Barry E. Davis
Analyst · Gabe Moreen, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Thank you, Jill. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call. As Jill previously mentioned, I want to quickly remind you about our 2013 Bank Group Meeting on January 22 and our Analyst Conference on January 23 in Fort Worth. We look forward to sharing more details about our 2013 strategic plan then. This morning, we will discuss our strategic position in the natural gas liquids business, update you on our Cajun-Sibon projects, discuss how these projects position us for additional growth in the NGL business and provide our financial guidance for 2013. Before I specifically address today's main topics, I'd like to remind you of our long-term strategy, which is outlined on Slide 4. During the past 3 years, we have focused on 2 primary objectives, to maximize the earnings and growth of our existing business and to enhance our scale and diversification, thereby creating value. One of the keys to our success has been, and will continue to be, a disciplined financial approach as we execute our plan. As part of enhancing our scale and diversification, we've concentrated on increasing our NGL business, growing our crude business and condensate business and developing our gas processing and transportation business in rich gas areas. We're confident that increasing our scale and diversification will strengthen us as a company, because we believe it will lead to less reliance on any geographic area or product line, offer us greater growth opportunities from a broader asset base and provide us with more sustainable fee-based cash flows. Turning to Slide 5, which provides a summary of our accomplishments to enhance scale and diversification and drive growth. We have been working to transform our asset base through projects that are focused on fee-based crude and NGL businesses. We plan to invest more than $1 billion of growth capital in crude and NGL projects between 2012 and 2014. Many of these projects have already been implemented, and others, such as the Cajun-Sibon projects, are well under way. These projects alone will provide significant growth for both the partnership and the corporation, and we believe they put us in a great position to continue to expand our NGL and crude businesses. Now let's take a look at what these projects do for us and how they position us for growth. Beginning with Ohio River Valley, or ORV, our assets provide a first-mover advantage in this developing area and represent a big step for us into the crude and condensate logistics business as well as offers opportunities to expand into gas gathering, processing and transportation. ORV gives us a tremendous advantage in the Utica and Marcellus Shale plays. Moving to West Texas in the Permian Basin, where we have a joint venture with Apache Corporation, we started the new Deadwood cryogenic plant in May. Volumes are climbing ahead of plan, and Deadwood is already full. Those of you that attended our Permian Basin Investor Tour a few weeks ago saw the abundant growth opportunities given the expected development in the Permian. In Southern Louisiana, Phase II of our Riverside expansion, which is under construction, will increase our capacity to transload crude oil from railcars to both barges and pipelines to approximately 15,000 barrels per day, and is expected to be operational in the second quarter of 2013. And now, Phases I and II of our Cajun-Sibon NGL project will significantly expand our NGL platform. Construction of Phase I is under way and is expected to commence operations on schedule in the middle of 2013. And we just announced yesterday that we are proceeding with Phase II, which will generate approximately twice the adjusted EBITDA of Phase I. From a business diversity standpoint, we expect over 40% of our gross operating margin will be derived from crude, condensate and NGL businesses by the fourth quarter of 2013, which is essentially all fee-based. As a result, we project that over 85% of our gross operating margin will be derived from fee-based businesses in 2013, which includes gas gathering and transmission along with fee-based processing. This compares with 68% in 2008 and represents a substantial derisking of our business and improved predictability of our cash flow. We still have the option for additional processing if prices return to a more favorable level, but we're not planning on it for the upcoming year. Now fast-forward to the end of 2013. We expect an adjusted EBITDA run rate of $260 million to $290 million, driven by the crude and NGL-focused growth projects. We then have a next step change growth with the execution of Cajun-Sibon II in the second half of 2014, which we anticipate will contribute $75 million to $85 million to the annual run rate adjusted EBITDA. By the end of 2014, Crosstex will be a different company. We will be focused on crude and NGL business growth while still maintaining the growth optionality of our core assets. Now let's focus on our NGL business and, specifically, Cajun-Sibon I, Phases I and II, by turning to Slide 7. In Louisiana, we're transforming our business that has been historically focused on processing offshore natural gas to a business that is focused on NGLs with an abundant additional opportunities for growth. Just to remind everyone, the Louisiana petrochemical market has historically relied on liquids from offshore production. However, the decrease in offshore production and increase in onshore rich gas production have changed the market structure. Our growth projects are working to bridge the gap between supply, which aggregates the Mont Belvieu area and demand in the Mississippi River Corridor of Louisiana, thereby building a strategic NGL position in the region. We began this transformation with a few small steps. Last April, we restarted the Eunice fractionator at a rate of 15,000 barrels per day of natural gas liquids. This is a pivotal asset for Cajun-Sibon as we will expand this facility to a rate of 55,000 barrels per day. When Phase I of our pipeline extension project is completed, Mont Belvieu supply lines in East Texas will be connected to Eunice for a direct link to our fractionators in Louisiana markets. We then continued to take advantage of our fractionation facilities optionality by bringing truck and rail NGL volumes from the Marcellus and Eagle Ford shales into Eunice and Riverside. This also includes bringing in volumes from our Mesquite Terminal facility in the Permian region. These small steps laid the groundwork for the larger NGL expansion in Louisiana, Cajun-Sibon I and Cajun-Sibon II. Now let's look at the map on Slide 8 that shows Cajun-Sibon I Phase I in detail. Construction is under way on this phase, which includes a 130-mile, 12-inch-diameter pipeline extension of our existing 440-mile Cajun-Sibon NGL pipeline system connecting Mont Belvieu to the Eunice fractionator. The pipeline will have an initial capacity of 70,000 barrels per day for raw-make NGLs. When the Eunice fractionator is expanded from 15,000 barrels to 55,000 barrels of NGLs per day, this will increase our interconnected fractionation capacity in Louisiana to approximately 97,000 barrels per day in NGLs. We began the Eunice expansion in the third quarter of 2012. We expect Phase I facilities, both the pipeline and the expanded fractionation facilities, will be operating by mid-2013. We anticipate that Phase I's annual run rate adjusted EBITDA contribution will be $40 million to $45 million. Phase I is anchored by a long-term ethane sales agreement with Williams Olefins, a subsidiary of the Williams Companies. The Phase I NGL pipeline extension will originate from interconnects with major Mont Belvieu supply pipelines, providing connections for NGLs from the Permian Basin, Midcontinent, Barnett Shale, Eagle Ford and Rocky Mountain areas to our NGL fractionation facilities in Southern Louisiana, which provide access to key Louisiana markets for all components of the NGL barrel. Now moving on to Cajun-Sibon Phase II. Rather than following along with me bullet by bullet on Slide 8, it might be more beneficial if you look at the map on Slide 9, where I will review this project. Cajun-Sibon Phase II will enhance our Louisiana NGL business with significant additions to the Cajun-Sibon Phase I NGL pipeline extension and fractionator expansion. Phase II will include the addition of 4 pumping stations totaling 13,400 horsepower that will facilitate increasing NGL supply capacity from Phase I's 70,000 barrels per day to 120,000 barrels per day. The construction of a new "100,000 barrel per day" fractionator at the Plaquemine gas processing plant site, the conversion of our Riverside fractionator to a butanes and heavier facility and the construction of 57 miles of NGL pipelines that will originate at the Eunice fractionator and connect to the new Plaquemine fractionator, which will provide optionality to move purity products around the Louisiana liquids market. And ultimately, the construction of a 32-mile, 16-inch-diameter extension of LIG's Bayou Jack Lateral, which will provide gas services to customers in the Mississippi River Corridor, replacing the current -- the conversion supply lines currently used by Crosstex for liquid service. We have entered into a 10-year sales agreement with Dow Hydrocarbons and Resources. As part of the agreements, we will deliver up to 40,000 barrels per day of ethane and 25,000 barrels per day of propane produced at our new Plaquemine fractionator into Dow's Louisiana pipeline system. We will also deliver 70,000 MMBtu per day of natural gas to Dow's Plaquemine facility. We expect Phase II will be in service during the second half of 2014 with an annual adjusted EBITDA run rate of $75 million to $85 million, as I said earlier. We currently estimate the total capital investment for both phases of Cajun-Sibon will be between $680 million and $700 million, with a combined annual run rate adjusted EBITDA contribution of $115 million to $130 million. Now turning to Slide 11. Cajun-Sibon projects not only represent a tremendous growth step by leveraging our Louisiana assets, they also create a significant platform for continued growth of our crude, condensate and NGL businesses. These projects along with our existing assets put us in front a number of additional opportunities to grow this business. These include expanding market optionality and connectivity, upgrading products, expanding rail imports, NGL exports and expanding fractionation and product storage capacity. We have visibility to projects representing an additional $1 billion in capital investment opportunities in high-return, bolt-on expansion projects. Now I will turn the call over to Mike Garberding, who will review our 2013 guidance.