Targa Resources - Q2 2024
August 1, 2024
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Good day, and welcome to the Targa Resources Corporation's second quarter 2024 earnings webcast and presentation. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Sanjay Lad, Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations. The floor is yours, sir.
Sanjay Lad (VP, Finance and Investor Relations)
Thanks, Cherie. Good morning, and welcome to the second quarter 2024 earnings call for Targa Resources Corp. The second quarter earnings release, along with the second quarter earnings supplement presentation for Targa that accompany our call, are available on our website at targaresources.com in the Investors section. In addition, an updated investor presentation has also been posted to our website. Statements made during this call that might include Targa's forward expectations or predictions should be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in forward-looking statements. For a discussion of factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to our latest SEC filings. Our speakers for the call today will be Matt Meloy, Chief Executive Officer, and Jen Neal, President, Finance and Administration.
Additionally, the following senior management team members will be available for Q&A: Pat McDonnie, President, Gathering and Processing; Scott Pryor, President, Logistics and Transportation; Bobby Moraro, Chief Commercial Officer; and Will Byers, Chief Financial Officer. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Matt.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Thanks, Sanjay, and good morning to everyone. We had another record quarter across multiple fronts, but before we get into all the good things happening here at Targa, I would like to first recognize all our employees impacted by Hurricane Beryl. We prepared for the storm, weathered the storm, and performed across a difficult period to safely keep volumes flowing, providing best-in-class service when many of our employees were also managing without power and had damage to their homes. The hard work and dedication demonstrated during the storm is really something to be proud of, so I'd like to say thank you to the Targa team for all the extra effort. The storms reduced our volumes for only a short period, so we expect the impact on the third quarter to be minimal as there was no material damage to any of our assets.
I would also like to welcome Will Byers, Targa's new Chief Financial Officer, to our call this morning. Will officially joined us on July 22nd, and we're excited to have him as part of the Targa team. Will adds a lot of depth to our organization, given his 20+ years of midstream finance experience, including serving in CFO roles over the last 10 years. As part of Jen's continued development, she has now transitioned into the role of President, Finance and Administration, and will continue to increase her role and responsibilities. Turning now to our second quarter results. It was another strong quarter of performance across our organization, which sets us up well for the balance of this year and beyond. Record volumes in the Permian drove record NGL transportation and fractionation volumes downstream and record quarterly Adjusted EBITDA.
We brought our Train 9 fractionator in Mont Belvieu and our Roadrunner 2 plant in Permian, Delaware, online, on time, on budget, and given increasing volumes across our systems, they were both very much needed. We also executed on a quarterly record $355 million of common share repurchases, which is reflective of our performance and strong conviction in the outlook for our business going forward. We also just announced our participation in a joint venture supporting the next natural gas pipeline from the Permian Basin. We provided a meaningful volume commitment to support the project, and this provides for a 17.5% ownership interest in the Blackcomb Pipeline. Blackcomb will be a 42-inch pipeline transporting gas from the Permian to South Texas. The pipeline is expected to be project financed, so Targa's capital investment should be less than $200 million.
Now, let's talk a little more about our Permian position and the good things happening there. Activity in the Permian remains very strong, supporting our view of continued long-term growth from the basin. Our Permian volumes during the second quarter increased about 275 million cubic feet per day over the first quarter, which is a full plant. And year-over-year, our volumes in the Permian are up more than 600 million cubic feet per day. And currently, our volumes in the Permian are up another 200 million cubic feet per day compared to the second quarter. We expected strong growth from our Permian assets, but the growth we have seen this year has exceeded our expectations. We now expect low double-digit % volume growth this year, which sets us up well for meaningful growth in 2025 and beyond.
This higher growth rate is driving incremental EBITDA and requiring additional growth capital investment. These volumes are core to our business, and we benefit across the integrated NGL value chain, driving higher margins into our downstream business and generating strong ROIC. Given higher than anticipated Permian volumes and an outlook for continued strong activity across our Midland and Delaware footprints, we announced our next two plants in the Permian, one in the Midland Basin and another in the Delaware Basin. Some spending for these plants was included in the forecast we provided back in February, but the timing and cadence of spending has accelerated. To support our higher volume and higher EBITDA profile, we are updating our estimate for growth capital spending for 2024 to approximately $2.7 billion.
This increase, or the increase in growth capital spend from our previously provided range, is attributable to the acceleration of timing of plants in the Permian, incremental field capital, compression and gathering lines, the acceleration of downstream infrastructure connections, and other opportunities like spending on enhancing residue gas takeaway. Similarly, we expect stronger than previously estimated Permian volume growth next year and are updating our 2025 estimate for capital spending to $1.7 billion, driven by a similar acceleration of plant and field capital and our investment in Blackfin. We included a bridge on Slide 5 in our Q2 earnings supplement presentation for our updated estimates for 2024 and 2025 growth capital.
The strength of our first half 2024 performance and continued strong outlook going forward, driven largely by higher Permian volumes and higher volumes through our integrated system, means the updated midpoint estimate for our full year 2024 adjusted EBITDA is $4 billion, which is a $200 million or 5% increase from our previous estimate. We now expect higher adjusted EBITDA in 2025 and a similar free cash flow estimate to when we provided our outlook in February, with 2025 representing an important inflection for our company as our meaningful free cash flow generation positions us to continue to return an increasing amount of capital to our shareholders, while further strengthening our investment-grade balance sheet.
We believe that we are uniquely positioned for the short, medium, and long term as an already strong outlook for Permian Basin volume growth from best-in-class producers continues to get stronger, which benefits our entire integrated value chain. Our contract structures support us continuing to invest on behalf of our producers, benefiting from cash flow stability in lower commodity price environments and upside as prices rise, and we are delivering record financial performance despite a weak commodity price backdrop. Before I turn the call over to Jen to discuss our second quarter results in more detail, I'd like to extend a thank you to the Targa team for their continued focus on safety and execution, while continuing to provide best-in-class service and reliability to our customers.
Jennifer Kneale (President, Finance and Administration)
Thanks, Matt. Good morning, everyone. Targa's reported quarterly Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter was a record $984 million, a 2% increase over the first quarter. For the second quarter, our natural gas inlet volumes in the Permian averaged a record 5.7 billion cubic feet per day. Our NGL pipeline transportation volumes averaged a record 784,000 barrels per day. Our fractionation volumes averaged a record 902,000 barrels per day at our Mont Belvieu complex, and our LPG export loadings averaged 12 million barrels per month. Let's talk about our operational results in more detail. Starting in the Permian, our reported second quarter inlet volumes increased 5% when compared to the first quarter.
In Permian Midland, our system is running near capacity, and our new Greenwood 2 plant is expected to be highly utilized when it comes online in the fourth quarter of 2024. Our next Midland plant, Pembroke 2, will be much needed and remains on track to begin operations in the fourth quarter of 2025. As Matt mentioned, today we announced that we are moving forward with our latest Midland plant, East Pembroke, which is expected to begin operations in the third quarter of 2026. In Permian Delaware, activity and volumes across our footprint are also strong. Our Roadrunner 2 plant commenced operations in late May and was fully utilized after startup. We are accelerating the timing of our next Delaware plant, Bull Moose, which is now expected to come online in the first quarter of 2025, and is also expected to come online highly utilized.
Today, we announced that we are moving forward with our latest Delaware plant, Bull Moose 2, which is expected to begin operations in the first quarter of 2026. Shifting to our logistics and transportation segment, construction on our Daytona NGL Pipeline expansion has been going well, and we believe that we may be able to bring the pipeline fully online earlier than estimated. Our Train 9 fractionator in Mont Belvieu came online full in May, and we are currently starting operations at our Gulf Coast Fractionator joint venture, and we expect our portion of the capacity to be highly utilized at startup. Construction on our Train 10 and Train 11 fractionators in Mont Belvieu continues, and our fracs are expected to be much needed when they come online, given our outlook for increasing Permian volume growth and resulting NGL volume growth to Mont Belvieu.
Train 10 is now expected to begin operations late in the fourth quarter of this year, and Train 11 is expected to begin operations in the third quarter of 2026. In our LPG export business at Galena Park, our second quarter volumes were impacted by a required 10-year inspection that reduced our loading capability in the second half of June through late July. We continue to benefit from nighttime transits and fully expect that to be a permanent benefit going forward. We remain on track to complete our expansion, which will increase our loading capacity an incremental 650,000 barrels per month in the second half of 2025.
The strength of our performance in the second quarter, with a backdrop of negative Waha gas prices and low NGL prices, demonstrates that by investing in opportunities backed by fee-based and fee-floor contracts, we are able to successfully invest across cycles to continue to support the infrastructure needs of our customers. We have largely removed exposure to downside commodity prices from our enterprise-wide risk profile, and given the strength of our outlook, also recently added hedges to further increase our cash flow stability.... As described previously, 90% of our margin is fee-based or supported by fee-floor contracts. The remaining 10% is exposed to commodity prices. Of that remaining 10% of exposure, we have now hedged approximately 90% of volumes across commodities through 2026. As commodity prices move higher, we will benefit from that upside through our fee-floor contracts.
Turning to the balance sheet, at quarter end, we had $1.6 billion of available liquidity, and our consolidated net leverage ratio was 3.6 times, well within our long-term leverage ratio target range of 3-4 times. During the second quarter, we repaid the $500 million balance on our term loan, and the term loan is no longer outstanding. Shifting to capital allocation, our priorities remain the same, which are to maintain a strong investment-grade balance sheet, to continue to invest in high-returning integrated projects, and to return an increasing amount of capital to our shareholders across cycles, and we are delivering on those priorities. Our outperformance is leading to deleveraging faster than we previously forecasted, creating incremental capacity to enhance our return of capital.
Supported by the strength of our business outlook, we repurchased a record $355 million of common shares in the second quarter at a weighted average price of $118.91. This week, our board of directors also authorized a new $1 billion common share repurchase authorization, and we continue to expect to be in position to return capital to our shareholders through opportunistic repurchases. We are continuing to model the ability over time to return 40%-50% of adjusted cash flow from operations to equity holders and believe that is a useful framework for thinking about Targa's return of capital proposition. Our talented Targa team continues to execute on our strategic priorities across the organization and safely operate our assets to deliver the energy that enhances our everyday lives.
I would like to echo Matt's thank you to all of our employees. With that, I will turn the call back over to Sandy.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Thanks, Jen. For the Q&A session, we kindly ask that you limit to one question and one follow-up and reenter the lineup if you have additional questions. Cherie, would you please open the line for Q&A?
Operator (participant)
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, press star one one again. One moment while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question will come from the line of Jeremy Tonet with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open.
Jeremy Tonet (Analyst)
Hi, good morning.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Hey, good morning.
Jennifer Kneale (President, Finance and Administration)
Good morning.
Jeremy Tonet (Analyst)
I just wanted to touch on the guidance raise here, a little bit, especially the free cash flow inflection, and just wanted to understand that a little bit better, whether that is absolute dollars or rate of change or just any other, I guess, way you could bracket what that means.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Yeah. Hey, Jeremy. Yeah, we, you know, raised our guidance for this year is really underpinned by the strength, by the strength and the volume that we've seen, not only so far this year, but also just our expectations for the back half of the year and then leading into 2025. Producers just really continue to have a high levels of activity across our system, and we've received numerous, I'd say, kind of revisions to the short, medium-term outlook from our producers across our system. So that led us, you know, to feel really good about the EBITDA this year and, you know, positioned us well going into 2025 and strong activity in 2025.
When you look at our overall EBITDA growth that we expect, coupled with the CapEx moving from $1.4 billion-$1.7 billion, we see a similar, really similar dollar amount of free cash flow to what we saw when we gave kind of the original outlook back in February of this year.
Jeremy Tonet (Analyst)
Got it. That's helpful. Thank you for that. And then, looking across, it seems like the implied GPM across the processing fleet stepped up quite nicely in 2Q. Just wondering how much of that was tied to better ethane extraction economics in the quarter? How sustainable is the volume uplift in downstream? Just trying to understand that better, you know, particularly, I guess, with Daytona tracking well, it seems.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Yeah, I don't think we've seen anything really fundamentally different from the production side. We had higher recoveries in the second quarter relative to the first quarter, is what drove the higher recovered GPM. I think the underlying volumes are similar. Pat, any?
Jennifer Kneale (President, Finance and Administration)
No, they are. I mean, we had some periods of ethane rejection in the first quarter that coupled with, you know, some weather issues at times, and we've been in full recovery during the second quarter. Very tight gas market in the Permian in the second quarter, and so that's another reason that you saw our recoveries improve.
Jeremy Tonet (Analyst)
Got it. Just the last part with Daytona, if that's tracking early, how any impact there, I guess?
Jennifer Kneale (President, Finance and Administration)
Yeah, Jeremy, this is Scott. The construction on Daytona has gone very well. You know, when you enter into a construction of a long-haul pipeline of this size and of this distance, you would anticipate once you get in the construction phase, that you might have delays relative to weather or just in general construction delays. But for us, quarter in and quarter out, we've seen improvements. The Targa team has done an excellent job installing that pipe, and I would not be surprised if it actually comes online sometime during this quarter, the third quarter of this year. So very pleased with the timeline.
Jeremy Tonet (Analyst)
Got it. That's very helpful. I'll leave it there. Thanks.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Okay, thanks, Jeremy.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question... That will come from the line of Spiro Dounis with Citi. Your line is open.
Spiro Dounis (Analyst)
Thanks, operator. Morning, everybody. First part is just a two-part question on volume growth. Yeah, I think as we headed into the year, the messaging from y'all was that, you know, maybe Targa would start to sort of reflect basin growth kind of more broadly, but it seems like you're sort of back in that mode where you're growing at an accelerated pace. Maybe, one, can you just touch on the dynamics there? What's going on in your system that's driving that accelerated growth versus basin average? How long does that last? And then as we think beyond the near term, maybe just thinking, you know, around cadence between the next frack and maybe even pipeline expansion here, if this keeps up.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Yeah, sure. I'll start, and then Pat, you can hop in. I mean, you know, we've over the last several years have really outperformed the basin, and our team has done a really good job at, you know, servicing our existing customers, but also having commercial success, really across the Delaware and the Midland. We also have our, you know, our assets, while they're, you know, we have a wide kind of a wide area that we cover. We are in the best spots of the Midland, and we're in the best spots and most active spots in the Delaware as well. So I think we benefit from that.
You know, we've seen this year continued strong activity from producers, but we've also seen revisions from our producers of the forecasts they've given us and the level of volumes that they're expecting to come across our system that for 2024 and 2025. I'd say this year we've seen more positive revisions than we have in other years, so we've just benefited more from that. I think it just goes to Targa's overall positioning and strong producer activity.
Spiro Dounis (Analyst)
Pat, anything to add to that?
Scott Pryor (President, Logistics and Transportation)
You know, I think the key components there, Matt, are exactly what you said. Large footprint, fungible system, underpinned by millions of acres of dedication on both the Delaware and Midland side of the basin, and that's with producers that are committed to, you know, growing the Permian Basin production outlet. So when I look at the Midland system, it's pretty easy, right? We've been there for a long time. We've had that system. It is on the core, the core of the best rock in the basin.
And then with the Lucid acquisition we did, you know, a couple of years ago now, that allowed us to get that same type of position in the Delaware Basin, where we are in the core of the core, covering the best rock, a great group of producers, again, underpinned by multimillion acre dedications with producers, again, that are committed to, you know, developing and growing their production in the Permian. And I think the one thing we left out in all of that is, we continue to have commercial success. We've had a lot of commercial success early in the Midland Basin and recently in the Delaware Basin, that is additive to that footprint that we've already had in place for a good period of time.
Spiro Dounis (Analyst)
Got it. As you think about the cadence for that next frack or pipeline expansion, is that still kind of far enough out, or does that seem like that's accelerating, too?
Scott Pryor (President, Logistics and Transportation)
Spiro, this is Scott again. I'll first start on, on the pipeline side of things. Certainly, with Daytona coming online, likely during this quarter, that gives us a lot of operational leverage as it relates to the volumes coming out of the west from the Permian, along those two lines. So we've got the Grand Prix line, the original west line, we've got Daytona, and with a lot of operational, leverage with that. Then that ties into our trunk line that feeds into Mont Belvieu, where we've got some operational leverage as well. So we feel really good about where we are positioned there. I will say that, with the cadence of the plants that Pat and his team have been successful at executing on, and we look at the volume growth that we have, we've actually done some third-party contracts out there.
Given the number of announcements you've seen on Waha-grade pipelines coming out of the Permian, we feel as though there's a little bit of overcapacity, and we're in a position of, at reasonable prices, to do a term contract with the volume growth that we see on that. The likelihood is, again, with additional capacity that's out there, we'll look for some additional contracts that we can do. Again, as long as the prices are reasonable, it will allow us to push out the next expansion that we might have to have on our pipeline system and defer capital further out. So, that puts us in a good position. As we look at the frac side, certainly, we benefited in the second quarter of this year, with Train 9 coming online during the month of May.
We had some strong volumes across our fractionation footprint. We saw a little bit of impact in the first quarter because of some maintenance that we had scheduled, but the second quarter ran very well. Train 9 came online, basically full from day one. And then when we look out into the third quarter, we'll have GCF coming online. Our equity share of that will likely be full. And then later this year, Train 10 will come online. Not much benefit we expect at this point from Train 10, but it is nice to see that we have moved the timeline of that in-service date from the first quarter of 2025 to the latter part of this year, and we'll see that come online and give us benefit.
When you think about the timing of the plants from our G&P footprint, all the announcement that we had—all the announcement that we had previously made, as well as the ones this morning, a mid-2026 timeframe for Train 11 fits us very well, in order to catch those volumes as well. So, great position on the transportation side, both leveraging our current capacity as well as overcapacity, if you will, from a midstream perspective, as well as how we sit on the fractionation front.
Spiro Dounis (Analyst)
Great. That's, that's helpful color. One just quick follow-up on Blackfin. It's a pretty small capital investment out of the gate, but I know in the past, you've never really looked at residue gas pipelines as kind of core to your portfolio of securities. You know, at some point, does this become a monetization candidate or too early for now?
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
... Yeah, we, you know, we just announced it this morning, so I think we will always look to do what's in the best interest of the shareholders, whether it's holding a minority interest or monetizing it. But I'd just say we're really excited to partner with WhiteWater and the other partners on this. It's much needed for the industry, much needed for the basin, and so we were, you know, excited to put a commitment on there and push this past FID and get going on this.
Michael Blum (Analyst)
Great. I'll leave it there. Thanks for the call, everyone.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Okay, thank you.
Jennifer Kneale (President, Finance and Administration)
Thanks, Cherie.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question, and that will come from the line of Theresa Chen with Barclays. Your line is open.
Theresa Chen (Analyst)
Morning. On the underlying growth across your system, Matt, to your comment about low double digit inlet volume growth in 2024, can you just give us some more color on your view quantitatively for 2025 inlet, and what are some of the puts and takes that underlie that view based on your discussions with your producer customers?
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Yeah, you know, I'd, I'd say, you know, for 2024, you know, we feel strong, and we, you know, we talked about low double-digit growth. You know, we haven't given an exact number for where we see 2025. We continue to get updated producer forecasts. We've had some commercial success here recently as well. So as we go into the fall, we'll, you know, put all that together and say, "What does that look like for 2025?" I think what you're hearing from us today is it's trending higher. I think we feel better about it being stronger than our-- what our 2025 expectations would, would have been earlier this year. And so I think we feel good. We're going to have strong growth in 2025.
What exactly that looks like, you know, we'll continue to develop that, and we'll likely provide that outlook for you sometime in February.
Theresa Chen (Analyst)
Understood. Was there anything in particular that drove lower quarter-over-quarter OpEx on a unit basis, despite higher volumes in L&T?
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
In L&T, you know, I think what we saw was you saw a lot of volume increase through our frack and through Grand Prix. So we were waiting eagerly for Train 9 to come on, and so you saw a really large increase. You know, we're up, you know, kind of so versus comparative periods over 100,000 barrels a day. So we saw the volume number increase, increase significantly. Jen?
Jennifer Kneale (President, Finance and Administration)
Theresa, we also generally hire ahead of assets coming online, so you would have seen an increase in OpEx prior to Train Nine coming online as we essentially got ready for it. So then when we get the volume associated with the asset, essentially being full, when it does come online, that may be one of the reasons that the unit margins improved in the second quarter.
Scott Pryor (President, Logistics and Transportation)
I would also say, Theresa, that, you know, when I alluded to the fact that we had some maintenance issues during the first quarter, those are behind us now. Again, the second quarter ran very, very well. And to Matt's point, we had over 110,000 barrels a day of incremental frac run off during the second quarter.
Theresa Chen (Analyst)
Thank you.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Okay, thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question. That will come from the line of Michael Blum with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.
Michael Blum (Analyst)
Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Wondering if there are any details on Blackfin you could provide, like percent contracted, what the return profile might look like, and would you expect there to be some project-level financing for the project?
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Hey, Michael, this is Bobby. I think we disclosed what we're going to disclose in the press release last night and then our earnings this morning. But when we think about getting gas takeaway out of the base, and we're excited to get this done, and bringing Targa's volume to the table, it got it across the line to go FID, obviously last night, and get supply for takeaway and out of the Permian for 2026, done and launched. I think we'll defer to Whitewater on how much they share over time, but I think at FID returns and the returns as it fills up, I think it's going to be a great deal for Targa and all the partners that are investing in it.
Michael Blum (Analyst)
Okay, understood. And then, wanted to ask about capital spending, really beyond 2025, so call it 2026 and beyond. You know, you have that slide in prior presentations that shows a typical run rate CapEx year at growth CapEx year at $1.7 billion. So I'm just wondering, given the acceleration here you've seen in volumes, is that the still-- is that still the right way to look at the long-term cadence for growth CapEx?
Jennifer Kneale (President, Finance and Administration)
We believe it is, Michael. The $1.7 billion multi-year outlook that we put out earlier this year is really predicated on a high single-digit Permian growth scenario. So as we said this morning, to the extent that we see an acceleration of volume growth beyond that in 2026 and beyond, that could change that growth profile. And then the other element that we've pointed to since we put that slide out is that our downstream capital spending is lumpier generally than our discrete projects on the gathering and processing side. So to the extent that we need to add fractionation or, in particular, transportation, that can change the complexion of how that outlook plays out for a given individual year. But I think over a multi-year horizon, it still very much holds, again, largely dependent on what the assumption is for underlying Permian growth volumes.
Michael Blum (Analyst)
Got it. Thank you.
Jennifer Kneale (President, Finance and Administration)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question, and that will come from the line of John Mackay with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
John Mackay (Analyst)
Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for the time, and congrats to Jen and Will. I wanted to go back to something we've asked about a couple of times here, but maybe just to put a finer point on it. When we're seeing this Permian, these Permian growth expectations continue to move up, I guess I'd just be curious if we could tease a little more out of that. Is it, you know, hey, these customers are actually expecting to bring in more rigs and crews back half of the year? Is it, hey, actually, productivity gains are a lot higher than we've expected. Is it all on the GOR side? Anything there you can kind of break out for us would be helpful.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Yeah, what I would say is, no, we're not expecting an increase in rigs. What we're seeing is greater efficiencies, and with some of the recent combinations of companies that you've seen, more efficient use of combined acreage positions. So they are getting higher productivity. They are able to drill, you know, an equivalent number of wells with a lower rig count. GOR is certainly a factor, but in the big scheme of things, it's not as big a factor. Obviously, we've seen it increase and continue to increase, but the continuing increase is a lot lower than what it was over the past, say, three to five years. So it's really activity of the producer group that is on the target acreage, their commitment to drilling in the Permian, and their achieved... frankly, their achieved efficiencies.
Again, it goes back to our commercial success, adding to the footprint we already have.
John Mackay (Analyst)
All right, that's really clear. Appreciate that. Maybe just shifting to return of capital, buyback number was great. I guess I'd just be curious to your guys' latest thoughts on the, the buyback versus the dividend, given the recent run in the stock. Thanks.
Jennifer Kneale (President, Finance and Administration)
I'd say that there's really no change to how we are thinking about capital allocation, John. Foundational to everything that we're doing is a strong balance sheet, and as we've articulated this morning, we see our balance sheet getting stronger through the end of this year and into next year, and that's creating a lot of flexibility for us. We were very active in the second quarter. We have an opportunistic share repurchase program. You'll continue to see us be opportunistic, which will create some variability quarter to quarter. But the underlying premise is that we believe that our outlook is only strengthening over the short, medium, and long term, and we have a lot of conviction in where the company is today and where the company is headed.
Part of how we will continue to return capital to shareholders is really through both a combination of likely meaningful increases in our annual dividends per share, as well as continued opportunistic share repurchases.
John Mackay (Analyst)
Thanks for the time.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Okay. Thanks, John.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question. That will come from the line of Manav Gupta with UBS. Your line is open.
Manav Gupta (Analyst)
Hi, guys. A quick question. I think a few quarters back, you had indicated, you know, that some of the growth projects you have could deliver incremental EBITDA of $300 million or so. How has that guidance changed as some of the new projects are coming in? And how should we think about these, you know, incremental growth projects delivering EBITDA over 2025 and 2026?
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Sure. Yeah, yeah, we indicated kind of a, you know, our investment multiple going forward, you know, about 5.5x, call it 5-6x EBITDA. I think you've seen our track record over the last several years. The EBITDA multiple has even been perhaps a little bit stronger than that. We're investing in the same kind of projects that have delivered return, you know, strong returns for us over the last several years. It's investing in our gathering and processing business and then expanding our downstream NGL infrastructure to accommodate those volumes. So we're really sticking to our core business. We expect the returns to be very good, but 5.5x is kind of what we indicated would be a pretty good base case, what we think we can do.
I hope we can beat that, but if we do 5.5, it'll be a really good return profile for us.
Manav Gupta (Analyst)
Thank you. I'll turn it over.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Okay, thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question, and that will come from the line of Keith Stanley with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.
Keith Stanley (Analyst)
Hi, good morning. First wanted to start with a follow-up just on, 2025 CapEx. Are you baking in any NGL pipeline spend in there, or you're comfortable third-party contracts are giving you enough visibility that you don't need to invest in more pipeline capacity yet next year?
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Yeah. Hey, Keith, you, you are correct. Yeah, for 2025, with Daytona coming on, you know, back half of this year, we should have sufficient transport, you know, through 2025 and some period beyond Daytona, coupled with the third-party transportation that we've already executed, and we're working on more. So we're really talking about when and if we may need to do another NGL pipe and how it impacts 2026, 2027, 2028 capital. But for 2025, our expectation is we don't have any meaningful, transportation capital in that number.
Keith Stanley (Analyst)
Great, thanks. Second question, with, with volumes coming in a lot higher than expected, is it fair to think you're offloading a lot more to third parties this year than normal? And then when we think about growth into 2025 and new assets coming online, should we expect some additional financial tailwinds just from bringing volumes back onto your system in 2025 that maybe you're offloading this year?
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Yeah, no, good, good question. We're all looking around, who's going to answer this one? Everyone's raising their hand, so I'll tell you, I'll start and then... yeah, when you, when you think about offload, it really is dependent on the piece of the business. Is it, you know, gathering or processing, transportation, frack? I'd say, as our volumes have really exceeded our expectations, there are periods of times where we do offload on the GMP side. But with the flexibility we have with our plants, mostly we handle that amongst ourselves, and we'll actually handle some offloads from third parties on the GMP side. As you look through the downstream, the transportation and frack of our NGL volumes have grown significantly. We have connectivity to basically every other, pipe in the Permian, going to Mont Belvieu.
So we have those existing connections from our plants, from legacy plants, from acquired plants, so we have a lot of flexibility to move volumes. So we'll look to optimize that, you know, for, you know, what's the cheapest cost transport while we're bringing Daytona up. So there are some volumes that we're moving on other pipes that will be able to go on Daytona, you know, kind of day one, as soon as that comes up. And then same on the fractionation side. You know, we have Train 9, GCF, and Train 10, all coming online this year. If you kind of look back at our volumes, the frac has not grown as much as some of our other volumes, and that's because we're managing third-party fractionation there as well.
So, you saw a big step up this quarter with Train 9 coming on. That is kind of bringing some of those volumes back onto our system. I'd expect more of that to happen in the third quarter and the fourth quarter.
Patrick McDonie (President, Gathering and Processing)
Thank you.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Okay, thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question. That will come from the line of Sunil Sibal with Seaport Global. Your line is open.
Sunil Sibal (Analyst)
Yeah, hi, good morning, everybody. And first of all, congratulations to Jen and Will for their new roles. So I wanted to start off on your CapEx program. So could you remind us, you know, what's the current best estimate on building a new 275 plant and filling it up?
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
You know, I would say on average, our plants are around $200 million on the GMP side of things for a new 275 plant. Some have been a little bit cheaper, some have been a little bit more, depending on what kind of inlet compression you're doing, some of the other bells and whistles.
Patrick McDonie (President, Gathering and Processing)
Sweet, sour.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Sweet, sour, but it's around 200 for the plants we have announced.
Sunil Sibal (Analyst)
And then similar amount to fill it up in terms of gathering systems, et cetera?
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Oh, how much field capital? Well, that's also one where it varies from year to year, how much pipeline compression you're going to need. Is it more high pressure? Is it more low pressure? So you can see more variability on that. So, you know, there are times we're also ordering more compression. We're trying to build some inventory up because we see strong growth in the next year. So, you know, that has moved around quite a bit. I don't know, Pat, any other color we want to give?
Patrick McDonie (President, Gathering and Processing)
No, I think you, you described it. I mean, there's a lot of variability there. It depends on if producers drill behind existing batteries, where they drill, how many new batteries we're connecting, high pressure, low pressure, all those things, sweet, sour.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Yeah.
Patrick McDonie (President, Gathering and Processing)
There's just a ton of it, and you're right. With lead times on compression and, and plants, you know, that capital kind of gets, gets all kind of mushed all together, and, and it's-- there's not a real finite number that I'd be comfortable-
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Yeah
Patrick McDonie (President, Gathering and Processing)
- giving.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
And we haven't really seen, I'd say, a material change. It varies from year to year, but we haven't seen a trend of the, you know, getting more expensive or less expensive, really.
Patrick McDonie (President, Gathering and Processing)
Agree.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
It's been operating within a band that we've seen, you know, year in, year out.
Patrick McDonie (President, Gathering and Processing)
I agree.
Sunil Sibal (Analyst)
Understood. And, thanks for the bridge that you provided on the CapEx program. I just had one clarification on the other category. Seems like, you know, you're indicating, carbon capture as also, put in the other category. Could you indicate, you know, what kind of capital you spent so far on carbon capture, and when can we expect to see returns on that?
Jennifer Kneale (President, Finance and Administration)
We're not going to break it out separately, Sunil. What we've said is that we expect to be in position to potentially benefit from 45Q credits later this year. We have a number of projects that we're commercializing in the Permian Basin that's very much core to what we do and what we are good at. So it's small enough that it doesn't make sense for us to break it out separately, but I'd say the returns are commensurate with what we're seeing across the rest of our investment opportunities across the portfolio.
Sunil Sibal (Analyst)
Okay, thanks for that.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Okay, thank you.
Jennifer Kneale (President, Finance and Administration)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question. That will come from the line of Tristan Richardson with Scotiabank. Your line is open.
Tristan Richardson (Analyst)
Hey, good morning, guys. Maybe just a quick one on Blackfin. Is it wrong if your equity stake has some correlation with the capacity you expect to have on the pipe? And then maybe just thinking about your capacity portfolio in general, with the growth you're seeing exiting 2024 and looking into 2025.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
This is Bobby. Yeah, as we build our portfolio of transport, we obviously market a ton of gas for our producers across the Permian Basin. And as we look at the portfolio of takeaway, we've talked about it before in tight markets, we spend a lot of time to make sure that all the gas moves out of our plants. Some of that is long haul out of the basin, like our Blackfin deal. And, but I tell you, a majority of it is within basin and tailgate sales to people that have transport. So we manage that all together.
And then as we think about making sure there is egress from the basin on pipes, that's when we step out on things like this Blackfin deal to make sure that a pipe gets built timely enough, such that the basin doesn't have more material issues than it already has. So when I think about what we put on a pipe like Blackfin, it is a very small subset of the amount of gas we market across the basin.
So it's not a needle mover relative to the amount of gas we market, but it is part of the science we go through every year, thinking out one year, thinking out two years, thinking out three years, and how we're going to make sure all the gas moves through our plants so that the NGLs get out and our producers can produce their oil.
Tristan Richardson (Analyst)
Helpful, Bobby. And then, you know, Jen, obviously, you said 2Q is a very tight gas market. I mean, curious, were fee floors a factor in 2Q, or even said another way, you know, Targa able to put up a very strong 2Q, irrespective of where basis sits today versus, you know, when we see relief on the horizon, hopefully by fourth quarter?
Jennifer Kneale (President, Finance and Administration)
I think the second quarter supports why the fee floors are so important to us. When you think about the amount of capital that we spent in the quarter, now moving forward with two additional gas processing plants to support our producers, with the backdrop of negative Waha prices and low NGL prices, yes, you can assume that the fee floors were very much important to us in the second quarter, and really have been in play for a substantial number of months over the last, call it, year and a half or so. And that, again, is really what's allowed us to invest through what is a low commodity price cycle right now, and what is allowing us to continue to invest looking forward as well.
Tristan Richardson (Analyst)
That's great. Thank you, guys, very much. Appreciate it.
Matthew Meloy (CEO)
Okay, thank you.
Jennifer Kneale (President, Finance and Administration)
Thanks, Tristan.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Sanjay Lad for any closing remarks.
Patrick McDonie (President, Gathering and Processing)
Thanks to everyone that was on the call this morning, and we appreciate your interest in Targa Resources. The IR team will be available for any follow-up questions you may have. Have a great day!