Gary R. Heminger
Analyst · Deutsche Bank
Thank you, Pam, and good morning to everyone. The second quarter ended June 30 marked our 1-year anniversary as a standalone public company. During this first year, we have created significant value for our shareholders, and we continue to take steps to do so well into the future. We had a strong second quarter in both our R&M and Speedway segments. Don will review the results in more detail, but I want to say that the strong results are no coincidence. Our geographic footprint and the logistics assets that connect our operations give us unique and significant operational flexibility to capture value wherever it exists throughout the value chain such as allowing us to access -- allowing us access to price-advantage crude. In addition, our Gulf Coast presence gives us the ability to make fuel sales into higher-value export markets where our sales increased 110,000 barrels per day in the second quarter. And we believe these are enduring advantages. Since becoming a standalone company, our shareholder focus and perspective on capital allocation have been consistent. We will continue to carefully manage our projected capitalization and liquidity position to support our long-term strategic intent to maintain an investment grade credit profile and protect our business from volatility in the refining industry and the capital markets. We will also evaluate organic investment opportunities as well as selective acquisitions that complement our existing operations, leverage our knowledge of the markets in which we operate and provide appropriate returns, further enhancing the value proposition to our shareholders. We will continue to balance investments in our business with returning capital to shareholders. We are very pleased that, over the past 12 months, we have returned over $1 billion of capital to shareholders, which represented over 3/4 of our free cash flow. This was accomplished through a combination of a 25% increase to our base dividend last November and a share repurchase program announced in February. We recently completed an $850 million accelerated share repurchase program through which 20.4 million shares or 6% of our initial shares outstanding were acquired at a volume-weighted average price of $41.75 per share. This was the initial phase of our $2 billion share repurchase authorization, leaving us $1.15 billion available under our current authorization. Under this existing authorization, we expect to repurchase shares opportunistically in the open market or through privately negotiated transactions from time to time which are subject to market conditions, corporate, regulatory and other considerations. Part of our capital allocation strategy is to establish a growing base dividend that's sustainable for the economic cycles. We also believe our competitive position, the market dynamics and steps we are taking to further unlock shareholder value will allow us to generate significant free cash flow. It is for these reasons we recently announced another increase in the base dividend, this time by 40%. Based on yesterday's closing share price, our annualized cash dividend yield is approximately 3% and the total annualized capital return to shareholders is nearly 9%. On July 2, we took an important strategic step for MPC and its shareholders. We filed a registration statement in anticipation of our proposed initial public offering of common units of a master limited partnership for MPLX LP. MPLX LP was formed initially with a planned contribution of an interest in certain onshore common carrier pipeline assets located in the Midwest and Gulf Coast regions of the U.S., along with a butane storage cavern near our Catlettsburg refinery. As our own subsidiary, MPLX LP was formed to be MPC's primary vehicle to own, operate, develop and acquire hydrocarbon-based pipelines and other midstream assets. Since the initial filing is preliminary and it has not been reviewed by the SEC, our remarks about the MLP on this call will be limited. One of the key elements of our capital allocation strategy is investing in the business through organic projects and acquisitions. Disciplined investments in the business over many years have positioned MPC with the ability to generate earnings and cash flow throughout economic cycles. We have a number of ongoing investments that provide visibility on continuing growth in earnings and cash flow. The most significant current capital project is the upgrade for our Detroit refinery which was approximately 96% complete as of June 30. This project remains on budget and on schedule, with the completion of the construction phase anticipated in the third quarter. Immediately following completion, a planned 70-day turnaround will enable us to tie in the new units, and we expect that the upgraded and expanded refinery to be online by year end. This investment is focused on enhancing margins by allowing us to process lower-cost crude stock and capturing value from crude oil differentials. We believe this project will enable us to process an incremental 80,000 barrels per day of heavy crude, including Canadian bitumen-type crudes. In addition, this project increases Detroit's crude oil refining capacity about 15% to 120,000 barrels per day. Based on the historical average, heavy Canadian crude differentials from 2006 to 2010 and the average for 2011, this upgrade could add $200 million to the $350 million of EBITDA per year. As we recently announced, we are celebrating the turnaround in our Robinson refinery from July to June, and this turnaround is now complete. One of the benefits of this acceleration was to increase the amount of time available before beginning our Detroit turnaround this fall. Our Speedway retail operations continued to deliver best-in-class results and national recognition. The 2012 Harris Poll EquiTrend survey has named Speedway the Highest Ranked Convenience Store Brand in the nation. Speedway has been honored as the category leader in the survey for the last 3 years. However, this year, the company has been named Convenience Store Brand of the Year. And this is particularly notable as Speedway operates in only 7 states. This is a business we -- in which we intend to invest and grow through acquisitions. Speedway acquired 87 GasAmerica locations in the second quarter and 10 Road Ranger store locations in mid-July. Both of these acquisitions are in Speedway's current markets and will leverage its support infrastructure as well as our field distribution logistics network. We believe global demand for gasoline and distillates will continue to provide an opportunity to sell products into higher-value export markets, including Europe and Latin and South America. The investments we are making should further increase our export capability for diesel and gasoline. As we look forward to the remainder of 2012 and beyond, we believe the U.S. refiners with access to attractively priced crude oil and natural gas will have competitive cost advantages in the global markets for some time to come. And now, I will turn the call over to Don Templin to provide a more detailed financial update on the quarter.