Western Midstream Partners, LP (NYSE:WES) Q4 2022 Results Conference Call February 23, 2023 2:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Daniel Jenkins - Director, Investor Relations

Michael Ure - Chief Executive Officer

Kristen Shults - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Spiro Dounis - Credit Suisse

Keith Stanley - Wolfe Research

Neel Mitra - Bank of America

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Rob, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Western Midstream Partners' Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Daniel Jenkins, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Daniel Jenkins

Thank you. I'm glad you could join us today for Western Midstream's fourth quarter and full year 2022 conference call. I'd like to remind you that today's call, the accompanying slide deck and last night's earnings release contain important disclosures regarding forward-looking statements and non-GAAP reconciliations.

Please reference Western Midstream's most recent Form 10-K and other public filings for a description of risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we discuss today. Relevant reference materials are posted on our website.

Additionally, I'm pleased to inform you that Western Midstream Partners' K-1 will be available on our website beginning March 9. Hard copies will be mailed out several days later. With me today are Michael Ure, our Chief Executive Officer; and Kristen Shults, our Chief Financial Officer.

I'll now turn the call over to Michael.

Michael Ure

Thank you, Daniel, and good afternoon, everyone. We are pleased to report another strong year of operational and financial performance at Western Midstream as we recorded the highest net income and adjusted EBITDA in the history of our partnership.

We announced our 2023 guidance, which is primarily driven by continued throughput growth in the Delaware Basin, offset by DJ Basin declines. The capital investment necessary to complete the construction of Mentone Train III, and the growth capital needed to support continued throughput growth expected in 2024.

Also, I'm very pleased to announce that we have recommended an enhanced distribution to our Board of Directors that, if approved, would be paid in conjunction with our first quarter 2023 base distribution in May, all of which I will discuss in more detail later in the call.

Before we discuss our fourth quarter results in more detail, there are several accomplishments in 2022 that have been instrumental in positioning WES for future growth and success. Specifically, our commercial teams created tremendous value for WES and built the foundation necessary to proceed with the decision to sanction Mentone Train III. We executed multiple long-term amendments with Occidental to their natural gas processing and crude oil treating agreements, supported by minimum volume commitments.