Greg L. Armstrong - Plains All American Pipeline LP
Analyst · Citi. Please go ahead
Yeah, John. This is Greg. I'd also comment that – in kind of playing off Willie's comment about the value chain. At the very top of the market when oil was over $100 a barrel the conversations with producers or potential shippers was how fast, and how much never even entered into the equation. At the very bottom of the market, when oil was $29 a barrel, the only question was how much because margins had been pinched so much. We're now in the sweet spot right now where I think people are saying how certain. And the most important thing is my barrel moves when I produce it, and I get it to a good market. It doesn't have to be the absolute cheapest price, and it doesn't have to be always the best market, although certainly that's our goal. And so, some of these things that we're doing right now for example, we're trucking and as Harry and Willie mentioned, we may not be making much in terms of incremental value to us right now by moving that barrel around these bottlenecks. What we're doing is providing a service to a customer that says, we told you we would move your barrel and it will, and it's a long-term relationship. As Willie mentioned, there are in many areas for these one-off kind of projects, very low entry barriers. But ultimately at the end of the day it's about the certainty of providing, moving that barrel from the wellhead to the best market on a routine basis. And so, I do think we have competitive advantages over time, but on a transactional nature, a given project, if somebody wants to come in and ignore risk and some of the uncertainties. They may bill something what we think they may realize a 5% return, but they – with their spreadsheets say it's going to be at 12%. Once it's billed, we have to compete against it. Long-term, those assets should be rationalized into the system. And that's where I think the competitive advantages come in. So, this is more of a marathon than it is a sprint. And long-term, I think we're going to be able to see and take advantage of our competitive advantages, so to speak. But in the short-term, if somebody wants to come in with a big billfold and buy their way into the system, they can certainly do it.