Phillips 66 - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 was materially impacted by one of Phillips 66’s largest-ever spring turnaround programs and accelerated depreciation at the Los Angeles refinery; GAAP EPS was $1.18 and adjusted EPS was -$0.90, with Total Revenues and Other Income of $31.73B. Against S&P Global consensus, adjusted EPS missed (-$0.90 vs -$0.72*) and revenue was below ($31.73B vs $32.05B*).
• Midstream remained the cornerstone of stability; Sweeny Hub set a fractionation record, and the EPIC NGL acquisition expanded Permian takeaway and fractionation capacity, positioning PSX for fee-based growth and integration benefits.
• Management guided to mid-90% utilization in Chemicals and Refining for Q2 2025, turnaround expense of $65–$75MM, and Corporate & Other costs of $340–$360MM, signaling the bulk of turnaround costs are behind them.
• Strategic catalysts: $2.0B proceeds from asset sales (Coop and GCX), ongoing portfolio optimization (Europe retail), and a recent $0.05 dividend increase reinforcing a secure, competitive, growing dividend policy.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • “Our assets, not impacted by planned maintenance, ran well,” with turnarounds completed safely, on time, and under budget; Sweeny crude flexibility enhanced by ~40 MBD heavy/light switching, improving long-term margins.
  • Sweeny Hub recorded fractionation volumes of 650 MB/D, and Midstream adjusted EBITDA remained robust; EPIC NGL acquisition is immediately accretive and expands Permian connectivity.
  • Dividend policy reaffirmed; PSX returned $716MM to shareholders (repurchases and dividends) and maintains >50% of operating cash flow returns to shareholders.

• What Went Wrong

  • Refining posted an adjusted pre-tax loss (-$937MM) driven by lower volumes and higher costs from turnarounds, despite higher realized margins; worldwide crude utilization fell to 80%.
  • Renewable Fuels declined on the transition from blenders tax credits to production tax credits, inventory LIFO impacts (~$60MM), and timing of U.K. credits (~$50MM recognized in Q4 but not Q1), prompting reduced rates at Rodeo in April.
  • Marketing & Specialties GAAP pre-tax income was skewed by a $1,017MM gain on asset disposition (Coop); adjusted pre-tax income was $265MM, with elevated Op/SG&A and FX noise.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Welcome to the Q1 2025 Phillips 66 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Emily, and I'll be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we'll conduct a question-and-answer session. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Jeff Dietert, Vice President, Investor Relations. Jeff, you may begin.

Jeff Dietert (VP of Investor Relations)

Welcome to Phillips 66 Earnings Conference Call. Participants on today's call include Mark Lashier, Chairman and CEO; Kevin Mitchell, CFO; Don Baldridge, Midstream and Chemicals; Rich Harbison, Refining; and Brian Mandell, Marketing and Commercial. Today's presentation can be found on the Investor Relations section of the Phillips 66 website, along with supplemental financial and operating information. Slide 2 contains our safe harbor statement. We will be making forward-looking statements during today's call. Actual results may differ materially from today's comments. Factors that could cause actual results to differ are included here, as well as in our SEC filings. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mark.

Mark Lashier (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Jeff. Welcome, everyone, to our Q1 earnings call. During the quarter, we continued to execute on our transformational strategy and deliver returns to our shareholders. By staying focused on what we can control, we made important progress across our 2027 priorities: improving refining operations, enhancing our NGL value chain, and executing on our growth opportunities. Underpinned by the strength of cash flow contributions from our midstream business, we returned $716 million to shareholders this quarter. We did this in a challenge macro environment in refining, renewables, and chemicals. We also executed one of the largest spring turnaround programs in the history of Phillips 66 that impacted volumes and margins. These important investments position us well for the future. While our results reflect the challenges of this environment, our ability to return significant capital to shareholders demonstrates the strength of our integrated business model.

We remain focused on strategy execution, disciplined capital allocation, and cash returns to shareholders. Slide 4 shows how we continue to improve refining operations through targeted, low-capital, high-return projects. These recent investments lead to greater feedstock flexibility and yield. Before I touch on some of these projects, I want to highlight the success of our spring turnaround program, which was completed safely, on time, and under budget. Furthermore, our refineries not in turnaround this quarter ran well. These accomplishments would not have been possible without our employees unwavering dedication to operating excellence and safety. Thank you to the refining team. The bulk of the annual turnaround activity and associated costs are largely behind us, which you will see reflected in our guidance going forward. We are well positioned to capture upside in the market for the remainder of the year.

During this quarter's turnarounds, we achieved meaningful project milestones. At the Sweeny Refinery, we removed constraints and enhanced crude flexibility. We now have an additional 40,000 barrels per day of heavy light crude switching capability. Depending on market conditions, we will run additional Permian barrels, displacing imported heavy crudes. We expect this flexibility in a rapidly changing price environment will enhance long-term margins at this strategic refinery. Also, at our Bayway facility, we completed a project that increases our FCC native feedstock capabilities, reducing the need for VGO imports. Both of these low-capital and high-return projects are enabling us to enhance market capture. We're committed to our refining business. We have a clear path to increase operational run time, improve yields, and reduce costs per barrel. Moving to slide 5, midstream is critical to our integrated strategy. It's a key growth driver and creates ongoing value for shareholders.

We've made disciplined investments to build out our integrated well-head-to-market strategy, a strategy that allows us to efficiently move products from the well-head to high-value-end markets. This strategy provides significant stability to our financial results and adds material benefits to other segments. Our value chain creates optionality in product placement and supports reliable, long-term cash generation. We acquired EPIC NGL on April 1, which is immediately accretive and expands our takeaway capacity from the Permian. The acquired assets are highly integrated with the existing Phillips 66 asset base and provide long-term, fee-based earnings growth. This acquisition enhances our ability to offer producers unmatched flow assurance while expanding connectivity to end markets. We also continue to expand our natural gas gathering and processing footprint in the Permian Basin.

Our Dos Picos II expansion plant, which was part of our Pinnacle acquisition strategy, is expected to come online in the Q3 of 2025. Today, we're announcing the construction of another gas processing plant in the Permian. The Iron Mesa plant will serve Delaware and Midland Basin production and will be funded within our existing capital budget. The facility is expected to come online in the Q1 of 2027. Both of these projects are great examples of our highly strategic and selective investments at low build multiples. They contribute to our plan to organically grow midstream run rate adjusted EBITDA to $4.5 billion by 2027. At Phillips 66, we've embraced a culture of continuous improvement and have taken decisive actions to create long-term value for our shareholders. Slide 6 shows some of the achievements over the past three years.

We have divested more than $3.5 billion of non-core assets at high multiples while making strategic acquisitions within midstream at attractive multiples to build a world-class NGL value chain. In refining, we're improving competitiveness by optimizing our assets to align with long-term demand trends. We've made operational improvements throughout the portfolio, and we've rationalized our footprint with the sale of Alliance, conversion of Rodeo, and plan to cease operations and repurpose the land at Los Angeles. We have taken steps to execute on our transformational strategy, and we will do more. We remain committed to maintaining safe and reliable operations, investing in high-return growth opportunities, and capturing integration benefits. We will return over 50% of net operating cash flow to shareholders through share repurchases and a secure, competitive, and growing dividend. Demonstrating this commitment, we recently announced a $0.05 per share increase in our quarterly dividend.

Since our formation in 2012, the annual dividend has increased every year, resulting in a significant 15% compounded annual growth rate. We have delivered over $14 billion to shareholders since July 2022. We will continue to create long-term value for shareholders as we execute on our 2027 strategic priorities: maintaining operational excellence, pursuing disciplined growth, returning capital, and ensuring financial strength. Now, over to Kevin to cover the results for the quarter.

Kevin Mitchell (EVP and CFO)

Thank you, Mark. Q1 reported earnings were $487 million, or $1.18 per share. The adjusted loss was $368 million, or $0.90 per share. Both the reported earnings and adjusted loss include the $246 million pre-tax impact of accelerated depreciation due to our plan to cease operations at the Los Angeles Refinery at the end of 2025. The adjusted loss excludes the $1 billion pre-tax gain on disposition of our non-operated interest in Coop. We generated $187 million of operating cash flow and returned $716 million to shareholders, including $247 million of share repurchases. I will now cover the segment results on slide 8. Total company adjusted loss increased $307 million compared with the prior quarter. Midstream results decreased mainly due to lower volumes because of the turnaround activity in refining. This was partly offset by the impact of higher commodity prices benefiting gathering and processing results.

Also, during the quarter, the Sweeny Hub had record fractionation volumes of 650,000 barrels per day. In chemicals, results increased mainly due to higher volumes and lower costs driven by turnaround activity in the prior quarter. Lower refining results reflect the impact of lower volumes and higher costs driven by turnaround activity and higher utility prices. This is partly offset by increased realized margins from higher market cracks. Marketing and specialties results improved due to lower depreciation and higher margins in the international business. In renewable fuels, results decreased mainly due to the transition from blenders tax credits to production tax credits, inventory impacts, and lower international results. Slide 9 shows cash flow for the Q1. Cash from operations, including working capital, was $187 million. We received $2 billion from the sales of the non-operated equity interests in Coop and the Gulf Coast Express Pipeline.

We paid down $1.3 billion of debt and returned $716 million to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. We funded $423 million of capital spending. Our ending cash balance was $1.5 billion. Looking ahead to the Q2 of 2025 on slide 10, in both chemicals and refining, we expect utilization rates to be in the mid-90%. In refining, we expect turnaround expense to be between $65 million and $75 million. We anticipate corporate and other costs to be between $340 million and $360 million. Now, we will move to slide 11 and open the line for questions, after which Mark will wrap up the call.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. As we open the call for questions, as a courtesy to all participants, please limit yourself to one question and a follow-up. If you have a question, please press Star, then 1 on your touch-tone phone. If you wish to be removed from the queue, please press Star, then 2. If you are using a speakerphone, you may need to pick up the handset first before pressing the numbers. Once again, if you have a question, please press Star, then 1 on your touch-tone phone. Our first question today comes from Doug Leggate with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead, Doug. Your line is open.

Doug Leggate (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thanks. Good morning or good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. I guess it is still morning. Sorry. Mark, obviously, there has been a lot of dialogue, a lot of backwards and forwards between yourselves and Elliott regarding the right structure for the business. I guess my question is, I had an opportunity to chat to you about this a month or so ago. Our understanding, at least, is you guys have looked at a lot of these proposals before and made decisions that are perhaps different. I wonder if you could share the extent to which you did look at some of these ideas that they're putting forward, for example, separating the midstream, and kind of rationalize why you came to a different outcome. I think everyone would probably like to hear your perspectives on that. I've got a quick follow-up, please.

Mark Lashier (Chairman and CEO)

Sure, Doug. I welcome that question. I think when we're talking about strategic alternatives or the strategy that drives the company forward, it really is important to understand the mindset of our board. We've got a strong board. We've got talented board members that have deep experience. Many of them have deep experience in refining and energy. They have high expectations for us when it comes to preparing and delivering strategic alternatives for them. They expect a very detailed, intelligent overview of all the options available. They want to fully understand the risks and the unintended consequences of any strategic actions that we might recommend. In fact, they want to understand the risks and the unintended consequences of not making strategic actions as well. It is very comprehensive. It is not just some simple high-level spreadsheet that they might rubber stamp.

They are, I would put them in the classification of brilliant. They ask tough questions, and they hold us deeply accountable. My experience with the board really goes back to when I came back to Phillips 66 in 2021, and I was asked to prepare the strategic materials for our fall deep dive into strategy. What we did is we took the board through scenario planning because if you remember back in 2021, all the rage was net zero 2050. We spanned the whole spectrum from net zero 2050 to a scenario where the world realized that there was a strong need over the long term for hydrocarbons. We established milestones to track. This analysis informed our strategic alternatives that then we did a deep dive on with the board members.

We have reviewed all of those options and refreshed our views on those options in the subsequent years. I would say every board meeting, the board asks us strong questions around the strategy and the implementation of the strategy. What's changed? What's new? Should we move this way or that way? We talk about our stock valuation and the evolving market conditions and the strategic alternatives. We do this every board meeting. In the fall, again, we will take them into another deep dive to review what's changed since the prior year, what is our most recent view of where we stand in those scenarios. I will tell you that one of the underlying principles of every discussion is that everything in our portfolio is for sale at the right price.

The board expects us to understand the full consequences if we should dispose of an asset or spin out a part of our company. They want to understand what is the impact on the remaining assets, what is the impact on the remaining company, what are the unintended consequences, where are all the financial impacts. I would say that some of the parts is a part of that discussion, but it is not always the total driver of that discussion. One thing that we have learned, and I believe many of you observe this as well, is that really when you talk about the multiple a company realizes in the marketplace, it is really correlated strongly with earnings volatility. That is why the midstream business has become such an important part of our business.

It generates very steady earnings, and we've grown those earnings quite quickly from right around $2 billion of EBITDA a year to $4 billion and increasing. If there was a spinoff opportunity for that business, I will tell you that our board would be the first ones to challenge us to take a look at that. They have challenged us to take a look at that. When you step back and look at our board, the people that we have on our board and the two new nominees that we have, amongst them, they've overseen more than $300 billion in major separation transactions during their careers. This includes sales and spinoffs. Phillips 66 itself was the result of a spinoff. John Lowe, one of our key members, was involved in that, and he was one of the architects of the spinoff.

You've got the DowDuPont, three-way breakup into Dow, DuPont, and Corteva. Our nominee, Howard Ungerleider, he was one of the architects of that and was right in the middle of all that in the decision-making there. You look at United Technologies. That was a conglomerate that was broken. It went through a three-way breakup into Carrier, Otis, and RTX. Greg Hayes was the architect of that. And Abbott Laboratories spinoff into AbbVie. Glenn Tilton was right in the middle of that as well. I would say that few, if any, boards in this country have more experience in executing such transformational transactions than the Phillips 66 board. They know how to do it when it makes sense. They're challenging us every step of the way to explain to them what makes sense and what doesn't make sense.

I mentioned the split-up of United Technologies as a conglomerate. That word's been used in the same sentence as Phillips 66. The first time I heard that, I thought, I thought I knew what a conglomerate was, but I better look it up to be sure. When I looked it up, there was nothing there that resembled Phillips 66. We are a hydrocarbon transporter and processor. We gather and transport hydrocarbons from the oil fields or from imports, and we move those to our transportation assets, and we convert those materials into high-value products that you use every day. Whether it's the crude value chain or the NGL value chain, it's very synergistic, and we're in the business of managing molecules, optimizing them every day.

If you look at what we have down at our Sweeny Complex, all of those value chains come together in a deeply integrated way, whether it's the fractionators, where we've got massive fractionation capacity. We've got a 260,000 barrels per day refinery, 550,000 barrels per day fractionation capacity. There are three ethane crackers on that site owned and operated by CPChem. We've got 37 million barrels of capacity in 23 salt dome caverns at our Clemens Dome. We've got direct access to Freeport export terminals. We leverage that infrastructure. We leverage it in an integrated way every day, moving the molecules where they can create the most value. We've got a commercial organization that trades around that information every day. There is no hint of conglomerate in what we do.

If you look at the potential to spinoff businesses, the board also asks us to bring in third parties to get a cold eyes review of what we do. We have hired the best investment banks out there to look at strategic alternatives. When you look at the midstream monetization specifically, the third-party independent analysis will tell you that there are incredible dyssynergies based on that deep physical integration, that there is a massive tax burden that any spin would realize, and that there are economies of scale. We have a very strong balance sheet as an integrated company. The balance sheets of RemainCo and SpinCo would be impaired compared to what we have today. You throw additional SG&A on those remaining businesses and the public company costs. None of these things are fully reflected in a simple sum of the parts analysis.

We take that into account, and we make sure that our board understands every step of the way and is verified by independent parties. If you look at just, you just heard in our narrative that the accomplishments we've had over the last three years, the board was front and center in all those decisions. We took bold actions to make sure that we were in a position to be successful over the long term, the $3.5 billion of non-core assets. The only way we could define non-core assets is to have a well-defined strategy that was blessed by our board. That's how we define what is core and what is non-core. We expanded our NGL well-head to market strategy with the Pinnacle and EPIC acquisitions fully supported by our board. We sold the Alliance Refinery.

We converted Rodeo, and we have planned to cease the Los Angeles Refinery. Every one of those major strategic actions has been deeply considered, vetted, and approved by our board. In refining operations, we've improved utilization. We've raised clean product yield and reduced operating costs over the last three years. We have plans for further progress. Part and parcel of our conversations with our board every time that we meet, every action that we take. Because of all these actions that we put in place with the blessing of our board, we believe there's substantial upside to our stock as we implement our 2027 strategic priorities. We're going to maintain operational excellence. We're pursuing discipline growth, and we're returning capital and ensuring financial strength.

Finally, the final point I want to make be crystal clear on is we're making these strategic decisions at the board level. As we're making operational decisions at the operating and the management level, we are focused on data. We are focused on facts. We don't act out of fear or short-term trends. We act on what we believe will create the most long-term value for our shareholders each and every time. I will tell you that since the activists launched their campaign in February, the investor sentiment around their thesis has become more and more negative, and they've become more and more positive around the process that or the progress that we've made in our refining and all of our businesses. We believe we're in a strong position.

We're committed to it, and we're going to base it on data and facts going forward. Doug, thank you for that question, and I look forward to your follow-up.

Doug Leggate (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

I think, first of all, Mark, thanks for the thorough answer. I think I've taken enough, enough time. I want to be respectful to my stealth side colleagues. I did have a follow-up, but I'll pass it back. Thanks so much for the answer.

Mark Lashier (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Doug.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from John Royall with J.P. Morgan. John, please go ahead.

John Royall (Executive Director)

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Tough to follow that back and forth, but maybe I'll go with a balance sheet question. You're remaining well above your target at 38%. You got the big turnaround quarter for the year in the rearview. You also have a potential asset sale coming, which is good. The macro environment remains uncertain. My question is, what do you view as your path to getting back to 30%? Does the path include maybe buying back a little less stock than your framework would otherwise imply?

Kevin Mitchell (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, John, this is Kevin. Let me respond to that question. It's a very valid question. It's one we put a lot of focus on. We have targets on leverage, the 30%. The real target that I focus on is the $17 billion absolute debt level. That's what I'm and the 30% becomes an output because it's a measure of debt and equity, as you know. Our expectation is that between the cash that comes in from disposition of assets and some improvement in the overall operating environment from where we were in the Q4 and the Q1, combined with, in refining, now being very well set for the remainder of the year to run at high utilization, you combine that with some margin recovery, which we have seen.

As you look into April, we're seeing margins that are sort of $3-$4 per barrel higher than where we were on average in the Q1. That should position us quite well in terms of being able to make progress on debt reduction. I'd love to hit that $17 billion number by the end of this year. I can't guarantee that will happen. It will be dependent on where operating cash flow comes out. The overlay here is we're still committed to the 50% or more cash returns to shareholders in terms of operating cash flow. That's the sort of basic criteria around returning cash to shareholders, 50% or more of operating cash flow. At the same time, through hopefully strong cash generation and proceeds from asset dispositions, be able to make progress on debt reduction.

John Royall (Executive Director)

Great. Thank you, Kevin. My next question is on renewables. This was a little bit of a noisy quarter with the PTC coming into effect mid-quarter. Can you help us really as detailed as you're willing to be on what the post-PTC world kind of looks like in your renewables business? If you could give us any kind of sense for maybe the proportion of production that's eligible and how much you expect to receive on a per-gallon basis based on your current feedstock slate? that would be very helpful. Thank you.

Kevin Mitchell (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, John, let me first just clear the Q1 result because that was a it was somewhat of a messy result, to be honest. Let me just walk through what drove that. Brian will give a bit of the sort of forward expectations around it. We had a significant drop from Q4 to Q1. The transition from BTC was a significant impact. It was the largest driver of that drop. We also had LIFO inventory impacts from drawing down low CI feedstock inventory where the LIFO rate exceeded market prices. That was about a $60 million hit in the Q1. Also in international, the recognition of the U.K. credits, these are the RTFC credits, is not ratable. We recognized about $50 million of those in the Q4.

We did not have any credit recognition in the Q1. When you put all those things together, you get back to why the result was where it sits. Maybe Brian can give a forward look.

Brian Mandell (EVP of Marketing and Commercial)

Yeah, I would say it's hard to provide guidance for Q2, and you can tell I'm losing my voice, so I'm going to try as hard as I can. With so many outstanding policy issues, including the tariffs and the RVO for RINs that hasn't been set yet, it's difficult. We believe the RVO will need to strengthen the D4 RIN or the biodiesel RIN to continue to provide an incentive for RD production. Margins continue to be challenged even in April, and the current market has us running the plant at reduced rates. In terms of tailwinds, there are some tailwinds. We are seeing biodiesel plants closing given the tight margins. We've also seen demand for renewable diesel firming, and that's a seasonal firming of demand. Finally, we look forward to collaborating with the administration to support U.S.

manufacturing by addressing the unintended consequences of tariffs on feedstocks, given international RD imports to the U.S. are untariffed, which disadvantages domestic producers like Rodeo.

John Royall (Executive Director)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Roger Reid with Wells Fargo. Roger, please go ahead.

Roger Read (Senior Energy Analyst)

Yeah, thank you. Good morning. Maybe just to kick this off, an update on where you are on kind of final asset dispositions. I think there's still some stuff in retail, maybe something in the midstream space.

Kevin Mitchell (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, Roger, this is Kevin. As you know, we've done $3.5 billion of dispositions to date. We're ahead of the target that we laid out back in almost a couple of years ago, I guess. The major item we're still working is the Europe retail, so the JET, Germany, Austria. That is a very active process. I know I've said this several times, but we are legitimately in depth negotiations on that and hope to have some updates soon.

Mark Lashier (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, as far as this, Mark, as far as other asset dispositions, we have other assets that we would define as non-core, non-operated assets. Many of them are in the midstream. We're not going to name any specific assets, but certainly we know what the value of those assets are, and we know that there are potential buyers out there.

Roger Read (Senior Energy Analyst)

As a follow-up on that, how should we think about the use of cash flows or cash raised, I guess maybe I should say, from those asset sales at this point? Do you see it, Kevin, as you were talking earlier, in terms of return of capital to shareholders, or is most of this targeted for debt reduction?

Kevin Mitchell (EVP and CFO)

I would expect most of this to be debt reduction and think of the cash returns to shareholders being relative to operating cash generation. Different part of the cash flow statement driving the cash returns.

Roger Read (Senior Energy Analyst)

Okay. If I could just toss in one more that did not count as my follow-up, Jeff, I apologize if I am violating the rules. Heavy maintenance Q1 in refining, very low in Q2. Were you essentially wrapped up as we started Q2, or is there a little lingering into Q2 that we should think of within that mid-1990s guidance?

Rich Harbison (Executive VP of Refining)

Yeah, this is Rich Harbison Thanks for the question. The Q1 was the heavy concentration of the turnaround activity. You can tell by the guidance that we provided for the Q2 there that there is a little bit of linger that comes from quarter to quarter, but it's certainly winding down in the Q2. You see that in the overall guidance.

Roger Read (Senior Energy Analyst)

Good. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Manav Gupta with UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Manav Gupta (Senior Equity Analyst)

Good morning, team. Can you help us better understand how some of these LPG exports will have to reset to accommodate around tariffs? Because I think we were sending like 48% of our ethane to China and about 22% of propane to China. How do these NGL exports now reset globally to work around the tariffs?

Brian Mandell (EVP of Marketing and Commercial)

Hey, Manav, this is Brian. I'd say, like you said, the majority of Chinese LPG supply, which is primarily propane, comes from the U.S. Tariffs will likely alter those routes for Chinese LPG supply. It's possible that China could get their supply from the AG, from Australia, from Southeast Asia. The U.S. will just supply, will backfill the hole left by those regions, just rerouting trade flows and maybe bringing it back to our assets. Our Freeport LPG is mostly termed up, and we haven't seen any FOB cancellations for cargoes. We also have a strong international trading team, and they manage delivered cargoes, which allows us to capture additional value and optimize the Freeport exports when we see changes to fundamentals or when we have market dislocations like those caused by tariffs.

Manav Gupta (Senior Equity Analyst)

Perfect. My quick follow-up here is on the polyethylene chain margin. It was weaker even before the tariffs were announced. Again, some portion of polyethylene resin definitely moves to China, made into products and sold back into the U.S. Those flows cannot be sustainable with the tariffs. Your medium-term outlook for the polyethylene chain margin here?

Brian Mandell (EVP of Marketing and Commercial)

I think that there certainly is pressure from the tariff situation. Purchasing decisions are going to be impacted. I do believe that CPChem has minimized their exposure to China. They've also got the ability to source material from the Middle East, similar to the propane discussion. There would be rebalancing. No, it's certainly clear that tariffs do. The uncertainty around tariffs causes people to slow down their decision-making. You see that across the economy.

Manav Gupta (Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Neil Mehta with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, Neil.

Neil Mehta (Stock Analyst)

Yeah, thank you. Appreciate the thorough answer to the question around some of the parts. Kevin, I had a follow-up for you around the midstream side of the equation because that's where I think there's been a lot of focus around you built a good business, but it makes sense to try to monetize it. I think you made a comment that there's significant tax leakage around monetization. Is that in the case of a spin as well? Can you provide a little bit more detail or help us quantify a framework for thinking about tax leakage associated with midstream monetization?

Kevin Mitchell (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, Neil, the tax hit is in the context of a sale of the business. A spin-off you would expect would be structured in a tax-free manner. I would expect minimal tax implications from a spin. In terms of an actual disposition of the business, it is significant tax effect because the majority of those assets were constructed or acquired during a period where we had accelerated depreciation. The tax basis is extremely low. Just to put some context around that, depending on what number you use for valuation, and there's a $50 billion number that's out there, that would drive a $10 billion tax hit to sort of quantify what we mean by significant tax impacts.

Neil Mehta (Stock Analyst)

Got it. There is no clear offsets that you could put against that, it sounds like.

Kevin Mitchell (EVP and CFO)

Not that I'm aware of.

Neil Mehta (Stock Analyst)

Okay. All right. The follow-up for the team is really on the refining side. It's obviously challenging conditions in Q1, but you guys are going to be running better here in Q2. Just love your thoughts on the path back to mid-cycle. One of the factors that's suppressing profitability has been the tightness of WCS. Just how do you guys see that moving from here as we work through turnaround, and can that be a tailwind?

Brian Mandell (EVP of Marketing and Commercial)

Hey, Neil, it's Brian. I'll try to get this out. Just on market outlook, and maybe the caveat is geopolitics and the slowing economy make everything hard to predict. What we've seen, Kevin's mentioned, is U.S. margins in April are firming a good bit, and you can see that in our market indicator. We're estimating about 1 million barrels' worth of global refining capacity shutting this year, and most of that rationalization will be in the U.S. and in Europe. In fact, if you look out through the end of the decade, we only show about 300,000 barrels a day of net additions per year. We're likely to see that number continue to decrease. On gasoline, we're forecasting global gasoline demand to be about a half a percent up for the year, and U.S. gasoline demand to be up about 1%.

If you took a look at Q1, that was 1.1% year-on-year growth in the U.S. Lower pump prices, good unemployment numbers, less working from home all contributed to that strength. U.S. gasoline inventories are now currently at about five-year averages. Our current gasoline supply outlook is for those inventories to continue to tighten, particularly as we get in gasoline season, and particularly in the U.S. On the distillate side, we see demand globally up about 1%, and in the U.S., up about 2% for the year. Part of the demand increase will come from lower biodiesel and renewable diesel production driven by the weaker renewable margins. Also, there is a shift to Mediterranean ECO fuel in May, which will help. U.S.

Diesel inventories are really sitting at very low five-year seasonal lows, in part due to kind of ongoing maintenance both in the Gulf Coast and in the MidCon. Finally, on JET, at a 1.25 global JET demand was up about 2.3% year-on-year. We're forecasting 2025 global JET demand to be up 2%. I know a lot of the airlines have talked about they can't predict for the rest of the year. In some ways, if you think there's going to be a recession or more tariffs, the bets are off. If you don't think those things are going to happen, this is kind of our view. We're starting to see trimming of near-month flights. It's really hard to tell. U.S. JET demand, 1.4% up. That's from fleet and flight schedule growth. Again, it's very, very difficult to tell.

As you mentioned, on the Canadian differentials, in Q2, we anticipate about 358,000 barrels a day off the market, mostly driven by planned maintenance at production facilities. As you kind of look across the year, we see differentials start to widen out. You'll get the seasonal benefit of diluent in the product. Also, you'll get more OPEC barrels on the market, which will also help weaken the heavy differentials.

Neil Mehta (Stock Analyst)

That's all great color. Thank you so much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Teresa Chen with Barclays. Please go ahead, Teresa.

Teresa Chen (Stock Analyst)

Hi. I wanted to go back to the NGL conversation. There are some materials circulating about a carve-out for NGLs within the Chinese reciprocal tariffs. Do you have an early view on this, especially for ethane and in the event of additional downside volatility for NGL prices in the Gulf Coast? How's your business positioned within the backdrop of potentially lower LPG, arbs,frac spreads, and POP margins in processing?

Brian Mandell (EVP of Marketing and Commercial)

I think, first of all, most of our business is termed up at the Freeport facility. And as I mentioned, we're not seeing anybody cancel any of those term contracts. I think a lot of the, or most of the ethane for China comes from the U.S. and we've seen that still moving. We expect it to continue to move. I don't think that would really have an impact on our business going forward.

Mark Lashier (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, I think, Teresa, at a high level, there's a few other options for the Chinese that are consuming ethane. I think that it's clear that there are at least possibly some rational discussions going on around tariffs. It's all maybe rumor and speculation at this point, but hopefully those discussions move in a rational direction because the Chinese need access to U.S. propane and ethane. It's in their best interest to seek that accommodation.

Teresa Chen (Stock Analyst)

Got it. Related to the FID of Iron Mesa, would you be able to quantify the cost? Is this plant the first of maybe several plants to increase the Y grade under your control, especially in light of a competitor building out their own frac and dock infrastructure later this decade that maybe creates a volume shortfall in Sweeny and Freeport?

Don Baldridge (CEO of DCP Midstream)

Hi, Teresa. This is Don. Yeah, Iron Mesa, it continues, I think, really just to demonstrate the progress we're making in building out our NGL value chain. It does support our Permian GNP growth and position in terms of barrels coming out of our own gas plants. From an investment standpoint, it's a typical midstream return from a build multiple kind of a sub five times type size. Maybe to unpack Iron Mesa, it's going to be located near our Goldsmith facility. That really provides us with several benefits. We'll be able to retire portions of our Goldsmith facility, upgrade the processing. That's going to improve our operational efficiencies, our reliability, reduces our environmental footprint, improves our cost structure in that area. We'll get an immediate uplift on the existing throughput that we have there as we'll load this plant first.

From a location perspective, given our pipeline network in that area, we'll be able to process and bring gas from both the Midland and the Delaware basins to this facility. This facility will be tied into our Sandhills NGL system. I'd expect us to continue to be successful commercially from a gathering processing standpoint. We have opportunities to continue to grow our GNP footprint organically like this, whether that's a partial upgrade of existing facilities as well as just expansion. All of that is helpful for our overall NGL value chain. Maybe just to step back and think about it from a broader context, with this plant and then the two plants in the Midland Basin, the Dos Picos and Dos Picos II that's about to turn on later this year, we'll have added close to 800,000 a day of gas processing capacity.

That produces over 100,000 barrels a day of NGLs to feed our system. Really making good progress as we grow out this system. We feel good about where our footprint is going and, again, what our supply outlook for Sweeny is.

Teresa Chen (Stock Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jean Ann Salisbury with Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Jean Ann Salisbury (Senior Research Analyst)

Hi, good morning. I think many midstream investors don't own PSX stock because of the volatility of the earnings of the other segments. Is that your view as well? Given your answer to Doug's question, which I think suggested you were not that interested in the spin, what other things can PSX do to get fuller credit for the stability of the midstream earnings in your stock?

Kevin Mitchell (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, Jean Ann, that's a great question. I think I touched on that earlier that we're in the process of growing those earnings. I think really we weren't recognized as a strong midstream player per se until earlier this year when we announced the EPIC transaction. As those stable earnings become a bigger and bigger part of our portfolio, I think those seeking that multiple from stable earnings will take note. Across the spectrum of investors, we're getting solid feedback and support for that.

Jean,

Jean Ann Salisbury (Senior Research Analyst)

That makes sense.

Mark Lashier (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, I was just going to add on a little bit there in terms of we will continue to look at our disclosures and the information we provide around the midstream segment and enhance where appropriate. As the midstream business grows, part of the narrative is that the refining business, yes, has volatility, but it also provides a lot of nice upside from a cash generation standpoint and returns to shareholders. That is where I see that value proposition that you've got that large, stable midstream business supplemented by the upside that comes with the refining and marketing business.

Jean Ann Salisbury (Senior Research Analyst)

Great. I'll leave it there. Thank you.

Mark Lashier (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Jean Ann.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Joe Laetsch with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead, Joe.

Joe Laetsch (Executive Director and Equity Analyst at Morgan)

Hey, Team. Thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to ask on shareholder returns. With the dividend increase a few days ago, the stock is yielding just north of 4.5%, which is above refining peers. Could you just talk through the balance between raising the dividend and leaning into the buyback given where shares are trading?

Mark Lashier (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, Joe. The dividend, our principles there are secure, competitive, and growing. The reason for the growing is we do have investors that are clearly dividend investors. One of their criteria is a dividend that increases on an annual basis. You can expect to see us increase the dividend every year. It was a relatively modest increase. It was 5 cents, 4%, smaller than some of our more recent increases have been. We felt appropriate in the overall context of the business environment that we're in today. Therefore, the real upside from a shareholder return standpoint is going to be in share repurchases. As you see operating cash flow increase, that increases the—I go back to the 50% of operating cash flow return to shareholders.

The dividend is easy to compute, but so is the share repurchases at the 50% and potentially above level, depending on where we are and other priorities, including balance sheet.

Kevin Mitchell (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Joe, when you look at the combination of share repurchases and our dividend, the gross dividend outlay has remained pretty stable because the shares are declining. It really is almost needed to catch up. We are taking advantage of that. Think about that gross, that overall dividend outlay as relatively constant. Share repurchases are the swing item that can grow even faster than the dividend when the cash is there.

Joe Laetsch (Executive Director and Equity Analyst at Morgan)

Great. Thanks. That makes sense. The other question that I had was around refining utilization in Q1, which came in a little bit light versus what we and I think others have been expecting based on the low 80% guidance. Was that economic driven, or was that always part of the plan?

Rich Harbison (Executive VP of Refining)

Yeah, this is Rich. Our guidance was low 80s for the quarter. There was certainly a heavy focus of that downturn was related to the turnaround activity. Our turnaround activity was heavily focused on crude units as well for the quarter. That was a big impact, especially in the Atlantic Basin. We had turnaround at the Bayway facility and the Gulf Coast. Both our refineries in the Gulf Coast had turnaround activity at Lake Charles and Sweeny. Wood River and Borger also did. Those utilizations were down quite a bit. That all said, those were the majority and the major components of the downturn and the utilization. There were some minor market adjustments as well made primarily in the January and front end of February timeframe. Those were relatively minor.

Kevin Mitchell (EVP and CFO)

Call them a point, maybe two, point and a half on the overall utilization for the quarter.

Joe Laetsch (Executive Director and Equity Analyst at Morgan)

Great. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Matthew Blair with Tudor Pickering Holt. Matthew, please go ahead.

Matthew Blair (Managing Director)

Thank you. And good morning. I have a two-parter on M&S. First, should we expect a pretty considerable tailwind to your Q2 M&S results from the falling crude price environment? We do track a retail indicator that's looking quite strong in the Q2. I know your wholesale business is a little bit different, but what are your expectations on M&S for the Q2? Is there a big pickup in line? Then, every company reports things a little differently. I think there's an argument to be made that Phillips 66 refining results are a little different than your large-cap peers because your U.S. wholesale activities are in M&S and not in refining.

Could you help us understand roughly what percent of M&S EBITDA and op costs are related to those wholesale activities so we can look at things on a little bit more of an apples-to-apples basis? Thank you.

Brian Mandell (EVP of Marketing and Commercial)

Hey, Matthew it's Brian I'll start in, and then Kevin can take over. I think you're right. When prices are falling, it's usually somewhat beneficial for marketing. Just to give you a little bit of color, we're seeing stronger April margins. In our view, barring anything significant, a slowdown in the economy or something like that, we would expect a seasonal uptick in Q2 earnings and margins consistent with prior years.

Kevin Mitchell (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Matt, it's Kevin. Just on the second question, we don't break out our results by channel of trade, which is what you're referring to. Our marketing and specialty segment covers the wholesale business. It also covers the retail to the extent we have retail. The bulk of that business is a wholesale model. We don't have a breakout of the EBITDA or the costs. The costs are relatively low when you think about the company-owned retail business is going to have a higher cost structure for sure. It's not something that we're breaking out at that channel of trade level.

Matthew Blair (Managing Director)

Thanks, Paul. I'll leave it there.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ryan Todd with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Ryan Todd (Senior Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks. Maybe just one follow-up on some of your earlier comments on renewable diesel. Outside of the macro backdrop, which is obviously very noisy, as we think about the Q1 and into the Q2, can you talk about maybe some of the challenges that you had optimizing things from a feedstock point of view in the Q1 because of the timing of some of the announcements? As you look into the Q2, and then maybe I do not know if you said this earlier, but do you have a rough estimate of maybe what % of the products you were able to book credits on during the quarter? As we think into the Q2, how will both of those things change and be a potential tailwind for you this quarter?

Brian Mandell (EVP of Marketing and Commercial)

Yeah. Maybe I'll start, and others can join in. I would say, like everybody, if you don't understand the rules of the game, it makes it more difficult to play in the game. The PTCs were kind of not completely known. At that time, we didn't have PTC value for imported used cooking oil. Now we don't. We made some decisions early on between the end of last year and the beginning of this year that were sub-optimized, frankly, given our view of what the credits would be and how they turned out and some of the sanctions. I think going forward, we'll have maybe a clearer view. We still don't have a complete view of the PTCs. We think that'll come in June or July with the tax bill. We talked about the RVO proposal.

We expect to come at the second half of May, but not full implementation until Q3. We are looking forward to that. The good news is I think ag and oil are aligned that we need to increase the RVO to make up for some of the credit value that we lost in the PTCs. LCFS is also up for debate. We think by the end of June, we will have some more clarity on that. The more clarity we have on the credit values and how they work, the better we will be able to run the plans, and the more focus will be on finding the right feedstock to make the right product.

Ryan Todd (Senior Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Mark Lashier (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Ryan.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Paul Cheng with Scotiabank. Paul, please go ahead.

Paul Cheng (Stock Analyst)

Hey, guys. Good morning or good afternoon. Mark, I think it can be easy, maybe for investors, a little bit easier to understand the integration benefit on the midstream to the rest of your business. Maybe it's a little bit more difficult on the chemical. Even CPChem is a joint venture, and they run by their own board and their own management. In theory, all transactions between you and CPChem should be at arm's length. Maybe you can help us understand a little bit better why, I mean, even though you're the great asset, why that is important for them to be part of the portfolio and work out synergy or that integration benefit you can receive from there.

Brian Mandell (EVP of Marketing and Commercial)

Yeah, Paul, glad to take that on. When you look at CPChem, first of all, the model's been great. For the last 25 years, it's grown faster and more profitably than their competitors. It's been a great return on capital employed business. It's thrived and done quite well. We've sat across the table from our partners, each of us expressing our undying love for the company and interest in owning all of it if the other is interested in parting from it. I think that there is great operational synergy between CPChem and Phillips 66 as an NGL provider and as an asset operator around the Sweeny Complex, where there's a very heavy presence of CPChem, whether it's the storage facilities at the Clemens Terminal, the physical location, and streams going back and forth between the assets.

Yes, there is an arm's length agreement, but all of that happens quite seamlessly. I would say if Phillips owned those 100%, there would be even greater synergies to capture. Being a 50% owner and being deeply co-located and physically integrated, there are significant advantages there. Those represent substantial assets. You've got three of their Gulf Coast crackers right there in the Sweeny Complex embedded and deeply integrated. It is real, and it happens every day. If it was truly an independent, separate entity, there would be more frictional losses in making things happen over time and, I think, less direct level of financial integration. There are benefits both ways.

Paul Cheng (Stock Analyst)

Okay. Great. The second question, I think it's for Kevin. Just curious, I mean, with all the volatility created given the Trump administration's economic and tariff policy, should Phillips 66 exist, or what is the cash balance that you really want to keep on the book, as well as what is the debt-to-capital ratio and your payout ratio? To be quite frank, that with higher volatility, should you have as high of a payout ratio still going to pay out more than 50%, or should you prioritize and get the debt to be lower than what you even say target at $17 billion, at least until maybe the volatility becomes perhaps a little bit lower and the risk of recession becomes less?

Kevin Mitchell (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, Paul, it's all about balancing the different priorities. There is a lot of uncertainty out there right now. The point is, it is uncertainty, and we don't know exactly which way this will play out. We don't want to make any dramatic decisions around that. We think that the way we've set our prioritization is very measured and balanced to where it works in a low-cycle environment or a more volatile environment, and it works in a more robust environment as well. The 50% payout ratio is relatively modest. We do have cash from asset dispositions. From a balance sheet standpoint, yeah, the cash at the end of the quarter was $1.5 billion. We've tended to run around about that, somewhere between $1.5 billion and $2 billion to $2.5 billion at the end of most periods.

Would it be nice to have more? Yeah, but it's perfectly adequate. There's a natural cycle over the course of the month anyway. The end of the month, the end of the quarter tends to be a relatively low point in that cycle. We have significant liquidity facilities that we can draw on as necessary. When we need to, we do. We look holistically at what that balance sheet needs to look like and feel that at the $17 billion level, when you consider that midstream with a pretty stable, very stable $4 billion of EBITDA, the marketing business also with stable EBITDA in the order of $2 billion, that supports that debt. That supports the leverage at a modest ratio. That is how we think about it in terms of leverage ratios relative to the different business segments we operate in.

We expect to have a debt level that can be supported by the more stable cash-generating businesses and think of the refining business and the chemicals business as being debt-free from a Phillips 66 balance sheet standpoint.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. I will now turn the call over to Mark Lashier for closing comments.

Mark Lashier (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks for all of your questions. Less than three years ago, we embarked on a transformative strategy. We've divested multiple non-core assets and attracted multiples, strengthened our NGL value chain, and rationalized our refining portfolio. We improved refining operational reliability and reduced refining controllable costs, all while returning over $14 billion to shareholders. Looking forward, we will deliver significant value through our 2027 strategic priorities: maintaining operational excellence, pursuing disciplined growth, returning capital, and ensuring financial strength. We value shareholder feedback. We're committed to maximizing long-term value for our shareholders through operational excellence and disciplined capital allocation. Thank you for your interest in Phillips 66. If you have questions or feedback after today's call, please call Jeff or Owen.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. This concludes your call, and you may now disconnect your line.