Williams Cos Inc (WMB) — Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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 delivered 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's 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 dekatherms 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, two 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 two transmission projects, the Wharton West expansion on Transco in South Texas and the Green River West Expansion on Mountain West in 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 to 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 in the 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 LEG. Alongside the sale of the upstream asset, 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 Sequent 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 tenors. So in summary, these transactions allow us to upgrade 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 two additional projects to continue to deliver speed-to-market solutions in grid-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 extend. And with these agreements, total Power Innovation 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 & Gulf 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 Gulf gathering volumes were up over 36% versus prior year, and NGL production was up about 78%. Next, our Northeast G&P business improved to $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 Saber acquisition acquired in late June 2025. Our Sequent 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 two 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 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.

I would like to explore the Power Innovation aspect a bit further. Can you update us on the current opportunity landscape across your operations? How would you characterize the pace of discussions? Is there still a sense of urgency and speed to market? Any additional insights would be appreciated.

Yes, thanks, Jeremy. I would say we continue to experience strong engagement and interest in both speed to market and the long-term demand for power in data centers. As we mentioned during our prepared remarks, we have increased our backlog of commercialized projects to over $5 billion in investments. We've discussed our pursuit of six gigawatts of backlog, some of which have now been converted into actual projects, and we see this backlog continuing to strengthen. Our aim is to strategically layer in projects while managing our balance sheet and investment capacity alongside high-quality counterparties and project opportunities. We also see a strong pipeline of opportunities that we believe will extend through the end of the decade and beyond. Our team is engaged in fruitful discussions, and we expect additional projects to materialize along the way. Regarding our geographic footprint, we operate in a diverse range of areas, enabling us to offer solutions across various sectors. We are having discussions throughout our entire footprint. There's a reason many projects are being developed in particular states, and at some point during the call, we will discuss locations like New England in the Northeast, where we are working on NESE and Constitution. These projects are crucial for unlocking economic opportunities in those regions. The primary power innovation projects, not only for our company but across the country, are focused on states where affordable, reliable energy can be obtained, and infrastructure can be built. We are committed to opening up additional markets, even in areas where building has been challenging, and we are seeing hopeful signs for progress.

Got it. That's helpful. I want to ask about the recent LNG deal announcement. Could you elaborate on the strategy and industrial logic behind this deal, particularly regarding the full wellhead to water connectivity? Additionally, I'm interested in the offtake capacity at the LNG facility. Will you retain that for your own use, contract it out to customers, or could you clarify your strategy regarding this after the deal?

Sure, thank you. I'll begin with our strategy, and Rob is here as well to provide additional details on specific projects. It's important to note that while we focus on power innovation and transmission projects, the growth in LNG demand remains the primary driver for our industry and energy demand is increasingly a global issue. Many people still live without access to energy, and we believe U.S. LNG is a crucial resource to help meet the global demand for reliable, affordable clean energy. Our strategy is heavily focused on demand, and we aim to connect our customers with the best end-use markets. Considering the power generation, utilities, and industrial sectors we serve, linking to LNG markets is essential for helping our customers achieve their goals. We're making a modest investment in an LNG facility, which will allow us to build a strategically important pipeline. We'll operate Line 200, connecting to Transco LEG and other pipelines at Gillis. Additionally, we are transitioning our upstream ownership to JERA, a major energy producer in Japan and a significant LNG buyer. This will help us create a value chain to attract customers looking to access international markets while growing our gathering system and Transco footprint. Line 200 will be a key extension to an LNG terminal and our Gulf Coast storage assets that link to the LNG complex. Overall, this strategic transaction enhances our ability to increase business through our core infrastructure. Regarding offtake, it's a minor part of our overall business, contributing less than 1% of our earnings. We plan to offer access to international markets for producer customers who may struggle to reach those markets independently. However, this isn't about exposing ourselves to international price fluctuations; rather, we are creating more opportunities to serve our customers.

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 get 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. On the project side, it seems that the scope for Power Express has been revised down to 785 million cubic feet per day from 689 million cubic feet per day, which I believe is the second revision. Could you explain what is causing this change? Is it related to permitting commitments or broader dynamics? Also, how should we consider the return and the in-service date of that project with this updated scope?

Yes, Praneeth, this is Larry Larsen. I'll address that question. When we initially announced the project, we highlighted its scalability. We had an anchor customer that initiated the project, and we initially saw the potential for it to go up to 950. However, as we collaborate with our customers, they are assessing their power generation needs and the scope of their facilities. We are focused on optimizing our design to align closely with customer requirements. Currently, we have contracts for the full 689. Regarding returns, our ability to adjust looping and compression keeps them in the same range as we previously outlined, with no significant changes from a scoping perspective. At this point, we do not anticipate any major shifts in our scope. We plan to initiate the FERC process next year. There is potential to expand the project if demand increases, but for now, we are working with customers as they finalize their needs.

Yes. I would add that for these projects, we need to adjust both the timing and customer readiness. Last week, Larry, Rob, and I traveled to the Pacific Northwest where we met with utilities in that region, as well as utility customers along the Southeast and Eastern Seaboard. All the customers expressed a need for more gas and increased pipeline capacity. This indicates a strong demand throughout our entire operational area. We have frequently noted that natural gas demand has significantly outpaced the development of pipeline capacity over the last decade, and we anticipate this issue will worsen in the coming years as demand continues to grow while infrastructure struggles to keep pace.

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 six 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?

Thank you, Spiro. This is John Porter. Over the past few years, we've identified a significant inflection point anticipated after 2025, expecting the balance sheet deleveraging to dip below our targeted leverage range of 3.5x to 4x. In our long-range planning, we've typically sought high-return organic investment opportunities to utilize that balance sheet capacity. Until recently, there was some uncertainty regarding the volume of those opportunities and whether they could adequately fill the expected considerable balance sheet capacity in 2026 and beyond. However, during our long-range forecasting process this summer, we uncovered a promising development. Instead of merely speculating on potential projects, we began to observe a clear pipeline of valuable high-return organic investment opportunities materializing, as we've announced this year. Looking ahead, we are confident that these strategic investments will continue to occupy the balance sheet capacity while maintaining our leverage target of 3.5x to 4x. Additionally, the nonregulated Power Innovation projects will positively impact our cash tax profile, leading to notable cash tax deferrals over the coming years. Overall, we're witnessing a promising trend where upcoming projects align well with our balance sheet strategy, largely due to the rapid deployment of these Power Innovation projects. While we emphasize these projects, we also need to ensure we have sufficient capital to accommodate the anticipated flow of transmission projects in the coming years. In summary, we're very excited about the investment opportunities presented by these high-return projects and feel our balance sheet is well-prepared for this unique set of opportunities.

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 and Constitution and how much do you think getting past the election day could maybe open up some progress there?

Thank you, Spiro. These are very important topics. The first point I want to emphasize is that natural gas is a crucial asset for affordability in our country. Producing natural gas in the U.S. costs about $0.25 to $0.50 per gallon of gasoline on an energy equivalent basis, highlighting its affordability. Any U.S. market that has successfully managed energy affordability, which contributes to overall affordability, has relied on low-cost, abundant, and reliable natural gas. After our recent trip to meet with several utility customers, it's clear that they recognize natural gas as a key factor in managing affordability across the board. I’m optimistic that as discussions about this issue gain traction in elections and the broader national conversation, we will see increasing support for natural gas infrastructure. After addressing today’s matters, I’ll let Lane share his insights. I hope we can see progress on NESE, which is advancing more quickly than Constitution. Lane, do you have any thoughts on the current landscape?

Yes. I'm fairly confident that the elections today won't impact NESE or 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 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 on a quicker time frame we think than Constitution.

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 outlook, again, not to preempt too much the Analyst Day forthcoming? And then separately, how do you think about returns here beyond just the Power Innovation sector here? Any comments implicitly what you're saying here, just at 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 and 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 is excellent. If I can just nitpick a little bit more on Power Innovation, can you talk about where you see this going? Are we thinking more about upsizing Socrates and then upsizing Apollo and Aquila at this point? How are you thinking about the next steps? I know you elaborated with Jeremy earlier a bit, but is it about expanding existing sites, adding more total duration and ramp? Or do you think this is more about finding new geographies and new opportunities outright here, greenfield?

Yes. The straightforward answer is that it's a mix of both. Many of the projects we are working on are in locations where it makes sense to add more capacity as we progress. Therefore, you can expect investments aimed at scaling over time. These facilities are large, requiring substantial investments, and scaling will clearly be a key part of our strategy. For instance, we have already started with Socrates, initially investing $1.6 billion, with the potential to expand to $2 billion. This represents an increase in both scope and scale, and we anticipate similar outcomes at other locations where we can quickly launch projects and expand thereafter. Our customers view these investments as long-term commitments that will grow with time. Consequently, we foresee ongoing scaling of these facilities, alongside further developments in different regions. It will indeed be a blend of both approaches.

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. I want to emphasize that this is a fully contracted take-or-pay pipeline project. We are covering 80% of the investment in this pipeline, which is entirely take-or-pay and fully contracted. The LNG terminal is also structured as fully contracted and 100% take-or-pay. Although our investment is relatively small at 10%, it still pertains to a large project that has all its capacity subscribed through take-or-pay contracts. The only part of the investment that isn’t under take-or-pay is the LNG offtake, which represents less than 1% of our earnings, especially when compared to our upstream sales. We plan to utilize this offtake as a means to attract more customers to our core infrastructure and potentially capitalize on that over time. The goal of this strategy is to invest in fully contracted projects with high-quality investment-grade counterparties, providing the best gas supply to these facilities while also supporting our upstream infrastructure, which will be essential for meeting the increased demand for natural gas as LNG ramps up.

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. As a follow-up on that same theme, the Gillis LNG pipeline is about 3.1 Bcf, which you mentioned is take-or-pay. That's significantly larger than LEG. Do you see Williams sourcing all of the 3.1 from your own GMP, or will you need to utilize third-party pipelines as well?

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 Transco 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 two of us, we're really going to be sourcing gas off the main pipelines that come into that area.

I had two 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, do 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 the 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, it is a fully contracted LNG terminal. Stonepeak's 40% investment alongside us highlights this, as the facility is entirely supported by take-or-pay contracts, the majority of which are with Woodside. We have a stake in it and will be paying a toll for our offtake to the facility's owners. A significant portion of that toll returns to us as tolling revenues, which is one of the advantages of the equity ownership model. Woodside has discussed potentially selling down their interest, but they are the offtaker for the take-or-pay agreements. Therefore, there are investment-grade contracts in place for 100% of the facility's capacity.

I just wanted to follow up on the Power Innovation, specifically around that number, the six gigawatts that you have in your presentations. Can you talk a little bit about that? Is that your total addressable market? Or can you do more than the six 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 and 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 we see it now, it's also in the Pacific Northwest and the Rockies. But I would say the majority of the backlog that you see that we've highlighted is along the Transco corridor 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 focus 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. You can think of Transco as the largest natural gas highway system in our country, featuring the highest speed limit and some of the lowest tolls. This allows us to offer significant flexibility and a variety of solutions for our customers. Adding lanes to a large existing highway system is much easier than expanding small roads into larger highways or building new ones where they don’t currently exist. We are fortunate to have Transco as an asset, and it remains extremely competitive. Therefore, we anticipate capturing more than our fair share of opportunities along that corridor.

I wanted to clarify something Chad mentioned earlier. Our understanding is that Woodside is taking 8 million tons from the LNG offtake, and Uniper is taking an additional 1 million tons along with your 1.5 million. This leaves about 6 million tons per annum that hasn't been publicly disclosed. Are you indicating that this 6 million tons per annum has now been fully contracted and is take-or-pay? Or will Woodside be responsible for that? I have one more follow-up question.

Yes, I don't want to speak entirely for Woodside, but I can say that Woodside currently holds the equity and the offtake for the 14 tons. They have shown a willingness or interest in selling down additional equity, which would also entail selling the associated offtake obligation. Currently, the stand-alone LNG terminal is fully contracted, primarily with Woodside as the offtaker, which is a credible investment-grade international LNG company. We feel confident about having JERA involved in the production side of our Haynesville footprint, along with the existing infrastructure between the Haynesville and the terminal. Woodside serves as a high-quality investment-grade counterparty as the LNG terminal operator and offtaker. Should they decrease their interest in offtake, we expect that to involve reliable counterparts as well. But at this moment, it remains 100% contracted with Woodside and us.

Great. Turning back to Power Innovation, it seems you have a solid understanding of your equipment supply partners. Are you exploring any other alternatives beyond the equipment you worked on with Socrates, such as fuel cells or other nontraditional options?

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.

I just wanted to go back a little bit to Green River West expansion. Can you help us remind us 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 overthrust 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.

Maybe putting a finer point on the ability to source and supply gas into the liquefaction 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, Transco, Lake and so on the 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 Sequent 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 Sequent 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, I don't know if anything to add.

There is no doubt that having Sequent as a key player in the market will significantly benefit our core and midstream businesses. Additionally, I want to note that we've modified the original project scope; the pipeline capacity will now be bidirectional, which will open up new optimization and marketing opportunities that were not part of our initial projections. With this, along with our market presence, we anticipate experiencing synergies that were previously unaccounted for in our economic forecasts.

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 level 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, are working to 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 pickup over the course of this year and some areas where it's been a little bit more flat. There'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 pick 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.

I wanted to follow up on the LNG opportunity, which seems promising for both you and your producer customers. Specifically, I would like to discuss the fees and your thoughts on the contract duration. Regarding the fees, do you envision a straightforward fee-for-service contract structure, or is there a chance to link it to some LNG pricing benchmarks? Additionally, considering how you allocate sourcing for your capacity in relation to Woodside, how do you foresee the contract duration developing?

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. With respect to tenor, 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. Regarding these smaller customers, it's not a significant gas position. It seems that you're accumulating volumes from several smaller players, which suggests that you might not be looking for a long-term contract portfolio or taking on that responsibility.

We have been considering this strategy for many years and have consulted with producer customers. We believe it is likely that we will need to provide an LNG terminal and an LNG offtake position with various contract durations. Typically, you receive different levels of compensation for these durations. To put it another way, shorter contracts tend to yield higher margins, while longer contracts result in smaller margins. We intend to explore these types of opportunities. Overall, we aim to build both a portfolio for gas supply to the terminal and a portfolio for our offtake position.

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?

Thank you, Sunil. I wouldn't necessarily view this as an opportunity for significant expansion for Williams. However, I believe that when we have the chance to take a small LNG position and leverage it into a comprehensive opportunity to develop pipeline infrastructure, enhance our gathering and delivery systems through Transco, and coordinate our storage assets, it presents unique opportunities for future growth on our platform. I want to emphasize that while we're not dismissing the possibility of pursuing other deals, our primary goal is not to expand our role as an international LNG marketer, as that's not our core business. We are a large company, so if we find a small position that allows us to manage risk over time while aligning with a more strategically significant opportunity like Woodside, we will consider it. Such opportunities are rare, but if they arise, we will remain open to exploring them. However, this should not be interpreted as an intention for us to become a larger player in the international LNG market. Yes. I would say that we are all experiencing cost inflation. We are managing this along with our customers. This is simply a reality of the current market as demand for electricity generation continues to rise. I’ve mentioned before that we have not seen growth in electricity generation in the United States for nearly 25 years. There is significant demand entering a market that lacks the capacity to increase electricity production. We have witnessed cost increases across the board, but this hasn't made us any less competitive compared to others. It's a challenge that all customers are facing as equipment costs have risen over the past year. This is certainly an issue we are addressing.

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're 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 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.

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 Wamsutter 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 and liquids basin. And so when we produce an incremental molecule in Wamsutter, we gather, we process, we move the NGLs through 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 producer's 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's 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.

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.