MPLX LP (MPLX) Q1 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2022

May 3, 2022 1:00 p.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Welcome to the MPLX First Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. My name is Elan, and I will be your operator for today's call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded.

And I would now like to turn the call over to Kristina Kazarian. Kristina, you may begin.

Kristina Kazarian

Good morning, and welcome to the MPLX First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. The slides that accompany this call can be found on our website at mplx.com, under the Investor tab. Joining me on the call today are Mike Hennigan, Chairman and CEO; John Quaid, CFO; and other members of the executive team. We invite you to read the safe harbor statements and non-GAAP disclaimer on Slide 2. It's a reminder that we will be making forward-looking statements during the call and during the question-and-answer session that follows. Actual results may differ materially from what we expect today. Factors that could cause actual results to differ are included there as well as in our filings with the SEC.

With that, I'll turn it over to Mike.

Mike Hennigan

Thanks, Kristina. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining our call. Earlier today, we reported first quarter results, which continues to demonstrate the cash flow resiliency and stability of our business. We delivered adjusted EBITDA of $1.4 billion, which was up 3% from the prior year, and we returned over $850 million of capital to unitholders through distributions and unit repurchases. Our logistics and storage business benefited from the recovery in consumer demand and our gathering and processing business benefited from higher NGL prices.

This quarter, we also advanced several organic growth projects. In L&S, we progressed crude gathering projects in the Permian and Bakken as well as a number of smaller expansion and debottlenecking projects. We are investing in our Permian natural gas and NGL takeaway systems, including yesterday's announced expansion of the Whistler pipeline to 2.5 billion cubic feet per day driven by growing demand from producers.

In G&P, our growth capital focus is largely on projects in the Permian, Marcellus and Bakken basins. In the Permian, our fourth processing plant is ramping up to full capacity and we're progressing construction of a fifth processing plant, which will take our total capacity in the basin to 1 million cubic feet per day. With higher commodity prices, we are seeing a pickup in producer activity across our focus basins, we will maintain strict capital discipline as we assess these inbounds.