Teleconferência de Resultados do 3º Trimestre de 2026 da Energy Transfer (ET): Projeção de EBITDA Elevada

Principais Destaques

• A Energy Transfer (NYSE: ET) registrou um EBITDA ajustado no 3º trimestre de 2026 de aproximadamente US$ 5,0 bilhões, ante US$ 3,8 bilhões no 3º trimestre de 2025. O fluxo de caixa distribuível (DCF) ajustado atribuível aos sócios subiu de US$ 1,9 bilhão para aproximadamente US$ 2,5 bilhões.
• A administração elevou a projeção de EBITDA ajustado para todo o ano de 2026 para a faixa de US$ 19,7 bilhões a US$ 19,9 bilhões, aumentando o ponto médio em cerca de US$ 850 milhões em relação à estimativa anterior.
• A projeção revisada reflete a força operacional generalizada, benefícios da volatilidade do mercado e aproximadamente US$ 285 milhões referentes a compras de gás natural anteriormente contestadas, que devem ser reconhecidas no 4º trimestre de 2026. O resultado exclui qualquer contribuição da aquisição pendente da Vaquero Midstream.
• Volumes recordes de transporte intraestadual seguiram-se ao início das operações da Fase 1 de Hugh Brinson, enquanto os volumes de coleta no segmento de midstream também atingiram recorde. Os volumes de midstream na Bacia Permiana aumentaram cerca de 8%.
• A Energy Transfer prevê um capital de crescimento orgânico de US$ 5,4 bilhões a US$ 5,6 bilhões em 2026 e aproximadamente US$ 7 bilhões em 2027. A administração descreveu 2027 como o provável ponto mais alto de investimentos, com gastos anuais previstos para permanecer acima de US$ 5 bilhões nos próximos anos.
• Os planos de crescimento incluem o gasoduto South Mississippi, a Fase 2 de Hugh Brinson, Bear II, Frac X e a expansão da capacidade de exportação de etano em Nederland. A administração declarou que a maioria dos projetos de crescimento conta com compromissos de longo prazo e deve gerar retornos na faixa média de 10% a 20%.

Principais Dados Financeiros

Desempenho Operacional e dos Negócios

O segmento de NGL e produtos refinados beneficiou-se do aumento das exportações pelos terminais de Nederland e Marcus Hook e do maior volume processado nas fracionadoras de Mont Belvieu. Preços favoráveis e volatilidade elevaram a margem de comercialização em cerca de US$ 177 milhões, embora cerca de US$ 100 milhões devam ser revertidos por meio de perdas com derivativos nos próximos dois trimestres.

Os resultados do segmento de midstream foram liderados por volumes recordes na Bacia Permiana, que cresceram cerca de 8% após o início das operações de novas unidades e a melhoria no aproveitamento da capacidade. Preços mais altos de NGL e gás natural contribuíram com aproximadamente US$ 70 milhões em relação ao mesmo trimestre do ano anterior. O Mustang Draw II entrou em operação em outubro, com expectativa de ramp-up de volumes até o primeiro semestre de 2027.

O EBITDA ajustado de petróleo bruto aumentou à medida que diversos oleodutos e sistemas de coleta movimentaram volumes maiores. Spreads mais amplos e a volatilidade também contribuíram, mas a administração prevê que cerca de US$ 100 milhões desse ganho sejam compensados por perdas com derivativos no 4º trimestre de 2026.

O segmento de gás natural interestadual foi beneficiado pelo aumento dos volumes contratados e da utilização nos sistemas Transwestern, Rover, Panhandle Eastern e Florida Gas Transmission. Os resultados intraestaduais foram impulsionados pela Fase 1 de Hugh Brinson, que opera com capacidade de 1,5 Bcf por dia.

A Energy Transfer espera que a Fase 2 de Hugh Brinson entre em operação no 1º trimestre de 2027, aumentando a capacidade para mais de 2,3 Bcf por dia. A empresa também assinou um contrato firme de transporte de 10 anos para 250.000 MMBtu por dia com uma hyperscaler de classificação de risco A, conectada a uma expansão planejada de fábrica de IA de 900 megawatts em Abilene, Texas.

A empresa tomou uma decisão final de investimento favorável para o gasoduto South Mississippi. O projeto de 215 milhas previsto é respaldado por contratos firmes de transporte de 20 anos e atualmente foi projetado para uma capacidade de aproximadamente 1,2 Bcf por dia, com custo estimado em cerca de US$ 1,6 bilhão. A Energy Transfer prevê deter 51% de participação, operar o projeto e colocá-lo em operação em 2030.

Em infraestrutura de líquidos, a Energy Transfer aprovou o Frac X, uma fracionadora em Mont Belvieu com capacidade de 200.000 barris por dia, prevista para entrar em operação no primeiro semestre de 2029. O projeto aumentará a capacidade total do local para cerca de 1,6 milhão de barris por dia. A expansão de exportação de etano em Nederland foi ampliada de 240.000 para cerca de 300.000 barris por dia e também adicionará 55.000 barris por dia de capacidade de GLP e dois berços de atracação para navios de NGL.

Projeções da Administração

A administração afirmou que a projeção de EBITDA inclui aproximadamente US$ 285 milhões relacionados a compras de gás natural anteriormente contestadas, que serão reconhecidos no 4º trimestre de 2026. A projeção não inclui benefícios da aquisição da Vaquero Midstream, cujo fechamento é esperado para meados do 4º trimestre, sujeito a aprovações regulatórias e condições habituais.

A transação da Vaquero, avaliada em US$ 2,625 bilhões, é esperada pela administração como imediatamente acretiva ao DCF por cota ordinária. A aquisição foi precificada em aproximadamente 8,5 vezes o EBITDA estimado para 2027, e a administração espera que o múltiplo caia para menos de 7 vezes até 2029 à medida que a capacidade de processamento existente for preenchida.

Riscos e Pontos de Atenção

• Alguns ganhos de comercialização no 3º trimestre são temporários: cerca de US$ 100 milhões em ganhos relacionados a NGL devem ser compensados nos próximos dois trimestres, enquanto cerca de US$ 100 milhões em ganhos relacionados a petróleo bruto devem ser revertidos no 4º trimestre.
• A administração estimou cerca de US$ 1,5 bilhão em benefícios de otimização em 2026, substancialmente acima da faixa de planejamento inicial típica de US$ 200 milhões a US$ 400 milhões. Esses benefícios refletem preços, spreads, volatilidade e volumes adicionais, e podem não se repetir no mesmo patamar.
• A aquisição da Vaquero continua sujeita a aprovações regulatórias e às condições habituais de fechamento.
• Grandes projetos envolvem considerações sobre cronograma, licenciamento e execução. O projeto Desert Southwest ainda exige um requerimento formal de certificado junto à FERC, enquanto o tamanho e a capacidade finais de South Mississippi dependerão de sua oferta pública vinculante (open season).
• Para projetos de data centers, a administração declarou que geralmente busca contrapartes com grau de investimento, garantias da empresa-mãe ou reforços de crédito, como cartas de crédito e apólices de seguro-garantia.

Destaques da Sessão de Perguntas e Respostas com Analistas

A administração disse que o gasoduto South Mississippi conectará ativos que chegam à região de Perryville com o Florida Gas Transmission, позволяando que os clientes acessem o suprimento das regiões da Bacia Permiana, Haynesville e Marcellus-Utica. A capacidade upstream atual é suficiente no momento, enquanto futuros trechos paralelos (looping) ou compressão podem criar oportunidades adicionais de expansão.

Sobre os fatores impulsionadores de resultados para 2027, a administração destacou o ramp-up do Frac IX, a nova capacidade de processamento criogênico, a Fase 2 de Hugh Brinson e outros projetos. A empresa não forneceu uma projeção formal de EBITDA para 2027, mas afirmou que projetos concluídos recentemente estão sendo preenchidos rapidamente.

A administração descreveu as novas conexões de energia e data centers como uma oportunidade eficiente em termos de capital, porque muitas das cargas potenciais estão localizadas perto dos gasodutos existentes. Desde o início de 2025, a Energy Transfer celebrou mais de 9,5 milhões de MMBtu por dia em acordos com hyperscalers, data centers, usinas de energia e outros clientes desse segmento de demanda.

Em relação à Vaquero, a administração enfatizou sua adequação estratégica à rede da Energy Transfer na Bacia de Delaware. A transação adiciona cerca de 300 milhas de dutos e três plantas de processamento com capacidade total de aproximadamente 675 milhões de pés cúbicos por dia. A Vaquero reforçou a decisão de prosseguir com o Frac X, embora a administração tenha afirmado que não foi o único fator decisivo.

Transcrição Completa da Teleconferência de Resultados

Transcrição completa da teleconferência de resultados

Comentários da administração

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Energy Transfer Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tom Long, CEO. Please go ahead.

Thomas Long

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Energy Transfer Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. I'm joined today by Mackie McCrea, Dylan Bramhall, and other members of the senior management team who are here to help answer your questions after our prepared remarks. Hopefully, you saw the press release we issued earlier this morning. As a reminder, our earnings release contains an update to guidance and a thorough MD&A that goes through the segment results.

We encourage everyone to review the release and slides on our website for full understanding of the quarter and our growth opportunities. We will be making forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These statements are based upon our current beliefs as well as certain assumptions and information currently available to us and are discussed in more detail in our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026, which we expect to file later this week.

I'll also refer to adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow, or DCF, both of which are non-GAAP financial measures.

You'll find a reconciliation of our non-GAAP measures on our website. Let's start today by going over our financial results. For the third quarter of 2026, we generated adjusted EBITDA of approximately $5 billion compared to approximately $3.8 billion for the third quarter of last year. DCF attributable to the partners of ET as adjusted was approximately $2.5 billion compared to approximately $1.9 billion for the third quarter of 2025. Strong performances across all our business segments supported these results, including record intrastate transportation volumes following Hugh Brinson Phase 1 entering into service and record midstream gathering volumes.

And for the first 9 months of 2026, we spent approximately $3.9 billion on organic growth capital, excluding SUN and USA Compression CapEx. Turning to our 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance. For the third consecutive quarter, we captured meaningful upside from market volatility, reflecting the quality of our diversified asset footprint. As a result, we expect our full year adjusted EBITDA to range between $19.7 billion and $19.9 billion, which is up approximately $850 million at the midpoint compared to our guidance range provided on our last quarter's earnings call. Our revised 2026 guidance reflected outperformance in the base business and the benefit of approximately $285 million of previously disputed natural gas purchases with a downstream customer recognized in the fourth quarter of this year.

We have not included any benefit from the Vaquero acquisition, which is expected to close in the mid-fourth quarter of this year. Now turning to organic growth capital guidance. We expect our 2026 organic growth capital to be between $5.4 billion and $5.6 billion, excluding SUN and USAC. As we advance certain projects toward FID and refine the timing of others, we currently expect 2027 growth CapEx to be approximately $7 billion. We will provide formal growth capital guidance on our next quarter's call. The majority of these growth projects are contracted under long-term commitments and are expected to generate mid-teen returns, resulting in considerable earnings growth over the next decade plus.

Now let's turn to our results by segment for the third quarter, and I'll start with NGL and refined products. Adjusted EBITDA was approximately $1.2 billion compared to approximately $1.1 billion for the third quarter of 2025. These results were driven by increased exports out of our Nederland and Marcus Hook terminals as well as higher throughput at our Mont Belvieu fractionators. Results for the third quarter also included an increase of approximately $177 million in marketing margin from favorable market conditions, including increased premiums on both domestic and export sales of NGLs and higher volatility.

Approximately $100 million of this gain is expected to be offset over the next 2 quarters as the derivative losses are realized. For midstream, adjusted EBITDA was approximately $864 million compared to approximately $751 million for the third quarter of 2025. This was primarily driven by record volumes in the Permian Basin, which increased approximately 8% as a result of new plants being placed into service and improved plant utilization as well as volume growth in several other regions. In addition, we saw an approximately $70 million increase due to higher NGL and natural gas prices compared to last year.

For our crude oil segment, adjusted EBITDA was approximately $871 million compared to approximately $746 million for the third quarter of 2025. During the quarter, we saw continued growth across several of our crude oil pipelines and gathering systems. These results also included an increase related to favorable market conditions, primarily stronger spreads and increased volatility. Approximately $100 million of this gain is expected to be offset in the fourth quarter as the derivative losses are realized. In our Interstate Natural Gas segment, adjusted EBITDA was approximately $500 million compared to approximately $431 million for the third quarter of 2025.

The primary driver of these results was higher contracted volumes and utilization on several of our pipelines, including Transwestern, Rover, Panhandle Eastern and Florida Gas Transmission. And for our Intrastate Natural Gas segment, adjusted EBITDA was approximately $346 million compared to approximately $230 million in the third quarter of 2025. This was primarily due to an increase of approximately $82 million of gross margin as volumes continue to ramp up on Phase 1 of the Hugh Brinson pipeline. The $82 million is inclusive of optimization volumes that flowed on the pipeline during the quarter. We recently announced plans to acquire Vaquero Midstream for approximately $2.625 billion in cash and ET common units.

The acquisition is expected to be immediately accretive to distributable cash flow per common unit and represents an approximately 8.5x multiple on 2027 estimated EBITDA. We anticipate this drops to below 7x by 2029 as we increase utilization of existing processing capacity.

The Vaquero assets include approximately 300 miles of pipeline in Loving, Reeves, Ward and Winkler counties, as well as 3 natural gas processing plants with a total capacity of approximately 675 million cubic feet per day. The acquisition will expand and enhance Energy Transfer's integrated natural gas gathering and processing network and add additional volumes to our downstream natural gas and NGL infrastructure.

The system is supported by high-quality customers with an average contract life of approximately 10 years and will become an integral part of our extensive pipeline network in the Delaware Basin. We expect the acquisition to close in the fourth quarter of this year, subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions. Now turning to our major growth project updates, starting with natural gas, phase 1 of the Hugh Brinson pipeline is in service with a capacity of 1.5 Bcf per day. We expect Phase 2, which includes additional downstream compression to be in service in the first quarter of 2027, increasing the expected capacity to over 2.3 Bcf per day.

The full project is still expected to come in under budget. We continue to see interest from customers seeking to increase commitments and new customers looking for Permian egress. On the last call, we announced an agreement with Crusoe to construct natural gas supply facilities supporting its previously announced 900-megawatt expansion at its AI factory campus in Abilene, Texas. In furtherance of this agreement, we have now executed a 250,000 MMBtu per day 10-year firm transportation agreement with an A-rated hyperscaler.

Next, we're making good progress on our Desert Southwest Pipeline project. We expect to file the formal certificate application with FERC in the fourth quarter. We continue to see interest in contracting additional volumes on the pipe, which includes multiple electric utilities. Our teams remain engaged with key stakeholders along the pipeline route. Last quarter, we announced Transwestern's Springerville lateral. This quarter, we added the construction of the Cholla Lateral project, an approximately 30-mile 20-inch pipeline with an expected capacity of approximately 100,000 Mcf per day that will extend south from ET's existing Transwestern pipeline to a local utility.

The new lateral will enable the conversion of a coal-fired power plant to a natural gas service and is expected to be in service in the first quarter of 2029. Growth capital associated with this project is expected to be fully reimbursable. To support the growing markets in the Southeastern U.S., earlier this month, we reached positive FID on the 215-mile South Mississippi pipeline project, which will extend from a connection near the Perryville hub to an interconnect on the FGT pipeline in Southern Mississippi. We have secured long-term 20-year demand-based firm transportation agreements to support construction of a 36-inch pipeline with a capacity of approximately 1.2 Bcf per day at an expected cost of approximately $1.6 billion.

Energy Transfer will likely be a 51% owner and operator of this project with the remaining ownership coming from shippers or their affiliates. A binding open season is currently underway to solicit additional customer commitments. we are discussing and in some cases, negotiating with multiple shippers. Final pipeline sizing and capacity will be determined after the open season. This project, which is expected to be in service in 2030, will give shippers greater access to natural gas from multiple U.S. producing basins to markets in the rapidly growing Southeastern United States.

And in the Northeast, on our Rover pipeline system, we recently completed the addition of compression and metering facilities to support a 15-year transportation agreement with a Marcellus producer. The agreement, which added 250,000 MMBtus per day of firm natural gas volumes to the pipeline system began November 1. Looking at new power plant connections in Oklahoma, the first 3 connections serving new power plant loads are in service, and we expect the fourth to be in service in the fourth quarter of 2028.

We recently executed an agreement to provide natural gas service to a fifth power plant in Oklahoma. In total, these will provide approximately 400,000 Mcf per day of new demand growth. In addition, we are in negotiations to serve another approximately 100,000 Mcf per day of new power plant demand in Oklahoma. And in Missouri, we have executed 2 agreements to provide a total of approximately 150,000 Mcf per day of firm natural gas transportation service from our Mississippi River transmission pipeline, the 2 new power plants being constructed. To support these agreements, we will add pipeline and metering facilities.

Growth capital associated with the construction of these facilities will be fully reimbursed and the agreements are expected to become effective in late 2027 and mid-2028. Since the beginning of 2025, we have executed over 9.5 million MMBtus per day of agreements with demand pool customers, including hyperscalers, data centers and power plants to provide volumes associated with our natural gas business throughout Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Ohio, Illinois and many other states along our pipeline network. We're in advanced negotiations to provide customers with significant additional volumes along our pipeline network and remain confident in our ability to reach FID on many more such opportunities.

Now looking at our Permian processing expansions. We placed the Mustang Draw II plant into service in October and expect the volumes to ramp up through the first half of next year.

We also recently reached positive FID on Bear II, a 200,000 Mcf per day cryogenic processing plant in the Delaware Basin, adjacent to our existing Bear processing plant. Bear II is expected to cost approximately $225 million and be in service in the third quarter of 2027. Now looking at our growth opportunities for our liquids business. As a result of the significant growth in the Permian as well as the Vaquero acquisition, we reached positive FID on our 10th fractionator in Mont Belvieu. Frac X is expected to have a capacity of 200,000 barrels per day and be in service in the first half of 2029, which will bring our total capacity at Mont Belvieu to approximately 1.6 million barrels per day.

In addition, we expect volumes on Frac IX to ramp up quickly after its anticipated completion later this year. And at our Nederland terminal, we previously announced a 240,000 barrel per day ethane export expansion to meet additional customer demand. We have since elected to upsize this to approximately 300,000 barrels per day, which will be achieved through optimization of our Mont Belvieu to Nederland pipeline corridor. This project will also provide an additional 55,000 barrels per day of LPG capacity and 2 additional NGL ship docks. We still expect the project to be placed in service in stages beginning in 2028 with the docks expected in mid-2029.

At Marcus Hook, the ethane expansion project is on schedule for anticipated completion in the second half of 2027. This is now expected to increase our ethane export capacity from the terminal to approximately 100,000 barrels per day. We have executed agreements with existing customers to offtake approximately 75% of this capacity for terms extending out through late 2030s and early 2040s. Growing NGL demand across India, South Korea, China and Europe supports continued growth at our Nederland and Marcus Hook export terminals. Our strong base business performance and volume growth within each of our segments, along with a third straight quarter of significant upside from market volatility drove solid earnings results. Phase 1, a few Brent in pipeline began contributing in a meaningful way during the third quarter, and this contribution will increase as we bring on Phase 2.

In addition, Mustang Draw II is also now up and running. Frac IX is expected to go into service later this year and the pending Vaquero acquisition with that to our Delaware Basin footprint is expected to be immediately accretive to DCF per unit upon its closing later this year. Looking ahead, the growing demand from power generation and NGL markets continue to create new growth opportunities, evidenced by our newly announced expansions to our processing capacity in the Permian, our natural gas pipeline business expansion and the upsize to our planned ethane export expansion project.

With a large slate of growth projects under construction plus the newly announced projects, we continue to be very well positioned for growth in 2027 and beyond. We remain focused on capital discipline as well as project execution and completing these projects safely, on time and on budget. In summary, the quality and connectivity of our assets give us a clear line of sight to growth from the wellhead to the export dock, our integrated system lets us serve every major supply basin and every major demand center, and we believe this is a unique and stable competitive advantage. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, please open the line up for our first question.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Theresa Chen with Barclays.

Perguntas e respostas

Theresa Chen

First, I'd like to dive deeper into the South Mississippi project in light of today's FID. Given recent commercial progress for transmission expansions to support the rising power load across the Southeast, can you elaborate on the addressable demand underpinning this project? Any downstream implications? And more broadly, how will the South Mississippi project strategically enhance your natural gas footprint?

Marshall McCrea

Theresa, this is Mackie. What a great opening question because I think this project shows the power and the ability of Energy Transfer to perform like no others. And the reason I say that is what South Mississippi does for us, it connects all of our pipelines that come into the Perryville area down to FGT, which continues to grow.

And what it gives the markets, the shippers, the opportunity to do is to reach out to all the basins. With the uncertainty in the future of where prices will go and where volumes will go, some of our customers on this project alone are reaching out to the Permian Basin, Haynesville and even up in the Marcellus, Utica, they've taken long-term space out of there. So it really shows what we can do for customers throughout the U.S., but especially in the Southeast. We're very excited about that project. And to elaborate a little deeper on your question, we continue to see constant growth in the Southeast, especially Florida and other areas. And so we're in the middle of Phase 9, as everybody knows, we're working on Phase 10.

We already have customers we're talking to, but one thing that really isn't very evident that we have a tremendous capability when we connect this pipeline to Florida to move large volumes backhaul into the heart of Louisiana. And as everybody knows, there's a lot of LNG projects being completed and built there. There's also some massive projects that are consuming large amounts of natural gas, and this will be a great project to help support those types of markets. So it's an exciting project. Our team did a great job getting to the finish line and it fits in perfectly with our assets.

Theresa Chen

Looking at your current growth CapEx in the mid-5s this year and then stepping up to about $7 billion next year, plus a significant amount of projects under development from here. How are you thinking about the magnitude of run rate CapEx over the next few years beyond 2027?

Dylan Bramhall

Theresa, this is Dylan. Thanks for the question there. I think as we look out, 2027 right now looks to be one of our larger years definitely we've had in the past. And as we look out further, it's probably expected that we're going to be north of $5 billion in that area for the next several years here with this great backlog we have. But I think 2027 definitely looks like probably the high watermark as we see it right now.

Operator

The next question is from Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan.

Jeremy Tonet

Just wanted to look forward into '27 a little bit here. '26 enjoyed a lot of nice tailwinds across a number of the business lines. But when we think about, I guess, the '27, how do you see those, I guess, continuing? Do you still expect some of those tailwinds to be as strong? Or how should we think about that, particularly as it relates to when you introduced the '27 guidance?

Marshall McCrea

Yes, I can start and Dylan or Adam can add on to it. As Tom explained in the opening remarks, all these projects that we're building are so exciting to bring on. And one of the reasons are other than long projects take years, a lot of these projects are coming on as we speak this year, as we've talked about and throughout '27 with Frac IX ramping up with our cryos ramping up, another cryo coming on in the third quarter of next year is that these projects are filling up quickly. The demand for our products and what we do, especially natural gas is going to continue to grow exponentially, and we're trying to stay ahead of that with these projects. So that will be a lot of the driver behind this is how quickly volumes bring value to these assets as we complete them.

Dylan Bramhall

Yes. And just to talk about this year relative to next year a little bit. We're not -- we don't want to front-run guidance here. But if you recall, when we start out the year, we talk about the optimization opportunities we have, we generally have a couple of hundred -- $200 million to $400 million in our plan as we go into the year. And generally, we have outperformed that. I think if you look historically, that number is probably more in the $600 million to $700 million range a year. But we don't always know exactly where it's coming from.

We're just -- we have an asset base and a group of dedicated employees that are set up to optimize around these situations. And this year has presented more opportunities than most. We're looking at something probably closer to $1.5 billion across this year. And so when we come out with our guidance, we will take all of this into account and more to come on that.

Jeremy Tonet

Got it. That's helpful. And then maybe just coming back to the natural gas logistics side, some new developments there. And if I just take a step back and I think about new power demand, I was wondering if you might be able to just frame for us how you think of the opportunity set going forward, be it CapEx or -- and how much EBITDA that could generate or any parameters, I guess, as far as you see opportunity set in front of you right now for more natural gas logistics projects?

Marshall McCrea

This is Mackie again. Yes, I think it's pretty evident when you look at our pipeline network throughout the country, how well positioned we are. We've made a lot of announcements. We're working on a lot of other projects to deliver gas to power plants, and we're so extremely well positioned. And then you look at how we have the capability, as I mentioned earlier, to move volumes from different basins to different markets. A great example of the benefit of that is, of course, South Mississippi, but also Hugh Brinson. I mean that project is built, was built to move large volumes out of the Permian Basin East. And now we're seeing a growing demand to move volumes out of the Carthage, Katy area deeper in Texas and a backhaul basis through Hugh Brinson.

So there's just so much upside. And then when you look at because of how well positioned we are and where a lot of these power plants and a lot of these power plants that are back in data centers, where they're located are immaterial from the standpoint of capital to get to them. These are, in many cases, 2, 3, 4 miles away, maybe 18 miles away. So low capital to benefit from existing assets, existing capacity, I mean, on our assets especially in a backhaul basis. A little bit down the road here in the next 2 or 3 years with all these power plants being built in Texas and throughout the country, with LNG taking off, there's -- on any given day, molecules will be moving multiple directions through our pipelines. We'll be charging for all those different directions. But in effect, a lot of being consumed of where it's being delivered and consumed of where we receive it. So our vast intrastate and interstate pipeline network is going to create a lot of potential upside in the future.

Operator

The next question is from Keith Stanley with Wolfe Research.

Keith Stanley

I wanted to follow up on the South Mississippi project connectivity. So assuming this would pull some gas off Tiger or Gulf Run, how full are those pipelines today? And do you think you need to expand them or other assets to accommodate the project? Just wondering holistically if this is going to drive other opportunities upstream of the South Mississippi project.

Marshall McCrea

Yes. The answer to that, Keith, is absolutely. It will drive other upstream opportunities. As I mentioned, we've -- one of the contracts that's supporting South Mississippi has signed a long-term deal starting in '29 for capacity out of the Marcellus, Utica down our Panhandle trunk line. We have more capacity. All of our assets, we can always loop or add compression if necessary. But right now, we have plenty of capacity in our existing system to move gas out of Texas, out of Oklahoma into the Perryville area. And we also have the ability, of course, to extend further upstream to the Permian Basin as well. So certainly, those will bring other opportunities, but we already are so well positioned with the capacity we have today to provide transportation services to feed that new project.

Keith Stanley

Great. Second one, Dylan, I wanted to follow up on the $1.5 billion of optimization benefits for this year versus the $200 million to $400 million kind of baseline. Is that excess earnings purely spread and volatility benefits? Or is the $1.5 billion also including benefiting simply from higher commodity prices that could very well continue into next year at this point?

Dylan Bramhall

Yes, Keith, it's all the above there, and it really crosses every segment. We're sitting here taking a look and staring down at my sheet here, we're looking at just the drivers from the increase in guidance from last quarter to this quarter, and it is every single segment in our business that's up. And it's the higher prices, it's the spreads, it's the volatility. It's also just additional volumes across assets, too, that are driven by some of the global volatility that we're seeing. So it's really -- it's a lot of great tailwinds right now. And I think you're correct, some of this could very well extend into 2027.

Adam Arthur

And Keith, this is Adam. One thing I'd add to that and point out is while we've certainly benefited from that volatility to continue, there's also definitely an underlying pull globally. We recently were on a trip here to Asia and heard firsthand that we have been the stable source of supply in this storm that's happened globally. And so we expect that business and that pool to continue and support the assets for longer at higher rates.

Operator

The next question is from Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith

Maybe just following up a little bit on the South Mississippi focus, Mackie. Can you talk a little bit what's going on with Entergy? I mean they obviously made a sort of a parallel announcement yesterday. Can you perhaps maybe tether those 2 together in as much as folks are trying to triangulate how you think about this? And then more to the point, how do you think about the opportunity above and beyond what you're seeing here? And as much as if you read the line with Entergy, they seem to be talking about even more here, if you will. And ultimately, what this means for a 42-inch configuration?

Marshall McCrea

You bet, Julien. Yes, first of all, I probably won't talk about specific customers. As you know, we've done a huge deal with Entergy up in North Louisiana to provide transportation service off of Tiger for their -- for a facility up there, a power plant up there, and we continue to be in conversation with them everywhere where we can provide services to them. But we talk specifically about them on this project. However, as I mentioned earlier, this project is so significant to our partnership because the growing demand along the Gulf Coast is exponential.

And with our ability to move more volumes east, down South Mississippi and the East of Florida Gas. As I mentioned earlier, it's a really important point. We have the ability to backhaul 2 Bcf from South Mississippi deep into Louisiana to markets that are growing, to markets that are there today and significant markets that are planned and actually being developed as we speak. So South Mississippi is going to be a great conduit to help other projects downstream and other markets downstream on FGT.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith

Awesome. Excellent. And maybe just getting a little bit more into the numbers here, maybe more of Dylan. So obviously, you raised the guidance meaningfully here, $900 million is pretty solid. Can you speak a little bit more to the drivers? Obviously, there's a few different pieces here. You got marketing earnings in third quarter that waned a little bit. But how do you think about the guide up being tied more to the first half of this year? Obviously, there's a Vaquero in there, but how do you think about the different -- the stacked pieces here, if you will?

Dylan Bramhall

Yes. So I'll just -- I'll focus on really what we're seeing here and the drive up from the last call to this call here. And like I said earlier, it's every segment. So midstream, we've seen not just higher commodity prices, it's better operational performance. It's better run time in the Permian, which has resulted in more efficient operations and more volumes through our facilities. It's the crude segment where we've benefited not just from the increased volatility in the spreads, but also from additional volume across our assets.

NGL has been a great performer here. Similar to crude, the better volatility, better spreads, more volume, still seeing great demand across the docks for our products and strong rates there. Intrastate pipelines. We've got Hugh Brinson online right now, and this segment will also benefit from the resolution of the dispute with the customer that we're going to recognize here in the fourth quarter. Inter and other both contributed. They're both kind of the steady Eddie segments, but even both of those are up as we just continue to see strong demand across all the assets.

And then finally, Sunoco, can't forget the job they're doing there right now and really outperformance across all their segments, really strong refining earnings, but also all their other segments as well are really hitting on all cylinders. So you put all that together, and it's just -- it's a really large increase from the last call to this call here. And some of that is -- a lot of that is the Q3 performance, but we do still -- as we're looking out at Q4, we see Q4 up from where we had it 3 months ago as well.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith

Yes, it's pretty striking. And then lastly, just to sneak it in here, the lateral economics here in terms of incremental gas supply deals, anything you care to share about how -- what that looks like prospectively? Obviously, it's de minimis CapEx. So any leading indicators there, just how meaningful that could be as you kind of leverage your assets here, the operating leverage of your assets, if there's anything you care to share at this point?

Marshall McCrea

Yes. You bet. This is Mackie again. And like I said, because of where our pipelines are and because of where a lot of these power plants are being built in data centers, et cetera, we are very fortunate. And so even in the laterals that we're building off Transwestern on north end, both of those are nice projects for us going to create some good upstream revenues. These are pipelines that are going to coal-fired plants that are being replaced with natural gas-fired generation, which is going to be a common theme as we go on. And we're just so well positioned there, like I said earlier, throughout the country to spend fairly immaterial dollars to connect to large power plant loads.

Operator

The next question is from Jean Salisbury with Bank of America.

Jean Ann Salisbury

There's been increased bullishness on Permian crude growth, partly because there's been so many Permian gas pipelines announced. I believe most of Energy Transfer's Permian crude volumes are traveling at spot rates. Do you see this Permian crude supply-demand balance tightening over the next few years? And would you seek to contract out more of this space? And as a follow-up, what would you have to see in the basin to consider adding new crude pipeline capacity?

Adam Arthur

Jean, it's Adam. Great question. So yes, we definitely are expecting more growth. And I would like to point out that as we see the GORs increasing, it's not surprising to us that we're seeing more gas pipelines added relative to crude egress. You're spot on, on the amount of our capacity that's moving under spot rates. We took a view when we went through the recontracting phase that our -- the rates that the market was willing to pay were undervalued. And I think this year has been a great example of that being true. And so of course, we will look to contract the pipes long term, assuming that the values get to where we view them as appropriate.

And there's clearly a lot of value in these long-haul pipes. I think we serve different markets than several of our competitor pipes, which also provides an incremental level of intrinsic value to our system. As far as looking to expand, I think there are several low-hanging fruit expansions that people like us and others in the industry can do. And as people are signing up for contracts and rates are appreciating, we'll certainly look to those in the future.

Operator

The next question is from Gabe Moreen with Mizuho.

Gabriel Moreen

Can you maybe just talk about the rationale for Vaquero versus some of the other G&P systems that have transacted in the Permian? And I'm just curious with the FIDing of Frac X, to what extent having Vaquero under your belt might have prompted that and also timing on future Vaquero processing FID expansion?

Adam Arthur

Yes. Yes. Really for us, Vaquero, it sits in a really great spot in our system. And so we are already very well connected to Vaquero on all fronts on the upstream front. we've taken advantage and so have they of utilizing each other's systems when we have maintenance and other events in the field as well as being connected with the NGLs and other downstream products.

So the system really made a lot of sense to us as a very good quality bolt-on, and we expect to be able to grow volumes with our system with a bigger contract mix now with all those plants and further expansion there. We also on the downstream side as it relates to Frac X, the Y-grade team as well as our upstream, midstream team have done a really good job of bringing new volumes to the system and contracting our Y-grade system. So while Vaquero certainly helped with us make the decision on Frac X, it wasn't the only driver.

Dylan Bramhall

Okay, I was going to add to that, too. When you think about Vaquero and you look at the multiple and the multiple coming down, that's just really filling up the processing capacity that's there. As far as thinking about synergies, we didn't add the downstream in synergies. It's a lot of volumes off of these assets that are definitely helping support new capital projects going forward like Frac X, where that obviously supported. But the economics that we've put out there as far as multiples is really just centered around the processing capacity there and bringing new volumes onto that system.

Gabriel Moreen

Great. And maybe if I can ask a little bit about credit risk, particularly as it pertains to contracting for some of these data center demand. Can you talk about how you're evaluating that? How much you're scrutinizing different projects, maybe what sort of assurances you're asking for before you enter into projects? I know some of these projects aren't the most capital intensive, but I'm just curious kind of what the process might be there. whether that's been evolving?

Dylan Bramhall

Yes. So we have a very robust credit process any time we're looking at putting capital out there or spending money on new assets. And that goes -- that goes the same for these data center projects even when it is smaller capital dollars on laterals. We're generally making sure that we are contracting through to an investment-grade counterparty. And so that can take many different forms. I don't want to talk specifics on any customers. But generally, we are getting some form of parental guarantee for the contract value or a large portion of the contract value so that we're protected upstairs.

In the few cases where we have done something with noninvestment-grade counterparties, generally several years support of -- through an LC or a surety bond or some sort of credit enhancement like that to give us some protections in the event of any sort of insolvency. We've always looked at a couple of years gives us time to get recontracted on the space then as these assets are -- these assets are being built are all going to become very critical to the U.S. infrastructure here for many years to come.

Operator

Our last question comes from John Mackay with Goldman Sachs.

John Mackay

I'll just do one quick one. Obviously, elections today, I'm not going to ask you to weigh in on that. But just to be curious the tone from your customers you're hearing. Are they waiting on kind of today's outcomes to move forward with some projects? Or said differently, depending on how, let's say, today goes, do you think you could see a pickup in contract announcements on the gas side?

Marshall McCrea

Gosh, I guess we're all kind of looking at each other. I don't really -- this is Mackie. I don't really have conversations with customers around politics and how that might affect. Now certainly, there are some conversations around threats coming out of Iran and that type of thing that everybody in America is paying attention to as well as us. But a lot -- I'm not aware of any conversations where there's discussions around exactly what will happen after today.

I mean you still have Trump as President regardless of what happens. So there's still going to be certainly support for our industry and for what we do for this country and for the rest of the world. But we try not to worry about those things. We support them. We are big encouragers of voting. Hopefully, everybody on this call gets out and vote, very important. And we'll see how the -- how everything works out this evening. But either way, we'll wake up tomorrow morning, and we're going to continue to grow and make this a great partnership for many years to come.

Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mackie McCrea for any closing remarks.

Marshall McCrea

Yes. Thank you. Everybody kind of looked, oh my gosh, what are you going to say? But I won't be too long here. But I guess, Tom and I for years have talked about how great our employees are, and that's what makes us who we are. And as I look at Tom, I've really enjoyed working with him, as co-CEO. He's calm. He's easy going. He's smart. He's well-connected. He's very experienced, and I'm kind of the opposite of all of that. And so it's been kind of a really good partnership. And I know him being the sole CEO starting in January is a great thing, and he'll continue to lead this and very excited about that.

He's got Dylan next to him. Dylan is not the top CFO in our industry, he should be. And he's very talented, brought a lot of value to our partnership, and he's put himself with a great team with Ashton and Troy and Justin and just a great group running our financial and accounting departments. And then you've got Brad and tax. And Brad is probably the smartest guy in our company. I don't understand about half of what he says, so I have to get an interpreter on that, but he's a very talented guy that brings a lot of value. And then I go to the commercial side, Adam Arthur, who's sitting next to me is -- I joke that he started cleaning bathrooms, I think, at Energy Transfer when he joined us. But no, he came with a masters and he came with an intent to learn and to do well, and he has really prospered. He's brought a lot of value to our NGL business, our crude business.

And now over a lot of our intrastate gas, and I think the sky is the limit where he's going to go from a commercial standpoint in this partnership. He's put together great teams, our crude team with Christina and Tyler and everybody under him, it's just phenomenal. You spend time with those folks like Tom and I do often, just a talented group that's extracting every bit of value they can out of our assets. And then you go to RB and the team he's built in our NGL group with Brian, up in Philly and John and John and others in Houston, we've got incredibly smart people, very experienced people likewise with our crude that really extract value, as you can see with all these NGL products -- and I'm sorry, projects that we've done over the years and are continuing to build out.

Then you go into Brian Beebe and his G&P, everything starts at the wellhead. Once it comes out of the wellhead, that's where we start making money. And so very important cog in our wheel, and he and Alex and Michael and Todd and everybody that's built our G&P has been really fun working with them, and I know they'll continue to do what they do for many years to come. And on the interstate front, we have so many great projects going on just in South Mississippi with Joey and Jimmy and Mike and their teams in Florida and Steve and all his guys and folks just exciting what's going on in the interstate front. It's been so fun.

And then you look on the M&A. I mean, the way Kelcy and we've run this partnership for years is we've got to balance our M&A with our organic growth, and we've kind of got out of balance off and on over the years. And right now, you can see we're turning pretty good on keeping that balance and with Chris and his ability to do deals with Clyde. And really, Chris reaches out to everybody in this organization as he evaluates assets and companies. He's done such a great job. He looks at a lot of deals. We look at a lot of deals, and we don't win many of them, but the ones we do win turn out to be great acquisitions. There's other upside that we think we're going to get from those. And then there's always other upside synergies and revenues that we get that we don't anticipate. So what a great asset Chris has been for our partnership.

We've got an incredible legal team that we're fighting. We don't like fighting. But when we have people drilling holes in our pipe and chaining themselves to equipment and pouring sand in the equipment, that's enough is enough. And so I think folks out there know that we will stand up for ourselves. We will stand up for our industry. I'm very proud of our legal team and the jobs that they have done. And then you talk about our E&C, commercial works very close with E&C with Mike and Raj. They've got such great teams. And a great example of that is Hugh Brinson and Chris Hubbard and what he's done to get Hugh Brinson built a lot than we had anticipated. And then now he's jumped over Phase 9 on Florida and probably part of South Mississippi and you got Futch and his whole team out on DSW. It's just what an incredible E&C team that's bombarded with thousands of requests from our commercial teams every year, and they churn out all these costs that are so important to be accurate so that we can be competitive and keep our market share.

And then I turn to [indiscernible] by the way, with our partnerships. It's incredible, as Tom and I say, who supports us and who makes us look good. But we go to our -- with Bill and with Brent and with Lindsay, they do such a great job communicating with you all, everybody on this phone, communicating internally with everybody inside, even this prep for these quarterly calls, just the amount of work they put into this. It's been a pleasure. And once again, they make us look good, like I said. And then finally, going to you guys, everybody on the phone and all the investors that have stuck with us for all these years. And there were times when our coverage wasn't so great, and there were times when our leverage was a little bit higher than we wanted. And we had protesters, et cetera, et cetera. And they all stuck with us, especially a lot of you all and a lot that are on this phone.

They have been great loyal investors and believers in who we are and what we've done, and we appreciate that very much. And then going to Kelcy. I met Kelcy years ago, I think I interviewed with him for about 10 minutes. He told me come back in 2 weeks, because I had to give notice where I was working as a landman. And then he'd tell me what the salary was or they would. So I joined him. And when he and Ray started Energy Transfer, our first asset was a 10-inch 150-mile pipeline in East Texas full of nitrogen. We tied a gathering system into it, tied [indiscernible] and we took off from there. And Yes. Oh my goodness. Yes. Kind of important. I didn't look at my notes. Probably the most important group, which is hard to say that is our ops group. I actually had it on my deal. I was trying to speed up to get through this, but I shouldn't have.

So yes, Daniel, I'll start with this -- start with Tom and then Daniel. The most important thing is, yes, we want to run efficient systems. We want to run systems that are profitable. But the most important thing is safety that our employees that come to work every day, go home to their families every day, and that's the biggest emphasis we put. But after that, Daniel and his team have done an incredible job. They -- throughout the country, we have such great operating people at Marcus Hook, Mont Belvieu, Nederland, throughout all of our terminals and pipelines throughout the country, it takes forever to give those people the credence, but also out in the Permian, where we're most active with Andrew and Chris and what they've done to not only continue to run assets we have, over the years, but also to take new assets or assets that we've purchased recently and turn them into the ET standard of reliability.

And then as we brought on new cryos, they've done a great job there, and they'll continue to do that. So yes, they are such an important part. That's why I have a co-CEO to remind me of the things I forget. And please keep doing that as I close out here. But anyway with Kelcy and Ray buying the 10-inch, I think Kelcy is such a unique man. I mean there's not many people like him with his aggressiveness, with his competitiveness, with his never-give-up attitude, my dad had a lot of that same thing. But my dad didn't have this massive vision that I think most people don't have of where things can go. And so he may be one that goes, I'm not surprised where we're at today. Well, I'm shocked where this partnership has gone. I've enjoyed this ride the whole way. And then I look at kind of summarizing this -- our assets.

And hands down, I'm always puzzled by why we trade as poorly as we trade compared to our competitors. It makes no sense. You look at our interstate, intrastate pipeline network, unmatched by far by anybody in the industry. You look at our crude business, we moved about 30% of every barrel that's produced through our pipe. We move about 25% of every gas molecule that's produced in the state through our assets. We're one of the biggest exporters of natural gas liquids. We export a lot of oil. We have a tremendous amount of -- I think it's 80 million barrels of oil storage, 80 million barrels of NGL storage. We have 240 Bcf of gas storage. We're just so well positioned. You combine that with what I started out this with, with our people, the best people in the industry, what works out in years like this.

We're going to be steady growing for many years to come, but we're so well positioned to capitalize with our assets and our people and opportunities on volatilities. And if this year is an example of that, I don't know what is. So our -- the future is so great for Energy Transfer. The best is yet to come. I hate leaving, it's bittersweet. I'll certainly be the biggest cheerleader from the sidelines for this partnership. And I hope that you all continue to believe like you should because there's a lot of great things that are happening now that we'll be announcing in the next 6 to 12 months, and I look forward to where this partnership is going. Appreciate everybody's support and thank you for this call. Feel free to reach out to Bill and team on questions or Dylan. This has been a real pleasure. Take care. Have a good day.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.