested are the Southeast Supply Enhancement and the Northeast Supply Enhancement, if we could get an update over there?

Yes, Manav, this is Larry. Thanks for the question. Yes, the projects in -- going through '27 are progressing really well. We've got Southeast Supply Enhancement that is under construction. We still believe we'll have some early in-service for the pipeline segment of that, that could start beginning of the year in '27 and then full in-service still targeting for third quarter. NESE, we've got some of the construction initial stuff kicking up, but the real meat of that kicking off at the end of this year as we go into some of the compression. And then the offshore build would be mostly in 2027. So that project is trending on time and on budget.

So yes, I think all the projects right now seem to be doing a great job. Our team is managing through a lot of activity right now. We've navigated some rainier weather on the East Coast that's definitely caused some challenges for the teams as they're starting to build through the pipeline construction, but they've done it really well and don't see any impacts at this point.

This concludes the Q&A portion of our call. I will now turn it over to President and CEO, Chad Zamarin, for closing remarks.

Great. Well, thank you again for joining us and for the robust Q&A. We truly appreciate your interest in Williams, and we look forward to speaking with you soon. Thanks and have a great day.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to The Williams First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would now like to turn the call over to Danilo Juvane, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Antoine, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us and for your interest in The Williams Company. Yesterday afternoon, we released our earnings press release and the presentation that our President and CEO, Chad Zamarin; and our Chief Financial Officer, John Porter, who will speak to you this morning. Also joining us on the call today are Larry Larsen, our Chief Operating Officer; and Rob Wingo, our Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategic Development. In our presentation materials, you'll find a disclaimer related to forward-looking statements. This disclaimer is important and integral to our remarks and you should review it. Also included in the presentation materials are non-GAAP measures that we reconcile to generally accepted accounting principles, and these reconciliation schedules appear at the back of today's presentation materials. So with that, I'll turn it over to Chad. .

Thanks, Danilo, and thank you all for joining us today. We're off to a great start in 2026. Our teams delivered another quarter of growth. We advanced our critical type and power projects and execution, and we commercialized 3 new major projects and upside to fourth. First quarter earnings per share grew by 22% and adjusted EBITDA grew 13% to a record $2.25 billion. Our momentum continues to build, demonstrating the scalability of our strategy, the ongoing strength of our assets and the growing contribution from our expansion projects. .

Our teams continue to execute high-return expansions at a steady pace while adding new projects to our robust backlog. And during the quarter, we made consistent progress across our projects in execution. Most notably, we placed the Naughton Coal project into service a critical milestone that again demonstrates how we help customers transition to cleaner burning natural gas while maintaining affordability and grid reliability. We also kicked off construction on NESE, the Northeast Supply Enhancement project and SESE, the Southeast Supply Enhancement project. Moving these large-scale pipeline projects into the contraction phase is a testament to our team's ability to navigate complex permitting to deliver the infrastructure our country so desperately needs. I'm also excited to report that we have now placed on Foundation, all of the turbines at our Socrates Platos South location.

In addition, we've completed construction on the first phase of the Arista pipeline which will serve as a natural gas energy artery for several of our power innovation projects in Ohio, including Socrates. And we aren't slowing down. we continue to sign new deals at attractive multiples that will drive growth through the end of the decade and beyond and help us achieve the 10-plus percent earnings CAGR we set out at Analyst Day. Based on the strong start to the year and our visibility into the remainder of the year, we are currently pointing toward the upper half of our full year EBITDA guidance, as John will detail shortly.

Looking forward, we continue to find new ways to solve the energy challenges of today, including the massive power needs of next-generation data centers. Today, we're announcing 3 new major projects that further advance our strategy. The first project, NEO, is our fifth commercialized behind-the-meter power novation project with a high-quality hyperscaler counterpart. Neo is the largest power project Williams has announced to date, consisting of 682 megawatts of installed capacity, a 12.5-year contract and an in-service date in the second half of 2028. We -- like our other power innovation projects, we expect to execute Neo at an attractive 5x build multiple, and the project is expected to represent an investment of approximately $2.3 billion.

Our second new project is Atlas, which consists of a gas infrastructure agreement to provide up to 164 million cubic feet per day of pipeline capacity to serve a large investment-grade customer data center in the Northeast. This project has a 13-year term and we expect it to be serviced by the end of this year. While relatively modest in CapEx, Atlas demonstrates our ability to deliver an efficient natural gas solution for providing backup energy supply to existing data centers in lieu of diesel generation. Our third new project is Silver Spur, which is a significant expansion of our Northwest Pipeline system and includes the installation of compression and the construction of a 90-mile transmission pipeline into the Idaho market that will add 275 million cubic feet per day of natural gas pipeline capacity. Silver Spur represents the first phase of our previously discussed Rockies Columbia Connector project and is 1 of the first major expansions of pipeline infrastructure in the Pacific Northwest in over 2 decades. We are targeting an in-service date of early 2030 for Silver Spur.

Beyond the 3 new major projects, we are also announcing an upsizing of the Transco Power Express project in response to the continually growing need for natural gas to power data centers and market growth in Virginia. With the addition of a new customer and the upsizing of an existing commitment, Power Express has been increased to 750 million cubic feet per day of new race capacity that is scheduled to come online in 2030. And as we continue to see very strong demand for natural gas translating into new projects and grow backlog, we are also seeing the supply response across our footprint. In the first quarter alone, we sanctioned roughly 700 million cubic feet per day of new expansion projects across our gathering and processing portfolio.

Collectively, the first quarter results further highlight our position at the intersection of incredible potential and the energy required to achieve it. By achieving another quarter of record results, while commercializing and progressing key growth projects, the strategic direction is clear. Natural gas demand is rising, our contracted project backlog is growing, and we are seeing laser-focused on execution and value creation. That combination will continue to drive the higher earnings and cash flow that will deliver strong long-term returns for our shareholders. And with that, I'll now turn it over to John for a deeper dive into the financials.

Thanks, Chad. As Chad shared, we've had a strong start to 2026 with record first quarter '26 EBITDA up 13% over '25 and bridging from last year's $1.99 billion to this year's $2.25 billion, our overall financial performance continues to be led by our transmission and Golf businesses which improved nearly $150 million or about 17%. It was a great first quarter with growth across every business in this segment. Transco grew about 10% year-over-year, driven by higher tariff rates following last year's rate case settlement as well as the effects of numerous expansion projects.

Our deepwater businesses grew more than 60%, reflecting the combined effects of our recent golf expansion projects. We also saw a 35% increase from our natural gas storage businesses. Our Northeast G&P business grew $10 million or 2% as strong growth in the rich gas areas was offset by volume declines in certain dry gas areas. The West grew $56 million or about 16%, led by our Haynesville investments, including a full quarter of service from our Louisiana Energy Gateway pipeline. Our sequence marketing business had another strong start to the year with $227 million of adjusted EBITDA and I'll note that about $15 million of the overall $72 million increase or Sequent was related to the Cogentrix investment acquired in March of 25. And as a reminder, we expect to divest our Cogentrix investment later this year.

Finally, our Other segment, which includes our upstream businesses, was down about $20 million, primarily due to our divestiture of the upstream Haynesville assets, which closed in January of '26. And of course, we've excluded the roughly $180 million book gain on these assets from all our recurring financial metrics. So it's a great way to start the year with 13% adjusted EBITDA growth, which also fueled a 22% increase in our adjusted earnings per share.

Now before I hand it back over to Chad, I'll offer a few thoughts on our full year '26 guidance. As we've mentioned, based on the strong start we've had in the first quarter, if everything else goes according to plan, we are now guiding to the upper half of our original adjusted EBITDA guidance. As a reminder, 2026 is another year where we expect seasonally lower EBITDA results in 2Q before resuming sequential growth through the second half of the year, including the partial startup of the Socrates facility beginning in the third quarter. Shifting now to CapEx leverage and our financing plans. We're excited to add another significant power innovation project at Neo. As a result, we're increasing our growth CapEx midpoint for $26 million to $7.3 billion. With the addition of another power innovation project, leverage moves modestly above our target range of 3.5 to 4x to 4.1x. Importantly, as we previously discussed, the balance sheet leverage tightness is primarily an issue for '26 and '27 before the historic earnings growth we expect and beyond.

In the meantime, we're preserving multiple options to manage leverage while continuing to advance these projects and other opportunities on the horizon. As I've previously discussed, those financing options include bringing in partners, and we continue to see robust interest from a broad group of potential counterparties. But we're not locked into any single path, and we have great flexibility based on timing, market conditions and cost of capital. I'd expect us to firm up our financing plans over the next couple of months. Overall, we're very encouraged by the strength of our first quarter results, the ongoing strong execution across our project portfolio and the continued commercialization of new business, and we feel well positioned with the flexibility to fund growth. With that, I'll turn it back to Chad.

Thanks, John. I recently had the opportunity to join an incredible group of leaders, including Secretary of Interior Bergum, Secretary of Energy right EPA administrator and FERC Chairman sweat as we celebrated the groundbreaking of our NESE product, the first new gas pipeline into New York City and over a project many thought impossile. Looking out at the crowd, which included Williams employees and union workers who will support their families and communities through their work on this project, I was reminded the role we play in a stronger, more resilient America, not just through pipelines and power but through livelihoods through the meeting and purpose of the men and women who do the essential work of delivering the energy infrastructure of America. These are the real heroes of our energy and our environment. They work every day to bring affordable energy to homes and businesses, and they work every day to preserve and advance the quality of life that we are blessed to have, and they do it while advancing sustainability and a better world for future generations. .

As we look forward throughout 2026 and beyond, we will continue to stay focused on smart and sustainable growth and efficient and reliable operations. We will also continue to advocate for permitting and judicial reform to help America further accelerate the infrastructure needed to increase affordability bolster reliability and enable economic prosperity and national energy security. Of course, none of the work and progress is possible without the investors who support Williams. Thank you for your support of our company and our team. I want to close by thanking our employees for their unwavering commitment to safely and reliably serving our customers and our nation. The Williams leadership team is incredibly proud to work with such a talented group during this exciting era of growth for our company. And with that, we'll now open up the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Jeremy Tonet from JPMorgan.

Thanks for all the color today and details on the neo project there. I was wondering if I could dive into, I guess, the power market a little bit more. If you could provide any more incremental color, I guess, on the relative level of appetite that you're seeing now versus where you were before and, I guess, how you think deal formation could proceed going forward here after this large deal? .

Yes. Thanks, Jeremy. And by the way, great job on your note yesterday, I love the May, the for few weeks you see. I would just say that we've continued to see very strong interest in our projects. We've I think you've seen the challenges that we're going to have as a country. We've been living the difficulty of building infrastructure on the pipeline side for some time, but we're also seeing that clearly on the data center side. And I think our ability to bring tailored energy solutions to data center project is continually being recognized as a smart solution to balance grid reliability, affordability for consumers and the need for speed for these facilities. And so you've seen our backlog. We talked about it at Analyst Day. Neo represents the single largest project that we've announced to date, you will likely, as you do the math, also see that the cost and efficiency of our project continues to also improve. And so we continue to see robust demand.

The backlog, I'd say, is remains as robust if not more so than we discussed at Analyst Day. And I'd say we continue to expect the cadence of projects to layer in as we've discussed kind of over the next several years. And so no change if nothing else, I'd say, stronger recognition that a combination of solutions, including behind the meter, hybrid solutions, and grid complementary solutions are going to be required for not just the near term but for a long time to make sure that we can meet the needs of data centers without compromising the grid or consumer affordability.

Got it. And I was just curious, I guess, the industry has long talked about the need for permitting reform and the importance of gaining that to develop the needed infrastructure in the country. And as you talk to your local state senators, what do they say about the prospects for this in D.C. right now? .

Yes. Look, I mean we remain hopeful. I've spoken about last year the house has to build that had many of the provisions that we'd like to see passed into law. The senate is working on advancing permitting reform this year. And we're lucky to have a very strong delegation from here in Oklahoma, including Allan, who was appointed recently to fill. We will continue to advocate for meaningful permitting reform. The 2 primary issue we're going to keep focused on. There are a lot of great, I think, improvements that we can see in the House bill had many of those. But the 2 primary ones are for us addressing the 401 permitting process and making sure that, that when you get a FERC cricket, when you've gone rigorous environmental permitting process, you have your federal permit that a single state can stop a project through the 401 process.

And so we haven't ask that, that not be required, but that, that be a part of the federal permitting process. I think that's pretty reasonable. And then also we, as a country, not just for pipelines, we need judicial reform. And so we are advocating for any bill to have strong judicial reforms. So then I've said this before, we spent 13 years in litigation on Atlantic Sunrise. We won every lawsuit along the way. All that did was delay the project. It can increase the cost of the consumer. Unfortunately, that's not unique to Atlantic Sunrise. That's every infrastructure project in our country. It's just too easy to tie projects up in litigation.

So those are the 2 big ticket issues with a lot of other, I think, improvements that can be made. And we are hopeful that the Senate will act this year. And I know there's a lot of good effort going on across the Senate, including just recently, Senator McCormick from Pennsylvania released a bill. We love the effort and the leadership on that front. We think there's more that we should build upon, but we're seeing a lot of good efforts from the Senate. We'd like to see some get pass this year.

Got it. Makes sense, wishing Alan well in his endeavors. .

Our next question comes from Julien Dumoulin-Smith from Jefferies.

Nicely done yet again, bigger and better. Just if I can needle a little bit on how you think about the cadence of the 6 gigawatt backlog here. First, has that been replenished here when you think about Neo folding out of that back holding in moving forward here? How do you think about actually seeing the time line of some of those materials. You talk about time to power, should be very curious on what you're seeing out there. A lot of your peers talking about some pretty rapid activity out there. So again, obviously, well done on NEO and here we are asking about the next and the time line around it. So.

Yes, I'll start. I would just say, Julien, I wouldn't try to focus on precision with the 6 gigawatts that we've spoken to. I think order of magnitude, we still see that type of robust backlog out there. I think more importantly, we're very focused on layering in projects in a way that work from an execution perspective that work from a steady and predictable growth perspective that complement the equipment and supply chain availability that we've secured in support of the projects John spoke to and sure we'll get deeper into the financing and making sure that we are being very thoughtful and disciplined with respect to the balance sheet. And so right now, we see plenty of backlog to allow for us to effectively balance all of those factors and do more than we would hope to from a growth in and a performance perspective.

And so the backlog remains, frankly, as robust. And I would actually say the team does a great job of high-grading the backlog to make sure that we do have this bounty of opportunities, but we're being very disciplined in making sure that the projects where we have competitive advantage and strength, but also where it fits nicely into the growth cadence that we're looking to achieve. And so I wouldn't try to do the math on the 6 gigawatts as much as to say that I think that, that is reflective of an order of magnitude that we still think is more than available for us to work through as we layer in projects.

And actually, if I can keep going on that, you alluded to it. I mean what about creative financing institutions here, right, for PI? Obviously, you had some latitude here on the balance sheet as is. But what are you evaluating? What are the structures -- how do you think about the capacity here as it stands, as you ratchet up further here? I'll pass it back to you. .

Thanks, Julien and John Porter, here. I appreciate that question. Obviously, we are seeing leverage temporarily move modestly above our long-term target range of 3.5 to 4x. And of course, this is really being driven by the execution now on 5 of these high-quality, fast cycle higher innovation projects. So the first thing I would really emphasize is that -- this is really a timing dynamic where in '28, we will see enormous earnings growth that will completely reset the leverage capacity of the company. But in the meantime, I'd say we're being very intentional in preserving financing flexibility. We're not going to rely on any single lever. We have multiple well-established options available to us. But for example, we really have seen great interest from some really terrific potential partners around these power innovation projects, and these structures are attractive. They would allow us to recycle capital while retaining our strategic and operational roles where that makes sense. So overall, we remain very focused on executing within our overall capital allocation priorities.

Obviously, dividend growth stays intact, and we're committed to returning leverage to our target range over time. Stepping back, we feel really good about where we're at and our ability to fund this CapEx program efficiently and to continue to add to it. We do have multiple paths. We're not locked into any 1 solution, we expect the strong earnings growth profile of the business will naturally delever the balance sheet, especially as the projects come online and in '27 and '28. And as I mentioned earlier in my prepared comments, I expect to hear more details on this about our specific financing plans here in the next couple of months.

Our next question comes from Praneeth Satish from Wells Fargo.

Chad, I think you made a comment earlier that the project costs and efficiencies are improving for the power projects. Maybe in that context, could you provide an update on how much redundant capacity you think is appropriate for the future power projects and what you're doing for Neo. Has that evolved relative to soccer ties? I think soccer tees is being built with about 50% kind of redundant capacity. So I guess, are you seeing that ratio trend down with the more recent projects or kind of waiting to see how Soccertees performs before making any changes on that front?

Yes. Thanks,. I'd say a little bit of both. We are continually seeing kind of a more efficient combination of assets in order to meet the needs of the customer. But I also would say, we are in the middle, effectively of starting the commissioning -- well, we're in the middle of commissioning the first phase of Socrates. And I think we will learn a lot through that process. We do expect that as we bring Socrates online, we'll be able to create even more efficient operating modes and create more capacity as we, I think, prove up the fact that we've got plenty of redundancy. But it's been -- I think it's been a combination of both.

I will say that team is also doing a great job. Even as we've just been building out soccer tees and then our follow-on projects in Apollo, we continue to take lessons learned from each of those projects and apply them to the new projects. And so we continue to see that efficiency gain. And I expect that it's like we see in a lot of different areas. Think about the efficiency curve of the upstream producer. It's very similar. I mean, these are the early days. We have to remind ourselves we're only really about a year into this program already announcing our fifth project. And so I think we're going to continue to see pretty impressive efficiency gains over time.

Got you. And then maybe shifting gears to the transmission side. Can you talk about the opportunities that you're seeing in the Rockies and whether the Silver Spur expansion that you announced today could be the first of more projects on Northwest. I think you ran several open seasons last year. So any color on customer interest from that process and how -- and whether we should stand by for additional expansions there? .

Yes, Praneeth, this is Larry Larsen. I'll take that question. And yes, you are right. We initially went out with the Rockies Columbia Connector expansion open season last year and as we kind of mentioned in the prepared remarks, the Silver Spur is really the first phase as we started looking at both the market needs within Idaho as well as in the Pacific Northwest in Washington, Oregon, the Idaho market was clearly mature and ready to move forward. I mean, it's hard to believe that Idaho is the second fastest-growing state from a population standpoint in the nation. And the thing that they were lacking was additional infrastructure and so excited to get this first phase of -- but it was originally the Rockies Columbia Connector project commercialized, and we going to progress forward to that project. But yes, we still see interest, both longer term in Idaho, but we're also still progressing discussions with our key customers within Washington and Oregon and hopefully, we'll see some progress on the second phase of that expansion project this year. .

Our next question comes from Ameet Thakkar from BMO Capital Markets.

Just a couple of more follow-ups on Neo, if I may. Is the counterparty kind of the same that you have for Younger and Socrates for this particular project. .

Yes. I mean we're in a stage of the project where just from a confidentiality perspective, we're still not able to disclose the counterparty. But as soon as we can when we should do that. .

And then relative to, I guess, the other projects from an air permitting standpoint and whatever kind of regulatory approvals that maybe the public to the of Ohio would need to provide. Where does that project stand relative to the others?

Excuse me, which project are you referring to?

Neo.

Yes. I mean it's just an early phase. We'll be filing for those permits here later this year as we progress forward now that we've got to commercialize. .

Our next question comes from Brandon Bingham from Scotiabank.

I wanted to maybe try to pry a little bit more on the financing side of things, hopefully, from a different angle here. There have been a couple of deals announced recently for gas pipeline assets and the chatter suggests the marks were quite healthy. In the past, you've looked to take advantage of sort of the disconnect between private market valuations. So just curious if there's any consideration in doing so again in light of these deals and the potential funding needs?

I think -- this is John again, Brandon. I think right now what we're primarily focused on is really understanding what's possible in terms of partnering around the power innovation projects. Those projects have turned out to be, I think, highly attractive to some of these potential partners, just given the quality of the opportunity, the customers that are involved we've had some very productive management presentations with, again, some really terrific partners. We're very excited about the opportunity set there. Some of those partners, I think, could even perhaps provide an opportunity to enhance our opportunity set in the space as well. So that looks like a pretty fertile area for us in terms of being able to do something at size at a very attractive cost of capital with the right governance structure and again, perhaps even an ability to add to our opportunity set in the space.

So I think that's our main area of focus right now. But like I said earlier, we -- we've got a lot of different things that we could tap into. And a lot of that just depends on how fast these projects keep coming at us and how big those projects are. We are still trying to -- myself and the treasurer, trying to make sure we stay ahead of the commercial teams, and there's a lot out there. You think thematically, Brandon, it is consistent with I think where you were going. There is -- we are seeing a tremendous amount of interest in investing alongside us in these projects and in a way that we think will significantly enhance our economics from a cost of capital perspective.

Okay. Great. Very helpful. And then maybe just quickly looking at the Haynesville wondering what some of the latest and greatest commentary you're hearing from producer customers in that basin? Just in light of Henry Hub sitting comfortably below right now but knowing that the Gulf Coast Dilly ramp is coming in quickly.

Yes, this is Larry Larsen. I'll take that one. I mean I think commentary, we've kind of mentioned in the past that the producer is obviously cautious drilling into kind of the pricing dynamics right now, but I think the fundamentals are really strong. And I think as you've seen, we've announced some expansion projects of our gathering system in the Haynesville, and that's really to start building up for a potential ramp for the demand that's materializing. And so I think they're cautious right now and are going to be balancing around where they see pricing in the near term, but recognizing that there is such a huge demand pull that has continued to ramp up over the next few years. I think we're optimistic that we'll continue to see that pull from the Haynesville continue to build up with our producer customers. But I would say a majority of them are somewhat cautious in the near term, but wanting to be ready for that growth is going to be coming here, quickly over the next year or 2. .

Yes. And we have seen -- I mean -- I mean if you look at Haynesville rig counts, they're up, DUCs are building the natural gas curve, I mean, is still in contango, and so -- and so are the fundamentals around natural gas the amount of demand growth that were -- clear demand growth that we're seeing, I think, is recognized. And so the Haynesville will be the most responsive gas basin in the U.S. to meet the ramping LNG demand. And we do expect another strong -- we actually had a relatively modest power load last summer, but we expect with the way supply and storage is coming into the summer, we expect a pretty robust power demand this summer. And so I think the producers recognize that the Haynesville is going to be incredibly important and needs to be positioned to meet this growing demand. .

Our next question comes from Spiro Dounis from Citi.

I wanted to go back to the growth cadence. Just looking back at the Analyst Day, you talked about 8% of that 10% CAGR being locked in -- just curious where that stands now, do incremental projects from here take you beyond 10%. It just seems like these announcements are coming in faster than expected. So I want to level set on that Analyst Day outlook?

Thanks, Spiro. Yes, we do feel really good about how we're tracking against the long-term growth targets that we presented back in February and 10% plus CAGRs for EBITDA and EPS and for 2025 through 2030 is what we're targeting. And like you said, in February, I said that our current book of contracted business supported around an 8% CAGR, and I'd say with these new projects that we've announced today, that base growth rate is definitely now around 9%. So we've moved it up a point with these projects. And I would just say, overall, we're feeling really good about kind of the 3 areas of focus that we're focused in on for fueling this industry-leading growth rate.

And first, project execution on the projects that we currently have in fly, the project execution has been going great. For Socrates and the other projects that we currently are working on, including Southeast Supply Enhancement, other important transmission project. Second, we're feeling really good about being able to continue to win new opportunities. based on what we're seeing in the commercial backlog. And then third, we've got our teams really focused on driving more value out of the legacy businesses as well. And I talked about that a little bit at Analyst Day that we remained. I felt fairly conservative about volumes and margins across the legacy businesses, and we've got our teams really focused in on that component as well. But -- so overall, I think we're at about 9% now and feeling like that's still a pretty conservative look at that number.

Thanks, John. Second question, just going back to the behind-the-meter strategy. Chad, you touched on this a bit, but seeing the landscape shift a bit here. There's some nimbyism coming in on the data center side. And I think we're also seeing a trend maybe towards bring your own power, which is a little bit different than behind the meter. I'm just curious how you're assessing that shifting landscape on how data centers are powered your ability to maybe even pivot toward to bring your own power strategy and potentially even develop a CCGT at some point? .

Yes. I'd say we remain focused on creative innovative infrastructure solutions. We've lived in some of the most difficult kind of infrastructure challenging environments. So it's not unusual for us to have to deal with being thoughtful, creative, disciplined and persistent through challenging infrastructure development. I think it positions us actually really well to help hyperscaler customers figure out where to site, how to design and how to build projects. And so I do think we've always said like don't think of us as just behind-the-meter solution. I mean our goal is to figure out how to bring infrastructure solutions that unlock the grid through partnering with our utility customers, but also create a larger footprint across which you could cite projects by opening up the natural gas grid to become a backbone for projects as well.

And that's really our focus. And so if that means bringing speed to market bring your own power solutions that are bridged to great power or a complement to grid power or over time, scale with larger units with adding steam turbines and other solutions. I would just say that our team has done a phenomenal job of building the capability to explore all of those options. And we want to be recognized as an infrastructure solutions provider. And so if there's a unique set of tools that we can bring, we're not going to limit ourselves kind of 1, 1 model, we really do want to be able to help bring our expertise in building large-scale complex infrastructure in challenging entire to do it in a way where we can actually not only meet the customers' needs, but do good for the community and get the support of the communities in which we operate. And so yes, that will continue to be our focus. So I think the -- that's a long way of saying, yes, we are exploring and prepared to provide more comprehensive solutions, if needed.

Our next question comes from Keith Stanley from Wolfe Research. .

First question. So Neo was a 12.5-year contract is good to see. How are discussions going on trying to lengthen contract duration further? What's achievable and how willing our customers to do this?

Yes, I think there are still plenty of opportunities for longer contracts. I mean we see -- we've seen the extension, the 12.5 years. We do have ongoing discussions that extend well beyond that 15 to 20 years as well. And so we continue to see, I think, a growing recognition that longer-term solutions are also going to be required and so I'd say stay tuned, but we continue to see, I think, momentum towards longer commitments. .

Great. Second question, what still needs to happen on Constitution in order to move forward? What's the main gating items there and potential time line? .

Yes. Thanks. What you saw we kicked off Nets, which was a great, I think, sign that New York and markets that we might have thought weren't open for business or back over business. I think that Silver Spur and the progress we're making on also moving that further towards Oregon and Washington are a good sign that markets recognize that natural gas is our most affordable solution. So we've got to embrace and build more natural gas infrastructure in these markets that are, frankly, have very high energy costs.

And so Constitution, I think, growing real recognition that New England and New York need more gas infrastructure. I mean we've grown gas demand by 50% over the last 10 years. We've grown no pipeline infrastructure into New York and New England. And that's why they now see the highest utility prices in the country for many parts of the year. And so we are seeing strong support from the New England states. I'd say the challenge with Constitution, NESE was a single -- effectively a single customer, a single state with constitution. No 1 of those states are large enough to support a project on its own. And so we do have to coalesce, enough critical mass to get the project moving forward.

And so we continue to work. The team is very actively working constitution the frustrating, I'd say, part is it's not for a lack of need and desire, frankly, from the market. It's the complexity of the politics and just the fracture and fragmentation in that market that's making it harder to put together. And so it's a lot of hurt in cats. But we're still -- at the end of the day, I mean, we absolutely know that, that market needs energy, natural gas infrastructure. So we're going to keep at it. But yes, that's really the challenge of constitution is just a much more fragmented market and a lot of different constituencies that need to come together. And so at the end of the day, we're on file with FERC, that process is moving forward and will, I believe, be successful through the FERC process, but for we have to be able to show customer commitments on the projects. So that is the last gating item. I know, Larry, than you want to add to that? .

No, I mean, I think you hit it really well. And a lot of great discussions going on with the utilities is a strong recognition. I think going through winter storm fern and just the fragileness of that market, I think it was really highlighted to that. And so I think all of the utilities are just trying to figure out -- how do they get the right support for their states as well as additional infrastructure that they want to do on their systems able to help build up robustness in the market area as well. So conversations are going well. It's just as Chad mentioned, just trying to bring all of the different parties together to be able to get something that we can commercialize and progress forward. .

Our next question comes from Jean Ann Salisbury from BOA. .

Is the Marcellus gathering expansion at all driven by integration and pull-through into 1 of your pipeline projects are behind the meter projects. And I guess as my follow-up, a little bit more broadly, you obviously have some very large competitive advantages in Ohio and Utah that have helped you get behind the meter projects. Can you discuss where you see yourself as having similar competitive advantages elsewhere? .

Yes. This is Larry Larsen. I'll take the question as it relates to the gathering expansion up in the Northeast. It's not directly related to our power projects. It's just an expansion as our producer customers are going and developing in different parts of our system as an opportunity for us to provide some additional compression and gathering pipe infrastructure to be able to get them access to market. So it's not directly related to it. But I think as you see us creating more and more demand tied back into that area, it will help us provide more solutions to be able to grow both the gathering and processing side of the business. So I think we're well positioned on that front but it's not a direct correlation to the projects that we've announced. .

Yes. And I'll start and maybe Rob add in on the power ovation projects, obviously, Ohio and Utah. But I would also say it is a layering in both our footprint and capabilities, but also in places where you can build infrastructure efficiently -- and so I would think about the footprint along Transco and certainly, as you move to the west, but also and Rob can speak as he spoke to it at our Analyst Day, the incredible footprint that Sequent opens up across the entire United States but importantly, layering that on top of the areas where you can still build infrastructure. And so Louisiana, the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, you think about Ohio, Pennsylvania, you go further west, Utah, but Rob...

Yes, Jean, it's Rob. I mean, I often talk about our virtual footprint, Sequent our marketing platform. I mean we've got capacity positions on every major pipe across the country. And that's why we've been able to bring projects to places where we don't have physical footprint but can build to interconnecting pipelines near pipelines to the extent we need to. So when you look at the data center hubs, I mean, in our earnings presentation, we have a slide that shows sort of where all the data center hubs across our virtual and our physical footprint. And you can see we can pretty much touch any data center hub in the country. And our opportunity backlog has sort of reflected that. You've seen us do projects in places where -- we have a physical footprint but also places where we were able to use and leverage our sequel marketing platform .

Yes. One thing I would also note, I mentioned it in the prepared remarks, the ARISTADA pipeline, which we are commissioning now. We have -- we've introduced natural gas, and it's prepared to deliver gas for platelets out. But basically, the team designed an artery that now moves across that Columbus New Albany area, which has been a very large data center corridor, -- and so we overbuilt the capacity of that pipeline for the purpose of being able to not just serve soccer ties to be an energy artery along which other projects could be developed.

And you're going to continue to see, I think, that kind of strategy play out where in Utah, we're building the pipeline that will serve the Aquila project. And that's an area of growth both from a just demographic perspective but also a lot of technology and power and data centers. So those are areas where we're going to continue to, I think, see development. But as Rob mentioned, I think Slide 17 in our materials shows a good footprint of how we truly can touch just about anywhere. But I would also say there are unfortunately going to be winners and losers. And I mentioned the lack of gas infrastructure and frankly, any infrastructure in New England and New York we've got 20% of the nation's population in New England and New York, and they'll see less than 2% of economic development over the next year. And so that -- there are areas of our country that bring they're going to struggle to develop projects even though the demand might be there.

Our next question comes from John Mackay from Goldman Sachs. .

Let's stay on the behind-the-meter piece, I suppose. We're seeing kind of more entrants into the space, particularly from the services side, but kind of across the board. Can you just spend a minute or 2 and you've touched on a lot of these pieces, but spend a minute or two kind of talking about your view of your relative competitive advantage. And we'd love to hear more about kind of specifically the balance of plant and how this is more than just hey, we've gotten our hands on a turbine. Maybe walk through that a little bit, if you can?

Yes. Thanks, John. I do think what we provide is fairly unique. I mean, Rob talked about the Sequent footprint. We've obviously got a really robust gathering and processing business. So we touch every producer in the country. We've got our transmission business. We touch effectively every major utility in the country. That positions us really well to put those pieces together and provide full value chain solutions for customers. And so I think that the ability for we're not just a company that's showing up with a turbine or a site that we're trying to develop. I mean our strategy is to provide energy infrastructure solutions for American consumers and companies. And so we want to be able to make sure that if there is a hyperscaler that wants to develop a project that we can help find a way to take care of all of the needs upstream of the project. And so I think that's a fairly unique at-scale solution.

Look, this is a really big market. I think there's lots of opportunities for a lot of players to help solve these problems. But along our footprint across kind of natural gas infrastructure at scale, a company that can deliver projects, I think Williams is pretty unique. I mean we've been the most focused natural gas infrastructure company in our space. And so I think that serves us well. And truly, our goal is to make sure that our customers can rely on us to take care of all of the complexities of getting energy to their facility. Whether that today is primarily behind the meter solutions or over time working to be in complement with grid or other solutions. You mentioned kind of the balance of plant just on-site. I mean, not only are we doing power generation with turbines. Those are turbines of different size and scale. We're also providing battery storage solutions. We're working with customers on load following and understanding AI loads so that we can not only protect energy systems that are on site, but over time, protect the grid.

Our Atlas project relatively small from a capital perspective, but that's an important project that demonstrates the ability to move data centers away from diesel backup generation to natural gas generation. The natural gas grid is this massive flexible storage system. And so leveraging natural gas is a much cleaner, more affordable, efficient solution for backing up existing data centers of the solution. So we want to be able to provide comprehensive creative solutions -- and that's really the focus for us. I think that's fairly unique because we can do that at scale across every part of the value chain.

That's great. You touched on it. But my second question was just going to be on Atlas, and I think you answered it, but just to clarify, are you saying you're effectively working with the customer to swap out their diesel backup at a data center for gas? And if you could just clarify, it looks like it's relatively low CapEx, but I wanted to check on that.

Yes, I'll let Larry fill in any gas. Basically, yes, is the answer. This is a some pipeline infrastructure that allows the customer to convert their backup generation to natural gas and leverages the compressibility of gas in the pipeline system to basically be a storage solution and a backup generation solution without having to have diesel on site without having to burn diesel. But Larry, I don't know if you want to add anything to the scope of that? .

Yes. I think you hit it pretty well. And from a scope standpoint, you're right, it's not a large CapEx number. It's probably just slightly under $50 million but be able to provide lateral interconnection facilities and a lot of redundancy just so that they aren't having to burn diesel you'll be able to rely on the Transco system and some of the flexibility there. So I think it's a great solution for the customer at the end of the day in a way that we're able to provide a lower emission solution and something with some really strong reliability .

And again, I'd say credit and the team, I think it's proving up what I hope and expect to be a solution that we can provide other facilities. I mean, there was an assumption that you had to have compressed natural gas or on-site liquefied gas as a storage solution. I think we're showing that the pipelines because of the compressibility of gas actually have tremendous storage capacity. We have storage across the natural gas footprint. And so yes, this is basically proving up that ability to rely on natural gas as our reliable backup solution. .

Our next question comes from Manav Gupta from UBS.

I have 2 questions lie together. My first 1 is on your Analyst Day, you also highlighted besides transmission and power, you are looking at multiple natgas storage opportunities. So if you could elaborate a little bit how those decisions are moving ahead, how customers get a gas storage within the U.S. in terms of reliability and then quickly power expressed project?

Manav, this is Larry. I'll take down. Thanks for the questions. And yes, we're definitely seeing very strong interest in the storage space. I think as you see just from the volatility, we've seen through some of the winter storm, especially along the Gulf Coast. We've got our Pine Prairie project that's progressing through permitting. We've got another expansion of some of our old facilities that's in progress. We actually working right now to finish commercialization. Hopefully, we'll have some announcements on that in the upcoming quarters.

And we've also got some projects out west with some of our facilities around Mountain West that we're working on. So definitely seeing strong interest and I think we'll see some progress on a couple of projects here later this year, and I think we'll continue to look at others. We've got a pretty large footprint across the Gulf across all of the different facilities and excited to see some of those commercialized.

Yes, on Power Express. Yes, it's a great one. I think as we've highlighted, the strength of Transco and how you can kind of scale projects to meet the actual customer needs, I think as you've seen, we've moved around the scope of this project and continue to work with customers in that area within Virginia. And we have 1 of the customers that they've firmed up their ultimate needs ended up having an upsize and then. Additionally, we've had another customer come to the table to fit really nicely within the scope of that project able to achieve returns and scope within something that was manageable and not impact timing of the overall project. And so I think it just demonstrates the value of the Transco system and how we can make minor adjustments to scope of expansion projects and be able to flex to meet the customers' needs. So -- great job by our commercial team staying connected with those markets and finding ways to continue to emphasize where it makes sense.

Our next question comes from Sunil Sibal from Seaport Global. .

I wanted to touch base on the LNG opportunity. It seems like with all the geopolitical events happening currently. Now there is an increased focus on U.S. as LNG supplier. You obviously have a position in 1 of the LNG projects. So I was curious if you could give us an update on that market?

Yes, I'll start and Rob may want to fill in. The first thing I'd say is things are progressing well on the Woodside LNG project. We've taken over and now are the primary owner of Line 200, which will connect from Transco, also our Louisiana Energy Gateway system and will be the primary source of delivering gas into the Woodside LNG terminal. I think we like our position and the scale of it on the LNG front. So right now on that project, primary focus is on execution.

More broadly, I mean, obviously, I think things that are happening in the world today further reinforce the need for the U.S. to be a reliable supplier of LNG to the market. I've been saying this, we produced 40% more natural gas in the U.S. than we consumed domestically. And if anyone had concerns that exporting gas in the form of LNG would impact domestic prices. I think we've actually proven it by overproducing gas, overproducing a commodity, you protect yourself from price shocks around the world, and we've certainly seen that see natural gas today much lower than it was price-wise before the start of the conflict in the Middle East, where on the liquid deal side, we only we only produce about 3% more than we consume domestically.

And you can see we've seen much higher price shocks on the oil and liquid fuel side and other things. And so we feel really good about the fundamentals that will support very strong growth in LNG, and we'll continue to look at ways to participate. But Rob, I don't know if you have anything.

Yes. I mean the only thing I'll say is that we're still a few years out from first LNG Woodside is still on track for 2029 first cargo. And so we're a few years out from that, but we've got 1.5 MTPA where we have an option to hold on to that, but not an obligation. And we have been talking to producers and looking and trying to use that to sort of help attract more volume through our Haynesville system and help complete that well had the water strategy that we've been working on. .

Okay. Stay tuned on that 1.5 MTPA. Changing topics, I think there were some comments in the press about power trading opportunity for Williams. I would -- wanted to see if you could clarify how are you looking at that opportunity around your existing assets or the assets that you are building?

Yes. I mean, right now, I'd say the most important thing to just recognize is we're building a very significant power business and a pretty large set of diverse power assets. But our primary focus is going to be on serving the customer and then optimizing the power that we're producing. And so I'd say stay tuned on that front. But for today, we're not -- as we are -- as we would say, we're not a speculative trader. We're not looking to create any kind of speculative power trading business. But we want to make sure that we can provide the most efficient optimized solution to the customer. And so that's really the focus of the capability that we're looking to grow so that we can be as flexible and optimized as possible for the customers. We have a fairly large fleet of power generation coming online over the next couple of years. .

Our next question comes from Craig Shere from Tuohy Brothers.

So first, I just wanted to kind of talk through the equity partner opportunity and power innovation. It seems like there's 3 prospective drivers for that, but you're kind of emphasizing 1 over the others. And in my mind, that within near-term leverage targets, enjoying carried interest upside on individual deals. But then you kind of repeatedly talked about recycling capital into potential wider range of projects. And then in Q&A, John mentioned the potential for strategic relationships that could further add to project opportunities. So maybe you want to opine a little more on that is accelerating the growth of the primary focus?

Craig, this is John. I think the priority focus is making sure from a treasury financing perspective that, again, we can stay ahead of the wonderful kind of book of business. We see the commercial teams reviewing with this and making sure that we don't get caught limiting our abilities to continue to grow and to win that business by having any sort of financing issue. We are committed to the 3.5 to 4x leverage target. That's not -- that gives us a lot of breathing room relative to our current ratings. So that's not a ratings agency issue. That's more of an internal target that we've agreed to with the Board that we all feel comfortable as a good leverage range for the business. We also want to be able to continue to grow our dividend.

And so I think overall, we're just trying to find ways to finance the CapEx in a very efficient manner in a way that really add value to our shareholders over the long term. I think what we've seen with these meetings that we've been having with potential partners is very encouraging on a number of fronts, including all of those that you mentioned. So I think there's a lot of compelling reasons why that might end up being the answer. But at the same time, there's a lot of different options that we could have, and we'll continue to look across the entire portfolio, too, there could even be assets that we would want to sell over time, too. So we have a number of different things we can do. We're trying to make sure we're not locked into any 1 path. I feel really optimistic we're going to have a very attractive financing solution for shareholders to announce at some point in the near future.

And last 1 for me. Chad, in answer to John, I think you mentioned the energy storage component I believe that was a major contributor to some prior project upsizings that you all had announced want to inquire about the best factor evolution as a part of power innovation solutions. And what exactly are customers looking for with this? Is it more second to second responsiveness? Or is there an increasing interest in longer duration backup support?

Yes. Thanks, Craig. I think primarily, it's the very rapid response to changing power loads at the facilities. And this is the same issue that we'll see on our grid. I mean, our grid, our projects are obviously primarily rotating equipment driven, and those don't respond well to a very rapid kind of millisecond changes in demand load. And so this is primarily to serve as a solution to respond to dynamic AI loads. And so we continue to look at projects from just a power efficiency perspective with batteries. But the primary for the projects that we've announced, the primary role of the battery systems to be that effectively buffer between the rotating equipment and the data center to respond to these rapid changes in load. .

Thank you. That concludes the Q&A portion of our call. I will now turn it over to President and CEO, Chad Zamarin for closing remarks. .

All right. Well, thanks for the always robust Q&A, and thank you for your interest in Williams. We look forward to speaking with you again soon. And in the meantime, we wish you luck. Thanks. .

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

Please welcome to the stage, Danilo Juvane, Vice President of Investor Relations and ESG.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for your interest in The Williams Companies, and welcome to our Analyst Day event. This morning, we released our earnings press release and our Analyst Day presentation. Our President and CEO will speak this morning.

So Chad Zamarin will start by providing a brief history of Williams along with the evolution of our natural gas strategy. You'll then hear from Rob Wingo, who leads our corporate strategy, and he will highlight the core pillars that make the strategy both successful and repeatable. Larry Larsen, our Chief Operating Officer, will walk through our best-in-class operations and project execution. And finally, John Porter, our CFO, will provide the details of our results as well as talk through our guidance expectations, which I think everyone is excited to hear about.

After the presentation, we will have a brief 5-minute break, followed by a Q&A session in this room, and we will then close the program with parting remarks from Chad Zamarin, and now for the safe harbor. In our presentation materials, you'll find a disclaimer related to forward-looking statements. This disclaimer is important and integral to our remarks, and you should review it. Also included in the presentation materials are non-GAAP measures that we reconcile to generally accepted accounting principles. These reconciliation schedules appear at the back of today's presentation materials.

[indiscernible] [ code]. It is williams2026, and that's all lower case. williams2026, all lower case, okay? So with that, we'll start with the program. Thank you.

[Presentation]

Welcome to the stage, Chad Zamarin, President and CEO of Williams.

All right. Thank you. All right. Good morning. Welcome to Washington, D.C., and thank you for being here with us. The team and I look forward to sharing the strong results Williams delivered in 2025, and we're also excited to provide a look into the future for Williams, which truly is brighter than ever.

But first, across our company that do the important work each and every day. Today, we talk about numbers, results, exciting new projects and the outlook ahead. But it's important to take a step back and recognize the incredible men and women that are [indiscernible] to deliver the energy we need. Recent winter weather reminds us just how important their efforts are.

Our country's natural gas infrastructure is truly one of our nation's most incredible accomplishments. Our teams operate across a vast and complex set of assets, geographies, weather conditions and daily challenges. They gather massive quantities of energy far from where it's used, transport it over vast distances without losing any of it, store huge quantities of natural gas below ground and where it's needed. Our energy infrastructure is truly a blessing for our country, and we sincerely appreciate the men and women that work every day to make our quality of life possible.

Okay. So now to the numbers, the results, the exciting opportunities and the fancy. At Williams, we are connecting energy to innovation. And you'll see that we build upon a proud history of innovation at Williams. We truly are a company that has evolved over the course of more than a century. Williams is built to lead through times of challenge, prosperity and change. And today, our irreplaceable assets are in the right place, pointed at the right market needs. Our asset base provides incredible value for the here and now and also serves as the ideal foundation for delivering the next generation of energy solutions.

And you'll see that we have a strong culture of doing what we say and delivering the results. This morning, we're excited to report that in 2025, Williams achieved $7.75 billion of adjusted EBITDA. $7.75 billion of adjusted EBITDA, as you know, hits exactly at the midpoint of our guidance for 2025, which recall was increased twice by a total of $350 million from when we originally set guidance in early 2024.

John will dive deeper into our results in a bit, but another fantastic year of accomplishment and growth for Williams. And with our incredible asset base, with a track record of innovation and with a culture of delivering, you'll see that no company is better positioned to continue to lead into the future. Today, we're updating our long-range growth target, which you will see is not an aspiration, but is a destination that is well charted and in large part, already supported by a strong set of projects that are commercialized in execution. So more on that in a bit. But let's take a quick step back.

We build upon a rich history of innovation that still informs our culture today. Williams was founded in 1908 by David and Miller Williams, and the company has been a true pioneer in large-scale energy infrastructure. By the 1940s, Williams had become an international pipeline construction company.

Going on to ultimately build over 100,000 miles of pipeline in over 40 countries. Just one example of our company's incredible history as one of America's most important infrastructure companies, dates from the early 1940s. Many people don't know that in the early 1940s, German submarines were literally hunting along the U.S. Shoreline. In the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, German subs were sinking American oil tankers that we're attempting to ship oil from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast in order to fuel our war efforts.

The U.S. war effort was under siege until Williams partnered with the U.S. government to build the war emergency pipelines. Two pipelines built from Texas to New York and under a year, together almost 3,000 miles of large diameter pipeline to transport oil from Texas to New Jersey and New York. And imagine Texas to New York in under a year.

Today, we often struggle to build 50 miles of pipeline in under a decade. Without Williams building the war emergency pipelines, both the [ D-day Evasion ] and likely the liberation of Europe never happened. And while David and Miller were finishing the war emergency pipelines, John Williams, who is the nephew of our founders was serving in the Pacific Ocean. John was part of the Navy's construction [indiscernible].

John had risen to the rank of company commander and led his battalion at the battle of [ UOGEMA]. John Williams and his men landed on the beach just 32 minutes after the first marines landed at [indiscernible]. And that day, John Williams lost half of his battalion on the shores of [indiscernible]. But he and his men didn't give up. John and the surviving [indiscernible] [ brining ] and that team ultimately rebuilt the airstrips of [indiscernible]. So the U.S. could stage its bombers and protect our country from the Japanese threat that it emerged.

John Williams, on to become the longest-serving CEO of Williams. And a fun fact, today's Navy deals can trace their origin to the CVs, many of whom were demolition experts, problem solvers, teams that get things done. The Williams team strives to honor this culture of courage, perseverance and problem solving each and every day.

Okay. Well, after a year of intentional transition with incredible planning and support from Alan Armstrong and our Board of Directors, we build upon that legacy and importantly, we're intently focused and looking forward. And our purpose as a company remains as bold and relevant as ever. We are working every day to solve one of our generation's greatest challenges, to meet the world's need -- to meet the world's incredible need for clean, affordable and reliable energy. And we channel our culture, our values and our capabilities to deliver industry-leading shareholder returns to advance financial strength and stability and to continue to innovate and meet the market and customer needs.

So to set the stage, I'll spend the rest of my time focused on our strategy and its strong alignment with fundamentals, our attractive value proposition that we believe is unique and will be incredibly compelling for as far as the eye can see and our long-term growth outlook, which you will see is both exciting and also well supported with a clearly charted path ahead fueled by projects that are already commercialized and well underway.

So first, let's look at the fundamentals that support our strategy. There's a reason why we've aligned the focus of the company today around natural gas. Natural gas demand has grown in the United States by over 50% since 2010 and is arguably the most important energy resource we have in the United States.

Natural gas has been our greatest driver of emissions reductions, responsible for over 60% of emissions reductions in the U.S. over the past 15 years by displacing high emissions fuels. Natural gas is the most reliable and dispatchable of our resources. At scale, it's the enabler of renewables. It picks up the slack when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing.

And demand for natural gas is expected to grow by another 35% over the next decade alone. And on a volume basis, the next 10 years of forecasted demand growth is equivalent to the last 15 years of demand growth but in a single decade. So natural gas demand is not just growing, it's accelerating.

And driving the accelerated growth are several critical factors. LNG demand is well on its way to more than double by the early 2030s. Power generation will likely grow by more than 10 Bcf a day and industrial demand will outperform as the U.S. reinvest in onshoring and manufacturing, driven in large part by the affordability advantage that I'll speak to in a minute, produced by natural gas.

And this is the why. Producing natural gas is one of our greatest -- our country's greatest capabilities. Think back to the early 2000s. Experts told us that domestic gas supply was in a permanent terminal decline. We were building terminals to import gas from overseas, which likely would have been supplied by adversaries because we thought we were running out. And we know that through American innovation and grit, we didn't just reverse the decline. We became the world's dominant producer.

Today, the U.S. doesn't just produce more natural gas. We dominate the global stage, and we are outpacing the next largest producers, Russia and around combined. And at least for now, we dwarfed the production of China. And when Russia invaded Ukraine, we doubled LNG imports into Europe. Imagine what the world would have looked like if we hadn't been able to double energy imports into Europe, when Russia was literally holding a continent hostage with energy.

And as producing natural gas is one of our nation's greatest capabilities, as a result, natural gas is one of our nation's greatest economic advantages. In the U.S., we can economically produce natural gas at $0.25 per gallon of gasoline on an energy equivalent basis. Imagine what more we can do with $0.25 per gallon of gasoline equivalent energy. Natural gas is our country's energy affordability superpower, and we know that energy affordability drives overall affordability.

We can't keep utility bills low without leaning into natural gas. We can't invest in more expensive wind and solar without leaning into natural gas. We won't be able to compete with the massive coal and oil-based power sectors of China and the developing world if we don't lean into U.S. natural gas. Producing natural gas is our competitive advantage and natural gas is our affordability superpower. But unlocking the full potential of our superpower isn't easy, and this is why Williams existing pipeline and storage assets and emerging projects are so critical.

I say this often, I should tattoo this chart onto my back, but it would hurt too much because I'd have to update it every year. But that's how important this fundamental is. We've grown gas demand by about 50% since 2013, and we expect to double natural gas demand from where it was in 2013 by 2035. Yet you can see here that pipeline and storage infrastructure is lagging demand, creating bottlenecks and driving up consumer costs due to a lack of infrastructure.

This is like adding cars to the highway, but not expanding the road. And we know what happens when infrastructure doesn't keep pace. We have traffic jams, accidents, loss of efficiency and congestion pricing. We need to address the lag in infrastructure, and we need to catch up and keep up or the problem will only get worse. This is not an easy trend to reverse. And as infrastructure lags demand, our existing pipelines and storage assets increase in value and our pipeline and storage expansion projects also increase in value. The lag in growing infrastructure alongside demand is what makes what we do so important and so valuable. This is the fundamental that drives our pipeline and storage strategy.

And the lag in infrastructure shows up directly in higher prices for consumers. Winter gas prices in New England and New York are on average, almost triple the cost in Northeast Pennsylvania. And during winter storm firm, prices in New England range from $50 to $200 per MMBtu when we can economically produce natural gas for under $5 per MMBtu. This is not an energy supply issue. This is an energy infrastructure issue.

In fact, as winter storm fur approached, we had almost 3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in storage. That's like having the largest battery on the planet and ready to be delivered, but the lag in infrastructure, the lack of pipelines in storage. That's what keeps us from getting the gas to where it's needed during periods of peak demand.

So permitting reform remains a must do for our country. And in 2026, you'll continue to hear us advocate for meaningful permitting reform. The reality is it can take longer and cost more to permit a project than to actually build a project, take our [ Atlantic Sunrise ] project. The project began the permitting process in 2012 and didn't come into service until 2017. And believe it or not, we just finished the last litigation in 2025. 13 years of litigation on a single project. We won every single challenge along the way, burdensome permitting and frivolous litigation only [ stymy ] projects, and ultimately, the American consumer bears the cost and the [indiscernible].

As petrol permitting reform amend the Clean Water Act 401 permitting process and address judicial reform so we can reverse the lag in natural gas pipeline and storage infrastructure. And as the fundamentals supporting natural gas pipeline and storage infrastructure are clear, we see the same for power generation. So shifting to power, global electricity generation has doubled since the year 2000. And while our competitors are surging ahead in the United States, electricity generation has been stalled.

Global electricity demand doubled over the last 25 years, and the U.S. hasn't grown at all. Why? It's not a lack of demand. It truly is a bottleneck of infrastructure. Right now, it takes an average of 10 years in the United States to bring a new major power line from blueprint to the grid. We've seen the pace of construction fall off a cliff. A decade ago, we were building 1,700 miles a year of high-voltage power lines. And recently, that number has plummeted to below 500 miles.

We are literally building the future at 1/3 of the speed we used to. Meanwhile, we've been aggressively removing coal generation, and we haven't kept pace with the reliable natural gas generation needed to backstop our energy system. I may need to tattoo this chart on my arm. The simple fundamental is why our power innovation projects are so important and why these projects are so valuable today and will be for decades to come. And this fundamental takes on even more urgency when we look around the world.

While we were stalled, China was lapping us around the track. China has now taken our place as the world's leader in generating electricity. Think back to the year 2000. At that time, the United States was the engine of the world, the world's dominant electricity producer, and we were also the world's dominant manufacturer, responsible for 1/3 of global manufacturing. Today, China dwarfs our ability to grow electricity generation. And by the way, the U.S. now represents about 15% of global manufacturing, half of what we were in 2000. These aren't just statistics. These need to be our nation's wake-up call.

During World War II, we built the war emergency pipelines because our nation's security and prosperity dependent upon it. Today, the battle is on for the next generation of prosperity and international. Our power innovation projects aren't just nice to have. They are critical to making sure America's companies can compete and win the race for the next generation of technology. It's time to get back to the speed and determination of the war emergency pipelines and it's time to power the next generation of American innovation and opportunity.

And this isn't just Williams talking. Leaders from across industry and government recognize that the race is on and the race for the future is absolutely an energy race. The next generation of technology will be determined by access to fast, affordable and reliable energy. The next generation of manufacturing will be determined by access to low-cost and abundant energy. The next generation of prosperity and international security will absolutely be determined by access to reliable, affordable and clean energy. And this is why Williams is such an important company at such an important time.

So now let's pivot and look at why Williams is such an attractive investment opportunity. I've talked a bit about our past, and you see here that over the course of our history, we have been building a company that is designed to be fit for today and positioned for tomorrow. In the 1960s, the company has expanded -- the company expanded from being a construction company to becoming a pipeline owner and operator. After decades of expansion and growth, we now operate our country's most critical natural gas pipeline assets, including our nation's largest Transco.

In the 1980s, we expanded into the gathering and processing business with the acquisition of Northwest Energy, and our footprint now spans 11 critical supply basins. We've expanded our natural gas storage footprint, and we're now the largest operator of natural gas storage along the Gulf Coast, where LNG terminals, industrial customers and utilities will depend on storage to balance an increasingly complex market. And in 2025, as you know, we evolved our portfolio to extend into power innovation, announcing 3 projects. And today, we're excited to be announcing an upsizing of 2 of those projects and the commercialization of our fourth power innovation project, which brings power innovation projects and execution to over $7 billion at very attractive returns.

You'll see here on the map that we really are the right company in the right place at the right time. And shortly, Rob is going to show a version of this slide that includes our Sequent business. When you see those 2 layers together, you'll realize that our reach extends into every productive nook and cranny of the United States from wellhead to City Gate and beyond. Every time a home is heated, a light is turned on, a factory line starts up in America, there is a 1 in 3 chance that Williams made it possible. And just as we focus on delivering energy for our customers, we likewise focus on delivering value for our shareholders.

We have met or beaten consensus expectations for 40 consecutive quarters. That's 10 straight years of doing what we said we would do, both operationally and financially. I hope you see today that we have a well-built platform that will continue to deliver strong and sustainable results for the very long term. And the numbers speak for themselves. You see here that we delivered on par with the S&P 500 over the past year and much stronger annualized returns than the S&P 500 energy and utility sectors over the past 3 and 5 years, demonstrating long-term consistent outperformance. A super solid base business, a strong -- with strong and high-quality growth, coupled with a rock-solid balance sheet that allows for a strong and growing dividend, that's the Williams recipe for delivering attractive shareholder.

And zooming in on TSR, over the past 5 years, we generated almost a 300% return for shareholders, solidifying a strong track record for returns. And as we look forward, we believe we offer the whole package, growth, predictability and a commitment to delivering value to shareholders through an attractive dividend. With our 2025 results now locked in, the team has delivered 13 years of consecutive EBITDA growth.

And over the past 5 years, we achieved a whopping 14% EPS CAGR. And Williams has paid a dividend now for over 5 decades, 50 years of paying a dividend. And we delivered a 5% CAGR in dividend growth over the past 5 years, and we recently announced another 5% increase to our 2026 dividend, and we're confident in our ability to continue to meaningfully grow the dividend in the future. Predictability, coupled with strong double-digit growth and a strong dividend, we believe, is a unique offering that you will be hard-pressed to find in any other investment opportunity.

So over the past 5 years, The Williams results have been terrific, but there is much more to come, and we are incredibly excited about the next 5 years and beyond. Since 2018, we've communicated a targeted EBITDA growth rate of 5% to 7% and with our 2025 results now locked in, we outperformed and delivered a 9% EBITDA CAGR over the 5-year period.

And as we look ahead to the next 5 years, we are sitting in an even better position than when we began the last 5 years. Our assets are better positioned. Our balance sheet is stronger and the fundamental tailwinds and opportunity set ahead are even greater. We're excited to announce today our new growth target for the next 5 years of 10-plus percent compound annual growth in adjusted EBITDA from 2025 through 2030.

The first 5-year chapter of the 2020s was a significant area of growth for Williams, and we see even more impactful growth over the next 5-year chapter. It's important to note that our 10-plus percent EBITDA CAGR outlook is built on structural demand and contracted pipe and power projects that will also pull high-margin volumes through our gathering and processing business with upside providing optionality rather than dependence.

It's also important to note that we pursue growth only where it is consistent with maintaining investment-grade credit metrics and deliver returns well above our cost of capital. 10-plus percent EBITDA CAGR is not an aspiration. We have clear line of sight to our growth. And the capital investments we're making today and the attractive returns we're achieving from our projects give us confidence that we can deliver incredible value for shareholders and propel us to double-digit EBITDA growth through the end of the decade.

So wrapping up, we believe that Williams truly is a differentiated energy investment opportunity. You'll hear today from Rob about how our long-term strategy is supported by strong fundamentals and continued smart and disciplined strategic investments. You'll hear from Larry that we are progressing an attractive suite of projects in execution with a growing backlog of opportunities that will continue to fuel strong growth into the future.

And you'll hear from John about how well positioned we are from a financial perspective and how we have and expect to continue to deliver peer-leading earnings growth and return on invested capital. And while we expect and will deliver strong and continued growth. We remain laser-focused on maintaining a rock-solid balance sheet and we'll look to keep leverage within a 3.5 to 4x EBITDA range.

We've proven our ability to deliver through a variety of market cycles, and our ability to do so is only increasing as we further increase our mix of high-quality pipe and power projects. As we look ahead, we expect to deliver the same predictable growth at an even faster and more attractive rate. So thank you again for being here and for your interest in Williams. I look forward to you hearing from the rest of the team. and I look forward to your questions during Q&A. And now I'll hand it over to Rob.

Please welcome to the stage Rob Wingo, Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategic Development.

Good morning. So I want to pick up where Chad left off. Before I do, let me introduce myself. I'm Rob Wingo, EVP of Corporate Strategic Development. And I really want to bring all of this down to our strategy and how we're turning everything you just heard into predictable long-term growth for Williams.

I'm going to walk through how we're positioning the company for the next decade and why we're so confident in the durability of this opportunity and to connect strategy with reality, I want to start with what many of you saw yesterday at our Clean Energy and Technology Expo, which was a great reminder of that innovation isn't really a buzzword for us. It's something that we're doing every single day across our footprint. Ten vendors, 10 technologies, all showing practical tools that help us reduce emissions and improved performance while meeting growing energy demand. Let's take a look at some of the highlights from yesterday.

[Presentation]

Great. So thank you again for everybody who participated in that, we really appreciate it. The takeaway was simple that our industry has the talent and the technology to deliver clean and reliable and affordable energy for decades to come. So with that foundation, let's pivot into the strategic framework that guides how we make decisions.

Our strategy is built on fundamentals long-term structural trends, not headlines or noise. And we start with a macro picture and identify where durable growth is emerging. Then we narrow our focus to places where Williams has an undeniable competitive edge, and we execute through a strategic model that we've proven quarter after quarter.

So let's look at those fundamentals and why they point to a big and growing opportunity for Williams. Over the next decade, U.S. natural gas demand is expected to increase by nearly 39 Bcf a day. which, as you heard Chad mentioned, is a 35% jump from where we are today. That growth is broad across LNG exports, power generation, industrial demand, residential and commercial needs, transportation and even exports to Mexico.

So the important point is this, that the structural drivers of gas demand are multi-sector and long-lasting. But even within that broad area of growth, 2 areas are pulling away as clear leaders. When you break down that growth, about 80% of it comes from just 2 categories, which is LNG and power, that's around 20 Bcf a day from LNG and 10 Bcf a day from power. And those are exactly the areas where Williams is already scaled, connected and commercially active.

So let's drill into power because that's where the shift is happening the fastest. The power sector is changing rapidly, and natural gas sits right in the center of that stage. At least 10 Bcf a day of new demand is coming from power and that doesn't fully capture what we're seeing in our own commercial pipeline.

Of course, data centers are the biggest driver, and roughly 2/3 of all U.S. gas electricity demand come through 2035 will come from data centers alone. Hyperscalers are planning close to $2 trillion in capital investment by 2030 and these customers need power that is reliable, fast to deploy and scalable. And today, natural gas is the only resource that checks all 3 boxes.

And you can see this recognition show up in the forecast data, where in long-term gas demand forecast for power had been raised every year for the past several years. Since 2021, analysts have increased their 2035 estimates by roughly 20 Bcf a day. They underestimated reliability needs, underestimated load growth and didn't fully appreciate the scale of the AI build-out. The idea that natural gas would fade has simply proven wrong. So the fundamentals are still strong.

The question becomes who's positioned to capture it? And this is where Williams has a real advantage. Over the next decade, 20 Bcf a day of LNG demand growth will pull gas across our systems from the Haynesville, the Eagle Ford and even from Appalachia. That surge of demand will flow straight through our network create significant growth opportunities along the Transco corridor. And this is a core advantage for Williams because our supply basins line up directly with where LNG projects need gas, and Transco is the backbone that connects them.

As LNG grows, our gathering, treating and pipeline systems, especially across LEG and our broader Haynesville footprint, we'll see more throughput and more pull-through growth. And this is where [ Woodside ] takes our position from strong to unmatched. Our ownership stake creates true physically connected, wellhead-to-water story, something that very few other midstream companies can offer. [ Woodside ] will anchor 2.2 Bcf a day of additional long-term demand for our Haynesville systems and ties that demand directly into the [ transit corridor ] [indiscernible] which we will build and operate to feed gas to [ Woodside ] will become the critical link feeding LNG volumes into Transco and accelerating utilization across our existing assets.

The partnership strengthens the value of the footprint and can help us fill latent capacity, driving returns with minimal new capital. And as Woodside expands up to 3.7 Bcf a day, with future trains, we'll be in a position to build an additional feeder iron, unlocking a new wave of high-return, take-or-pay expansion projects on both Transco and the Haynesville side. So the bottom line is this LNG demand growth will pull volumes across our entire system, and [ Woodside ] gives Williams a unique strategic advantage by completing the wellhead-to-water strategy and value chain.

So shifting to Power. A few years ago, we saw a clear gap in the market. Hyperscaler customers had massive unique load demands and they needed reliable power fast. The grid couldn't meet those time lines, but we could. So we took what we already do better than anyone, which is natural gas, turbines, construction and operations, and we built a one-stop tailored power solution for these customers.

Instead of asking them to piece together multiple vendors and time lines, we delivered a single integrated offering, gas supply, pipeline generation and operations and all customized to their load profile and reliability needs. The combination allowed us to move with speed, and we brought our first project to market in under 18 months, something that traditional grids just simply cannot do.

And we delivered it while shielding residential consumers from the cost, which has been a key differentiator for customers and regulators, and this capability, which is fast, reliable, turnkey power was built on our natural gas expertise, which is what launched our power innovation business and positioned us as the partner of choice for hyperscalers.

So if you map where data centers are going and overlay the infrastructure that we have, the alignment is pretty striking. We deliver about 1/3 of the nation's natural gas and operate more than 32,000 miles of pipelines and over [ 300 ] turbines that give us reach across nearly every major data center hub in the country. Sequent adds marketing capabilities, including pipeline and storage capacity coast-to-coast and already provides gas supply for 25 gigawatts of power generation across the country.

So when you overlay data center development and activity under our asset and marketing footprint, it's clear that we have nationwide reach and can effectively access nearly every project in the country. So let's talk about what this looks like in real life projects where we've already executed 3 PPAs and the opportunity pipeline is continuing to grow.

Over the last 12 months, we've executed PPAs for our first 3 projects, which are [ Socrates, Aquila and Apollo], and those total more than 1.3 gigawatts of capacity and $5 billion of capital. These are fixed fee 10-year take-or-pay contracts with roughly 5x EBITDA multiples, and we're just getting started. This next update is a big deal. It's arguably one of the most important announcements that we're making today because it shows just how fast our power innovation platform is scaling and how strongly customers are leaning into Williams as their long-term power partner.

So I'm really excited to announce today that we've secured a new project called [ Socrates the younger ] -- and great name, I know. And this project adds 340 megawatts of behind-the-meter capacity under a 10-year take-or-pay fixed fee contract. That alone represents roughly $1.3 billion of new capital at an incredibly attractive 5x EBITDA multiple. But here's where it gets even more exciting.

Our customers didn't just add a new project, they also expanded their commitments with us and [ Aquila ] and [ Apollo ] have both been upsized adding another $900 million of investment across the 2 projects. And importantly, both projects now have been extended to 12.5-year contract terms. So we're only a year in the development of these projects, but the signal is clear. In fact, it's one of the strongest signals that you'll see of customer confidence in Williams. It says that they trust our ability to deliver, it says they're locking in reliable power well into the next decade. And it says that Williams is becoming a critical part of their long-term power strategy.

So when you put all of this together, the new project, the upsizing, the extensions, we'll now have $7.3 billion invested in power innovation projects. And at a full run rate, this platform is expected to deliver approximately $1.4 billion in annual EBITDA by 2029, fully contracted, derisked and locked in.

This is one of the most exciting growth engines that Williams has ever built the pace of customer demand, the economics, the contracted cash flow, it all points to a platform that is scaling faster and bigger than we originally projected. And the message is unmistakable. Customers want Williams at the center of their long-term power plans. This is only the beginning.

And all of this is possible because we follow a disciplined, repeatable strategic model and it works. So let me walk you through the core of that model. Our strategic model rests on 4 pillars, which is aligned with long-term fundamentals, leverage our operational scale and strength maintain financial discipline and flexibility and support a clean energy future with practical and reliable solutions. This framework allows us to invest ahead of demand and deliver durable growth and you can see that discipline in our investment history.

Since 2020, we've built a remarkable track record of value-creating investments, and we've consistently made the right investments at the right time, at the right multiples, and we've proven we know how to scale them and squeeze more value out of them. We expanded our G&P footprint with disciplined high-return acquisitions. We strengthened our transmission business and our golf assets with smart strategic purchases.

We added storage, gathering, treating and critical pipeline capacity in exactly the right places where demand is now accelerating, and we acquired the right supporting businesses to complement our core business. And the results speak for themselves.

These investments delivered $1.3 billion of EBITDA uplift in 2025 alone at an average 5.4x multiple, which is a massive return on the capital that we deployed. That's real performance and not a forecast. We've already proven we can do this. And this track record gives us the credibility and the confidence to step into the next wave of major investments.

LNG and power and our Haynesville growth are creating once in a generation opportunities and Williams is in the best position to capture them. But all this momentum isn't just driving growth. It's fundamentally changing the quality of our earnings. And as our transition and power innovation businesses grow, our earnings base is becoming more stable, more predictable and more durable.

By 2030, more than 60% of our EBITDA is expected to come from long-term take-or-pay contracts. And as we layer in additional PPAs power innovation begins to look a lot like Transco with steady and long-term, long-duration cash flow. The shift isn't subtle. It fundamentally changes the quality of our earnings. And we're moving towards a business model with greater stability, higher visibility and significantly lower volatility, all while accelerating our growth rate.

So that's a real story here that Williams is becoming a higher-growth, lower-risk company. And very few companies in our space can say that. And we have a clear path, strong customer commitments and a business mix that only gets stronger from here. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Larry to talk about how we're executing operationally and delivering on the strategy every day.

Please welcome to the stage Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Larry Larsen.

Good morning. It's great to be here with you today to highlight the outstanding work our teams at Williams are doing to ensure reliability, drive growth and support our long-term success. First, I'm going to outline the key strategies that fit our differentiate our operational capabilities and create a strong foundation for continued results. Next, I'll highlight the proven execution across our pipeline transmission projects and provide an update on the continued progress on the [ Socrates ] Power project construction. And lastly, I'll wrap up by highlighting the meaningful growth already underway as well as the exciting opportunities ahead across our unmatched platform.

So let's move on to the building blocks of our operational excellence. Our ambition and expectation is to be the best operator in our industry. And these foundational pillars kept the key areas we must excel in to be a best-in-class operator. Let's start with safety and reliability. Safety is our top priority and central to everything we do at Williams. In 2025, we continue to build upon our strong safety culture and our teams delivered significant improvements across all our key metrics, with a focus on both employee and process safety.

Chad already highlighted the importance of reliability in our business, and our teams take that to heart. Our teams have been by driving coordination with both our upstream and downstream customers across our footprint, leveraging condition-based maintenance practices, we have been able to ensure our customers receive the volumes they need when they need them.

Williams continues to drive sustainable operations. We placed a strong focus on reducing methane emissions because of their near-term impact and the clear actions we can take to improve practices and updated equipment. Over the past several years, we have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in modernizing our older and less efficient compression across our pipeline transmission business.

And in 2025, we exceeded our annual incentive pay target achieving over a 10% reduction in methane intensity. That's more than double the 5% goal that we set. As a result of achieving targets like this and numerous other initiatives, we continue to outperform the industry on key sustainability ratings and rankings.

We all know how important it is to maintain financial strength, especially in growth cycles like we're in right now. We have done an excellent job managing costs even as we continue to grow. We're improving efficiency by streamlining processes and leveraging technology. We are expanding margins and driving more revenue to the bottom line.

In 2025, we delivered an operating margin ratio of 75%. And our G&P business generated approximately $2.5 billion of excess cash flow, helping fuel the growth in other parts of our business. And as you think about growing our position, Strengthening our leadership in the midstream space starts with our strong asset base and the advantages that come with our scale. And in 2025, we had another standout year delivering growth, completing 12 projects, announcing 10 new ones, in closing 2 West GMP acquisitions that are now fully integrated.

So as you can see, we are firing on all cylinders when it comes to best-in-class operations. Now going back to the point on reliability. I want to take a moment to spotlight the outstanding work from our teams in the field and the various support groups that are most recently tested during [ Winter Storm fern ] and the storms that followed along the East Coast. Those storms delivered widespread freezing temperatures, snow and in many areas, freezing rain across a large portion of our footprint in the nation. These were very challenging conditions to operate in. Our team did an amazing job ensuring the safe and reliable delivery of energy to heat homes and power essential services.

At Williams, we've leveraged prior learnings to develop and implement weather resiliency plans to make sure all our teams are ready and know it to do well in advance of a storm. Days before snow and freezing rainfall operators were reviewing forecasts, checking equipment, coordinating across regions, including with our upstream and downstream customers, compressor stations and control room staffing plans were put in place backup systems were tested and needed supplies were lined up.

During the storm, cross-functional collaboration ensured we could address issues quickly as they arose, leveraging the scale of our team. And a result of these efforts, we are able to meet our customers' needs during these impactful storms when they needed it most. So again, great work by our teams in planning and operating our critical assets that deliver roughly 1/3 of the nation's natural gas and continue to demonstrate why we are a best-in-class operator.

Now moving on to the robust demonstrated project execution. We are so proud of it, Williams. Looking back to this time last year, Williams had 14 pipeline transmission expansions underway across Transco, Northwest Pipeline and Mountain West. Fast forward to today, and over the past year, we placed 6 of those pipeline expansions into service, adding meaningful capacity across our high demand markets. We announced another 5 new pipeline expansions, including Northeast Supply Enhancement and Power Express.

These are both sizable Transco projects with attractive build multiples. Our Southeast Supply Enhancement project just recently received its FERC certificate, and we anticipate receiving our notice to proceed soon. that will allow construction activities to commence and keep us on track for full delivery of in-service in the third quarter of 2027. And additionally, we also anticipate partial service for North Carolina line of markets to be available in the first quarter of 2027 with the potential to provide additional revenue uplift for that year.

On our Northeast Supply Enhancement project, serving New York -- we now have all of our required permits and are on track to meet our fourth quarter 2027 in service in time for that winter heating season. This is another great example of Williams ability to work with our customers, the various state and federal regulatory agencies to get a needed infrastructure project permitted and advancing towards construction.

So as you look at what was accomplished in 2025, Williams advanced roughly 7.5 Bcf a day of pipeline expansions through FERC. That is an exceptional level of progress, especially you're also filled with power innovation project announcements. Of that 7.5 billion cubic feet a day, $4.4 million of that comes from newly announced expansion projects with attractive build multiples. And 1.1 represents capacity we brought into service clearly demonstrating our ability to take projects from concept to completion and deliver results.

As Chad highlighted building critical large-scale infrastructure is in our 100-plus year DNA at Williams, and we are ready to take on the growing energy infrastructure needs of our nation.

So let's turn to power execution. Our teams and contractors are making excellent progress at the [ Socrates ] in New Albany, Ohio. We are right on plan. Initial public outreach and land acquisition are complete. Permitting is secured and construction is well underway. We are finishing up the work on the pipeline segments and are moving towards equipment, control system and interconnection testing as the site continues to advance. And we are on track to bring the [ PLAY-DOH ] South site online in the third quarter of 2026. And the [ Play-Doh ] site online in the fourth quarter. This power project and others announced are great examples of how we leverage our skills as one of the largest turbine operators in the nation with a proven track record of building facilities to create to create attractive investments for Williams while meeting our customers' critical needs. Now let's watch a short video that highlights our power innovation business and the [ Socrates ].

[Presentation]

Chad and I got a chance to visit the site a couple of weeks ago, and it is great to see the progress firsthand. The teams have so much pride in what they're accomplishing as they progress towards in-service later this year, delivering a first of its kind, fully integrated, turnkey behind-the-meter solution to support the nation's growing data center demand and our important race for AI and impressively delivering the project in under 2 years.

So beyond demonstrating our ability to execute on the pipeline, transmission and power projects already underway, is equally important to highlight how well we're positioned to keep that momentum going. As a long-standing leader in turbine procurement and operations, we're diversified across best-in-class manufacturers, giving us both scale and flexibility.

Our practice supply chain -- our supply chain teams have already secured the major equipment needed to support our 6 gigawatt project backlog, and that backlog does not include the announcements made today, which have since been backfilled with additional opportunities. These equipment orders and reservations secure our power supply opportunities to the early 2030s. And importantly, Williams has minimal exposure on these reservations because they're backed by customer commitments.

In short, Williams is delivering full-scale solutions, executing with precision and positioned exceptionally well to advance our growing backlog. With that, we'll go into the growth we see in execution and in the backlog across our unmatched growth platform. Williams is exceptionally well positioned and with meaningful growth opportunities across our entire portfolio. We have active expansions underway in our pipeline transmission, power, storage and in our gathering and processing, demonstrating the breadth and importance of our platform.

We are seeing production ramp up with the recent offshore projects in the gold segment and are excited to see additional low capital tieback opportunities on the horizon. Additionally, our vital assets strategically located in high-demand markets are poised to meet rising natural gas needs to increase utilization and additional expansion.

So on our pipeline transmission assets, we currently have 13 projects in execution, representing roughly 7.1 billion cubic feet a day of new capacity. With these additions, Williams is on track to exceed 41 billion cubic feet a day of delivery capacity by 2030. That is an impressive 21% absolute growth, 2030 versus 2035 and that is just what we already have contracted. It does not include any of the projects that are in the backlog that we are actively working to commercialize.

We expect to invest approximately $4.6 billion in these projects, which will generate substantial take-or-pay earnings once they're completed. So in addition to that 7.1 Bcf a day of pipeline transmission capacity we have in execution, we have identified over 14 Bcf a day of additional opportunities that are in our project backlog that our teams are actively working on. This represents over $15 billion in CapEx.

This time last year, our backlog was roughly 9 Bcf a day associated with just under $12 billion in CapEx. Over the course of 25, we announced 4.4 billion cubic feet a day of projects. Some of that from the backlog, some of that was newly identified in 2025, and we continue to see our backlog grow both from a volume and associated CapEx standpoint.

So it is exciting to see the opportunities continue to materialize across our footprint. As I mentioned earlier, we also see about 6 gigawatts of power opportunities on the horizon, above and beyond the 1.9 gigawatts currently in execution. In our gas storage, our 10 Bcf [ Pine prayer ] expansion remains on track for completion in 2028. We have an additional 18 Bcf of potential storage opportunities through 2030, and we do expect this to continue to grow as winter storms like [ Fern ] highlight the valuable role storage plays in balancing the market during these peak demand times.

Overall, we see rapid expansion underway in our most valuable segments, pipe transmission and power. And importantly, these demand pull projects will continue to drive additional volumes and expansion opportunities within our G&P and Gulf businesses.

So in conclusion, Williams is a best-in-class operator with a proven track record of commercializing and delivering projects. Combined with our irreplaceable footprint and deep pipeline of growth opportunities, we are exceptionally well situated for 2026 and the years ahead. So with that, I will turn it over to John to walk through our Williams financial outlook.

Please welcome to the stage Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, John Porter.

All right. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being with us today. I'm excited to cover 3 main areas in my presentation. First, our strong financial performance for 2025, which set another record for adjusted EBITDA and led to our 13th consecutive year of EBITDA growth, once again, significantly outpacing our former 5% to 7% growth target.

Second, I'll lay out our specific expectations for continued earnings growth in '26 and then finally, we'll look at how we're driving shareholder value with our capital allocation framework, including our expectations for peer-leading earnings growth through the end of the decade. We've consistently outperformed expectations through the first half of the decade and that was done in a significantly less favorable environment for our business than what we expect for the second half of the decade. And it all begins in 2026.

So let's jump right in. So we are now halfway through the 2020s. And on this slide, we look back at the performance of the company back to the start of this decade. Starting with our 5-year adjusted EBITDA CAGR of 9% and 9% growth is also what we achieved in '25, reaching a new record of $7.75 billion.

Now when we were here 2 years ago, we rolled out our original '25 guidance for $7.4 billion and impressively, we've now beat that original guidance by $350 million. Our adjusted EPS has seen an impressive 14% CAGR and our available funds from operations per share has also grown at a 10% 5-year CAGR, while we grew the dividend at about a 5% 5-year CAGR and then you see the improvement we've made to the balance sheet, finishing '25 at about 3.7x.

So we've had strong financial performance through the first half of the decade. It's a trend that demonstrates our focus on operational leverage in the business and the strength of our cash returns on capital investments. So let's take a closer look at our '25 EBITDA. So it was a strong finish to the year with fourth quarter '25 EBITDA up 14% over 2024 4th quarter, exceeding $2 billion for the first time and leading to a full year 9% increase over '24 for both EBITDA and earnings per share. Walking through that 9% EBITDA growth from last year's $7.08 billion, our overall financial performance was led by our transmission and golf business, which improved about $400 million or about 12%.

It was a great year for these businesses where we brought online 10 pipeline transmission and golf projects. We settled the Transco rate case and continue to see upside in our growing natural gas storage businesses as well. Our Northeast G&P business grew $62 million or 3%, including overcoming the loss of EBITDA from the divestiture of our Aux Sable interest in '24. The West grew $128 million or 10%, led by our Haynesville investments, including a partial year of service for our Louisiana Energy Gateway Pipeline project, and we also had growth from our DJ Basin investments as well.

And there were various other puts and takes in the west, including a pretty significant step down in our Eagle Ford minimum volume commitments. Gas and NGL marketing was off about $22 million coming off of a very strong gas marketing year in 2024, but with some help from a partial year from our [ Cogentrix ] investment. Interesting to note that if you exclude the benefit of the [ Cogentrix ] investment, our marketing business was actually down almost $60 million or 28%, which makes our overall 9% EBITDA growth this year even more impressive.

Maybe just a quick note about our [ Cogentrix ] investment, a great value creation example, where it looks like we will roughly double our investment in less than a year. But of course, we don't include any gains from asset sales in our adjusted EBITDA or EPS. Finally, our other segment, which includes our upstream businesses, was up around $100 million, primarily related to the Wamsutter assets in Wyoming. And we'll have another significant gain on our upstream Haynesville assets in '26, which closed this past January. But again, that gain will also be excluded from our '26 metrics.

So it's a great way to cap off the midpoint of the decade with a 9% growth year that capped a 9% 5-year EBITDA CAGR and a 14% 5-year earnings per share CAGR. Now Williams is the most natural gas-focused midstream company out there, but we also have a diversified mix of large-scale natural gas focused businesses. And it's really that diversification that has fueled the growth in our business through a range of natural gas prices.

We've built a business that is primarily levered to the growth in natural gas demand and regulated pipeline capacity. And so we've been able to steadily grow our EBITDA with natural gas prices that have averaged just under $3.50 from 2020 through 2025. Natural gas demand drives our business. And you can see in those years where natural gas demand increased significantly, like in '21 and '22, we actually saw 10% and 14% EBITDA growth in those years.

So again, Williams has steady growth through low natural gas prices, but retained significant upside to higher natural gas demand. So let's shift now to our specific expectations for and how we will begin our journey through the second half of the 2020s.

We'll do a quick review of the metrics on this slide, and then I'll have more to say about EBITDA and CapEx on the next few slides. For '26, we have adjusted EBITDA with the midpoint at $8.2 billion. So after outperforming our original '25 adjusted EBITDA guidance by $350 million. We have about 6% growth now comparing '26 versus '25. But that would be 7% if you normalize for the effects of asset sales that are happening between the 2 years. We have 9% EPS growth in '26 continuing our long-term trend of per share growth that meets or beats our EBITDA growth.

For '26, our AFFO per share midpoint is $5.05 and based on our $2.10 per share dividend, that's 2.4x coverage after growing our dividend 5%. Relative to AFFO, we have a very positive update on cash taxes, now we love our FERC-regulated pipeline projects, but they don't qualify for 100% bonus depreciation like our power innovation projects do. And in '26, we'll begin to see the powerful tax deferral effects from these power innovation projects. Specifically, we expect about $100 million of cash taxes total in '26, but in '27, we don't expect to have any net cash tax.

You see leverage ticks up in '26 to about 4x, and we'll speak more about leverage later. But in general, we see 26% leverage moving to the upper end of our 3.5 to 4x targeted range. For '26, we have growth CapEx with the midpoint of $6.4 billion and maintenance CapEx of about $900 million, and we'll speak more about those CapEx numbers in a moment. So $8.2 billion of EBITDA at the midpoint which is about 7% normalized growth, '25 to '26.

Let's take a closer look at that EBITDA growth. So here, we have some of the more significant drivers for '26. We have a number of 2025 pipeline transmission, Gulf and Haynesville projects where we'll pick up a full year of EBITDA in '26. Now with respect to our '26 project slate, the in-service dates are heavily weighted towards the second half of the year, especially [ Socrates], which will drive the biggest step-up in EBITDA, and it's coming online in 2 phases in the second half of the year.

Let's shift to take a look at our '26 CapEx budget. '26 is a crucial project execution year focused on very attractive infrastructure projects that will drive strong long-term earnings growth. And this slide provides really a historical context for our capital investments through the first half of the decade, including both acquisitions and divestitures.

We did a number of bolt-on acquisitions, primarily in the '22 to '24 time frame, making use of our balance sheet capacity to add strategic investments like the Mountain West Pipeline system and the Gulf Coast natural gas storage assets. We sustained strong overall cash returns on invested capital during this period fueling additional balance sheet capacity and strong absolute and per share earnings growth.

Looking at '26, you can see the increase in our focus on high returning organic capital investments, focused in our regulated pipeline and power innovation businesses. This '26 CapEx budget is really the foundation of our earnings growth through the remainder of the decade. This foundation gives us confidence in being able to continue peer-leading earnings growth.

So let's take a closer look at the key elements of this CapEx budget on the next slide. So we've got about $6.4 billion of growth capital, almost entirely associated with the 7 foundational projects that are listed here on the right. We've got 4 power innovation projects amounting to almost $4 billion of capital this year, up against a total investment in these 4 projects of about $7.3 billion at an average build multiple of 5x.

Socrates will come on in the second half of '26. [ Aquila and Apollo ] will come on in the second half of '27 and first half of '28 and Socrates the younger will come online in '28. We also have a significant spend this year on Transco's Southeast Supply Enhancement project, which will also be online in '27. And as a reminder, this is Williams biggest project ever as measured by incremental earnings impact. And then you also see some initial pending this year for Line 200 and the Northeast Supply Enhancement project. Importantly, all 7 of these projects are 100% take-or-pay revenue streams with great credit profiles.

So let's shift our focus to how we'll continue to drive shareholder value through our capital allocation process. No real changes to our returns-based capital allocation approach that's focused on the health of the balance sheet and our investment-grade ratings. As I mentioned earlier, our forecasted year-end leverage of about 4x is generally at the top of our targeted range of 3.5x to 4x for leverage. However, modeling out all of these projects that you see coming online during the next couple of years, we would actually be back below the low end of that range by 28%, driven by the extraordinary earnings growth that we see coming, especially in '28. So once again, the strength of the returns on our invested capital will drive expanding balance sheet capacity.

Now as we've discussed, in addition to our current projects and execution, we have a tremendous backlog of commercial opportunities and some of those projects could also reach FID this year, and some of those are pretty massive opportunities. Of course, we could easily take on partners to stay within our targeted leverage range, and we are getting lots of inbounds from very attractive counterparties who would love to be a part of our projects.

Next, we remain committed to growing our durable and enduring dividend, which we have paid for over 50 years. In the nearer term, dividend growth will likely stay somewhat consistent with recent years as we work to bring these foundational projects online. And that 5% dividend growth rate has been very strong compared to peers even as we continue to build significant coverage.

Next up, we're pursuing the attractive organic capital investment opportunities that we've been discussing really throughout this presentation. And then finally, with respect to our financial flexibility, again, based on our current book of projects and execution, we would be back below the low end of our leverage target range by 2028. And along the way, we could easily take on partners at an attractive cost of capital as well. And so our long-term financial flexibility remains very strong. It is expanding and will continue to do so for years to come.

Shifting now to look at our returns on invested capital. Our management team is very focused on driving returns on invested capital in our business. Our performance equity compensation for the senior management team is materially influenced by the cash returns on the capital that we invest.

The past couple of years, we've seen sell-side research highlighting the strength of our cash returns, research that places us first among our closest peers. We're certainly pleased with the financial performance we saw during the first half of the decade. However, we are even more excited about the next 5 years based on our high returning organic investment opportunities as the golden age of natural gas begins accelerating the demand for natural gas pipeline capacity and our power generation infrastructure projects as well.

So let's take a look once more at the impressive slate of projects that are fueling our growth in '26 and beyond. This remains one of my favorite slides because it makes very clear the high-quality projects that are fueling the growth in our business. Beginning on the left-hand side, you see the long list of regulated pipeline projects with planned in-service dates through the remainder of the decade.

We've also shown the power innovation projects coming online during '26 through '28 as well as a few other nonregulated gathering and processing and storage projects. An impressive collection of large-scale, fully contracted take-or-pay projects with strong overall returns. And across our business, as you've heard from Larry and Rob, we continue to see an impressive number of projects under negotiation, which will continue to add to this list. And it's really all of these facts that continue to give us confidence in establishing our longer-term earnings growth targets through the end of the decade.

Speaking now to that longer-term growth target, we can start on the left-hand side of the slide with the first half of the decade. Now through those years, we chased a 5% to 7% growth range for EBITDA, and we delivered a 9% 5-year CAGR and a 14% adjusted EBITDA CAGR, while sticking to our targeted leverage range of 3.5 to 4x and finishing near the bottom of that range.

Importantly, this was not really a great time frame for natural gas fundamentals, and we still consistently outperformed expectations. As we've discussed, this success was a function of driving operational excellence project execution and disciplined capital investment throughout our entire company.

So now shifting to the second half of the decade with improving natural gas fundamentals. We've significantly increased our target for earnings growth while sustaining our leverage target range. So what gives us confidence we can meet these targets?

So first off, if you just start with our current book of business, i.e., those projects that are under execution today, that base book of business likely fuels somewhere around an 8% EBITDA CAGR through 2030. Importantly, balance sheet leverage would decline below 3x by 2030, again, just based on the current book of business. That earnings growth will free up additional balance sheet capacity to finance ongoing additions from our extensive project backlog or perhaps to do strategic bolt-on transactions as well.

So as a result, we think a 10%-plus CAGR for both adjusted EBITDA and EPS while maintaining leverage in the 3.5 to 4x range is a very reasonable target for our business. Again, achieving this target relies primarily on executing on our current book of business. 2026 is a crucial year for that project execution. And fortunately, strong project execution is what Williams is known for.

So let's wrap up. Our natural gas focused strategy has served us very well during the first half of this decade. We've consistently outperformed expectations Again, all of that was done in a significantly less favorable setup for our business than what we expect for the second half of the decade, and it all begins in 2026. So thank you again. With that, I'm going to have Danilo to step back up and we'll get set up for your Q&A.

We welcome to the stage, Danilo Juvane, Vice President of Investor Relations and ESG.

Thank you, John. So we will take a 15- to 20-minute break at which point we'll come back here and begin with the Q&A session. Thank you.

[Break]

[Operator Instructions] Please welcome to the stage, Williams Executive Officer team.

Any questions? Wow, just a couple. Jumping right in.

Just a couple. Theresa Chen from Barclays. My first question, Chad, based on your comments, would you say that permitting reform is the critical bridge to affordability in this country? And in addition to championing those efforts, what else is Williams along with your customers and partners doing to address the consumer affordability problem either within your transmission and storage footprint or within your power innovation endeavors and a follow-up.

Thanks, Theresa. Great question. And I do think we believe permitting reform is absolutely critical. I mentioned a couple of statistics. I mean, we can produce natural gas in the U.S. for the energy of $0.25 per gallon gasoline. I mean it truly is our nation's low-cost energy resource.

What drives price volatility and price spikes in the United States is not the cost of the resource to produce the resource, it's the inability to deliver it to different markets. And I mentioned that we saw that during the recent winter storm when prices in New England hit almost $200 per MMBtu and they were normal in Northeast Pennsylvania. So absolutely, that's an infrastructure issue.

And so the good news is last year, the House did pass a bill that had meaningful permitting reform included in the bill that's now moved over to the Senate. We are urging the Senate to take action and spending a lot of time advocating together ourselves, but also together with partners across the industry. I think it's an important frankly, mission for not just the pipeline space, but for all infrastructure in the U.S.

And so it feels like this is a moment an opportunity to get something done. If we want to build transmission, if we want to continue to build renewables in the United States at the pace that we think we need to we also know that we have to build natural gas alongside it. And so yes, that is a critical tool -- from our perspective, I mean, that is our focus.

Our constitution pipeline, there's an S&P study that shows that constitution and frankly, if constitution would have been in service during winter storm burn, we wouldn't have seen those incredible price spikes during the winter. We wouldn't have seen the switching to fuel oil and you may have seen the Secretary of Energy talking about we were burning -- literally burning trash in the New England states.

We were importing LNG from Trinidad. So literally liquefying natural gas and putting it on a ship from Trinidad to ship into New England versus a simple pipeline from Pennsylvania into New England that would have avoided all of that. And there's an S&P study that shows that, that would save consumers over the life of the contract or the project over $11 billion. And so we are directly focused on that solution and infrastructure being an important part of that solution.

On the power innovation projects, I think the team has done an incredibly good job of positioning our solutions and I say this all the time. This is not an either or solution grid versus behind the meter. It's not a big turbine versus small turbine. It truly is tailoring the solution to meet the customers' needs, but we also believe -- it's also a strategy to address the challenges of a constrained grid of grid reliability concerns and grid cost concerns.

So how do we bring solutions to customers that need to scale up quickly? They will, in many cases, be integrated into the grid, whether initially or over time, but also we're bringing power so that we're not straining the grid. And ideally, we can even put excess power back into the grid. So actually not only bring the technology solutions that are needed but do it in a way that actually lowers consumer costs over time. When we're working with the hyperscaler customers, they like that solution. I mean that addresses what I think we're hearing both from a customer need, but also from a community concern perspective.

Thank you for that detailed answer. And touching on the power innovation announcements that Rob went through, and congratulations on the additional opportunities within your portfolio there. How has the scope, criteria or strategic priorities of the BTM projects evolved since you announced the first one. What are you seeing your customers increasingly focused on? How is the competition evolved as a result? And what enabled you to elongate the initial terms of [ Apollo and Aquila]?

Rob, do you want to start?

Yes, sure. So since our first project, initially, getting access to the turbines was the key differentiator. I think what's happened is we've built out our team, we've built out our expertise, is now that's one of the differentiators, but our ability to come to the project with a unique design with an expertise to follow these unique loads that we're getting is a big differentiator.

We've got a very large team now that's focused on this. And every day, they're learning new things that, frankly, others have not learned yet, and that is becoming a huge differentiator for us. So speed is still very important. But I think as the projects get larger and the projects get more unique from a load profile standpoint, you need a team that knows how to bring a variety of solutions, a variety of power gen solutions to that to be able to offer something that meets their needs from a load profile standpoint. And we've got a team that knows how to do that now.

Yes. And I think Rob also said this, we're only about a year in. We have absolutely seen the hyperscalers evolve alongside us. And I think there's a greater and growing recognition that tailored power solutions are going to be the long-term need for this space. There's not a bridge solution. There's not a one or other solution.

And so we've continued to see an increase desire by the customers to further integrate our solution to address load following to address the complex operating to address the need to scale over time. And we're seeing that result in expansion of our services, but also in the extension of contract terms. And we've showed the team has done a great job of extending the contract terms on 2 of the projects, but we're seeing additional momentum for that going even further over time.

And so that's what we're focused on making we can develop long-term solutions for these customers. And over time, it will be a combination of on-site power and grid connectivity. And we think we can be a part of helping to lead the evolution of this type of solution for a long time to come.

Keith Stanley with Wolfe Research. I want to -- a couple of questions on the 10%-plus growth rate through 2030. Can you say how much of that is coming from your traditional midstream business versus the power business? It looks like maybe half power? And how many more power projects are you baking in on that? And are you assuming any M&A at all when you make that projection through 2030?

Yes. Maybe just to walk back through the pieces of this. As I mentioned earlier, the current book of business, so the projects that are on that long list of projects that are currently under execution supports about an 8% CAGR through 2030. And I would say relative to the gathering and processing business, very modest contribution, especially in the Northeast, a little beef year growth out of the Haynesville, as you would expect, between now and the end of the decade.

We see that as a -- the basin that is going to respond to a lot of the increase in natural gas demand through 2030. But because of some of the infrastructure limitations in the Northeast, we have very modest assumptions around any sort of contributions that are happening out of the Northeast. The good news about the Northeast, the good news about most of the gathering processing business, the capital requirements are very, very low. The cash flows are growing. There's rate adjusters, there's some volume increase.

So modest assumptions around the gathering and processing business. I would say that also includes what we've rolled out for '26 as well. We continue to be pretty careful about gathering and processing growth in those basins. As far as getting from 8% to 10% or 10% plus. I think again, the key is to really think about the backlog that we have the transmission backlog that we have, the power innovation backlog that we have. And the fact that our balance sheet post that earnings step up in '28 is going to be right back headed back below underneath 3.5x.

So we're going to have a lot of financial flexibility to fund additional projects that are coming out of that backlog. As far as M&A goes, so I think the primary thing you would expect is that, that difference gets made up by rolling in high returning organic investment opportunities from the backlog into execution as we've seen really over the years.

As far as M&A goes, or strategic bolt-ons or things like that, clearly, we'll have capacity to do that. But really no difference to what you've seen from us. Those opportunities, which [ Rob Stein ] will be taking a hard look at, those have to compete on a returns basis with all the other uses of that capacity, including dividend increases, including buybacks.

So I think we've done a really good job being careful with those bolt-ons and really looking for things that we felt like we could add significant value to. So it's definitely possible there could be some of that over the next 5 years, that gets sprinkled in. But I think the primary bridge will be bringing in more transmission projects and more power projects.

Yes. And I think John, probably safe to say, you've heard John speak many times to our capital allocation process. And it's the same for M&A that it is for any other dollar of investment we're going to make on behalf of a shareholder we're going to need to see very high returns. I mean we're seeking very high-return investments. We've talked about build multiples in the 4x to 6x.

We talked about return on invested capital in the upper teens, 20-plus return on invested capital. And you saw that we've got a pretty healthy pipeline of opportunities, and we think we can convert those into projects. So I mean, the blunt answer is no. M&A is not something that we believe we will need to depend on to achieve those results.

But to John's point, we can be opportunistic if there's something that's just really attractive. And I think, Keith, maybe to your first question, half and half. I mean, yes, I think a theme for us is pipe and power kind of as we look at the next 5 years of opportunity. It won't be exactly half and half, but we see an incredible runway of projects on both sides.

But I also think what's not maybe fully reflected. I mentioned this, it probably deserves a bit more thought over time, but these are great demand pull projects. And part -- we've long said our strategy is to connect to long, sticky demand, but these projects will pull high-margin gathering and processing volumes through our system. And so that's something that we think over time will be a next tailwind that will come behind these projects. That's probably underappreciated as we get out into the later part of the decade, the early 2030s when you need to fill this demand for the very long term.

Guys over here, Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Jefferies. So if I can keep going with what Keith was, I think, getting at. As you think about that 8%, right, you guys threw out base plan, 8%. You talk about the backlog opportunities there. If we can use some ballpark math, you talk about 6 gigawatts, and I think you've done about 3,000 a kilowatt. So $18 billion, give or take, in CapEx. But again, teens billion in CapEx, a 5x multiple, again, use the midpoint that we talked about.

That's north of $3 billion, almost $4 billion in EBITDA. And that, in theory, is not encompassed in your 8% number. And I'm not trying to pin you down across a variety of different statistics. But that excludes transmission, which is 14 you talk about on your backlog slide. And then you've got this $4 billion in EBITDA upside or something like that from power.

So I'm just trying to understand, I know that you guys caveated that you've got a plus on the [ 10 ] but it's hard to reconcile even going from [ 8% to 10% ] based on the power piece alone. And then the transmission piece is what you just highlighted a second ago about being the real demand pull. So I know you gave the pubs, but I'm going to press a little bit.

Yes. I mean plus is plus, right? So I mean I think we've done an incredible job lining up the -- just maybe speaking with power innovation at first. We've done a great job lining up the equipment necessary to fuel much, much more growth in that business, which is the good news.

But I also think we've been careful to be -- to not get ahead of ourselves. I mean there's a difference between lining up equipment and getting PPAs signed. And so I think we want to be careful to not be too overly optimistic. I mean, there's a lot of work that has to get done to I would say on the transmission side, I mean if the past is any indicator of the future, we know we will win more than our fair share of transmission projects.

We know that we will have very attractive pricing power into the incremental expansions on the transmission side. I think the power side is one where our teams continue to be, I think, a little bit conservative until you've got the PPA, it's not done yet.

And if you think about like the transmission side of it too, as you think about the projects that are in that backlog right now, most of those projects we're chasing are 29 realistically 2030 in-service dates and where you start contributing it. So it's a lot of those start coming in after that 5-year window.

Right. So that's a durability question.

Yes. Just a quick follow-up, if I can, on that. What kind of mix do you want to think about this company having over time? I mean you're swinging pretty hard to power. But at the same time, if I listen to you, you got a lot more beyond what formally disclosed , if you will, on the transmission side.

And then lastly, John, quickly on the balance sheet. You talk about buybacks in a second ago, I'll flip it back to you. How do you think about financing this level of growth, keeping it at 4x? Is this sell-downs? How should we put kind of a placeholder in our models as you think about equity versus sell-downs to finance this magnitude?

Yes. I mean I think what you're going to see in your models is, I mean, what it all points to is you have this enormous inflection point on earnings in '28. So '28, we talk about 8% base business to the end of the decade, but there's a huge ramp in '28. And that's why I talked about we're back below 3.5x on this base book of business by '28.

So we've got a couple of years where the balance sheet is a little more full here, '26, '27. We do have a lot of projects that are right there that could come forward. And so we will, I think, primarily probably be looking at different ways we might involve partners in some -- especially some of the bigger projects. So I think that's just the general rule of thumb for where we're at.

Yes. I think on your business mix question, you can see that with what's kind of in that base book of business, this remains -- it becomes meaningful, but it's modest when you think about less than 1/4 of the business kind of through end of decade. I think as John has mentioned, we'll make sure we manage the balance sheet, the quality of earnings to make sure that we're creating and frankly, we're going to continue meeting with investors to make sure that through the end of the decade, we're shaping the composition of the company to be the very best possible business mix.

And as John mentioned, we're getting a lot of inbounds and interest in participating in these projects. I think the good news is, at least for what we've commercialized at this point. We feel comfortable in our ability to deliver. But there's always that opportunity to blend down the exposure if we felt like that was the right thing to do. And maybe a little bit -- and as Larry mentioned, I think it was a good point.

That backlog, we are -- you saw kind of filling in now. The latest project is a 2028 in service. We do expect to continue filling in projects, both transmission and power through the end of the decade. And as John mentioned, kind of that last half of the next 5 years is when the balance sheet capacity continues to open up further.

Praneeth, Wells Fargo. Many investors that we speak to kind of view the behind-the-meter power business is a 5-year opportunity and at some point in the future, the speed-to-market advantages may start to fade. Obviously, we can debate if that's true or not. But let's just say it is, I guess, how are you taking steps to make this business more durable in 2030 plus either by maybe transitioning to CCGTs or adding heat recovery systems? Or are there any other steps to kind of bring LCOE down over time and be more cost competitive with the grid?

Yes. Thanks, Praneeth. We are doing all of those things that you just described. We are exploring kind of the evolution of the horsepower, larger units, combined cycle conversion of simple to combine, but also combined cycle units. I mentioned that we're working with our customers to already plan for grid integration, power optimization that will blend down cost over time.

And I also just want to go back to the simple fundamental, like we're picking a fundamental that I -- we can all debate whether or not the country is going to be back to building the grid at the speed and pace that we need in 2030. But if you look at the last 25 years, if you wanted to focus a business on one fundamental that was a big dislocation. And that's what we look for.

We look for areas where we can solve problems that, frankly, are hard to solve and expecting that we're going to not need tailored power innovation solutions in the 2030s, I think, is just not realistic, at least based on what we see today of the fundamentals. And so making sure that we're tailoring these solutions to complement that reality and solve those problems.

At least as we sit today, I've got a lot of confidence this is not a 5-year window of opportunity that what we're trying to do is make sure that any customer in America can get the power that they need when and where they need it. Whether that's 100% grid, we're going to serve our utility customers, whether that's in partnership with the grid operators and our customers with tailored solutions or it's 100% behind the meter. I think that's going to be a story that plays out for, frankly, decades to come.

Yes. And I really want to stress the point I made before that our first project is coming online this year. And right now, we're on time and on budget. Once we bring that online, we will have proven that we can do this and we can execute our team every day, Larry's team, my team, we're learning how to do these. These are not simple projects.

From afar you can see [indiscernible], you're just setting some power generators and you turn it on. But these are highly complex and oftentimes things that have never been done before, and we're learning every day and as we you bring these on, we're going to be pulling away from our competitors. So turbine access might be a differentiator for today, but tomorrow, it's going to be skill and it's going to be track record so that the hyperscalers know when they pick a partner that, that partner is going to be able to be on time and on budget because if they're not, it's a huge thing to their economics.

Yes. And I think you've seen the relationship between us and our customers continue to evolve as we've been going through this. And working through the technical challenges and making sure that these projects are going to be successful. And I think that is going to continue to evolve. As we build these relationships, our teams are working day in, day out, trying to solve. It will continue to evolve, and I think it will help set up the future.

That's helpful. And maybe one more, if I could. Maybe this one is for John. But you mentioned potentially bringing in some JV partners, you're evaluating some large projects. But I guess, how are you weighing the dilution from bringing in JV partners versus keeping more of this value in-house, it is very accretive.

And will there be a promote if JV partners are brought in? And is there also a scenario where you just operate at a higher leverage ratio for maybe 2 years. And then when you get to 2028, you deleverage very quickly and you can support a lot of this growth internally.

Yes. I think we're seeing a lot of options in terms of what we can do with partners. Some of that would look like more traditional joint ventures. Some of that would look more like financial partners or insurance-backed money and things like that. I mean there's just a lot of different options coming at us. I think we'll have a lot of optionality in terms of -- what we would like to see in terms of our priorities, we would like to be the operator, we would like to be the one that really keeps most of the upside in this business.

So we're looking for just the right kind of way to introduce partner. And I think I'm pretty optimistic we're going to have a lot of options to really hit the sweet spot of how to involve a partner but not lose control, but not lose upside in this business that we've created.

SP1 And I think -- there's almost no scenario where I see us not getting promoted economics, if we do bring in a partner. I mean, the returns are so attractive. They're unique that we've been able to create. And there are partners willing to come in at lower cost of capital than the returns generating. So in virtually, I think any scenario of how we would -- if we needed to finance additional capital, I think it would only promote economics.

John Mackay, Goldman Sachs. I want to move back to the transmission backlog a little bit. So we've talked about more balance sheet capacity later in '28. You've talked about financial partners, but I'm going to imagine you're not going to JV anything on Transco.

So I'm just trying to think of building and the steps towards commercializing or bringing forward some of these projects, maybe that's conversations with your customers and what they're waiting to see, maybe that's something on the balance sheet side. Just walk us through kind of how we think about converting that.

Yes. I mean the big part for us right now is really engaging with the customers. I mean if you look at what our customers are forecasting for growth along our key corridors, it's pretty tremendous. But as well, they've got to go through their processes. They've got to get their state approvals on what their power needs are looking like.

And so it's really working through scope iterations, working through commercial term -- and it's not so much necessarily the finance. If you think about the time line of when these next wave of projects are going to come online. It is really in that '29, '30, even into the early '30s. And so a lot of that capital spend is going to be coming on the back end of a lot of these power projects coming on. you start seeing the deleveraging happening in the back end. So a lot of that capital starts showing up at '29, '30. There may be a little bit that layers on just as we were starting to order equipment earlier than maybe we have historically just because of lead time on things. But it's really just working through those iterations with the customers.

Yes. And I'd say -- and Larry and I have -- and Rob as well, we visited with all of our major customers across the transmission business over the course of the last several months. We're also seeing markets, frankly, that haven't been building infrastructure for -- and John mentioned the last 5 years not being as exciting maybe as the next 5 years. I mean, there are literally markets that are turning on that haven't been building infrastructure the last decade.

And so those customers, they see the need and they're desperate, frankly, for infrastructure, but you're having to go back through utility commissions and elected officials and get the critical mass. So -- but I will tell you, every single region of the footprint that we visited, transmission and storage infrastructure, demand is incredibly high. And it's because of, again, the fundamental on pipe and storage. We're going to actually accelerate the growth of natural gas, and we've been decelerating the growth of pipeline and storage infrastructure. Like that disconnect, that is the fundamental that gives us confidence in our ability to go out and get pipeline historical projects.

Yes, we're not counting on permitting reform, but that was kind of where we started the Q&A. And I think I remember back when these pipeline projects to -- so I mean, we're not counting on that, but that would be really great if we could get back to a world where it's a year to permit and a year to construct and you're done. We've all gotten so used to 4-year transmission projects that it's become the norm, but that's not the way it has to be. It could easily be back to 2 years, if we could just get past some of these stickier permitting issues that we've been talking about the last couple of days.

Yes. And the utilities are suffering from the same thing. I mean they're having the same issues. We are. It was pretty clear in our roadshow that we've done with the utilities that gas is the solution, gas is the answer renewables are not going to rise to the challenge. And so we're working together with them to find a way to make our pipelines give them the ability to grow to meet their customer needs.

Maybe just a quick follow-up for me. Staying on the kind of broader gas macro, [ FEMA ] today has been the demand pull. But can you talk a little bit about the supply side. I think earlier comments, you kind of pointing to Northeast flattish, a lot of growth in the Haynesville still a big wedge there to serve this demand. Presumably, that's coming from the Permian. Maybe just walk us through your kind of supply picture. And then does Williams need to have a bigger Permian footprint?

Yes. I'll talk first. I mean, Yes. I mean when we look at our models, most of the growth is going to come from the big 3, the Haynesville, Appalachia and from the Permian. Appalachia is going to be constrained for a good long while. I mean, we're always looking for ways to grow Constitution, obviously, is one pipeline that could help somewhat debottleneck Appalachia, but it's going to be constrained for a period of time.

So we really see the Haynesville and the Permian as areas where you're going to get significant growth, which is one of the reasons we've been going so strong at Haynesville and why we think our assets there are so valuable because it's going to have to increase production to keep with the rising demand. So I think those 3, when you get outside of those 3, you're really getting to the next generation of production, which is something we're spending a lot of time studying right now to figure out where is that next generation going to be, where is the pot going so that we can grow into those areas over time.

SP1 Yes. And I think you're -- the math does indicate we showed kind of Permian growth, Haynesville growth. Haynesville growth somewhat depends upon the Western Haynesville working and we have good indications that that's going to be a productive area in the Haynesville. But if you add up the demand side of the equation and as it is increasing, the Permian is not likely to grow based on gas demand, but we do see a need to fill -- backfill what likely won't be sufficient coming out of the Haynesville, the Northeast and the Permian, and that's why we've spent time in the Rockies, in the Mid-Continent and the DJ.

We think those basins are well set for kind of a next generation of growth. And so that's going to be a really important I think, story maybe for the later part of the decade, into the 2030s. But at least for the near term, I mean, we feel pretty good about the growth coming out of the Haynesville, the Permian and the Northeast meeting the demand.

Rob Catellier, CIBC Capital Markets. I just wanted to ask a question about the cost of capital here. Obviously, you have some pretty good visibility in the next few years on a pretty big number on the capital spend. So I wonder what you're doing strategically to maybe lock in those cost of capital given that we've seen some pretty tight credit spreads here. And then I'll have a follow-up question.

Yes. We opportunistically look at hedging around our bond issuances. And certainly, certainly, once we get closer to making a determination that we will be in the market. So we definitely lay on interest rate hedges opportunistically. And when we see major moves during the course of the year around rates that we don't quite -- that we think might be an overreaction will lay in some hedges there.

But overall, it's a pretty opportunistic hedging program around the bond costs. We've talked a lot about the things that we're looking at to be ready to go with a partner if we have outsized opportunities come in the door. So those are some of the main things we're focused on right now.

And just wanted to follow up with a question on M&A and push that further. Obviously, you mentioned and you have a history of bolt-on acquisitions as appropriate. But I'm wondering what would it take for you to do something more meaningful on the M&A side? And I don't expect you to respond to media reports, but there was a media report about potentially Williams having interest in reserves. So maybe you could talk to that.

But I was also curious on the power side. Is there any value for Williams to acquire maybe an IPP that's got a development portfolio or maybe has access to turbines in the [indiscernible], et cetera, as a way of accelerating your power development? Or are you just prepared to continue with internal project origination?

Yes. Maybe I'll start on that, and John had also asked about do we need to be in the Permian. And I think the answer is, you can see here, we've got a tremendous backlog of organic investments that we're going to be very focused on for at least the next 5 years and we think even beyond. That will position us, I think, to be in a position of strength, and we can be opportunistic.

But to compete with 4 to 6x organic projects to think that we would go out and do a large acquisition, as I mentioned, it has to compete with very high returning opportunities that we have across the portfolio. And by the way, the Permian gas makes its way to Transco anyhow, and so we benefit from Permian gas growth. It needs to get out of Texas into Louisiana and beyond.

And so I think we sit in a really great position kind of with the catchers met along the Gulf Coast. So we don't have to be in the Permian. We can be very opportunistic and kind of keep an eye on it, but we've got plenty of growth to kind of fill the load.

I would say on the reporting that came out last week, I think, hopefully, you're listening to us and not to unsubstantiated articles. We don't need to go out and do a big upstream acquisition. We have no intent to go do a big upstream acquisition. We look for gas supply all the time. We have contracts with our demand pull projects that allow us to supply those projects and put commodity price exposure on to our customers, and we can earn attractive fixed margins across those types of opportunities.

So we're always keeping an eye out for gas supply opportunities. But I can tell you that we're not -- I heard some speculation coming off of that article, and I think you can probably best to focus on our messaging, we're focused on our core business. We're focused on driving value to the core business. We've got an incredible runway of investments that we're going to be primarily focused on.

So I think for now, that's the key takeaway. And on the IPP side, I think it's the same thing. We did the [ Cogentrix ] acquisition last year. That was a very small acquisition, primarily focused on getting us market intelligence into that space. You saw us ramp the power innovation business nicely alongside that. We saw we had gotten kind of what we needed.

We could have stayed in the investment when [ Vistra ] announced its acquisition, but the economics we're going to double our investment in under a year, and so it made sense to just optimize the portfolio, return that value back into the platform and continue on. And so I think those again are the kind of opportunistic smaller opportunities that help fuel the core business, that continues to be our north star. We're not looking to go out [indiscernible] and be a or be a big upstream operator.

Jean Ann Salisbury from Bank of America. Thank you all for hosting a great event. I had a lot of fun here. I wanted to ask again about the 8% already baked in growth in the book. I think as that was mentioned, it's roughly an add of $3.5 billion of EBITDA to 2030, which just seems kind of more than I would expect versus the CapEx numbers that were in execution today. Can you speak to the other drivers of EBITDA growth, maybe operating leverage or rates going up that you're expecting?

Yes, there's really not a lot of nuance to it. I mean, primarily, it is the addition of these big transmission projects, especially, again, if you focus in on '27 and the growth going into '28, when we bring Southeast supply enhancement along alongside the incremental EBITDA of $1.5 billion of those power innovation projects. I mean it's just rough numbers. It's 5x build multiple and point $3 billion of CapEx.

Our most profitable Transco project in history coming online, hopefully early in '27, but full year of that in '28 and so it's really primarily those areas with a slug of growth from the Haynesville. That is an area we do expect to be growing. And then I would say very modest assumptions around our 2 big areas in the Northeast, which is our Susquehanna River area in the Northeast Pennsylvania, Bradford and Susquehanna especially kind of lower volumetric growth in that area.

And then, of course, the larger, more generally speaking, more wet liquids available areas in the Ohio River area, which includes all of our assets that's out in West Virginia and Western PA. A little bit better volume growth maybe out of there than what you would expect in the Northeast PA area. But nothing heroic and planned in terms of upstream growth or marketing or anything like that.

Okay. And how confident are you to be able to maintain the 5x multiple on future power projects? Are you able to lock in price on the turbines, for example?

Yes. We have locked in price on turbines. We mentioned that we've got enough turbines on order to see us through the current backlog, which I think is great, and that derisks a significant portion of the project. So that does help with project economics.

We constantly look at balancing term and upside against the build multiple on the front end. And so I don't -- I think, 4 to 6x generally maximizing ROIC, but that's going to be an equation we're constantly solving for. So as we continue to see terms go longer, there's a possibility that we're modestly changing our targets around returns, but it wouldn't be significant.

But that would be something we would think about economically, the benefit of having a much longer term might warrant a little bit of a different thought around the overall return profile. But again, those are things that we'll think about as we projects. But right now, we've got a pretty unique solution, and we've captured a lot of turbine capacity at attractive cost. And so that does position us well on the next kind of generation of projects.

Good morning, Craig Shere, Tuohy Brothers. Two questions. One on Slide 57. We haven't talked a lot about gas storage a big uptick there. Could you walk us through maybe the projects and expected kind of EBITDA impacts of that? And then as far as LNG, would you be open to participating with a brownfield [ 11 MTPA ] expansion at Louisiana LNG, if that ultimately happens.

And would such a participation be contingent on placing the existing or most of it 1.5 MTPA of offtake. And given your strategic relationship with [ Woodside], are you pretty satisfied at this point in terms of your LNG relationships and exposures? Or are you open to anything else?

Yes, I can start with the first one on the storage position. As you can imagine with where we're seeing, right now, the demand on storage continues to go up. We've got one of the largest positions in the Gulf as far as storage assets on the gas side. But we also have a great footprint out West with our acquisitions of Mountain West.

We've got the Clay Basin storage. And so we got the Pine Prairie project that's the 10 Bcf that's in development right now going through permitting. But we've got an additional 2 projects right now that we're working on. Not going to get out ahead of disclosing what those projects are, but we've got opportunities both in the West and in the Gulf and the teams are actively working on additional brownfield opportunities around our facilities. And so I anticipate we'll see more of those opportunities materialize over the next course of the year.

Yes. I mean on the Woodside relationship, look, inside relationship has been great. They continue to be on time and on budget with the construction. I mean they recently lost their CEO, and they're on a replacement for that, but we're very confident that they're going to find a good replacement.

And we're not seeing any change in their tempo of their project or of their plans to offload capacity. So I'd say that relationship has been very strong. Additional expansions and our willingness to participate, I mean we're always open to evaluating opportunities as they come along. But I mean that tends to be lower return type projects. So it would have to be a very compelling strategic argument for us to want to participate in that.

The first project that we got -- we just felt that it was important for us to have a seat at the table. It's something that we can bring to our customers in the Haynesville. We think it can help us attract more business more midstream business by being able to offer international pricing, if they're interested in that and having relationships with the off-takers, right, and being able to connect that full wellhead-to-water value chain, we just -- we think it's very important for our position in the Haynesville.

And I think -- sorry Think about us as the infrastructure bridge between Haynesville producers and LNG offtakers. And you've seen our recent sale that just closed a couple of weeks ago, our South Mansfield asset was sold to [ Jira]. [ Gara ] is one of the largest LNG off-takers along the Gulf Coast. And one of the largest power producers in Japan, they need U.S. LNG in order to fuel their power needs. And one of the largest cost to their consumers is the cost of LNG. And so having U.S. production is really important. You saw that our [ Trace ] Midstream system, which Rock Cliff was behind sold to Tokyo Gas. And recently, Chevron did a deal with Tokyo Gas behind our gathering system also. And then even more recently, you likely saw that [ Aethon ] is selling to Mitsubishi.

And so we are intending to position our infrastructure to be a bridge between Haynesville production and LNG markets. We are not looking to take speculative offtake positions for LNG. We think our role is better suited as being that infrastructure provider. We have an offtake position today, but I would expect that we would we would only look to increase that as we continue to see producer customers that are interested in making use of the capacity that we're opening up for them.

Gabe Moreen, Mizuho. I'm looking forward to the [ FI Bing ] of [ soccer ties ] the middle aged, I wanted to just move over to Sequent for a little bit. Can you talk about the operational reliability of your pipes during the last couple of weeks. But can you talk about how Sequent performed? And I think, John, you always kind of put a $50 million bogey in plus or minus or whatever it is for adjusted EBITDA for Sequent. How does Sequent perform during this volatility? It all seemed like it was a golden opportunity for them to maybe capture some of that?

Yes. I think they got off to a good start to the year. Kind of a similar thing happened last year, probably not as good as last year. Honestly, last year, there was a big [ MLK store ] that we all remember and the setup was really good there. But I'd say stay tuned for first quarter, but it was a beneficial -- definitely a beneficial storm for their book. And they -- as usual, they delivered. They did a great job making the best of that opportunity. So should be a good start to the year for them.

But John, maybe as it relates to guidance, I mean, we were setting guidance here after kind of seeing those.

Yes, right. Yes. That's exactly right. We were able to set our guidance having a pretty good read on what the impact was going to be for Sequent and what we were able to lock in there.

Thanks for all the color today. I'm Ameet Thakkar from BMO Capital Markets. Just you mentioned that your -- the kind of the evolution of the power innovation business has kind of gone from having access to turbines to now I guess, kind of demonstrating a solution. Can you just talk a little bit about your ability to kind of control costs on the labor side? And like how much of this kind of construction are you kind of self-building versus kind of outsourcing to E&C companies? And kind of looking at that perspective, since you're still sticking with 5x EBITDA multiple with a lot of competition for that sort of scale?

Yes. I can start on that. And as we've approached these, we have not gone into an EPC strategy, and we do definitely see some challenges on the EPC front that people are talking about on just the scale of project low that's going on across our nation right now. We've been managing those through our own procurement team, our own project management teams and then just leveraging contractors that we've got really long-standing relationships just like we do on our kind of vendor side on the supply and the equipment side.

And so -- you're definitely seeing pressure on those. But I think as we do with our supply side, we are very far ahead kind of showing a trajectory of the opportunities that we have in front of us to try to continue the relationships and manage around the labor side. It's definitely getting tighter. I mean as you start looking at the number of projects in '27 and '28, it is something that we're focused on. But I think as you see with us, we're always trying to look at several steps ahead to figure out what the next bottleneck is going to be on projects. And so the team is doing a great job thinking about how to approach the next wave of projects. But so far, not having any issues as it relates to executing on our projects.

Yes. And I would say it's been good to be in the business that we're in. We've got Eric Orman here who runs our project execution team and Larry's organization, and he's a really popular guy, right? [indiscernible] now but the good news is most of the contractors that we're using on our power innovation projects are contractors that we've had long-standing relationships with and have been service providers on our pipeline and horsepower projects.

And so we've been able to build a coalition of partners that we think will want to stick with us through this ramp in opportunity. And so that's been really good to see. And so we feel pretty good. I think there are some larger opportunities. We evaluate whether EPC at some point may make sense. But for the most part, we're building these projects, managing these projects, just like we would in our traditional space.

The other thing I would say is that you have to also keep in mind is the capital is much larger, but also the mix of equipment cost is much larger. So the actual labor costs relative to the size of the project are smaller than on, say, like a pipeline project where labor is a much larger component of the project. So even though this capital increase looks pretty large, a lot of that relative to a pipeline project is in the equipment that you're ordering.

And actually, these aren't small labor contracts, but relative to the overall size of the project, they're relatively small. And so that's been something where we haven't seen necessarily yet a big strain on the labor side on these projects. But I can tell you, Eric, Larry and team, they're keeping a close eye on it, working with our partners.

We've got time for one more question.

Jason Gabelman from TD Cowen. I wanted to ask about the growth capital. And obviously, the market responding to EBITDA growth, which is, to some extent, a function of how much money you're spending, a step-up in growth capital this year from a kind of human resource perspective, from a business opportunity perspective or from a balance sheet perspective, do you see this as kind of the high end as what you could spend in a given year on growth? Or do you see over time upside to that number?

I can speak to the balance sheet. I mean we kind of talked about it a little bit here, the earnings growth that we're going to see in '26 and '27, as that hits in 28, we're going to have a lot more capacity to add a lot more to sustain higher levels of CapEx if we get the right organic investment opportunities with the right return profile.

So -- so I don't see that being an issue. I mean, I think as far as this year versus next year, I mean it's really too early to tell. Based on the current book of business, what we know of right now, this is -- this is kind of the big lumpy year in terms of CapEx, but that's not to say that something new won't come in the door in the near term that would make higher than what we know right now, but we have a lot -- just the 4 power innovation projects over $4 billion of CapEx this year for those -- just those 4 projects. And Southeast Supply Enhancement, big year of construction for that project as well. So 2026, I won't call it a because we have to see what comes in the door in the near term, but we have a lot of execution to get done.

Yes. The other thing I'd say is we have Debbie Pickle here, who runs our HR organization, I keep an eye on her pulse to make sure we're staying within the lane. But I would say we take organizational capability and plan for it the same way we do from a strategy and investment perspective. And we actually initiated an organizational agility effort now almost 2 years ago.

And we've added -- we've moved literally hundreds of employees across the company. We've added hundreds of employees. We've been building talent knowing that this fundamental was kind of coming our way. That's not necessarily natural for a very large company. And so it's been a very intentional effort that the team has been very focused on.

Larry and I got to go out and see the operating team that's been built in Ohio. We had commissioning talent. It looked like I say it was like -- there were 4 languages because people were from Louisiana and South Texas and Pennsylvania and New Jersey, like they were all speaking different American dialect, but we literally had employees from all over the country coming together to build these projects. And then the operating team that's been built in Ohio, I mean, it's an impressive team that's been put together, and that's going to continue to grow. And so I don't see I think if we're thoughtful, we're disciplined.

We've talked about layering in projects at an appropriate pace through the end of the decade. I think we can scale appropriately. And that balancing all of those kind of elements through the end of the decade is really our focus.

Okay. I think that's it for Q&A. Thank you for a great Q&A session. Hopefully, you see that Williams is truly a differentiated investment company and opportunity. Wanted to just end on a little note here. Alan Armstrong recently received a well-deserved lifetime achievement award. And as the award was announced, the presenter said this, I'm going to read the quote as it was presented to Alan, energy is everything, everywhere and the lifeblood of the world's economy. We are pleased to recognize individuals and companies that are embracing change, utilizing artificial intelligence innovating and helping steer a course for a sustainable future.

And Alan, when he received the award, as you know, he's a very humble man. His words, I think, captured the Williams story really well. Alan said, Doing the right thing is a point of pride for us at Williams. It's been rooted in the company's culture for more than 100 years. It's such an incredible opportunity to make a huge difference in the world to solve the biggest problems to provide affordable, reliable and clean energy.

So thank you again for joining us today. As we wrap know that we will continue to stay focused on aligning Williams with strong fundamentals, delivering attractive shareholder value and building a relevant and sustainable company for the very long future ahead. We look forward to seeing you throughout 2026 and what will be a very busy year. Thanks for being here and be safe. Thank you.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to The Williams Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded.

At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Danilo Juvane, Vice President of Investor Relations and ESG. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us and for your interest in The Williams Companies. Yesterday afternoon, we released our earnings press release and the presentation that our President and CEO, Chad Zamarin; and our Chief Financial Officer, John Porter, will speak to this morning. Also joining us on the call today are Larry Larsen, our Chief Operating Officer; Lane Wilson, our General Counsel; and Rob Wingo, our Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategic Development.

In our presentation materials, you'll find a disclaimer related to forward-looking statements. This disclaimer is important and integral to our remarks, as you should review it. Also included in the presentation materials are non-GAAP measures that we reconcile to generally accepted accounting principles. And these reconciliation schedules appear at the back of today's presentation materials. So with that, I'll turn it over to Chad.

Thanks, Danilo, and thank you for joining us today. We're excited to share the strong progress we've made and the tremendous opportunities ahead for Williams. So let's begin on Slide 2.

We're strengthening our core business with deliberate expansion projects while extending our backlog of highly attractive new opportunities that will drive ongoing growth. Starting with completed transmission projects, we recently placed Northwest Pipeline Stanfield South project in service and completed Transco's Alabama, Georgia Connector and Commonwealth Energy Connector expansion projects. Importantly, on Transco, we are increasing pipeline capacity by nearly 200,000 decatherms per day, which will provide access to additional natural gas supplies to increase reliability and affordability during the upcoming heating season.

We've also recently completed Shenandoah and Salamanca, 2 important deepwater expansion projects. And in the Haynesville, our most recent expansion was brought online, which increases basin gathering and takeaway capacity as we prepare for the rapid growth in LNG exports alongside power demand growth within the Gulf Coast and Southeast regions.

We recently announced 2 transmission projects, the Wharton West expansion on Transco in South Texas and the Green River West expansion on Mountain West and Southwest Wyoming. Additionally, we signed customer agreements for our 10 Bcf expansion at our Pine Prairie storage facility in Louisiana. These milestones demonstrate our ongoing ability to advance projects across our nationwide transmission and storage footprint.

With respect to strategic investments, we're advancing our wellhead water strategy through a strategic LNG partnership and a complementary asset divestiture. We recently announced that we have signed agreements to sell our interest in our Haynesville upstream asset to JERA for $398 million plus deferred payments through 2029. Under JERA's ownership, Williams will continue to gather production and deliver volumes through our leg system into Transco and downstream LNG markets. And as part of the transaction, we will further expand our Haynesville gathering system to accommodate production growth, and this transaction also increases the volume commitment to Lake.

Alongside the sale of the upstream assets, we announced a strategic partnership with Woodside Energy, whereby Williams will build and operate Line 200, a 3.1 Bcf a day pipeline that is fully permitted and fully supported with take-or-pay 20-year customer contracts. Line 200 will connect Woodside's Louisiana LNG terminal to multiple systems, including Transco and LEG. We'll also be taking a 10% interest in the Louisiana LNG terminal, which is a fully contracted take-or-pay LNG facility. As part of the ownership in Louisiana LNG, Williams will commit to a 1.5 million ton per year LNG offtake, which is designed to provide international market access for Williams producer customers.

Together, Williams and Woodside will leverage our sequence energy management platform to manage natural gas supply for the LNG facility. And we expect to invest approximately $1.9 billion in capital into the combined pipeline and LNG terminal projects, which will position our core business to further grow as global LNG demand continues to ramp and pull volumes through our integrated value chain. It's important to note that these investments provide an integrated return that is on par with our targeted capital investments and those returns are driven primarily by fixed fee, fully contracted cash flows with 20-year contract tenders.

So in summary, these transactions allow us to high grade from upstream cash flows into high-quality pipeline and LNG terminal cash flows supported by 20-year take-or-pay contracts. And while there's been much focus on the LNG portion of this transaction, I do want to make one thing clear. This is an integrated platform consistent with our disciplined capital allocation approach. And like everything we do, we are focused on enhancing the value of and the opportunity to grow our core infrastructure business, and this is not a speculative entry into the LNG space.

Finally, I'll close by highlighting our power innovation business that continues to grow and enhance the reach and value of our core natural gas infrastructure. In late September, we announced our planned investment of approximately $3.1 billion into 2 additional projects to continue to deliver speed to market solutions in great constrained markets. These power innovation projects are anticipated to be completed in the first half of 2027 and are backed by 10-year agreements with an option for our customer to extent. And with these agreements, total Power Innovation and committed capital now stands at approximately $5.1 billion at a targeted 5x EBITDA build multiple.

Overall, these recent accomplishments continue to underscore our commitment to deliver infrastructure solutions that meet the nation's growing need for clean, reliable and affordable energy, all while keeping a laser focus on investing in a manner that will create industry-leading shareholder value. And with that, I'll now turn it over to John for a deeper dive into the financials.

Thanks, Chad. Starting here on Slide 3 with a closer look at our adjusted EBITDA performance, which was up 13% over the third quarter of '24. Walking now from last year's $1.7 billion to this year's $1.92 billion, we start with our transmission, power and golf business, which improved $117 million or 14%, setting another all-time record due to higher revenues from expansion projects.

At Transco, we had increases from regional energy access, Southside reliability enhancement, Texas to Louisiana Energy Pathway and the Southeast Energy Connector projects. Also at Transco, we have the benefit of the higher rates coming from the conclusion of the rate case. We also continue to see growth from our storage businesses on higher renewal rates. In the Gulf, we saw contributions from the Whale project, our Discovery business, including the Shenandoah project, which started up in July and the Ballymore project as well. Third quarter golf gathering volumes were up over 36% versus prior year, and NGL production was up about 78%.

Next, our Northeast G&P business improved $21 million primarily on higher revenues, including higher gathering and processing rates, but also with higher volumes primarily in Northeast Pennsylvania. Overall volumes ticked up about 6% over the third quarter of '24. In the West, we were $37 million or 11% higher driven by initial contributions from the Louisiana Energy Gateway project that came online in August, but also from higher Haynesville volumes and growth in the DJ Basin, including the Rimrock acquisition. The West was negatively impacted by a step down in our minimum volume commitments at Eagle Ford.

On the volume front, overall volumes grew about 14%, driven by growth in the Haynesville, including volumes from the Sabre acquisition acquired in late June 2025. Our secret marketing business was up $7 million, where contributions from the Cogentrix acquisition offset weaker realizations in the gas marketing business. And then finally, our other segment, which includes our Upstream business, was up about $35 million, including higher upstream volumes, partially offset by unfavorable price impacts from significantly lower oil prices versus prior year. So that gets you to the $1.92 billion of EBITDA for third quarter '25 or 13% growth.

Before I hand it back to Chad, I'll speak briefly to our current 2025 financial guidance. No change to our adjusted EBITDA guidance with the midpoint of $7.75 billion or any of our other earnings-related metrics, so still expecting 9% growth in adjusted EBITDA over '24 as well as a 9% 5-year CAGR going back to 2020. Additionally, achieving our midpoint EPS guidance of $2.10, will also produce 9% growth over '24 and cap an impressive 14% 5-year CAGR.

Regarding full year 2025 growth CapEx, we have shifted the range upward to $3.95 billion to $4.25 billion. This range now encompasses the 2 additional power innovation projects and the wellhead to water LNG investments that we announced during October. Leverage guidance remains at approximately 3.7x. So again, '25 continues to trend toward meeting or beating our adjusted EBITDA guidance even after raising it a cumulative $350 million. Our backlog of fully contracted projects gives us confidence in continued industry-leading growth, and we are excited to present more information at our Analyst Day next February. And with that, I'll turn it back over to Chad.

Thanks, John. Before we move to Q&A, I want to take a moment to recognize every one of our Williams employees and also our investors that have and continue to support the company. When we deliver our numbers for 2025, we will cap an incredible period of growth, performance and shareholder value creation. As John noted, we expect to deliver a 5-year EBITDA compound annual growth rate of approximately 9% and 5-year EPS compound annual growth rate of approximately 14%. The team has delivered industry-leading earnings growth over the past 5 years, and we see an even more exciting chapter ahead.

We are thoughtfully steering into the next 5 years with a rock solid balance sheet, a strong foundation of core assets, a focused and motivated team and an even stronger visibility into earnings growth and cash flow generation than we had during the past 5 years. You can expect us to continue to focus on a disciplined approach to capital allocation, which during an exciting time of company strength and market opportunity gives us confidence in delivering even more compelling returns for shareholders. We plan to provide more details on this exciting next chapter during our Clean Energy and Technology Expo and Analyst Day events in February of 2026, both of which will be held in Washington, D.C. So please stay tuned as those details come out. And with that, we will open up the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan Securities.

I just want to dive in a little bit more, if you could, to the power innovation side. And I was just wondering if you could provide us a refresh with regards to how you see the opportunity set at this point across your footprint? And what would -- how would you describe, I guess, the pace of conversations? Is it still an urgency and speed to market? Or just any other color would be great.

Yes. Thanks, Jeremy. Look, I'd say we continue to see very, very robust engagement and interest in both speed to market, but also just long-term need for power for data centers. And as we mentioned during the prepared remarks, we've upsized our backlog of commercialized projects to over $5 billion of investment. We've talked about the 6 gigawatts of backlog that we're pursuing, some of which we've turned now into actual projects, but we continue to see that backlog strengthen. And as we've discussed, our goal is to continue to layer in projects in a thoughtful way that manages the balance sheet and capacity that we have to invest alongside the very highest quality counterparties and project opportunities.

And I think I'd just say we continue to see a very robust pipeline of opportunities that we think extends throughout the end of the decade and beyond. And so teams continuing to have very robust discussions, and we do expect additional projects to come together along the way.

And to your question about footprint, we also do see that the geography that we operate across is diverse and broad and allows us to offer solutions in a lot of different areas, and we are seeing conversations across the entire kind of footprint. I will say this that there's a reason why a lot of the projects are built in the states that are being developed. We'll probably talk at some point on the call, but we think about places like New England and the Northeast where we're trying to develop NESE and Constitution. I think those projects are really critical to open up the economic opportunity of those regions, you'll see the primary power innovation projects, not just for us, but I'd say across the country targeted in those states where you can get affordable, reliable energy, and you can build infrastructure. And so we continue to be very focused on trying to open up additional markets where, unfortunately, it's been difficult to build, but we're seeing hopeful signs that get back to building.

Got it. That's helpful. And just want to turn, if I could, to the recent LNG deal announcement there. I was wondering if you might be able to expand a bit more, I guess, on the strategy -- industrial logic to this deal with the full wellhead to water connectivity here. And I was curious, I guess, as far as the offtake capacity is concerned, at the LNG facility, if that's something you intend to keep for yourself or contract out to customers or just walking through kind of where that strategy stands post this deal would be helpful.

Sure. Yes, I'll start with the strategy and Rob is here as well. And if we get into kind of project specifics, he can help add color. But I think importantly, there's a lot of focus on power innovation on transmission projects, but LNG demand growth continues to be the largest demand growth vector for our industry and energy demand growth continues to be an international story. It's been a while since we talked about it, but there are still billions of people living in energy poverty and U.S. LNG, we think, is an incredibly important tool to help serve the world's need for reliable, affordable clean energy. And so we've been focused on making sure that we can supply into those markets.

And we talk about it a lot, our strategy is very demand-driven and demand focused, and we're always seeking to connect our customers to the very best end-use markets. And so you think about the power generation, the utilities, the industrial loads that we serve, connecting to LNG markets is important to enable that ultimate destination for our customers to reach. And so it's opening up a window with a very small investment into an LNG facility. We get the benefit of building a strategically important pipeline and we'll operate Line 200, which connects to Transco, LEG and several other pipelines at Gillis.

We will also -- as you saw in our announcement, we're transitioning our upstream ownership to an international LNG buyer, and JERA is one of the largest producers of energy in Japan and a large buyer of LNG. And so we're putting together a value chain through which we expect to continue to be able to attract both customers that want to reach international markets. And in doing so, continue to grow our gathering system, our Transco footprint, Line 200 will be an important extension into an LNG terminal, but also our Gulf Coast storage assets that will connect to the LNG complex.

And so a long way of saying this is a strategic transaction that just enhances our ability to pull more business through our core infrastructure.

Your question about the offtake. It's a very small percentage of our overall business, less than 1% of our earnings. And we do expect to offer that as a window into international markets to our producer customers. Nothing that we've kind of prewired at this stage, but you can think of us as taking that position to offer access to international markets for those producer customers that can't access it on their own, either due to scale or balance sheet capacity. But that's the strategy. And so don't take -- I mentioned it in the prepared remarks, don't take this as a sign that we're trying to take international price exposure. That's not the strategy here. We are opening up a window in the international markets so that we can offer additional services to our customers.

Our next question comes from Praneeth Satish with Wells Fargo.

Maybe on the power side, can you give us a sense of where you are in the procurement cycle for turbines, so you have FID power projects now, the $5 billion you mentioned that come into service through mid-2027. Have you started placing orders or put yourself in the queue for long lead time items for the second half of 2027 or into 2028. I guess kind of how far does that go? And then at this point, could we see more projects gets slotted in for second half '27 deliveries? Or are the conversations kind of shifting towards 2028 now for new power projects?

Yes. Thanks, Praneeth. On the latter question, I'd say starting to layer in a little bit later now into the plan. And so likely later '27 and now into '28 for additional projects that we see on the dashboard. And then with respect to equipment, we'll have more to share at our February event, but we feel very confident that we positioned ourselves with our strategic partners really across multiple different equipment and service providers to be able to be ahead of kind of the needs that we see, frankly, now almost through the end of the decade. And so we feel really good about where we stand. Again, we'll share more in February, but we continue to stay ahead of the project need. And so I feel really good about where we sit today.

Got it. And then just on the project side. So Power Express looks like the scope was revised down again a little bit to 785 million cubic feet per day from 689 million cubic feet per day. I think that's the second time now. So can you just walk through what's driving that change? Is it tied to permitting commitments or just broader dynamics? And do you think -- and how should we think about the return and the in-service date of that project with this new scope?

Yes. Praneeth, this is Larry Larsen. I'll take that question. And yes, we've been -- when we announced the project early on, we kind of highlighted how scalable this project was from a scope standpoint. We had an anchor customer that kicked off the project. We thought there's potential for it to be up to 950. But as we go through this and work with our customers, they're working through their power generation needs and the scope of their facilities. And so really just kind of making sure that we're optimizing our design and really aligning with the customer needs. And so we've got contracts in place now for the full 689 and from a return standpoint just because of the ability for us to adjust looping and compression, the returns are still in the same range as we had in the previous scopes, no real big change on that front from a scoping standpoint.

So right now, we don't see any major shifts in the scope that we have right now. We'll be planning to move forward, probably start the kind of the FERC process next year. As we mentioned, there's opportunity to go bigger on the project if demand materializes, but right now, it's really has been working with the customers as they finalize their scope and demand needs.

Yes. And maybe I'd just add. With these projects, we have to fine-tune both timing and kind of customer readiness. Larry, Rob and I were on the road last week, and we went to the Pacific Northwest saw the utilities in the Pac Northwest, and we also saw the utility customers -- several of our utility customers along the Southeast and Eastern Seaboard. And every one of the customers highlighted that they need more gas and they need more pipeline capacity. So we see a very robust need across really the entire footprint that we operate. We talked about it many times, natural gas demand has far outpaced pipeline capacity development over the last 10 years, and we see that problem just exacerbating over the next decade as we continue to grow demand and lag in keeping up with infrastructure.

Our next question comes from Spiro Dounis from Citi.

I wanted to go back to the growth outlook and capital spending. It sounds like the pace of commercialization has increased here in the back half. And from what we can sell, you're active in maybe at least 6 states on the power innovation side. So just curious, based on what we see coming down the project pipeline, is this sort of $4 billion of CapEx per year on the growth side, the right target for the next few years? And maybe John, how do you think about the balance sheet's ability to sustain those levels and maybe even higher?

Yes. Thanks, Spiro. This is John Porter. As we've talked about in the past, in our long-range forecasting process, we've seen now for a number of years, a real inflection point coming after 2025, where the balance sheet deleveraging was going to slip below our targeted leverage range of 3.5 to 4x. And that long-range forecasting, what we would typically be looking for were high returning organic investment opportunities that could fill that balance sheet capacity.

But I would say prior to the last year or so, there was probably a little bit more uncertainty about where those opportunities -- or the magnitude of those opportunities and whether they were going to actually be able to fill what was emerging to be a very significant amount of balance sheet capacity that we saw coming in '26 and beyond. And so what I would say is what we've seen really, as we went through the long-range forecasting process this summer was something, I think, very interesting. We saw that instead of sort of hypothesizing about the level of projects that we would have to go find with strong organic investment opportunities to build that capacity, we started to really see line of sight into a really nice layering of high-returning organic investment opportunities that were coming to fruition with what we've announced this year.

As we look into the future, I think we have a lot of confidence that we're going to continue to see those high return and strategic organic investments that are filling up that balance sheet capacity, staying in that 3.5 to 4x leverage target range. And so -- and a nice side benefit of course, has been the effect that these nonregulated power innovation projects are going to have on our cash tax profile as well, which we -- as we look out into the model now, we see very significant cash tax deferrals through the -- kind of through the next many years. And so I would say, overall, we're seeing a really nice dynamic here where the projects that are coming to us, the layering in of those look like they're going to fit very nicely with what's happening on the balance sheet. And a big reason for that is how quick these projects will -- these power innovation projects will come online.

Of course, we talk a lot about the power innovation projects, but of course, we're also having to make sure that we have ample capital room for all of the transmission projects that we see coming over the next several years, which we expect that to be a steady flow of transmission projects alongside these power innovation projects. But overall, just a lot of excitement about the investment opportunities that we have in these high-returning projects and feeling like the balance sheet is well situated for this very unique opportunity set.

Great. That's helpful color, John. Second question, maybe switching gears here a little bit to the utility and power landscape. Election day today. And I know high utility bills are a big topic in a lot of states, especially here in the Northeast. At the same time, you're also seeing some growing opposition to data centers and the impact on consumer electric bills. So curious how you guys are thinking about the impact for Williams from both of those factors. And if I could get you to maybe tie in a status update on NESE in Constitution and how much do you think getting past the election day could maybe open up some progress there?

Yes. Thanks, Spiro. Those are, I think, really important topics. And the first thing I'd say, how it impacts us is we really do need to shine a spotlight on the fact that natural gas is our company -- is our country's affordability super power. When we produce natural gas in the U.S., on an energy equivalent basis, it's like $0.25 to $0.50 per gallon of gasoline on an energy equivalent basis. Like that's how affordable we can produce natural gas in the United States. And we know that any market in the U.S. that has been able to manage energy affordability, which ultimately translates to overall affordability has done that by leveraging low-cost, abundant, reliable natural gas. And so I think that we continue to see -- we mentioned the trip we took last week to see many of our utility customers. They all recognize that natural gas is our superpower with respect to trying to manage affordability across really the entire footprint.

And so I'm hopeful that as this is a topic that's becoming much more relevant to elections and to the -- just the narrative across the country that we continue to see more and more support for natural gas infrastructure. We get through today, and I'll let Lane maybe speak to it. I'm hopeful that we see progress on NESE. It's moving faster than Constitution. But Lane, maybe any thoughts you have on kind of the landscape as you see it.

Yes. I'm fairly confident that the elections today won't impact necessary constitution. And I think we're in good shape on NESE and constitution we're continuing to work on. We haven't really put much capital in the either projects, but we're trying to put them in a position to order when we get our permits, we'll be ready to go. And as Chad mentioned, NESE is so on a quicker time frame we think than Constitution.

Our next question is from Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies.

Maybe to pick up on the higher level point here, there's no mention of the 5% to 7% long-term growth outlook in the deck here, and maybe that's for a reason here. How should we interpret that removal. And then specifically, it's notable you're targeting a 20-plus percent ROIC. How do you think about, a, what this says about the long-term growth for outlook, again, not to preempt too much the Analyst Day forthcoming. And then separately, how would you think about returns here beyond just the power innovation sector here. Any comments implicitly what you're saying here, just the highest levels about the build multiples?

Sure. Yes. Maybe I'll give you a teaser trailer for our upcoming Analyst Day. But, John and I have been kind of highlighting this over the last year and really even ahead of that. But if you look at our ability to invest in high-return projects, within the balance sheet capacity that we have, and you think about the last 5 years in our ability to deliver a 9% growth CAGR over that 5-year period. I mean that's phenomenal growth. But if you think about the next 5 years and you look at the model of our balance sheet capacity, the project opportunities that we have that we think can continue to achieve very high returns on invested capital, I think you can see that we've got a really exciting chapter ahead.

Now you've got to balance that up against the law of large numbers. The company has gotten much larger, faster over the last 5 years, but the balance sheet is in even better shape than it was in the last 5 years and the opportunity set is arguably even better than over the last 5 years. So not going to put a number on that yet, but we're going to try to provide a bit more clarity when we come together in February on what we think that runway looks like, at least for the next couple of years and then give some overall, I think, directional guidance. But if you just take the balance sheet capacity, the math around our ability to invest in high-return projects, you can see pretty clearly that we've got an incredible opportunity to grow what I think will be industry-leading results over the next 5 years and beyond.

Great. Yes. So guidance over a couple of years and then maybe directional for a longer-term view, that's excellent. And then if I can just nitpick a little bit more on power innovation, as you might expect from me. If you can -- can you talk a little bit about where you see this going? Are we thinking more about like upsizing Socrates and then upsizing these others, Apollo and Aquila at this point? Or how are you thinking about in terms of next steps? I know you elaborated with Jeremy earlier here a little bit, but is it about expanding existing sites, adding more total duration and ramp? Or do you think this is more about just finding new geographies and new opportunities outright here, greenfield?

Yes. I think the simple answer is it's a combination of both. We're -- a lot of the projects that we're developing are in locations where if we can continue to add additional capacity, it makes a lot of sense to do that. And so you will see, I think, investments made where we want to scale over time. These are very large facilities with very large investments being made. And so scaling over time will be, I think, a clear part of the strategy. We've already done that with Socrates. We started at $1.6 billion of capital that's been upsized to $2 billion. That's an expansion of scope and scale. And we expect to see that at other sites where we can kind of get speed to market as the ability to get a project up and running, but then see scaling over time. These are intended by our customers to be multi-decade investments that will grow over time. And so we -- I think we'll continue to see scaling of these facilities, but also we also continue to see the expansion into other parts of our geography. So it's going to be a combination of both.

Our next question is from Jean Ann Salisbury with BofA.

Another one on the wellhead to water announcement. Is it possible for you to disclose even directionally, I guess, what share of the EBITDA that you're projecting for the project is contracted take-or-pay either as today or kind of in your eventual vision?

Yes. And I think this is something I want to make sure everyone picks up really clearly. I mean it is a fully contracted take-or-pay pipeline project. So we're 80% of the investment on the pipeline project, and that is 100% take-or-pay fully contracted. And the way the LNG terminal is structured, it is fully contracted 100% take-or-pay. So our relatively small investment, 10% investment, but it's a large project that is into a project that has 100% of the capacity subscribed by -- with take-or-pay contracts. And so the only portion of the investment that is not take-or-pay is the LNG offtake, which is a very small -- I mentioned it, if you think about our sale of the upstream, that was more than 1% of our earnings. The offtake represents less than 1% of our earnings, and we expect to be able to use that as a tool to attract additional customers through our core infrastructure and likely lay that off over time.

And so the intent of this strategy is to invest into fully contracted projects with super high-quality investment-grade counterparties and use this platform to both bring the very best gas supply to these facilities, but also support our upstream infrastructure that's going to be importantly called upon to deliver natural gas for this growing ramp of LNG.

I might also mention that we also do have some capital protection on the construction side of the LNG facility as well. I can't go into a lot of the details there, but we did protect ourselves on the overrun side of the liquefaction facility build out.

That makes sense. That's super helpful. And then I guess just kind of a follow-up on that same theme. The Gillis LNG pipeline, I think it's 3.1 Bcf which you said is take-or-pay. That's obviously quite a bit bigger than LEG. Do you envision that Williams will kind of source all of the 3.1 from your own GMP? Or -- and will you have to use kind of third-party pipes could like the expanded more?

Yes. No, this is Rob Wingo. It's really going to be a combination of gas coming off of our LEG system, off of our transit system and really other parts of the market. The way that it works is we're going to handle the short-term kind of 1-year type arrangements. And Woodside has handled the long-term setups for the supply. So between the 2 of us, we're really going to be sourcing gas off the main pipelines that come into that area.

Our next question is from Keith Stanley with Wolfe Research.

I had 2 follow-ups, similar topics. On the power strategy, so Chad, when you say you've gotten ahead of the equipment needs and turbine needs almost through the end of the decade, I want to confirm the message is you think you can keep going at this type of cadence of power projects from a supply chain perspective through 2030 at this point?

Yes, that's right, Keith. I mean we are continuing to work with customers to make sure that we can layer in projects through the end of the decade, and that includes working with them and our equipment suppliers to have confidence in our ability to deliver capacity.

Okay. Great. And then a second one, not to beat a dead horse, but on the Louisiana LNG interest, when you say it's a take-or-pay contract on the facility itself fully pulled out, is that subscribed with Woodside directly just because I think the market perception is that LNG terminal is largely uncontracted. So can you just talk to how you're fully contracted on your interest?

Yes. Yes. It is a fully contracted LNG terminal. I mean you think about Stonepeak coming in for a 40% investment alongside us. I mean that's because the facility is fully supported by take-or-pay contracts. The majority of those are Woodside. We obviously are a portion of that. We'll be paying a toll for our offtake, but we'll be paying the owners of the facility. So a good portion of that toll comes back to us as tolling revenues. That's one of the nice things about the equity ownership model. And whether or not Woodside decide, I think they talked about further effectively selling down their interest, but they are the off-taker for the take-or-pay. And so yes, there are investment-grade contracts, take-or-pay for 100% of the capacity of the facility.

Our next question comes from Elvira Scotto with RBC Capital Markets.

I just wanted to follow up on the power innovation, specifically around that number, the 6 gigawatts that you have in your presentations. Can you talk a little bit about that? If that -- is that your total addressable market? Or can you do more than the 6 gigawatts? Like what are the gating factors to doing more than that?

Yes. Thanks, Elvira. I'd say there is definitely more market than that. We get to that number when we look at managing what we think is the right pace of investment up alongside the quality of the counterparts, the quality of the projects where we have strategic advantage across our footprint. And so we talk a lot about our capital allocation philosophy and we're going to stay very disciplined. So we're only going to be targeting very high-quality counterparties and take-or-pay contracts and geographies where, frankly, not only do we see these as attractive projects, but we have the ability to further grow our business behind connecting to these demand opportunities. And so that feels like when we kind of run all of that through the analysis that feels like a very manageable level of investment.

I would say also, and the team has done an amazing job. We also want to make sure that we can deliver. And so we're not going to take on more projects than we feel confident that we can deliver. And so we are staffing up, and we're making sure that we can take good care of these customers because these are very, very important facilities, and we expect to be a critical solution service provider for these new hyperscalers for decades to come. And so it's all kind of a balance between those various factors that get us to that number.

Great. And then just my follow-up question is on the transmission side. What's the ability to continue to expand Transco. And of that $14 billion of project opportunities, what portion represents Transco? And how competitive are those projects? How much do you think Williams can reasonably win?

Yes. This is Larry. Thanks for the question. Yes, as far as the expandability of Transco at this point, I think it's fairly unlimited. As we continue to prove, we find more and more capacity expansion options as we have new supply coming in different parts of the system that creates new opportunities. And so as you think about the project backlog, it continues to grow as we see demand from our customers across the footprint where you see it now, it's also up in the Pacific Northwest in the Rockies. But I would say the majority of the backlog that you see that we've highlighted is along the Transco quarter where we've just seen really robust demand across the Southeast and the Gulf regions.

And so I'd say you'll continue to see a lot of the project focused in that space, but it's nice to be able to start layering on opportunities out West as we're starting to see that focus on affordability and reliability as well as just kind of the power generation demand growth that's happening across our footprint. And so it's split, but I would say majority is on Transco.

Yes. And I think you can think about Transco is like the largest highway system in our country with respect to natural gas, and it's got the highest speed limit and some of the lowest tolls. And so for customers, we can create a lot of flexibility and a lot of solutions. It's a lot easier to add lanes to a large existing highway system than it is to turn small roads into larger highways or build greenfield where they don't exist. And so Transco remains -- we're blessed to have it as an asset, remains incredibly competitive. And so we do expect to win more than our fair share of opportunities along that corridor.

The next question comes from Ameet Thakkar with BMO Capital Markets.

Hopefully, this is not redundant. I just wanted to clarify something Chad said earlier. But -- so what our understanding is that Woodside is taking 8 million tons from the LNG offtake. And then Uniper is taking 1 in addition to your 1.5. I think it leaves about 6 million tonnes per annum that hasn't been, I guess, at least in the public domain kind of disclosed. Are you saying that, that 6 million tonnes per annum has now been fully contracted and is take-or-pay? Or is Woodside, I guess, kind of going to be on the hook for that? And I've got 1 more follow-up.

Yes. I don't want to speak entirely for Woodside, but I would say that Woodside today holds the equity and the offtake for the 14 tons. And I think they have expressed a willingness or an interest in selling down additional equity, which would also mean selling with that the offtake obligation. But today, when you look at the stand-alone LNG terminal, it is 100% contracted, and that is primarily Woodside as the offtaker, which is a very credible investment-grade, international LNG company, and we feel really good about -- you think about having JERA on the production side of our Haynesville footprint. You think about all the infrastructure we have in between the Haynesville and what will be this terminal and you've got a super high-quality investment-grade counterparty in Woodside as the LNG terminal operator and off-taker.

And if they do reduce their interest and offtake, we would expect that to again be with high-quality counterparts. But today, 100% contracted with Woodside and us.

Great. And then just turning back to the power innovation. You kind of -- it seems like you have a pretty good line of sight in terms of kind of your equipment supply partners. Are you availing yourself of any other sorts of things kind of beyond the equipment that you did with Socrate such as fuel cells or anything kind of maybe a little bit more nontraditional?

I'd say that generally, we're sticking to our knitting and to where we have strength and expertise. I think we have mentioned that we've added some batteries to our scope of work. But for the most part, we're staying focused on generating power with natural gas turbines. And so that will continue to be the vast majority. We are exploring different technologies in partnership with our customers, but it is a very small amount of the overall investment and projects.

Next question comes from Manav Gupta with UBS.

I just wanted to go back a little bit to Green River West expansion. Can you help us remind the strategic rationale behind it? And how does it add to your footprint in Mountain West, if you could talk about that?

Yes. Manav, this is Larry. I'll answer that question. So yes, it's just another expansion on our Mountain West [indiscernible] pipeline system serving industrial load growth that we're seeing in Southwest Wyoming, kind of around industrial and mining. And so just another, I think, strong tie to supply in the Rockies and continued growth we're seeing in that Mountain West region, both from the power generation and industrial load.

And a quick follow-up. Can you even go back to Cogentrix and talk a little bit about how that investment is faring. Any synergy surprises from that investment?

Yes, I'd say on track and still early days. I mean, that team have gotten to spend a little bit of time with them. I think Rob is going to be joining an upcoming Board meeting. So still early days, but definitely getting to see a lot with respect to our footprint. And just as a reminder, they operate power plants along the Transco footprint in both PJM, New England ISO and in ERCOT. And so nothing to speak to beyond the investment is on track, delivering the numbers that we expected this year and early signs are that we think it's going to be a great relationship and certainly benefiting from having that insight into that market.

Our next question is from Theresa Chen with Barclays.

Maybe putting a finer point on the ability to source and supply gas into the [indiscernible] facility and what it means for your base infrastructure assets. Can you quantify at this part? What is the potential? Or what is your target as far as an uplift in utilization or underwriting additional expansion in your pipeline assets into Gillis and Transco, LEG and so on, on the [ heels ] of this deal?

Yes, I'll start and let Rob add any color. I think important just to note that the first and foremost need for the project is to make sure there's a reliable supply of gas. And with Sequent, one of the largest natural gas platforms -- marketing platforms in the country, it gives us a lot of confidence that we can make sure that the pipeline is going to be full and ultimately that the LNG terminal is going to have reliable natural gas supply. And so the benefit of that is we are going to be going out across our footprint and across other pipelines where sequence markets, and we're going to be making sure that we can find the very best, lowest cost supply and most reliable volumes that we can bring to Gillis and bring through the LNG terminal.

I absolutely expect that, that will lead to us identifying solutions where we can grow our gathering footprint and make sure that gathering volumes can move through LEG and other systems to get to Gillis and get through the system, Transco and the connection. We talked about the Pine Prairie expansion. There are additional storage projects that we're exploring to make sure that we can connect LNG terminals, including the Woodside terminal to large, flexible transmission capacity and storage capacity.

And so again, we expect that it will be a collaborative process. We'll leverage the Sequel platform. The fact that we've got a lot of market intelligence and presence sourcing and moving natural gas across the country. But that will be the role that we will play with Sequent and Woodside. And Rob anything to add?

No. I mean there's no doubt that being the face to the market with Sequent is going to be a huge benefit to our core business, our midstream business. The other thing I'll mention is that we're -- one of the changes that we made from the original project scope is the 3.1 Bcf a day pipeline is not going to be bidirectional, and that will create optimization opportunities and additional marketing opportunities that we did not include in our base case. So I think that, combined with being the front face to the market, we're going to see some synergies there that we did not include in our base case economics.

That is interesting. And would you provide an update on the production activity levels in Haynesville and the Northeast? And what is your outlook on volumes across your assets into 2026?

Yes, this is Larry. I'll take that one. So yes, we've seen activity levels pick up in the Haynesville as we expected. I mean, the demand is materializing and our producers are responding to that. And so we've seen activity in the Haynesville pick up over the course of this year. We don't necessarily see that slowing down as we go into 2026. It's still a little early. A lot of our producers, as you know, working through kind of their plans for 2026. But with the amount of demand that's coming online, we don't see activity slowing down.

The Northeast, we've seen pockets where we've had some growth and pick up over the course of this year in some areas where it's been a little bit more flat. That's a little bit more of a pricing challenge during some of the [ shoulder ] months and summer months up in the Northeast that slowed down some of the activity, but we're starting to see that picked up again as prices are starting to rebound. And although it's still early for kind of 2026 forecast, we do see and expect to see an uptick in volumes in the Northeast as well.

But it will be mixed across customers as well as some of the different gathering and processing facilities we have where we may see some that are growing and some that might be a little bit more flat depending on the position where kind of gas prices and outlook lands for next year.

Our next question is from Robert Catellier with CIBC Capital Markets.

I just wanted to follow up on the LNG opportunity, which sounds like it might be a good opportunity for both yourself and your producer customers. Specifically, I wanted to address the fees and what you see as a contract tenor there. So just on the fee side, do you see this as a more straightforward fee-for-service type contract structure? Or is there an opportunity maybe to have some linkage to some of the LNG pricing benchmarks? And then on the contract tenor, given the -- how you split the sourcing for your capacity versus the Woodside, how do you see the contract tenor working out there?

Yes. On the fee structure, I guess what I'd say is, generally, we have seen from producer customers an interest in accessing international markets where we would just like we do with Sequent, basically provide the connectivity for a fixed margin. And so initially, that is open capacity that we have where we've got 1.5 million tons of offtake. It's only around 225 million cubic feet a day of gas. And so it's not a very large gas position from an LNG offtake perspective. But we will look to monetize that primarily through fixed margin transactions, which is what we do on our Sequent platform each and every day. So that's how I think about kind of the offtake there.

And with respect to tenure, I'm not sure I totally understand the question. I mean, these are 20-year contracts on the pipeline and on the LNG facility and 20-year offtake for the LNG. Am I getting your question right there?

Yes. Actually, with respect to these smaller customers, as you mentioned, it's not a huge gas position. So it just seems like you're probably accumulating volumes from a number of smaller players, which seems to suggest maybe no longer long-term contract portfolio for [indiscernible] responsibility?

Got it. No, we have looked at -- as we've thought about this strategy now for many years, and we've talked to producer customers, we do think that it's likely that you supply an LNG terminal and an LNG optic position with various different contract tenors. Now you tend to get compensated for those different tenors. So said another way, you get a higher margin for a shorter tenor, and a smaller margin for a longer tenure. And so I do think that those are going to be the kinds of opportunities that we're going to explore. But generally speaking, we'll be looking to build both a portfolio of gas supply for the terminal and also a portfolio of supply for our update.

Our next question is from Sunil Sibal with Seaport Partners.

So a lot of clarifications on the LNG. I was curious if you see this as a one-off opportunity with Woodside or should be expect this as a kind of an opening into a bigger kind of a business for Williams?

Yes. Thanks, Sunil. I would not view this as necessarily a bigger opening for Williams. But what I would say is when we have the ability to take a very small LNG position, but parlay that into an integrated opportunity like this to build pipeline infrastructure to expand our gathering and delivery systems through Transco and align our storage assets. Those are unique, I think, opportunities to bring a lot of different future growth to the platform.

And so I wouldn't say that we would never do another deal. But I made it clear in our -- in the remarks, our goal is not to grow our position as an international LNG marketer that is not our business. But where we have the ability -- we're a big company. So to be able to take a very position that we think we can mitigate risk over time to be able to take a very small position, but align that with a much more strategic, fully integrated opportunity like Woodside, those opportunities aren't everywhere, but if those come along, we'll continue to be open to exploring them, but don't read this to mean that we're trying to become a larger international LNG marketer and that's not our intent.

Understood. And then on the power innovation side, I was curious what kind of cost inflation you're seeing in your supply chains. And also, how do you think about counterparty concentration as you grow that business?

Yes, I'd say on the first note, I mean we have seen -- I think everyone is seeing cost inflation. We're managing that with our customers. And so I think that's just a reality of the market right now as the demand for generation. I mean I've been saying this, we haven't grown power generation in the United States, electricity generation in the United States in effectively 25 years. And so there's a lot of demand coming into a market where we haven't had the capacity to really grow electricity production. So we have seen cost increases, but it's across the board. And so it hasn't made us any less competitive than anyone else. It's just a reality that customers are having to deal with as cost for equipment has increased over the last, call it, 12 months. So that's certainly an issue we're dealing with.

Yes, I can pick up the second point on customer concentration. I mean, I think we're really excited about what we're seeing on the credit profile and the power innovation. Again, as Chad mentioned, we were only focused on the best of the best opportunities here. We're not stretching into a lot of the projects that are going to happen in this space. We're focused on deals with the hyperscalers, AA credits and such. And so we like the credit profiles to begin with.

But that's -- but that's kind of Step 1. Step 2 is we're getting some very attractive credit protection as part of these agreements as well. I can't go into the details of that. But we're really happy with the amount of credit protection we're getting above and beyond the fact that these are some of the best companies in the world to be working with.

Our next question is from John Mackay with Goldman Sachs.

I'll just ask one quick one. You got the upstream sale announced recently. Can you just remind us on what your plan is for the remaining upstream portfolio from here?

Yes. And Rob can certainly add anything to this. But [indiscernible] is our remaining current upstream interest. And as I've said, I think, many times, it's a much larger, much more complex asset. It's also an asset that has very high margins for us because it's a rich gas in liquids basin. And so when we produce an incremental molecule in Wamsutter, we gather, we process, we move the NGLs to our infrastructure, we can fractionate, we market NGLs, we market the gas. And so a lot of margin that we capture through our midstream infrastructure from Wamsutter.

And so the strategy there is importantly to make sure that when we move that asset into an upstream producers hands, we know that the asset has been fully delineated and will be developed at its full potential. And we have the benefit of proving up that asset with all of the value chain economics that we get through our midstream infrastructure. And if we were just to move that asset into an upstream only operator hands, they may not develop it to its full potential. And so we are working to prove up Wamsutter, but as I've said, that will take some time, and we will continue to kind of do that work, but we've got a great team working on it and feel really good about where we are. But that's the remaining interest. But again, now represents only a couple of percentage points of our total overall earnings. But the power that it drives into our midstream is really most important.

That concludes the Q&A portion of our call. I will now turn it over to President and CEO, Chad Zamarin for closing remarks.

All right. Well, thanks for the robust Q&A session, and thank you for your interest in Williams. We look forward to seeing you in February. And in the meantime, we wish you well. Thanks.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.