Enbridge Inc. Stock

Good morning, and welcome to the Enbridge Inc. Third Quarter 2026 Conference Call. My name is Marlon Samuel, and I am the Vice President of Investor Relations and Insurance. Joining me this morning are Greg Ebel, President and CEO; Pat Murray, EVP and Chief Financial Officer; and the heads of each of our business units. Colin Gruending, Liquid Pipelines; Matthew Akman, Gas Transmission, Michelle Harradence, Gas Distribution and Storage and Allen Capps renewable power.

[Operator Instructions]

Please note, this conference call is being recorded. As per usual, this call is being webcast, and I encourage those listening to follow along with the supporting slides. We will try to keep the call to roughly 1 hour and in order to answer as many questions as possible, we'll be limiting questions to 1 plus a single follow-up if necessary.

We will be prioritizing questions from the investment community. So if you are a member of the media, please direct your inquiries to our communications team, we'll be happy to respond. As always, our Investor Relations team will be available after the call for any follow-up questions.

On to Slide 2, where I will remind you that we will be referring to forward-looking information on today's presentation and Q&A. By its nature, this information contains forecast assumptions and expectations about future outcomes, which are subject to the risks and uncertainties outlined here and discussed more fully in our public disclosure filings. We will also be referring to non-GAAP measures summarized below.

With that, I will turn it over to Greg Ebel.

Well, thank you very much, Marlon, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today. We delivered another quarter of strong operational and financial performance, positioning us to achieve our 2026 financial guidance for the 21st consecutive year.

During the quarter, we made a number of important strategic announcements that continue to strengthen our long-term growth outlook. Our announcements also included my intent to retire at year-end and Michelle's appointment as the next CEO of Enbridge. Now looking at the quarter, utilization remains strong across all 4 of our businesses, reflecting the essential nature of the diverse energy infrastructure we operate. We placed 2 projects into service in our gas transmission business, Aspen Point BC and Tennessee Ridge line. And we also filed agreement in the Enbridge Gas Ohio rate case this quarter. We closed the previously announced West Coast partnership with KKR and Apollo, providing financial flexibility to fund our organic growth opportunities.

We also announced the acquisition of Tall grasses crude transportation business and acquired Salt Creek Midstream crude gathering assets, both of which expand our liquids pipeline footprint across some of North America's most attractive producing regions. To support those strategic transactions, we completed a $3 billion common equity offering. And in Liquids Pipelines, we sanctioned the Long Lake expansion with our regional oil sands business supporting CNX's growing operations. In our gas distribution business, we announced the acquisition of natural gas supply assets that will increase the amount of affordable gas that we can provide for our Enbridge Gas Utah customers.

Taken together, these transactions demonstrate our disciplined and versatile approach to capital allocation, allowing us to capitalize on opportunities that align with our strategy. Now before discussing the business updates, let me offer a few comments about my upcoming retirement. Four years ago, when I accepted the Board's invitation to take on the Enbridge CEO position, I was focused on accomplishing 4 things in relatively short order. First of all, improving our customer focus and experience; second, improving the investor experience; third, I wanted to expand our footprint in both the Canadian and U.S. markets and finally, ensure that in 3 to 4 years, the Board would have a great CEO successor from within the company.

As a management team and with my Board colleagues, we got working on all those priorities immediately. Today, our customers have a growing set of offerings across all of our businesses. They have shown their great support for us by backstopping virtually all of our $38 billion in growth backlog. Investors have seen good returns via both growing dividends and share appreciation and today, our geographic footprint in Canada and the U.S. is bigger than it's ever been. Our assets continue to benefit and grow from the all-of-the-above energy infrastructure build-out that we believed was getting underway and today still has a long runway ahead. And last but not least, after a multiyear succession planning effort with the Board, I'm thrilled that we have an excellent leader in Michelle Harradence to lead and advance Enbridge into its next growth chapter.

Michelle has played a critical role in leading our gas distribution and storage business in recent years and brings extensive operational, commercial and leadership experience. Michelle is set to take on the CEO role January 1, and I have great confidence in her, the leadership team and our great women and men in the field, delivering safely and reliably 24/7 as they continue building on the strong foundation we have established.

I'm very proud of what we've accomplished together and thank them for their incredibly hard work and support. This will be my last earnings call. My first was with Duke Energy more than 20 years ago. And some of you are investors and analysts then, and so I appreciate all the support and counsel over the years. Thanks to you all.

Now as we head towards the end of the year and into 2027, the macro backdrop for the energy environment remains very constructive with demand for reliable and affordable energy continuing to grow across North America and globally, population growth, manufacturing investment electrification and rapidly rising power demand are creating new requirements for energy infrastructure. At the same time, North America's resources are increasingly important to global energy security. Thus supporting growing export demand for both oil and LNG.

Taking a look at the map, we see a number of regions in the continent that are expecting significant energy demand and supply growth into the next decade, and all 4 of our businesses are currently capitalizing on that opportunity. In Liquids, we continue to anticipate significant growth in Canada and expect more certainty on that growth in the near future as governments and industry progress policy alignment.

In the spring of 2024, we expressed a strong view that supply growth out of Western Canada would reach 1 million barrels by 2035, not many shared our view at that time, but today, that prediction is probably too low. This growth will require expansions of the Alberta regional oil sands business, increased diluent supply support for carbon sequestration and transportation and increased capacity out of the basin, all areas in which we are an industry leader currently and see numerous future opportunities.

In Gas Transmission, we see significant demand all over North America, including in British Columbia, the U.S. Northeast, and the U.S. Southeast as well as along the Gulf Coast where our Texas Eastern and Valley Crossing assets are strategically located. All of our utility franchises are also seeing tailwinds from population growth and power demand. In fact, we're seeing more opportunities in the U.S. than when we initially decided to buy the gas utility assets in 2023.

And lastly, renewables will remain an important part of the generation mix needed to meet North America's growing power demand. Or all of the above approach to energy investment allows us to win in multiple ways, regardless of the commodity type color of the electron or, frankly, the ever-changing makeup of governance. We deliver multiple sources of reliable and affordable energy and that works for our customers and investors in all conditions.

During the quarter, we announced 2 accretive and strategic liquids acquisitions that further strengthen our North American crude oil franchise. The acquisition of Tallgrass's crude oil business, which includes the Pony Express Pipeline and Powder River Gateway system will build on our existing Rockies footprint and adds new connectivity to the DJ and Powder River basins.

Importantly, the acquisition will add access to growing supply regions while creating additional customer optionality across our broader liquids network over time. We also announced the acquisition of Salt Creek Midstream's crude gathering assets in the core of the Delaware Basin. This transaction strengthens our Permian position and extends our wellhead-to-water strategy adding high-quality gathering infrastructure upstream of the Gray Oak Pipeline and our Ingleside export terminal.

Together, these acquisitions build upon our existing network advantages and expand our ability to provide integrated solutions across North America's most important crude oil quarters. As previously mentioned, this quarter, we sanctioned the Long Lake expansion, supporting CNX growing operations in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. Adding a new lateral pipeline and storage tank while also expanding multiple lines in our regional oil sands system. The project is expected to cost $200 million and enter service in 2028.

We also closed a successful open season on Flanagan South, which is the downstream component of the resequenced MLO 2 project. This just further highlights our demand pull pipelines and our ability to modularly expand our system based on our customers' current and long-term needs. As we indicated at our last quarterly earnings call, we see a number of opportunities across our liquids footprint. And these 2 projects are evidence of that.

We're encouraged by the increasingly constructive industry outlook and are well positioned to support our customers with our leading liquids pipeline network. Regardless of evolving market conditions or public sentiment for oil, our mainline system has continued to operate at or near capacity. Volumes have steadily increased over the years, and we are confident as supply grows out of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, so too will our capacity to support our customers.

The main lines many advantages like reliability and safety, market access to refining capacity and established rate-making model, continue to reinforce the long-term value proposition of the franchise to our customers and investors alike.

Turning to gas transmission. Fundamentals remain exceptionally strong across the continent. The portfolio remains robust with a number of high-quality opportunities, supporting growing LNG and power generation demand. Starting in Canada, Aspen Point entered service under budget and ahead of schedule, providing additional transportation capacity to support regional demand growth and LNG exports on the West Coast.

With the current West Coast toll settlement expiring at year-end, negotiations are well advanced with an agreement at CER approval expected to be realized in early 2027. We also closed the previously announced $2.7 billion joint venture with KKR and Apollo, providing us with financial flexibility as we advance our organic project backlog. We're also advancing a number of opportunities across Texas Eastern after seeing strong customer demand on various paths for incremental capacity.

Within our Permian joint venture, the Blackcomb Pipeline has now entered service, providing up to 2.5 Bcf per day of capacity out of the basin and the 2.6 Bcf per day Bay runner pipeline has achieved mechanical completion, ready to move gas to the Rio Grande LNG facility. In the U.S. Northeast, we continue to progress the previously sanctioned Algonquin enhancement project, and the team is working hard on commercial negotiations with customers on Project Beacon, a further expansion of the Algonquin system. We appreciate the strong support from the state governments like Massachusetts to quickly achieve federal approval of such projects.

More generally, we are having a number of conversations with power and utility customers in both the U.S., Northeast and Midwest, and the opportunities in the region remains robust. Despite some construction challenges on the Tennessee Ridge line project, it entered service on time on November 1, ready to provide natural gas to our customers under long-term take-or-pay agreements.

Further south, Florida continues to be a growing market for gas, driven by power demand, population growth and industrialization. And we're looking at opportunities through our interest in the Sabal Trail pipeline and our connected storage assets along the Gulf Coast. It's worth remembering that across the gas transmission business, we have almost 90 Bcf of natural gas storage projects already sanctioned, positioning us to support the growing power demand and LNG opportunities on both sides of the border.

Now stepping back, these projects are part of a much broader opportunity set. Across the franchise, we see a growing set of near-term opportunities driven by demand for LNG, power generation and utility load growth. Our extensive existing network positions us well to capture that growth through capital-efficient expansions of our existing infrastructure. As we've said before, natural gas remains one of the most attractive areas of growth across North America Energy Systems and Enbridge is uniquely positioned to benefit from that trend.

Turning to GDS. Today, we're announcing an agreement to acquire the gas assets of Laramie Energy, expanding gas supply supporting Enbridge Gas Utah. The transaction leverages our existing successful Wexpro business model to provide our utility customers with a stable cost of service source of natural gas, helping improve affordability and moderate commodity price volatility, while providing us a utility return without taking on commodity exposure. The transaction will close following regulatory approval, which we expect to receive later this month. We've also reached a settlement in the Enbridge Gas Wyoming rate case with rates expected to be effective in early 2027.

In Ohio, we made meaningful progress on the rate case that was filed last year. Settlement was filed for approval during the quarter with increases to our revenue requirement, rate base and equity thickness, which will support investment in the system as we continue to serve our customers safely and reliably. Both these rate cases reinforce our strong track record for treating constructive regulatory outcomes across our gas distribution business, while focusing on affordability for our customers.

Now turning to renewable power. Our renewable power business continues to focus on disciplined customer-backed growth. Since 2002, we have built a renewable power portfolio of more than 8 gigawatts across North America and Europe, including more than 2 gigawatts of projects under construction. These projects under construction are supported by long-term contracts with high-quality counterparties including 1.4 gigawatts of generation capacity with Meta. We continue to see opportunities to grow this business with hyperscalers and blue-chip customers seeking reliable, long-term power solutions.

With that, let me turn the call over to Pat Murray.

Thanks, Greg, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We delivered yet another strong quarter, supported by consistent and high utilization across our diversified asset base. Adjusted EBITDA increased by $167 million compared to the third quarter of 2025, reflecting continued strength across our business. The decrease in liquids pipelines results reflect impact similar to the first 2 quarters with lower tolls on the Line 9 deliveries and reduced throughput on the Flanagan South pipeline due to high PADD II utilization and market pricing dynamics.

In Gas Transmission, year-over-year results benefited from favorable contracting and rate case settlements in our U.S. assets. Gas distribution benefited from higher rates in Enbridge Gas Utah and North Carolina due to recent rate cases, and customer growth in Enbridge Gas Ontario. And renewable power was up slightly as the first phase of Sequoia Solar was placed into service at the end of 2025. The year-over-year increase in DCF was primarily driven by the higher adjusted EBITDA, which I just spoke to as well as reduced maintenance capital spend, partially offset by higher financing costs associated with incremental debt issuances.

As Greg noted, management has been very focused on securing new growth projects, but we've also been very focused on improving results within our existing assets, continued cost discipline, optimization efforts and increased buying power helped us mitigate inflationary pressures with those efficiencies reflected across our operating costs, maintenance capital that I just spoke to and our growth projects.

Given our strong performance to date and confidence in the underlying business, I'm pleased to reaffirm our 2026 guidance and expect results to finish at the midpoint of the range. The strength and resilience of our business model enabled us to deliver reliable results across varying market conditions, even amid macroeconomic uncertainty and commodity price volatility.

As we look to the remainder of 2026, strong commercial and regulatory execution in gas transmission, the tailwinds realized in Q2 at Seaway provide positive support while we continue to reflect lower liquid market access contribution and higher U.S. interest rates in our outlook.

Let's now turn to our capital allocation priorities. Our capital allocation strategy remains consistent. We continue to equity self-fund our organic growth backlog, while maintaining a strong balance sheet. As Greg mentioned earlier, we completed a $3 billion equity offering this quarter to derisk financing of our recent acquisitions. By funding these transactions with a balance of debt and equity, we maintained our targeted leverage profile while preserving financial flexibility to capitalize on significant organic growth opportunities we continue to see across the business.

We also increased our financial flexibility for funding that organic portfolio through our capital recycling initiative with KKR and Apollo that closed this quarter. This transaction provides further capacity beyond our base annual investment of $10 billion to $11 billion. Our debt-to-EBITDA ratio at the end of Q3 2026 was 5.1x driven by quarter and foreign exchange movements as the CAD to U.S. dollar spot rate spiked to close at 1.42.

On an FX-adjusted basis, leverage would have remained within our target range. Looking ahead to the next quarter, we expect to be in a similar position in regards to leverage. As we closed the previously mentioned acquisitions, but on a full year run rate EBITDA basis for these assets, we expect to remain well within our leverage target. Our track record of shareholder returns remain strong with $39 billion returned in the form of dividends over the past 5 years and a further $40 billion to $45 billion expected through the next 5 years. Supported by a $38 billion backlog, we have a well-defined path to growth through the decade, driven by a disciplined focus on low-risk accretive brownfield investments.

I'll now hand it back to Greg for some closing remarks. Before I do, I'd like to thank Greg for his leadership, guidance and many contributions to Enbridge over the last 10 years. It's been a privilege to work alongside you, and I wish you all the best in your well-deserved retirement.

Well, thanks, Pat. It's been a great pleasure working with you as well. And as we step back and look at Enbridge today, I believe our investment proposition remains compelling. We continue to offer a combination of stability, strength, consistency, growth and optionality that is difficult to find elsewhere in the energy infrastructure sector. our low-risk business model, diversified franchise mix and predictable cash flows provide a strong foundation for long-term value creation.

At the same time, we have one of the largest growth backlogs in our history, supported by approximately $38 billion of secured capital and significant opportunities above and beyond. The strategic actions we took this quarter, including the Tallgrass and Salt Creek acquisitions, further expanding the opportunities available across our liquids franchise while still continuing to prioritize the balance sheet.

Enbridge is one of the only energy companies that can allocate capital across crude oil, natural gas transmission, gas utilities and renewable power with scale and flexibility. We believe that positions us well to capture growing North American energy demand while continuing to deliver attractive returns to shareholders.

As I look back at the incredible success we've achieved together this past decade, I'm reminded of exactly what it is that makes Enbridge unique. We are the largest transporter of liquids in North America and handle some of the most complex egress systems in the world. and we'll continue to grow this segment well into the future.

Our gas transmission business stands at the precipice of the largest demand cycle in recent history, driven by growing power, industrial and LNG needs. We own and operate the largest North American gas utility business, and we continue to see growth beyond what we initially forecasted when we first acquired the U.S. utility business a couple of years back. And the renewable power business has grown into a significant player in the industry, backed by some of the largest hyperscaler and blue-chip customers in the world. Few companies touch as many lives as Enbridge.

Every day, our assets carry the energy that powers economies, strengthens communities and underpins modern life across North America. I know that Enbridge is in good hands with Michelle and the rest of the leadership team. And as a forever shareholder, I look forward to the future ahead.

Thank you for your time this morning. Operator, we're now ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Robert Catellier with CIBC Capital Markets.

Congratulations to both Greg and Michelle on the big transition here. I think since I first of all I'll start with that. So Michelle, I know it's really early for this question, but -- what do you think investors should expect will remain the same under your leadership? And where could we see capital allocation priorities and portfolio construction evolve after the transition starts?

Sure. Thanks, Robert, and I appreciate the question. I think it's really important that folks understand that certainly my vision for this company is very much grounded in our past. For over 75 years, we've been disciplined capital allocators, exceptional project developers and top-tier operators and what that's done for our investors, by the way, I have family members who've owned Enbridge shares since the IPO in 1953. They remind me of this all the time and that generate predictable durable cash flows. So 31 consecutive years of dividend increases. That dividend aristocrat status, it's held by a very small group in energy. And I think it demonstrates our long-standing commitment to our shareholders regardless of what economic, political or commodity cycle we're in.

So as far as I'm concerned, Enbridge is North America's preeminent energy infrastructure company, and it's built on an incredible foundation of 4 premier franchises. And what we have, the footprint, the quality, the quality of our -- the quality of our assets, quality of our people really gives us advantages others just can't have. So what I think you're going to be seeing, not just for me, but from what is a very strong executive leadership team, is that we build off of that foundation.

So we continue to operate our existing businesses exceptionally well. That's safety, reliability, cost discipline and capital efficiency. Those have been and will continue to be very core for us. We've got a great set of assets, and we're going to protect the foundation of what drives that value for our shareholders. We're going to be the partner of choice. We're going to continue to be the partner of choice for meeting North America's growing energy needs.

So that's not only that recognition we have now for all of the above, but more of the above. And what we're really appreciative of and seeing is the pragmatism and balance are there. So I think you'll see Enbridge at the center of all of those conversations. And then the key thing is, finally, we're going to continue to translate those advantages in the superior long-term returns for our shareholders. So that's just continuing to be what you already know us to be disciplined capital allocators, attractive risk-adjusted total returns and a real suite of competitive projects that are meeting the demand for energy I mean we're talking about taking a great company and making it even better here. And with that, we're going to continue to be grounded in those energy fundamentals. That's what drove us to spend $19 billion in the gas utilities a few years ago. And you just saw us invest over $3 billion in expanding our liquids footprint this past quarter. But we believe in the future of the energy that our customers produce in demand, whether it's natural gas liquids, renewable energy. And we'll keep doing that.

That was a very fulsome answer. I just had a quick small one on the Liquids business. There was a small project for the oil sands lateral I find that interesting because we haven't seen something like that in a little while. So maybe you can update us on the customer momentum in terms of oil sands projects and some of the various MLO options.

Thanks for the question [indiscernible] observation. Indeed, that's been quiet up there for a number of years and for obvious reasons. But I think we're on the cusp of a huge cyclical and hopefully sustaining growth wave up there. And so as you know, we've got a strong position in the oil sands region, 7 trunk lines, lots of laterals, lots of customers. And I think a number of the bigger customers are in the midst of a big negotiation, they are likely positioning some projects to grow their supply as well in the interim, some of the smaller customers are already kind of moving ahead and the [ CNOOC ] announcement as an example. Of that, they're an existing customer, we're basically twinning a lateral over to one of our trunk lines to grow their existing production. So I think it's a sign of more to come. And we'll certainly look to capture our share. There's a lot of operating leverage in these systems. They're prebuilt. There is some headroom in them.

So I think it's a pretty exciting leg of one of the legs of the Enbridge still, we haven't talked about in a long time, but it's one of the boats that gets floated right when the tide rises. And we've got other boats in the fleet we'll talk about probably later in the call.

Robert, just a quick add to that, I think the team is super seized with that opportunity and Collins bang on. Let's not forget, and I see some discussion of this, our position on what I'll call antecedents there. So things like diluent. We're in a great diluent spot in that region. So that's domestic. But don't forget, as we see this growth, and we're seeing great moves by the Canadian government to make it more attractive import of diluent to, I mean, a little thing like Southern Lights that people seem to forget about.

So I think we're in a great spot and the team is working really hard. And as the -- becomes more clear on production growth that we're starting to see. I think there'll be opportunities not only regionally but also with things like diluent. And as you know, our regional system is partially owned by our indigenous partners, which is a critical component here of getting this right, getting it done quickly and making sure as many people participate not only our investors, not only our customers, but also our indigenous partners. So I think that's a huge competitive advantage for us.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan.

This is Elias Jossen on for Jeremy. Just wanted to wish Greg the best in the next chapter, and congratulate Michele and look forward to working with you in the new role. Starting with the Permian landscape. Obviously, there's been significant platform expansion across multiple fronts. Can you frame what the strategy looks like from here? Are there complementary assets that make sense or do brownfield expansions make more sense at this point or both?

Eli, it's Colin, I can talk about crude system. That's what you're looking for. Yes, I mean I could recap the whole 7- or 8-year journey here, but you've seen us kind of crawl walk run into the basin on a very disciplined basis or then the pipe now reaching further up in the gathering system. And by the way, we're going to rename Salt Creek and very creatively, Enbridge Permian gathering system.

So there may indeed be more of that. I think I would emphasize we're selective, right and create that super system, that value chain that one-stop shop service for our customers. So yes, I think you're seeing it develop. We have ambition for more. But discipline, right, discipline. We believe in the basin, it's a great basin. We like all the basins, frankly. And I think you've seen us invest in 2 U.S. basins here recently with tuck-in acquisitions, all in kind of the service of the greater vision that North America has got a huge role to play here to supply itself affordably and increasingly the world. And so we like all the basins. We think there's a higher oil price floor long term and certainly a lot more terminal value than some have been thinking. So a lot of conviction in all the basins but the Permian, near the top of that list.

Yes. The gas side, too, Matthew, I know your team has been working at that. Do you want to comment on your goals in the Permian?

Yes. Thanks. So obviously, we've been working on the white water assets. And I don't know if everyone noticed, but Bay runner is mechanically complete now and ready for Rio Grande to start utilizing it. And so we're very excited about that. And we've announced recently, as you know, the storage expansion, Trace Palacios another 25 Bcf a day, which is all related to moving and storing a lot of that gas. The next phase of this for the industry and for us is some very exciting opportunities to move that Permian gas further east and west. And you might have noticed that we have a whole bunch of exciting commercial activity around that in both directions that we're working diligently on and seeing very strong interest. And so I think that Permian opportunity, both directly out. And then from some of those points further beyond is -- continues to be a very exciting opportunity for us.

Thanks. And then opening remarks, obviously referenced upward revisions in WCSB production and as we look across the landscape, we've seen a number of expansions sanctioned. So I just want to get a sense of your longer-term expectations for incremental egress beyond ML and when might we see updates on that front.

It's Colin. I can take that. And I think Greg mentioned that we have successfully closed an open season here recently on Flanagan South, which is more of the same, right? We've been -- I think this is the third kind of expansion of Flanagan South and we have another open season still open on Southern Access Extension, which will close later this year, both trending to a capital FID or a series of capital investments in those downstream pipes, likely by the next quarterly call.

And you recall, we we initially had paired this with MLO 2, i.e., the mainline upstream companion expansion. But given policy uncertainty in Canada, it was untimely to align customers to underpin that mainline capital investment at the time. So we disaggregate it, focused on the downstream part, which is trending successfully. And so that will pull incremental barrels through our mainline path, and we can come back at the appropriate time with MLO2 or a different version of [indiscernible] 2.8, 2.1 or whatever and rebalance the system because it's important that these downstream contracts come with entitlements for dastron verification on the mainline.

So when the mainline is apportioned, right, these contracts get filled, which is very valuable in a time of in portion, which we think will persist on the mainline for the foreseeable future. So that's a quick update on our mainline path. We also have other egress ideas and development on Express, as you would imagine as well.

Your next question comes from the line of Rob Hope with Scotiabank.

I also have my congrats to Greg and Michelle. Maybe the first question is on capital allocation. So we've seen Enbridge be quite acquisitive this year, with 3 relatively large tuck-in. Can you maybe provide some incremental color there? Are these just opportunistic? Are you seeing increasing opportunities on the tuck-in side? And could we continue to see each [indiscernible] on that capital allocation side as well?

Yes. Pat may want to add to this, too. But Rob, first of all, thanks for your congrats. I appreciate that. And look, we're very diligent on this front. You're right. We've -- and you don't always have the timing of when things come in. But and Michele, I'm sure we'll not see any difference in this. She's been involved with all these acquisitions. They've got to be accretive. They have to add to our strategic footprint as well. and they've got to be able to be carried on the balance sheet, right?

So those things are absolutely critical to keep us within our 4.5x to 5x, which is why you saw us issue the equity 3 pretty large deals. Yes, they're tuck in, but in terms of when you add them all up. So I don't see that changing. We'll be very diligent on that front. As Colin just laid out, the Salt Creek assets that we bought really complete the wellhead-to-water situation. Obviously, the Laramie acquisitions in the GDS area, that's critical from an affordability but also rate-based growth perspective. And then new optionality for customers, et cetera, and just a new basin to be involved in with the Tallgrass assets as well.

So that's critical. We've got to be able to finance it. We've got to keep into our balance sheet metrics, and it's got to be accretive from the get-go.

But Patt?

Yes. Maybe just add a couple of things that. First one being the other metric we really look at is what it does to our growth going forward. And if you think about the optionality and stuff of all these assets, I think it helps with that ongoing growth. We wanted to make sure that we funded it appropriately because to be fair, the vast majority of our growth is going to come from our organic program, and we need to make sure that we're funding that appropriately. Hence why we went and got the capital that we needed. They kind of all happened at the same time. As Greg said, you can't always time that. So that's part of it. But I think the plan going forward, and it has been through time is to continue to lean on that organic growth to expand the company, and we want to make sure we have the capacity to continue to do that.

All right. That's great. And then maybe for my second question, I want to go back to the concept of a crawl walk run in the Permian. So the West axis Express is kind of the first we'll call it Enbridge lead and wholly owned gas pipeline large line partnerships to date. So -- is this a shift in how you're looking at the basin? Could we see you do some incremental projects largely being self led? And I guess secondly there, how did the U.S. Texas open season go?

Robert, it's Matthew. Thanks for the question. It is, as I said, it's a very exciting area for us. I think naturally, when you look at where gas is landing out of their and there's a lot of it around Katy, for example. We have a lot of assets that store gas around there and then move it from there already. Texas Eastern, of course, across the Gulf Coast. And then there are greenfield opportunities, like you talked about, intrastate stuff, West Texas Express is one of those. And so we've seen strong demand across those corridors from a wide range of customers from utility, LNG looking to push that gas offshore and of course, power customers.

So you've seen, as you mentioned, you referenced the open season we had on West Texas Express. And it is really that full range of customers that we're seeing express interest in that stuff. It's a little bit early, but we have seen strong indications of interest actually in both directions out of there. And we think we have the expertise and the mouse drop. So yes, I think you're right. It's more on our own in those areas because we can utilize some of our brownfield corridors. We can utilize our storage positions and of course, our execution capabilities that our customers rely on across our entire system. So stay tuned on those projects.

Your next question comes from the line of Maurice Choy with RBC.

Wanted to just touch on one of your prepared remarks about winning in multiple ways, regardless of the changing government. Enbridge obviously has dealt with many permutations of the U.S. political landscape over roughly 15 years since IPO. So I can appreciate that you can work with everyone. But if I could ask you to dive a little bit deeper into that and can you share what opportunities you think may perhaps open up a little bit more given the election results and the political partners you'll be working with and which businesses may perhaps require a little bit more focus and engagement moving forward?

Sure. So maurice, you're right. We're in 40-plus states and all the provinces in different countries. So first thing I'd say, you will recognize that our all of the above strategy has been one we've stayed very true to for a very long time. And why is that? Well, one, yes, the diversification is great, but it's also the best way to achieve what I think has been a big issue in recent elections, affordability and reliability.

So we go to those jurisdictions where the opportunities are recognized around that. Hence you see where we bought gas assets in very productive locations like North Carolina and Utah and Ohio. You've seen us be in the renewable business for a very long time and careful in those areas. And even in places like the Northeast on the gas side of things, governments that may not always have been entirely supportive of us. You would have noticed in my comments, we now have governors of states like Massachusetts asking the federal government, which, as you know, is a different stripe to actually quickly improve gas pipeline.

So for us, it's like -- the long-term fundamentals matter. The same way Colin was just talking about on the liquid side. You will see growth. Long-term fundamentals around gas. You see that happening in the jurisdictions. And then just the overall move to electrification, the need for power. All that works well for the gas business, works well for the renewable business as well. So we're not typically following the shiny item. We're following the fundamentals. And that means the ability to stay close with the governments of all different stripes and really add value for consumers and our customers and in the end, that's what works for our best for investors.

And if I could just ask about your project sanctionings through Q3 this year, I think you're about halfway through your target of sanctioning up to $20 billion for 2026 and 2027. Is this $20 billion target still something you're looking at? What are some of the push and takes or even areas within your pillars of growth that you're looking at that might pushed just $20 billion higher or lower?

Yes, for sure. And again, that's sanctioned, right? So it's not just the opportunity set would be obviously a multiple of that. But look, I think you're going to continue to see opportunities in all of them. I mean, Colin just went through the opportunities on the liquid side, Michelle's business and Allen Capps business on the power side and then, of course, Matthew, on the gas side.

So we -- look, this is a very long runway. I think you'll get a great opportunity at Investor Day when Michelle comes forward and and lay this all out and just how great the opportunity is on a go-forward basis. As we've said, we see that continued 5% growth right through the end of the decade. And just since our last Investor Day, I think our backlog is up 50% from even that time. So gases -- there's no doubt, gas is the big winner right now in this full electrification. You see that in our business just this quarter. The gas transmission business is up double digit. The gas distribution business is up double digit those kind of give you some indication of where things are. And then with the changing government structures, attitude, et cetera, and really an improved market in Canada and then just the global need for North American energy, I think you're going to see oil and exports of gas [indiscernible] create great opportunities for us, too. So that's the whole purpose of structuring the company the way it is. that in ebbs and flows of macro issues, government changes, et cetera, that Enbridge always has opportunity to grow in one, if not all of its sectors.

Your next question comes from the line of Manav Gupta with UBS.

Greg. We will definitely wish you. In 4 years, you took a company like $15.5 billion EBITDA to $20.5 plus and then positioned it well for a decade. That's a very enviable track record. I'll keep my question just to one, would fiber LNG is a big part of the growth in 2027. Can you give us a status update on how that project is progressing.

Manav, it's Matthew. So yes, still on track for first gas and the next year. Lots of progress been up to the site to visit recently, lots of good construction activity breakthrough on the pipeline tunnel, which is a key milestone, drilling continues. And so the site looks great. Obviously, there's going to continue to be lots of work to do between now and then, but still remain on track for that in server state.

Your next question comes from the line of Ben Pham with BMO.

I just want to start off with [ Tallgrass ]. I mean you've had -- you mentioned in your prepared remarks in your thought process around the rationale for the acquisition. Could you maybe unpack the longer-term outlook with [ Tallgrass ]. You have to initeconomic of 10 to 11x EBITDA -- is there more expansion beyond ESP? Is it part of a broader ML sequencing? Anything you think about that late decade outlook with progress?

Ben, it's Colin. Yes, thanks. We're excited about this opportunity. I think it falls in the opportunistic category that was asked about earlier. And it also falls in the framework of the kind of the -- all of the basins we like in North America. This is a pipeline from a series of light basins. It has a supply diversity fundamentals look attractive, especially in the powder. It comes with an expansion opportunity in construction. We like that. We think that it's contracted. We think it makes sense. We'll be looking to further expand that value chain and super system as well in light of service.

Think of it as kind of a like-for-like substitution of Enbridge into Tallgrass. And longer term sure, there's other opportunities you can imagine. But for the foreseeable future, we see this in light oil service, and we'll try to expand that light oil franchise.

Okay. Switching to the BC Pipeline. You referenced a total settlement expiring year-end and you're working on a new agreement into 2027. Could you perhaps highlight what you're targeting in this new settlement? And I know you referenced you'd like to see better returns in D.C. in previous remark to that is that a part of the conversation as well?

Yes. Thanks for the question. It's Matthew. So First, as you can imagine, this is a very good type of business environment to be talking to our customers about this kind of thing because -- it's a very robust environment now. And so that's the kind of environment where you can find win-win solutions with your customers, and that's what we always look for. Of course, the BC assets are one of the lower returning assets in our gas portfolio, and we've got a lot of capital we're putting in there.

So we're definitely looking for higher achieved returns there to compete with all the great U.S. opportunities that we have. And I think our customers understand that. When you look at the fundamentals up there, the first production is growing, I think that's going to accelerate. You look at the need for just diluent with growth in oil production and a lot of that liquids-rich gas in the BC Montney. So we see acceleration. I think our customers do too. And then, of course, there's the opportunity offshore terrific government and stakeholder support for that, and there's opportunity for increased drilling.

So the customers really want to see growth there, and we want to grow with them. So in that context, there is an opportunity, we think, to continue to maintain very competitive tools for them while also achieving higher returns. As you know, our nameplate return there is like just above $10 on $40 and so we're working and we've made great progress. We're not quite over the finish line yet, but we're making great progress on this kind of a win-win solution where we can earn higher returns, and they get toll certainty. And so -- we do expect to finalize that year-end or very early in the new year, and that's trending quite well.

Your next question comes from the line of Theresa Chen with Barclays.

If you are muted locally to please unmute your device.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, here we go. I'll ask you, Teresa. Thank you. We can hear you now.

Okay. Excellent. Sorry about that. First, I wanted to echo congratulations again to Greg and Michelle. And I wanted to go back to the PRB discussion. As you prepare to integrate these assets later this year, can you provide more color on your macro and growth outlook within the region itself into next year? And longer term, going back to Colin's comments about other opportunities potentially involving Express, is there an opportunity to connect these assets with Express to provide incremental BYES egress into the Mid-Con and ultimately the Gulf Coast?

Yes. Thanks, Teresa. I think I'll maybe just reemphasize what I said earlier. I don't know if you heard the response fully, but yes. We're thinking light service for this [indiscernible] series of mass. That's what it's in service for today. Are those customers our cross customers of ours from around the continent. We need to serve them. There are some exciting things we can do further with our partners. -- great partners, we're stepping into here with some ideas as well in light oil service. So that is our focus for the foreseeable future here. Sure there's long-term optionality if those basins were to deplete, but we don't see that anytime soon.

Yes. And I guess the other thing is just on that front, we bought it for what it is today. And we believe in the fundamentals from an oil perspective, and you see some growth there, in particular the current price of oil, which we actually think is probably more in line with what you'll see in North America. We've always been in that kind of $80 range that makes everything hunt pretty darn close. You're even seeing not PBR, but if you're looking at the Bakken, you're seeing well counts go up there.

So I think there's plenty to do with the product that we're moving there today. to serve those customers without thinking or being too concerned about the future optionality, which is nice to have.

Yes. Maybe on the downstream, I think you talked more talking about the upstream map, but the downstream app into Cushing and beyond to other markets, there are some things we can do there. that can enhance the existing partnership and service for those light oil customers. So that's something to think about to [indiscernible].

Understood. And then turning to the gas side of things. Would you be able to provide an update on Project Beacon following its successful open season. And -- how have those commercial discussions progress to date? And what are the key gating items from here?

Thanks, Teresa. It's Matthew. Yes, happy to talk about Bakken and I mean this is a great example of a project that's really founded on affordability. And the key theme of the day, and it's something that where we see commercial and stakeholder interest getting stronger all the time in the environment we're in.

So as you know, we had a successful open season earlier this year. and we've been working on commercializing the project since that time. Of course, these brownfield projects have a fair bit of complexity. There's some subtlety in that. and we're making good progress in working through that while talking to our customers. We do see a strong potential for commercialization of this by very early in the new year. And so that's what we're aiming for. We're still talking to our customers, but it's trending very well. I think for us, this could be -- and again, this is a win-win type of project because it crushes the basis, it's demand pull. It's all about affordability.

It's got strong political support on both sides of the aisle. You've seen some of the governors right letters asking for acceleration of of permitting of it. And so we believe the environment is right. The demand is strong, and we hope to have some more concrete news on the commercialization of it very early in the new year.

Your next question comes from the line of Aaron MacNeil with TD Cowen.

I'll echo the congratulations to both Greg and Michelle. But maybe I'll start with Colin. You briefly mentioned other egress opportunities under development on Express. Can you expand on what you're evaluating and how those opportunities compare with sort of further MLO expansions in terms of timing and customer demand?

Yes, all and any, like you should imagine that we've got engineers that have dozens of ideas and are engineering them optically to see what fits, which pistol and we're well aware of the various competing bigger greenfield ideas. And so we will continue to offer up kind of a series of expansions? And to the questions earlier around kind of singles and doubles and incrementalization of super systems, that's what we have. We have this incumbency and we're going to play to those strengths whether it's on the mainline path with its 7 pipelines or the Express path, which is, as a reminder, as a presidential permit for a larger volume.

So you should think about everything from small expansions to bigger expansions and all the kind of the physical scope that goes with that. So we're at the ready, we'll continue to offer those up. And I think that is the strength of our playbook that Michele talked about. We'll continue to have these available. And we're quite bullish on the basin. So we think our suite of singles and doubles, if I'll call it, brownfield projects are quite executable and economic. And at worst, worst would be insurance to the bigger greenfield wound shots.

Okay. Fair enough. And then maybe bringing the sort of U.S. midterm election discussions specifically to Ohio and the new governor there. I think early indications would point to some pragmatism, but you've highlighted sort of 10 gigawatts of data center and power opportunities in the state. Obviously, Enbridge gas, Ohio gives you a significant utility presence there. Has the election outcome changed how you think about the pace or nature of that opportunity, either within the utility or on the gas infrastructure side?

Well, I think I'll let Michelle speak to the utility side, but yes, we have all our businesses there. It's 1 of the few places where we've got renewables there. We've got obviously serve refineries there. And of course, GTM has Texas Eastern there, too, all of which goes to affordability which is what I heard in the election, which has maybe turn to you, Michelle, from a utility perspective.

Yes, 100%. So I mean, I think you'll see that the governor like a lot that were elected this week. -- got there by taking a moderate and a balanced approach. And if we look across our jurisdictions and certainly, Ohio is a good example of it, that -- the ones that are the most effective at attracting investment are those that have that policy clarity and the regulatory processes that [indiscernible]. Ohio, and we like to have a little healthy competition between our franchise areas, but Ohio past North Carolina recently is the #1 place to do business according to CNBC. And that's by having that certainty, that clarity, that sort of thing.

And certainly with governor-elect Acton, she's been pretty clear. She's not opposed to data centers, but she does expect the data centers to meet certain standards, the foremost of which would be being responsible operators painting their own way. We're seeing that largely across the board.

Now in Ohio, they introduced recently the concept of a large load framework. So they've been getting ahead of this for a while, and they've introduced this concept of large [indiscernible] framework that's really intended to address those sorts of concerns that folks have. And again, as Greg said, from an affordability perspective, Enbridge Gas Ohio is the lowest cost to serve of all 4 of the utilities. And that's by a significant amount because we provide that access to the east to the commodity, which is really a competitive commodity.

One of the things I'd be remiss if I didn't point out is that for our customers across the board, their typical electricity bill is somewhere between 1.5 to 2x what they pay for natural gas. We like to remind that whether it's Chickfillet in North Carolina or McDonald's in Ohio, for what it costs to feed a family of 4, you're hitting your home for a good couple of weeks with natural gas.

So keeping it competitive like that is what we're doing. But we're not concerned. I mean -- and maybe the last thing I would just say is as much as there's been a lot of data center focus in Ohio. And I think its location between New York and Chicago makes is pretty special. Our growth there has largely been focused on modernization. I mean we have a $4 billion modernization program there that's in the riders that continues to be in the riders, so short-cycle capital and the data centers and power generation is kind of the gravy on top of that. I would say that we were watching.

Matt, do you have anything you'd add?

That's perfect, it's good.

Your final question comes from the line of Patrick Kenny with National Bank.

My congrats to Greg and Michelle as well. Just on the momentum around LNG expansions along the West Coast, even over and above LNGC. Just curious how we should be thinking about future expansions of T cells or other parts of the West Coast system to provide more feed gas capacity, especially into the lower mainland. And then what capital-light opportunities might be available on the system, but also if larger scale, given the regulated nature of the return profile, I was just curious if you might be open to taking on a little bit more risk or whether it's the capital or the operational front in exchange for an opportunity to earn higher ROEs.

Pat, it's Matthew. Thanks for the question. So I think you're your own point about the potential and higher returns as well. So just as a reminder, we have a very significant capital expansion program going on now Sunrise multibillion-dollar project, we'll add a few hundred thousand a day there on that system, which is good.

Actually, we just brought Aspen Point online, and that was 1 point $2 billion, just under that, adding over $500,000 on T-North, coal contracted for 25 years. Those are great projects. But as you point out, there's a lot of potential. I mean we're probably 2 or 3 LNG export facilities behind where we want to be in Canada off the West Coast, I think, and then we're all seeing from the same song book there now. And we have opportunities for that. As you're probably aware, we have a permitted pipeline to the West Coast.

So that's a potential opportunity that will work through I think your question was more around the T-South and T-North opportunities there. And I think certainly, again, if there were further expansions beyond these ones we're working on now, which are quite substantial, then we'd be looking at for higher returns on that. We're not super keen on more risk. I think it's more we do take -- we'll always taking construction risk, but we're not big on things like volume risk, as you know.

So -- but again, we do think there are opportunities for win-wins with our customers on those, and we'd be looking to market-based competitive returns if we do further expand the West Coast system up there after these large expansions we're working through currently.

Patrick, the one thing, just so we're not remiss and leaving Matthew is storage. Remember, we have the only storage facility, the only one. in British Columbia, and we are currently expanding. We bought that a couple of years ago, fully seeing these LNG opportunities. That does provide upside optionality because, as you know, they're contracted different than, say, regulated pipe. And I think you're going to see the team continue to create opportunity there as well.

So yes, full on and in our partnerships to the West Coast and working with some other players. I think there's LNG opportunities, plenty there.

Okay. That's great, guys. And then moving over to the oil side and I guess, on the back of the Long Lake expansion. Wondering if you could just provide an update on the total opportunity set that you see over the next few years for your regional oil sands franchise? And also while you're at it, maybe your interest level and perhaps becoming involved in the pathways pipeline, just given your expertise and vested interest in seeing the Pacific Link pipeline going ahead to support more production growth out of the oil sands?

Yes. Good a couple of questions right at the end there, Pat. Yes and yes, in short. So we see significant opportunity. I think there's a question here at the beginning of the Q on this, right? It's kind of been a part of the business that we had long built out a decade or 2 ago, and it's flattened out, but there's a huge wave of production coming up in Alberta that we need to get to the Edmonton and Hardisty hubs. There's -- we have some prebuilt capacity there.

As a reminder, we've got 7 trunk lines up there. So -- and then there's laterals, there's terminaling, et cetera, for a number of customers. You should expect us to be chasing all that very assertively with -- it's competitive, but we've got some incumbent advantages.

Secondly, on the carbon pipe opportunity, yes, we are interested in that with the right risk package obviously. I think we have a lot of capabilities to bring to bear like 7 trunk lines already in that corridor. I think we're capable of building an efficiently and safely. And to Greg's reminder earlier, we have indigenous partners to the tune of 11% of that package. And so we've got a strong partner there to help attract and enable both the oil pipe and the carbon pipe solutions for industries.

So I think we're set up pretty well there and keen to get back into that region and it's the leg of the stool. Mid-November is a good -- when we look for settlement of deals between the producers, Alberta and the federal government on the full round of packages, if you will, that accelerates growth. It looks like everybody's lined up well. Canadian government put together a positive budget yesterday.

Obviously, we know the Alberta government separate. So I'd be watching there mid-November and then it's all on for regional activity fo Enbridge.

This concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Marlon Samuel for closing remarks.

Great. Thank you. We appreciate your ongoing interest in Enbridge. As always, our Investor Relations team is available following the call for any additional questions that you may have. Once again, thank you, and have a great day.

This concludes today's call.

Good afternoon. Welcome to the webcast, and thank you for joining us. Today, we will be discussing the acquisition of the Tallgrass Crude Oil Transportation System, which was announced earlier this afternoon, and the previously announced acquisition of the Salt Creek Crude Gathering System. Joining me are Greg Ebel, President and CEO; and Pat Murray, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. As usual, I encourage those listening to follow along with the supporting slides.

Please note, we will not be conducting a Q&A session following the webcast today. However, both the Investor Relations and media teams will be available. We will be referring to forward-looking information on today's webcast. So a quick reminder that by its nature, this information contains forecast assumptions and expectations about future outcomes, which are subject to the risks and uncertainties outlined here and discussed more in our public disclosure filings. Lastly, before we begin, we will also be referring to non-GAAP measures, which are summarized below. With that, I will now turn it over to Greg Ebel.

Well, thanks very much, Marlon, and good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. Before we get into the detail of our announcements today, let me reiterate what we have previously said about how we consider these types of transactions. At Enbridge, our primary goal is to create and compound value for our shareholders over time through both dividends and growth of our business. We have secured a significant $41 billion in organic growth projects and are focused on bringing these into service on time and on budget.

And although we primarily achieve growth through such efficient capital-optimized and organically developed projects, we occasionally use opportunistic and disciplined M&A to supplement the organic portfolio. This has served Enbridge and our shareholders well, both financially and strategically for years. Consistent with that approach, I'm excited to announce today that we are strengthening our leading North American crude oil platform through the acquisition of Tallgrass Energy's crude oil transportation business.

These highly strategic assets enhance our scale and connectivity, and we are acquiring them for $2.6 billion, which approximates to 10x to 11x '27 EBITDA. We expect this multiple will improve over time through synergies and growth capital. The assets acquired include a 75% operating interest in the Pony Express Pipeline, a 460,000-barrel-per-day long-haul pipeline, connecting Guernsey, Wyoming, and Cushing, Oklahoma. This acquisition provides Enbridge with a strategic connection between the Bakken, Powder River, and Denver-Julesburg basins and is highly complementary to our existing assets such as Express-Platte and our Cushing terminal.

The acquisition adds to our very recently announced purchase of Salt Creek Midstream's crude gathering business, extending our Permian super system into a wellhead-to-water platform. Those gathering assets were acquired for USD 600 million at a 7x EV/EBITDA multiple, which we are also expecting to decrease over time with synergies. The Salt Creek acquisition extends our presence deeper into the growing Permian Basin, which connects directly to our Gray Oak Pipeline and Enbridge's Ingleside export terminal.

We continue to have strong conviction in the long-term fundamentals of crude oil, and these assets are located in some of the most prolific basins in North America. At Enbridge, we strive to be a leading operator in every region we're in, allowing us to provide customers with increasingly advantaged service offerings across our integrated network. Opportunities like these do not come along very often. And when they do, they must clear a high bar for us.

Deals must fulfill a strategic requirement within our all-of-the-above approach to energy investment, align with our views on the basin and market fundamentals, be accretive in the first year and over the long term, and enhance our portfolio by creating future optionality or growth projects. And if you have all of that, there must be a willing seller with a reasonable price. Given the discipline imposed by those 4 or 5 requirements, you won't be surprised that we evaluate acquiring many more assets than we actually ever do.

The Tallgrass and Salt Creek opportunities happen to meet all of the strict criteria I just mentioned. At their core, these transactions will deliver strong cash flows and both come with embedded long-term option value. Together, they will further strengthen Enbridge's industry-leading liquids franchise. Now let's dive into a little more detail on the Tallgrass crude portfolio. The assets include a 75% operating interest in Pony Express, an interstate pipeline carrying crude from basins in the Bakken and the Rockies to refineries in the region and to Cushing, Oklahoma, for further transportation to the Gulf Coast.

We're also picking up a 51% ownership in Powder River Gateway, a 240,000-barrel-per-day short-haul pipeline, delivering volumes into Pony Express, and also included are 8 million barrels of crude oil storage across 9 different terminals. Strategically, this acquisition provides Enbridge with an increased footprint in the region with direct connection to an additional 500,000 barrels per day of refining capacity. We are also very excited for the embedded growth that comes along with these assets in Pony Express Pipeline 2, a 60,000-barrel-per-day expansion that will be added to our secure growth backlog when the transaction closes.

This expansion showcases the demand for egress along this valuable corridor and also extends a portion of existing contracts into the next decade. These Tallgrass assets were highly attractive to us as a stand-alone asset, but what also excites us is the opportunity to integrate them into our broader liquids business, which will create optionality and new pathways to better serve customers in the future. Now I'll discuss the other strategic acquisition I mentioned and that we recently announced.

At the end of August, we announced the acquisition of Salt Creek Midstream's crude oil gathering assets in the Permian. The acquisition included the Orla and Wink North gathering systems as well as a 50% interest in the Delaware Crossing system, each with its own terminal serving the prolific Delaware Basin in the Permian. With this direct connection to the Permian producers, Enbridge can now offer an integrated wellhead-to-water solution that includes gathering, long-haul transportation on Gray Oak pipeline, and export off the docks at Enbridge's Ingleside export facility.

The gathering system is currently moving about half of its total capacity of 420,000 barrels per day, allowing meaningful room for growth. It also provides us with structural benefits during the recontracting of existing Enbridge systems as we can now move volumes for our customers across our full Permian crude value chain. And with that, I'll pass it on to Pat to go over the funding for these transactions.

Thanks, Greg, and good afternoon, everyone. Turning to funding. We've structured these acquisitions in a manner that is consistent with our long-standing capital allocation framework and commitment to maintaining a strong investment-grade balance sheet. We're funding the total $4.5 billion for these acquisitions through an equal combination of debt and equity. The remaining equity raise provides us future financial flexibility as we navigate this high-growth environment that we're currently in.

We believe this is a prudent financing structure that allows us to complete 2 highly strategic and opportunistic transactions while maintaining our commitment to our long-held 4.5x to 5.0x debt-to-EBITDA target. Importantly, these acquisitions are expected to be accretive in the first full year of ownership and support continued optimization of our super system. Turning to the right side of our financing slide. We wanted to provide additional context around how our annual investment capacity is built up.

As we've discussed previously, Enbridge continues to have $10 billion to $11 billion of average annual investment capacity funded through free cash flow after dividends and additional debt capacity, all while remaining within our leverage target range. That framework has not changed. In fact, one of the key reasons we structured the funding for these transactions this way is to preserve the capacity for the significant organic growth opportunities we continue to see across the business. Today, we have a $41 billion secured growth backlog and a substantial opportunity set beyond us.

By funding these acquisitions conservatively, we're ensuring that M&A does not crowd out future accretive projects or reduce our ability to continue executing on our organic growth program. We also retain additional flexibility through capital recycling initiatives, partnership structures like the transaction we recently announced with KKR and Apollo, and other financing alternatives, which provides us further upside beyond our base investment capacity.

Stepping back, the key takeaway is that we opportunistically acquired high-quality strategic assets while preserving balance sheet strength, which supplements our existing growth backlog and adds additional future opportunities. With that, I'll turn it back over to Greg to close out the presentation.

Well, thanks very much, Pat. As I mentioned at the beginning, both acquisitions discussed today represent the types of opportunities that do not come along very often and even more rarely meet our disciplined evaluation criteria. We've spoken many times before about the value of assets in the ground, unlocking future growth, and the additional footprint we've added today only extends our growth potential even further. The Tallgrass system is a premier asset in the Rockies, increasing our exposure in the region while providing us with long-term growth flexibility.

And Salt Creek Midstream extends our value chain further upstream in the Permian, allowing us to provide a full suite of services across gathering, transportation, and export. These assets align well with our low-risk business profile, adding predictable cash flows and future growth opportunities. Our balance sheet strength and the $10 billion to $11 billion in annual investment capacity is maintained by the prudent financing of the transactions, allowing us to add more organic projects and continue delivering on our 5% growth target through the end of the decade.

To sum up, these assets are highly complementary with Enbridge's current crude assets and enhance our position as a first-choice investment opportunity. Finally, let me speak to our recently announced CEO succession. Our continued momentum on these strategically important transactions during the time of CEO succession reflects the strength of Enbridge's planning, deep bench strength, and execution capabilities.

The company will continue to deliver on its core strategy of being the first-choice energy delivery company in North America and beyond for our customers, communities, regulators, policymakers, and of course, even our investors. I have complete confidence in Michele, our management team, and our amazing employees to continue delivering value to all of our stakeholders in 2027 and the years ahead. Thank you for listening, and we look forward to talking again with you soon.

Great. Thank you. We appreciate your ongoing interest in Enbridge. As mentioned before, the Investor Relations team will be available following the webcast for any questions. Have a great day.

Good morning, and welcome to the Enbridge Inc. Second Quarter 2026 Conference Call. My name is Marlon Samuel, and I am the Vice President of Investor Relations and Insurance. Joining me this morning are Greg Ebel, President and CEO; Pat Murray, EVP and Chief Financial Officer; and the heads of each of our business units. Colin Grinding, Liquids Pipelines, Matthew Akman, Gas Transmission, Michele Harradence, Gas Distribution and Storage and Allen Capps renewable power. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference call is being recorded. As per usual, this call is being webcast and I encourage those listening to follow along with the supporting slides.

[indiscernible] 1 hour and in order to answer as many questions as possible, we will be limiting questions to one plus a single follow-up if necessary. We will be prioritizing questions from the investment community. So if you are a member of the media, please direct your inquiries to our communications team who will be happy to respond. As always, our Investor Relations team will be available after the call for any follow-up questions.

On to Slide 2, where I will remind you that we will be referring to forward-looking information on today's presentation and Q&A. By its nature, this information contains forecast assumptions and expectations about future outcomes. -- which are subject to the risks and uncertainties outlined here and discussed more fully in our public disclosure filings. We will also be referring to non-GAAP measures summarized below.

With that, I'll turn it over to Greg Ebel.

Well, thanks very much, Marlon, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us on the call today. We finished the first half of the year with a solid quarter 2, reflecting strong financial performance and setting us up to achieve our 2026 guidance. Utilization remained high across all 4 businesses, including strong Q2 mainline volumes averaging 3.1 million barrels per day. Alongside our partners in the Gulf, we began commissioning the Blackcomb pipeline during the quarter and are on track to bring it online by year-end. We also brought the Enbridge Houston oil terminal into service during the quarter. And within Liquids Pipelines, we sanctioned the Wisconsin Line 5 relocation project.

In Gas Transmission, we signed an exclusive option agreement, allowing Enbridge to acquire the TTC Connector pipeline along the Gulf Coast, which connects Tres Palacios gas storage to Freeport LNG. In the Permian, we sanctioned the Bay Runner Twin project, which alongside the initial Bayrunner pipeline, will serve Rio Grande's LNG facility along the U.S. Gulf Coast. All said, we are well on track to secure up to $20 billion in new projects in the 2026-'27 time frame.

Now let's dive right into the quarter's presentation. As we outlined here, it is truly an exciting time to be in the energy industry. There is a widening array of opportunities in front of all 4 core franchises at Enbridge, reflecting possibly the best environment for growth that we've had in recent memory. That is visible in our $50 billion of organic growth capital opportunities through 2030 and the fact that we've already sanctioned approximately $9 billion of capital in 2026.

On the Gas Transmission front, we're hearing from customers in all regions of our footprint, including the U.S. Northeast, Midwest and Southeast, all are looking for additional capacity to support unprecedented power and LNG demand.

In Liquids, we're evaluating a suite of optimizations across our systems to enable the wave of growth being discussed in both Canada and the United States. Energy policy is shifting and with the right implementation by governments, we expect real tailwinds across the continent, enabling project FIDs of critical liquids infrastructure investment.

At our Utilities, a combination of population growth, power needs, while maintaining affordability are driving very strong rate base growth, particularly in the higher returning U.S. markets we serve.

And finally, in our Power business, we're continuing to leverage our core partnerships with hyperscalers like Meta to secure long-term quick-cycle projects. Our secured growth backlog has grown consistently these past 2 years, alongside a continuous improvement in project returns. We're leveraging our scale, experience and incumbency to improve build multiples, creating value for our customers and shareholders in ways that differentiate us from peers.

Now let's dive into the business units. What is becoming increasingly clear is that the energy industry has reentered a growth phase, somewhat reminiscent of the 2012 to '15 time period. As producers confidence improves and the policy environment becomes increasingly supportive of growing production, new infrastructure will be required to support future growth across the continent. In the WCSB, Enbridge is uniquely positioned across both the regional Oil Sands system and our mainline and market access network to help meet that infrastructure demand. Within the Oil Sands region, our network of 30 [indiscernible], lateral and mainline pipelines serves approximately 50% of all Oil Sands production in Alberta. We also have some latent capacity on those assets that can be optimized to support new and existing customers, leveraging our significant infrastructure to move product to both Edmonton and Hardisty hubs.

On the condensate front, Southern Lights import some 200,000 barrels per day into Canada and the Norlite system can distribute well over 200,000 barrels per day of diluent further within Alberta for WCSB customers and has additional capacity. We expect those systems to play an increasingly important and expanding role as production grows through the next decade. Beyond our regional assets, construction is advancing on mainline optimization Phase 1 and the Southern Illinois Connector as we advance 180,000 barrels per day of incremental capacity. Notably, these represent the first Canadian liquids U.S. egress expansions to reach FID since 2017. We are also adding reliability and extending the useful life of our super system through our $2 billion mainline capital investment program that goes right through 2028.

PADD 3 continues to be the premier market for incremental Canadian production. We see this in the recent successful recontracting of the majority of volumes on both Spearhead and Flanagan South, extending those commitments into the 2030s and 40s, respectively. Recent alignment between producers and governments continues to improve the outlook for future WCSB production growth. As our customers work with governments to finalize and implement fiscal, regulatory and emissions frameworks, which in turn will help frame their long-term development plans. We expect MLO2 and our broader opportunity set to evolve to meet industry needs.

In the near term, we're focused on advancing expansions on Flanagan South and Southern Access extensions as the next phase of sequenced growth across our mainline and market access system. This quarter, we sanctioned the Line 5 relocation project in Wisconsin. This $1 billion investment supports critical energy infrastructure, serving the Great Lakes region. Construction is well underway with a quick cycle in service date expected in early 2027. Today, we are connected to approximately 75% of North America's refining capacity and continue to provide the lowest cost, most reliable market access solutions for our customers. Taken together, our established footprint provides us with the depth of opportunity embedded within our liquids franchise today. Whether production growth requires additional local or long-haul takeaway capacity diluent transportation, storage or gathering, Enbridge is uniquely positioned to customize and provide the infrastructure solutions needed to support the next phase of Oil Sands development.

The same could be said for our Natural Gas business, which we'll take a look at right now. Gas transmission continues to benefit from strong fundamentals across LNG exports, utility demand, industrial development and, of course, growing power generation and data center requirements. This involves brownfield projects all across our footprint, including Valley Crossing, Texas Eastern, the Vector Pipeline and our systems in the U.S. Southeast. In the U.S. Northeast, we're pleased to announce that our open season on Project Beacon significantly exceeded our initial expectations. We're working with utility, power and data center customers to advance the project to binding commitments while also progressing permitting activities, and we'll share further updates later in the year. We signed an exclusive option to acquire TTC Connector, which expands our Gulf Coast presence, connecting Enbridge's Tres Palacios natural gas storage operation to Freeport LNG. The project is fully underpinned by long-term take-or-pay contracts with BP. Our intention is to execute that option upon the facility entering service, which is expected around year-end.

Alongside our Whistler joint venture partners, we also sanctioned Bay Runner Twin to serve additional liquefaction capacity for the Rio Grande LNG facility. The Blackcomb pipeline continues to progress well, and we have started commissioning the pipeline as we work towards a full ISD in the second half of the year. And in Canada, we began construction on the $4 billion Sunrise expansion of our BC Pipeline system, providing capacity to serve residential, commercial, power generation and LNG export demand.

Now let's move into our utility franchises. Supportive regulatory jurisdictions give us confidence, stable, predictable returns and growth at the utilities, whether it's capital investment writers, revenue decoupling or performance-based rates, all 4 of our utility franchises have a mix of supportive attributes that help provide customers with affordable energy, and at the same time, allows us to quickly realize the return on capital. As we continue to expand our rate base and serve more customers, timely recovery of capital is critical to supporting continued investment in the system. And we believe all 4 jurisdictions in which we operate, provide constructive regulatory mechanisms that support that objective. We have one active rate case, which is Enbridge Gas Ohio. And earlier this month, we received a staff response from the Public Utilities Commission. The report was a constructive starting point as we're working towards a settlement for new rates expected to take effect in early 2027.

And now I'll move on to the Renewables segment. Our Renewable Power business continues to grow through high-quality projects, supported by strong counterparties and long-term contracted cash flows. We are currently constructing over 2 gigawatts of power generation across North America and Europe, including the Sequoia Solar project that is on track to fully enter service by year-end. Through our partnership with Meta, which now spans 4 projects, we are on track to construct over 1.4 gigawatts of solar and onshore wind power generation and provide 1.6 gigawatt hours of battery storage. We're continuing to advance over 1.5 gigawatts of additional safe harbor opportunities with blue-chip partners.

With that, I'll pass it on to Pat to go over our financial performance through the start of the year.

Thanks, Greg, and good morning, everyone. High utilization across all 4 business units drove another strong quarter despite continued geopolitical tensions and commodity price volatility. Compared to the second quarter of 2025, adjusted EBITDA increased over $130 million.

In Liquids, higher spot volumes on the Seaway pipeline and stronger volumes on our Mainline and Line 9, in addition to various optimization initiatives drove an increase in year-over-year EBITDA. This was partially offset by lower tolls on Line 9.

In Gas Transmission, a constructive rate case outcome at East Tennessee and a phased step-up from our previously announced rate settlement in Texas Eastern drove higher EBITDA. Gas Distribution benefited from higher base rates following the recent rate cases for Enbridge Gas Utah and North Carolina. These operating results, along with lower maintenance capital, supported the increase in DCF per share. Earnings per share was slightly down versus prior year due to higher depreciation from assets placed into service and increased interest expense on higher debt principal.

Based on our continued momentum and outlook, I'm pleased to reaffirm the 2026 guidance established last December. Our resilient business model continues to deliver strong and predictable results across a wide range of market conditions as demonstrated by our performance amid ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty, commodity price volatility and evolving global trade dynamics. Favorable contracting in our Gas Transmission assets and recent strong performance at our Seaway assets provide tailwinds for 2026, while lower market access contributions in LP and higher U.S. interest rates act as headwinds for the full year.

Now moving on to our capital allocation priorities, which remain unchanged. We continue to equity self-fund our growth and our balance sheet remains strong. We exited the second quarter of 2026 at 5.1x debt to EBITDA, primarily due to the quarter-end CAD/U.S. spot rate increasing to $1.42 compared to the average for the quarter of $1.38. Adjusting for this FX impact, debt-to-EBITDA would be within our target range for the quarter.

Growing our dividend remains central to our strategy. Over the past 5 years, we've returned $38 billion to shareholders and expect to return between $40 billion to $45 billion over the next 5 years. Our $41 billion backlog provides a clear runway for growth through the decade, supported by a disciplined focus on low-risk accretive brownfield investments.

With that, I'll hand it back to Greg to conclude the presentation.

Thank you, Pat. And as we step back and look across the business today, I believe the Enbridge investment proposition has never been stronger. At its foundation is stability, delivered through low-risk utility-like business model and our diversified asset base. This strength is reinforced by predictable cash flows, a disciplined balance sheet and a proven capital allocation framework. Consistency remains a defining characteristic of our company, demonstrated by 31 consecutive years of dividend increases and a long history of delivering on our commitments to you.

Looking forward, the company's growth is supported by our $41 billion secured capital backlog and an even larger growth opportunity set across Liquids, Natural Gas Transmission, Gas Utilities and Renewable Power. And perhaps most importantly, we maintain significant optionality. Few companies have the ability to allocate capital across 4 complementary energy infrastructure franchises while leveraging the scale customer relationships and market positions that Enbridge has built over decades. Taken together, those advantages position us to capture growing demand for reliable, affordable and sustainable energy while continuing to generate attractive returns for shareholders and ever-changing market conditions.

And with that, I'd like to thank you all for listening, and we'll now open the line for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Robert Hope with Scotiabank.

Maybe we can dive a little bit into the MLO2. In your prepared remarks, you mentioned that it's evolving into a broader set of opportunities. Can you maybe add some color on kind of what drove this outcome as well as when could we expect to see incremental clarity on the timing as well as the shape of any opportunities there?

Yes. Let me hand this to Colin, but maybe just let's recognize, first and foremost, the real possibility that we really are -- I think what is a generational change for the positive for the WCSB, oil and gas production and enhanced infrastructure. And after a couple of decades, producers, frankly, having their hands tied behind their back by governments. The changes proposed by the Canadian Alberta government to free up production growth are really dramatic. That said, until producers see all those proposed changes and implemented. So they really are sequencing or resin using what they think their pipeline needs are going to need. So it's really about us customizing solutions for them. But Colin, maybe I'll turn it to you deeper into MLO2.

Yes. Yes, happy to. And yes, we are quite excited about the coming policy environment. We've been advocating it for years on behalf of industry and Canadians and frankly, all North Americans. And it should be a huge tailwind to the incumbent super system. We've already plumbed into it, which you're familiar with. However, producers and governments are still in a nonbinding MOU stage, which is fine. But it will take likely some quarters to flush that out to negotiate it to convert it to implement it into law. And therefore, we don't expect producers to start meaningfully FID production growth yet.

And the companion point is -- nor do we expect producers to be making binding FID-able commitments to new pipelines until that. Now there's an order of operation, right? Production policy, production pipelines. We've talked about that for many quarters now and that order of operation will be respected it looks like. So our competitive response to that is that we are on MLO2,Rob, to your point specifically, is we're disaggregating and resequencing segments of our MLO2 path and we'll be now focusing on the Chicago South market access segments first. This will effectively move existing egress barrels -- existing agrees, further south to lower PADD II, PADD III refining centers and multiple U.S. Gulf Coast export options. We'll be expanding the downstream sections. This will still require significant capital, but the scope is simpler and will yield better economics for us here initially. Now the downstream section going before the upstream section, if you like, simply, will create a small imbalance in the system, but we expect this to be temporary until the main line portion is optimized or expanded later. But we think this will be manageable for everyone. And so we've got lots of options. We have lots of mainline optimization designs and scopes and numbers as we've talked about. And if there is tightness in 2028 resulting from this slight delay, we'll solve that with either MLO2 or another MLO design and scope for industry?

Yes, I think it's actually we have a better customized fit for the producers because as -- and I would say for investors in many respects, too. And I think you'll see that in the coming quarters. And as Colin says, create some with that resequencing or pivoting some of that tightness in the main line, then we'll be ready to solve that bottleneck issue for our customers as that comes into focus as well.

All right. Appreciate the color. And then maybe just moving a little bit more north from the mainline. You did highlight kind of the regional oil sands franchise, which does have a number of pipes going north and out there. If we do see a renewed production growth out of the oil sands. Can you remind us just how much latent capacity you do have on the oil sands pipeline network as well as kind of what some optimization or expansion opportunities could come?

Yes, sure. I mean this is -- I appreciate the question. I mean a rising tide should lift all boats. And we've got circa $130 billion of enterprise value already pre-plumbed into this. So we do have some latent capacity in the regional area, as you pointed out, although there will be some bottlenecks in certain parts of that network. Consider we have 7 trunk lines that feed for McMurray down to Edmonton and Hardisty. As a reminder, we've got indigenous partners for 11% of that. But -- so there will be some immediate investment opportunities. We're in active conversations with a number of producers on that basis. And expect to take some FIDs on some incremental capital in the near term, but there also is some operating leverage in the system or on to your question on point.

Yes. It's a really good point, right, like and don't forget, obviously, Norlite, Southern Lights, the diluent facilities up there too, that see how this all goes up, but that's going to be an opportunity for us interconnected with that.

Your next question comes from the line of Spiro Dounis with Citi.

I want to start with return on capital here. Greg, you mentioned this being the best environment for growth in over a decade. And that's clearly manifesting itself in the opportunity set moving higher. But curious what that's translating to when we start to think about returns. I guess the last data point we got from '25 is projects that year, we're crossing at a ROCE around 11% I guess we continue to hear customers are now finally sort of recognizing the value of infrastructure in the ground more than before. So curious what you're seeing on your end and if we could expect maybe some upward pressure on that return threshold.

Yes. I think it depends on where we are. Obviously, in the Liquids business, we see the best returns on our capital, just given the size of the footprint, if you will, and the ability, as Colin just mentioned, to use some operating leverage there. And then on the gas pipeline side as well. And it's a difference between Canada and United States. But Look, on the entire base, we're trying to move it up if we can add 100 basis points on a return on capital employed. And that's the target, and we're making good progress on that. That's incredibly valuable. And so it's not just revenue, it's also build multiples. Obviously, that feeds into that, given our size, our ability to buy pipe -- our ability to buy compressors. Our ability even on the distribution side to buy meters given the size. So it's not a one thing. It's on all of those fronts. And I think the nature of most of the projects you see us build are brownfield that help that as well.

So yes, 100 basis points on the enterprise value obviously creates some real opportunity. Look, that's harder to do with the pure regulated elements of it, like the distribution company, but making sure that we actually earn our regulated rate of return in each of those areas. And I know Michelle and her team have done a nice job of moving that up to make sure you fully get that. That may in investors' minds be, well, of course, you're going to do that, but that actually just doesn't fall out. So all of those pieces and given the size of the base, that 100 basis point move extremely valuable to us.

Got it. It's great to hear. Second question quickly, maybe just on the Project Beacon. As you noted, received significantly more interest than you all expected. And I realize maybe there's more updates to come. But just curious, can you talk about your ability to maybe expand the scope or maybe even potentially sort of develop a second phase of the project to accommodate all that demand?

Matthew is here. So I'll turn that to Matthew.

Yes. Thanks for the question. This is really a great example of how we're seeing, as Greg talked about, gas demand across all of our footprint in Gas Transmission right now for all kinds of requirements. I mean some of that is obviously power and data centers, and some of it is just catch up in terms of being behind and building infrastructure. And I think Beacon and New England is probably the best example of that, where everyone knows we've needed more gas pipeline capacity into there for quite a while. We are right now working on Algonquin enhancement there, which is a $70,000 a day project based on the interest we got for Beacon, which would be another phase, as you alluded to, we would expect that to be multiple times of that size that we're currently working on, actually, in a phase. You talked about different phases. There's a real recognition we found in the response to the open season of the need for that capacity for affordability and reliability to reduce emissions from oil burning, power as well and energy costs generally. We've got studies that suggest, depending on how big this project is, it could save over $1 billion for utility customers a year in New England. So it's very, very compelling. And we're really pleased that our customers and all the stakeholders there recognizing the importance of it.

So it's something we're definitely going to pursue commercially here as the need is very strong. Of course, there's a lot of hurdles to pass. And as you all know, permitting is the #1 thing there. So we'll obviously maintain our discipline as we pursue this and ensure that the permitting risk is very manageable. But we see this as a very promising project, one of many across our entire systems here going forward.

Spiro, I think the other -- I think, Matthew outlined it well, but his last point is that -- to your first question as well, us having good regulatory excellence in the way we do these things and making sure we're not taking on [indiscernible] risk and quickly get through regulatory hearings and filings. That also goes to improving our returns too, right? The quicker we can get from contracts to regulatory to actually getting that cash to work is critical. And we're seeing that right across our entire businesses. But this project, that will be very important for us.

Your next question comes from the line of Manav Gupta with UBS.

I wanted to go back a little. And 2 or 3 years ago, you guys were barely present in the Permian gas. Now you're kind of one of those people who is leading the charge, 2 big pipes coming on and then other opportunities which we are seeing this twin for the Bay runner. Can you talk about your Permian gas strategy and what's going in the basin and all the ways Enbridge can benefit from it?

Sure. Go to Matthew. Yes, you're right. Well, first of all, thanks for the compliment. I think the teams successively in Gas Transmission have made a real move there through Whitewater, which I think you're talking about. But I'm sure Matthew want to touch on the LNG and storage strategy there because all of that is very much tied back into the Permian.

Yes. Thanks a lot for the question. It's something that we've looked at strategically and advanced very intentionally in the last few years. Obviously, our position in the white water assets and now the sanctioning of this second phase at Bay runner, which is great. There's a lot more to do there just in those assets in terms of expansion. And it's not just in the main pipelines, but there's also potential storage expansion, for example, in that footprint.

And then downstream as well, and that's probably the next big opportunity is just when that gas hits kind of the Corpus or mainly the Houston market. Where does it go from there? And we have the ability to move that gas around with our Texas Eastern footprint and then through the Gulf Coast area, and that gas is going to want to continue to move further east for various purposes, industrial. And as Greg mentioned, LNG. And so we're pursuing a whole bunch of stuff on that front. And then finally, on the storage front. We've talked about our storage expansion. And last quarter, we announced the expansion of Tres Palacios receives a lot of that gas. We've got about almost 50 Bcf a day of expansion across our own wholly owned Gulf Coast storage facilities. So lots of opportunity there, and we recognize I appreciate you raising that.

Manav, the other -- yes, it's a great question. You will not be surprised that this is a replication strategy that Matthew and before him, Cynthia and Allen here, who's running the Power business now have built for a long time. But it's a replication of Colin and his team's strategy as we built up from the water in Ingleside then back in on the oil side for Gray Oak and those pipes and continue to look at those opportunities. So this has worked well. This is how you build super system. This is what a good super system looks like. and we're going to keep doing it both on the oil and gas side. So I think the coming quarters will have some exciting elements to that on both fronts.

Perfect. My quick follow-up here is because so many good things are going on in the company. Sometimes the one part of the portfolio, which doesn't get enough credit, in our opinion, is your renewables portfolio. I don't think there are that many companies out there that have 1.4 gigawatt partnership with Meta. And then I think the tax credit is gives you. So can you talk a little bit more about your renewables portfolio and all the good things that are happening over there?

Yes. I think absolutely. And I think since Enbridge Day just about 14 months, 15 months ago, we've actually FID-ed $3.5 billion, $3.4 billion worth of renewables. But I know, Allen, you got lots of other plans too.

Yes. Manav, thanks for the question. A lot of credit to goes to Matthew, who really built this business off. Right now, we've got, as you can see from the slide, over 1.5 gigs just under construction. And a lot of that is with Meta, as you mentioned, also AT&T, Toyota and others. So real blue-chip customers that we're really getting. And I think you can attribute that to the Enbridge brand, our size and scale at the end of the day.

Also on the safe harbor side, we got about another, call it, 1.5 gigs of opportunity there, which gives us a lot of time as I think this tax credit thing gets sorted out. I do believe that -- and I've talked to a lot of others in the industry that have the same opinion that even once you move past the safe harbor opportunities, the safe harbor tax opportunities that there are ways to make these projects economic without the tax credits even in a tariff environment because, frankly, they're needed. In order to meet the electricity demand that we have out there that you're going to need renewables to supplement what's probably going to be mostly natural gas that's really going to end up doing most of the supplying a lot of that demand, but renewables are going to play a big part as well. And that's why we're so excited about this business and why it's a part of the portfolio.

Again, it also speaks to that all of above strategy. So I appreciate your comments on the renewables. But let's not forget, this company Enbridge since, again, Investor Day, we are either constructing or have sanctioned 10.5 gigawatts of power infrastructure. And what I mean by that is you got the renewable piece that we just talked about. But let's not get at the Utility. We're building the T15 line, which supports about 2.5 gigawatts of power in North Carolina. The Sesh project we announced AGT First Rob, Tennessee Ridge line, which will come in at the end of the year. Line 31 in Louisiana Vector, which we own 60% of those projects all told those all account for 10.5 gigawatts largely supporting power. So it's all of the above. People are less interested in what color your electrons on are your molecules. They need it. from an affordability perspective from an industrial growth perspective and I think we're delivering on that with more to come.

Your next question comes from the line of Maurice Choy with RBC Capital Markets.

Just wanted to come back to MLO2. It sounds like the upstream project has been postpone for the time being. And I wonder if you could just dive a little bit deeper as to what has changed in recent months, whether there be a cost or customer demand thing or other elements?

I don't think it's either one of those, but I think about -- as I said, I mean, I think about this as the geopolitics of volatility and the psychology of sanctioning projects, right? So just think of the last 6 months, we've seen WTI go from $63 to $113 back to $69 then to $92. And in the last 30 days, it's gone from below $70 to above $90, back below $80, and now I think I've checked this morning, but a little over $80. So on the street [indiscernible] moves has gone from being open to close to maybe it's open to maybe 20% or 80% open. And then you've seen governments made pretty dramatic moves in terms of their policy stance, et cetera, and then throw in a little Venezuela there.

So I think you can see there's a fair bit of a challenging backdrop for producers, refiners, exporters and pipelines to fully commit to large-scale projects. But let's make no mistake that is coming because the needs are there tightest. Look at the refineries. Refineries in North America are running at the high 90s. All this says they need more capacity. They're going to need more pipeline capacity and then of course North American export. It's just until we get through that volatility piece, people are going to be focused on give me customized solutions that I can utilize and I'll deal with the bigger solutions as we go forward. So Colin, you might want to add to that.

Yes. I think what's changed. I think just the pace of policy implementation has taken a little longer. It's all positive. And like we said, we've been advocating for it, but it just does take a little time to get fleshed out to put in a paper and producers are behaving with discipline, which I respect. I think they'll get there. We were just a little too quick off the line here, but we've started those conversations and there's a lot of support for mainline egress.

I think you're going to see more opportunities attached to this and think about the Gulf Coast, too. And the great thing is, what are the 2 best places to be in North America when you've got this environment, it's the Permian and the Western Canadian sedimentary basin, and where is Enbridge oil business? Right there. serving PADD II and PADD III and 75% of the refining capacity in North America. So yes, this -- I don't think it's so much of a change. It's just getting as comments gun to go out for the race and getting to the finish line.

Understood. That makes sense. If I could just finish off with a question on the balance sheet. Pat, I think you mentioned that the debt to EBITDA -- it's a little bit over 5x, but after you adjust for FX, it will be within your target range. If I look at one of your slides in your pack, where the $41 billion of secured capital program, I'm guessing about 40% of that is coming into service in 2027 with CapEx being spent today in the coming quarters. So I wonder if you could just give us a little bit of a trajectory as to how you think that the EBITDA metric will progress through the end of 2027.

Yes. So I think we're pretty comfortable with our leverage levels, as you noted, a 5.1 for the at the end of the quarter. But if you adjust for FX within that $4.5 to $5 million and you're right in that we'll have actually a fair decent number of projects coming into service near the end of this year and then a big chunk of them kind of call it the back half of next year. And so I think we'll stay near the top of that range during that period of time, but we're comfortable that with the levers we've got, whether that be just cash flow we're generating, whether that be we've got some hybrid capacity potential asset sales monetization, things like that, that we should go to manage well within that range. So we're excited to continue to build out this portfolio.

The other thing I'd say, you mentioned about that portfolio we've talked a lot about is that it's right down our fairway from a risk-reward perspective and right in our core business, which is fantastic. So we feel really comfortable with the leverage that we've got and the tools we have to manage that as we go.

As those assets come into service in the back half of 2017, presumably on a run rate basis, you're probably in the lower to mid part of that 4.5 to 5x range.

Yes. I mean, I guess that partly will be determined by what other opportunities we secure in that window. If we start securing larger projects over the next little while, there probably won't be a lot of capital but there could be some capital in the back part of '27. So I'm not sure we'll be in the lower part, but it should naturally come down as cash flows come on. But that will be a bit determined by the amount of capital that we see. And the truth is we're seeing a lot of opportunities. So we'll see how those evolve over the next little while, but we're really comfortable that we can maintain that as we go forward.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan.

Just wanted to drill in a little bit, if we could. The $20 billion project sanctioning target for '26-'27, already $9 billion in the bank, so a good portion there. But just was wondering specific number there putting out this quarter. I just wondered if you might be able to dive in a little bit more on specifically the types of projects, the areas. Is this largely natgas logistics to service power? Or are there other elements to this $20 billion target we should think about?

Yes. Well, it's a good question. And maybe the one slide, I think that's in there is a good one to look at for investors, that #4 slide, which, as you say, we've sanctioned $9 billion year-to-date, which is a great start to our kind of up to $20 billion through '27. But if you could look at that other chart, I would expect you're going to start to see more on the gas transmission side. and obviously, the liquid side, a good jump on renewables and gas distribution, maybe those a little bit ahead, but some of the projects on the gas side takes a little bit longer. And yes, as Matthew talked about, like Beacon is going to serve, yes, customers up there, but important for power producers up there. He may have mentioned, but I think we've said to folks, even the Governor of Massachusetts has suggested independent power producers sign up for projects like Enbridges.

So -- and then in the Southeast, you'll see opportunities down there. As you know, a lot of growth in that neck of the woods tied to power, but also just industrial growth and data centers. So it's right across the whole board. And then -- but I would expect to see a significant portion of the go-forward coming on the gas side to serve not just power, not just LNG not just storage but also industrial onshoring. So it's all of the above opportunity for gas. I don't know, Matthew, do you want to add to that?

Yes, sure. Thanks, Jeremy. It is a very exciting time for the Gas Transmission business. And I mean, as you know, I mean, Enbridge, we don't announce projects until they're fully baked, but there's a lot of activity going on across our entire footprint. And it isn't -- some of it is power, but not necessarily data center power. A lot of it is within utility footprints. And those are -- some of our favorite customers is the big regulated utilities. I mean when you look at what's happening across our footprint, Greg did mention the Southeast, and you look at what's happening in Florida, for example, and we've got big interest in 2 out of 3 pipes there. We talked about the Northeast, Texas Eastern across the entire Gulf Coast. So we do see it across all pieces. We do expect to punch above our weight in gas transmission. Some of that could be chunky, of course, because some of the projects, as Greg said, it will depend on the customer timing, but very active conversations going on, and we're optimistic that we're going to be contributing more than our fair share over the next 6 to 12 months in Gas Transmission. So great outlook there.

And Michele, I don't want to -- sometimes I think we forget the distribution company and just how much its rate base is growing, serving all those, but do you want to speak to that particularly in the U.S.

Sure. I mean we're very happy with the U.S. utilities and have been very pleased with the growth that we're seeing out of them. In fact, we're forecasting well above 8% rate base growth in the utilities, and that's ranging anywhere from 5% plus, but in Ohio, where we really saw is more of just a stability kind of market, now we're seeing a lot of growth tied to data centers and things like that, all the way up to 19% in North Carolina. We've talked about a few of the big projects like our [indiscernible] Energy Center, T15 project to serve Duke and coal to gas conversions. But just like Greg alluded to, we're seeing industrial reshoring, manufacturing growth, residential growth has remained strong across the board. And I can't pass over Utah as well where we see about 8% rate base growth. And that's where we've already connected to several data centers.

So as you can see, Jeremy, right across and definitely gets a big focus, and we've already talked about Liquids and Renewables.

Got it. Very helpful. And then just a smaller detailed question for myself. I wondering as it relates to Blackcomb when you say it's commissioning now, does that mean it's like flowing a 1/4 of the gas and it will be full by year-end? Or how should we think about that ramp?

Yes, I think that's probably fair. We can get back to you on the details on that, Jeremy. But yes, it's just ramping up now through year-end.

Yes. As you know, as we introduce gas, you want to make sure things are running, right, compression rate. It's just the general ramp up. You'll be at full tilt, I think, by end of the year, Matthew. As we know, there's plenty of guests to move out of the Permian and that we saw that coming, and that's going to continue to be the case here. So Yes, I would argue, the second of these things are fully turned on, they're full. And so really what it's going to speak to, to ask us that question as we get to the end of the year, how full it is, and I think the response will be full and hence, here's what else we got going on.

Your next question comes from the line of Robert Catellier with CIBC Capital Markets.

I just wanted to go back to the WCSB and the Liquids outlook, understanding that there's still [indiscernible] on the policy side. But it doesn't feel like we're going to get to a place that will promote production growth. So in that context, we're likely going to need additional condensate. So I was wondering if you could speak to the outlook for your condensate tools there and specifically Southern Lights. What type of ability you have to expand capacity there, both with and without looping?

Yes, Robert, great call out. And indeed, as the basin grows by 1.5 million, 3 million, 4 million barrels a day, which is the ambition. It's quite a game changer here. So diluent will be needed to enable that. You're acutely on it. And the good news is Enbridge has a full value chain to import condensate on Southern Lights and Norlite, and there is meaningful headroom on both those assets prior to looping, right? So we'll commercialize those and even look at other solutions to come in behind that in a batting order kind of context. So we've got a full strategic playbook for that as well, and we're a leader in that space.

Okay. And then maybe a question for Michele here related to Ohio. Obviously, there was a very, very good support from the staff on your rate case, but I can't hope but notice there was also some legislation table suggesting a utility rate freeze for a year. So maybe you could walk through that in your regulatory strategy in Ohio to address that. Just seems a little bit reminiscent of Enbridge Gas New broke.

Yes, you bet. So first of all, you're right, that we received the staff report at the beginning of July, and we're very pleased with their position that's constructive. We're going to enter into settlement discussions here. There is a hearing scheduled for the end of September, but we're pretty optimistic that we can land in a good place on settlement. The particular legislation you're referring to, it was -- when we had a look at it, I mean, I think it's very indicative of folks' concern around affordability and I'll touch on that in a second.

The legislation itself the way it was brought forward, it missed some particularly relevant deadlines in order to be able to get through. So we don't see it as a specific threat, but I do think we need to stay very focused on the affordability side of things, whether that's in Ohio or any of our jurisdictions. In Ohio, we are the lowest cost to serve, as we've talked about many times. I mean, next to the 3 other LDCs, we're anywhere between 40% and 70% lower, especially once you included the commodity cost because we've invested so much in making sure they have access to the commodity. But as Enbridge Gas large, we're really looking at -- and Greg alluded to this earlier, how can we leverage our scale, our size, our buying power to continue to drive affordability for our customers. There's no question we've done some polling across our franchise areas, both in Canada and the U.S. And the residents of those regions describe themselves, not just as frustrated but angry about the cost of things, 80% plus are angry about the cost of things. So it's on us as utilities that are in service to our communities to focus on that. And it's also through things we've talked about, and I think at the last earnings call, we talked about our investment in storage as an example.

Ontario's storage this winter saved our customers, the fact of that storage $200 million. In Ohio, it saved them $100 million in avoided costs because they didn't have to buy at the peak of the season. So we're extremely focused on that. And even in the regions where we're growing like North Carolina, we really believe in that principle of growth financing growth, and we're seeing that. So I don't need to be in any way, shape or form dismissive of that legislation. But that particular piece, we don't see it in traction, but the overall affordability concerns that we're seeing is definitely something we're focused on.

Yes, there's a lot more to affordability than just that piece of legislation.

Your next question comes from the line of Aaron MacNeil with TD Cowen.

I wanted to follow up on Rob's question on Southern Lights. Can you give us a sense of sort of the range or quantum of different capacities you could potentially bring on with an expansion and what would the potential time line be for those range of solutions to come into service?

Yes. We have -- like I said, we have headroom on both those pipes without $20 billion. So this is just compression or pumping. So like the rest of the playbook, we intend to bring that on in pieces as needed. You'll see in our disclosures here. We've recently moved Southern Lights from a kind of a cost-of-service model to a contract model with an upward kind of tilted return, if I could borrow a term from the past, and inflators and we'll bring on capacity as needed. Likewise, on Norlite and we'll work with our partner on that. That often folds -- the diluent conversation often folds into the regional kind of gathering conversation with shippers. They often want to procure both those solutions together, and we can bundle those packages for them if that's kind of helpful in the commercialization outlook.

But in fairness, it kind of goes back to the other issues we've talked about. I mean, production is going to drive when that comes on. So as we see greater clarity on policy legislation actual implementation and then our customers taking decisions on actual investments in production growth, that will drive that. So we're not trying to be -- we're not trying to push off your question, are and I think that that's the next milestone to watch for.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is, if you think that domestic production can't keep up with sort of the demand? Like do you think Enbridge will be able to deliver that condensate that the industry needs under sort of the range of potential outcomes here? Like how should we think about that?

Yes and yes. Yes, domestic supply will be insufficient as this ambition is realized, and there's a number of parties leaning into this ambition now. So domestic supply of condensate will be insufficient, and we'll need to import more. And even beyond that, we think there -- like I alluded to earlier, there will be additional import solutions required. Like if you recall back to Northern Gateway 12 years ago, we had contemplated a companion diluent import lending. So we've been thinking about this equation and problem for a long time. We're on it.

Okay. Great. And then maybe just one more. As it relates to the stand-alone Flanagan South and Southern Access extension opportunities, are you at a stage where you can better quantify either the improved initial economics as you referred to it, or the capital scope of those projects?

Not quite yet. We'll reserve that for an FID disclosure, but it is significant. It's not as big as MLO2, to be fair, but -- the capital, I mean, but the return output is disproportionately attractive.

Your next question comes from the line of Sam Burwell with Jefferies.

One more on MLO2. I mean, should we assume a very short time lag between these downstream expansions and then ultimately, an upstream expansion of the mainline. And just like is the expiration of the mainline polling settlement, any consideration on this in terms of when you would want to push through the Mainline expansion.

TBD. I mean, it could be any of those, honestly. But I think you surface an important distinction, which is, I mean, does it have to be the exact same scope as MLO2 as the solution. It does not. It could be a different version of it. We have lots of MLOs designed. We can manage in the interim with that imbalance. But to the other point, we could also scope into the next line negotiation capital expansion. Anything is possible here.

And I think to Greg's point earlier, we have a number of solutions. We'll remain agile. We want to be kind of customer-led on this. And there will be a solution at some point. It's not a question of if, it's when. The mainline will most probably be expanded for 136x at some point, like -- and we may have a label for it. We may not have a label for it. Maybe it's a digital solution. There's a lot of -- there's 7 pipelines in the right-of-way, 36-inch 48-inch. There's there's potential to cross over pipe. There's all kinds of solutions here. So I just ask everyone to remain kind of patient and agile here, and we'll continue to serve the basin.

Yes. And let's not forget, we're adding an 180,000 barrels a day with our MLO 1 and the SIC project, which I believe is the only FID to egress out of the basin in a decade. And let's not forget the further south as well. our producers are always looking for how else can they get to market. And yes, mainline and the market-facing pipes, but we also have Ingleside as well, too. So if you can find a way to get producers to different markets, and they're not just price takers, we're looking at that, too. So I think all of this is tied up back into that whole geopolitical volatility and the psychology of sanctioning projects, which I think is a winner for the end bridges of the world when they have multiple different used to speak about it as Swiss Army knife, but we actually have several Swiss Army knives as it's turning out, whether it's on the north or the south of liquid side on the gas side and even the distribution side as well now, too. So yes, stay tuned, Sam.

Can I just [indiscernible] point of view...

Supply push here quite a bit on this kind of threat on egress. And one of the has, I think, the market is observing through this Iranian conflict and Hormuz bottleneck is product -- on the demand side. So product shortages globally, refineries, which were plumbed to 75% of the U.S. refining capacity. Refineries are being pushed really hard to supply that product, not just for the U.S. but globally. And it's our emerging belief that the U.S. refining kit is likely to rerate upwards. And so that is a positive I think, emergence in the supply-demand equation on the corner.

Yes, it's a good color. You take 5 million or 6 million barrels a day of refining capacity out through Hormuz and then the Russian situation, which people thought that work was going to last for weeks, and it's now lasted longer than we what? And that stuff may not come back very fast and even when it does Yes, North American refining capacities got an opportunity to be out of the fray, if you will, and have a great basins, multiple great basins to pull upon. So yes, I think that, that macro backdrop is excellent as well.

Your next question comes from the line of Benjamin Pham with BMO.

You mentioned the favorable recontracting environment, especially on the gas side, and you have a number of projects here moving forward to what we've been seeing better returns. How do you think about your return? Or how does that think about the return profile on existing assets to trend returns where it's going? And then just that $20 billings of opportunity, does that effectively fill up your white space through the end of the decade? Because from what we can quickly see, it seems like it is still a big chunk of it.

Yes. I think that's fair. On recontracted projects, well, again, you're looking at, I think S&P just updated their gas demand outlook for North America right through 2040 that moved it up significantly. So infrastructure is still hard to build. So whenever we go to recontracting, the rates are as good, if not better. Texas Eastern, the kind of grand daddy of the U.S. pipelines we have, we always have 100% recontracting. I think once in the last 10 years, I see us go down to 99, and we sold that additional percentage of boatload. So even like capacity, getting people to resin is not an issue and when we can do it for better returns. And you see that on storage bed, like our storage returns have gone up quite nicely in the last for 3, 4 years. And anything that comes up for renewal, we're seeing higher rates on that than what we would originally contracted for.

Now with respect to your filling up to the end of the decade, yes, we'll see. I mean, -- and again, that -- we expect FID through '27 -- '26 and '27 up to the $20 billion. The opportunity set is more like $50 billion. So yes, that's what gives us confidence in that 5% growth through the end of the decade. So I don't think we're going to be a lack of opportunity. It's going to be which ones provide the best returns for our shareholders and the best results for our customers. And there's not too much white space left to fill, I would totally agree with that.

Yes. Maybe I'd just add then a couple of things. One is, yes, we talked a lot on these calls about new opportunities, and that's positive. We want to talk about all those. But you should definitely be focused on the fact that management is always focused on optimizing the returns of our base assets, whether that's Michele getting the returns we need on the utilities, whether that's the renewals of various rate cases that we have. So it's a big focus to continue.

And in a market where our assets are required and needed, I think we're in a good position when that happens. On the white space question, I think it's fair to say that remember, as we add EBITDA to the business, our capacity also goes up. You've seen us move from, I think, maybe 3, 4 years ago, of $7 billion or $8 billion of capital in a year, now we're up to $10 million to $11 million. if we put the right projects in at the right returns, on budget, on time, that will continue to increase, which will continue to almost increase that white space that we have and that we look to fill into the back part of the decade. So '26 and '27 are pretty full up from a capital perspective. And to be frank, the amounts that we -- the projects that we're going to FID [indiscernible] will probably have to spend maybe some in '27, but then '28 and '29. And the goal here is to continue to add clarity into that growth and extend it further on. So we feel very good about the growth and the base assets.

Okay. Got it. And could you update us on your North South outlook and just in the context of rising production and I'm not sure it's totally related to you specifically, is Fortis announced this expansion of the [indiscernible] facility and marine bunkering and maybe there's an expansion on wood fiber around the corner. So I'm just curious, any notable change. And I appreciate Sunrise's going on in construction, but we pin an outlook.

Yes. Thanks, Ben. It's Matthew. So that's another positive area. We haven't mentioned, so I appreciate you raising it. And as you did recognize, we just started construction and just broke ground on the $4 billion Sunrise expansion project there, which is a great project. What we're seeing generally on a macro basis beyond that, and around that is just renewed support at a level we haven't seen in a long time for natural gas across Canada and of course, in British Columbia, and also a drive to export more gas off the coast of British Columbia, which we're really well positioned for, whether that's expansions on, as you mentioned, Toronto as you probably are aware, we have a fully permitted LNG pipeline in British Columbia.

So with the right commercial construct and the right returns, and we're seeing tremendous renewed commercial interest in that. And as I said, stakeholder support for that. There's more possibility of that kind of attractive project in Western Canada as well. So yes, we're seeing definitely an upswing in the opportunity set there.

Ben, just to add, don't forget we're also adding a big expansion on our Aitken Creek storage, the only storage facility that exists in British Columbia. And as that gets contracted up, seeing very positive upside there as well. So I think beyond what Matthew said, I think we're actually at $8 billion of projects. And if you look down the West Coast, there's only one pipeline that goes north south all the way and that's us. And then last but not least, particularly in the current environment in Canada. We have thought about this a long time, and we're on it early in British Columbia. We have some 38 nations that own a piece of that West Coast pipeline and that ability to involve indigenous and private sector projects is a really critical component in British Columbia, and we've already got that set up. So yes, BC is great, like better returns there, but that's up for our regulatory folks to figure that one.

This concludes the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Marlon Samuel for closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, and we appreciate your ongoing interest in Enbridge. As always, our Investor Relations team is available following the call for any additional questions that you may have. Once again, thank you, and have a great day.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Good morning, and welcome to the Enbridge Inc. First Quarter 2026 Conference Call. My name is Marlon Samuel, and I am the Vice President of Investor Relations and Insurance. Joining me this morning are Greg Ebel, President and CEO; Pat Murray, EVP and Chief Financial Officer; and the heads of each of our business units. Colin Gruending, Liquid Pipelines; Matthew Akman, Gas Transmission; Michele Harradence, Gas Distribution and Storage; and Allen Capps, Renewable Power.

[Operator Instructions]. Please note, this conference call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions].

On to Slide 2, where I will remind you that we will be referring to forward-looking information on today's presentation and Q&A. By its nature, this information contains forecast assumptions and expectations about future outcomes, which are subject to the risks and uncertainties outlined here and discussed more fully in our public disclosure filings. We will also be referring to non-GAAP measures summarized below. With that, I'll turn it over to Greg Ebel.

Thanks very much, Marlon, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us once again today. The first quarter was a strong start to the year, reflecting solid financial performance and continued execution across our businesses. We reaffirmed our '26 guidance and medium-term outlook and continue to operate in line with our 4.5 to 5x debt-to-EBITDA target.

From an operational standpoint, utilization was high across all businesses with record Q1 mainline volumes and numerous peak delivery days on our U.S. gas transmission and distribution systems. In April, we completed our seventh expansion of tank storage at Ingleside and have now increased storage capacity to approximately 20 million barrels, and we brought the 120,000 barrel per day Gray Oak expansion into service.

On the execution and growth front, we announced open seasons on the Flanagan South and Southern Access extension pipelines, which support mainline optimization Phase 2. We also completed a successful open season on the Spearhead pipeline. During the quarter, we sanctioned a number of exciting projects in gas transmission, including expansions to our Tres Palacios, natural gas storage and our 60% owned Vector pipeline. We also announced an expansion of unregulated natural gas storage at Enbridge Gas Ontario and the 300-megawatt Cone Power Project.

We'll dive in a little deeper into these projects in the business update slides. But first, let's take a look at how Enbridge continues to connect supply with rising energy demand. The importance of energy security has become even more evident since the start of the conflict with Iran and Enbridge is well positioned to deliver North America's abundant energy resources, both domestically and globally. LNG exports remain a critical component of energy security.

North American liquefaction capacity is expected to require over 30 Bcf per day of natural gas by 2030 and Enbridge is poised to support the global demand through serving 100% of the operating LNG facilities along the U.S. Gulf Coast. We continue to deepen our integration with LNG markets as well via storage expansions of Aitken Creek, Tres Palacios, Egan and Moss Bluff, new Permian gas egress projects and the advancement of Woodfibre LNG.

Natural gas demand in North America is expected to increase by 28 Bcf per day by 2030. And we have already begun capturing that growth through sanctioned projects with more new projects to come in the quarters ahead. Tennessee Ridgeline connecting to a power generation facility converting from coal to gas. Algonquin Gas Transmission expansion, providing additional capacity to the underserved U.S. Northeast and the Vector expansion serving utilities in the Midwest are just a few examples of infrastructure we're currently building to support local demand.

On the liquids side, we are in the midst of advancing 430,000 barrels per day of incremental mainline and express capacity by 2028, adding timely and efficient egress for our WCSB customers. Our Permian super system remains a cornerstone of the export story and it continues to grow. Projects like the Gray Oak expansion and the new storage tanks at Ingleside support the export facility, which delivers roughly 25% of all U.S. crude exports today.

We expect all this to lead to North America moving more than 5 million barrels per day of crude on an ongoing basis to key international markets, including Europe, Asia and Latin America. We all know energy markets have been disrupted since the conflict in Iran and Enbridge will be ready to play its part in providing reliable, secure and affordable energy to customers domestically and overseas.

Now let's take a look at how Enbridge's business model is designed to succeed regardless of the macro environment. Despite market volatility since the start of 2026, Enbridge continues to deliver consistent and growing shareholder returns. Our cash flows remain of the highest quality and predictability, diversified across more than 200 asset streams and are largely protected by regulated and long-term take-or-pay contractual frameworks.

We have unmatched market access serving more than 75% of North America refineries, moving roughly 20% of all natural gas consumed in North America and directly serving over 7 million gas utility customers. Our diversified platform allows us to provide end-to-end energy solutions across liquids, natural gas transmission, gas distribution and power. Long-standing relationships with customers and our continuously growing partnership with Meta remain a key competitive advantage and underpin our accretive project backlog.

We continue to grow through our $40 billion capital backlog which supports visible growth through the end of the decade and we can finance that growth using our $10 billion to $11 billion of equity self-funded annual investment capacity and the strong balance sheet.

Now let's dive into the business unit update, starting with Liquids Pipelines. Our Liquids Pipelines business continued to deliver strong performance as we advance efficient egress and storage expansions to meet rising demand. On the mainline, we achieved record first quarter volumes of 3.2 million barrels per day, reflecting strong utilization and the critical role of the system.

We're advancing mainline optimization Phase 2 or MLO2, which is expected to add 250,000 barrels per day of incremental WCSB egress capacity by the end of 2028. In support of MLO2, we launched a binding open season for 200,000 barrels per day of incremental FSP capacity and 50,000 barrels per day of incremental capacity on the Southern Access extension pipeline. Early construction activities, including clearing of the right-of-way have now begun on Line 5 relocation project in Wisconsin, supporting the continued flow of vital energy supply in the region.

We also completed a successful open season on the Spearhead pipeline, recontracting volumes into the next decade. And in April, we received a number of presidential permits for our liquids pipelines. These permits provide operational flexibility for day-to-day operations as well as future expansions. Along the Gulf Coast, our Ingleside storage expansion has entered service, increasing site capacity to approximately 20 million barrels. And finally, the Gray Oak expansion is now complete and the pipe operating capacity is now over 1 million barrels per day, further strengthening our export connectivity.

So now let's take a look into our gas transmission business. We continue to benefit from diversified demand drivers creating attractive and highly visible capital opportunities across our gas transmission footprint. In the U.S., we are executing well across our system to support rising demand from power generation, local gas utilities, LNG facilities and new data centers. And we are advancing over $10 billion of near-term growth opportunities with several projects reaching FID this quarter, with more to come this year and next.

Those projects include the Tres Palacios expansion, adding 25 Bcf of natural gas storage along the Gulf Coast. The project CapEx is expected to be $400 million and enter service in stages from 2028 to 2030. We have also sanctioned an expansion of the Vector pipeline for just over $100 million, adding 400 million cubic feet per day of westbound capacity to serve growing local utility demand and targeted for in-service in 2028.

We continue to evaluate additional expansion opportunities on Vector and recently closed a nonbinding open season in April for another 300 to 500 Mcf per day on that pipeline. This open season was highly successful with customer interest exceeding the offered capacity. Our East Tennessee pipeline reached a settlement in principle on the rate case filed last year, and we expect to file the agreement with the FERC in the second quarter.

In Canada, expansions to our gas transmission network are also advancing. Recently, we received all of our required approvals on the $4 billion Sunrise expansion, with construction expected to begin by early summer. At Woodfibre LNG, the delivery of the liquefaction module this quarter represents another important execution milestone. Altogether, we have approximately $10 billion of projects under construction in British Columbia to support both domestic energy needs and Canada's growing LNG export market.

Let's move over to gas distribution. In Ontario, we sanctioned approximately 8 Bcf of unregulated natural gas storage expansion at the Dawn Hub with an in-service date of 2029. This project strengthens the critical energy platform for Ontario and surrounding regions. At Enbridge Gas Ohio, we filed a new rate case on December 31, 2025 with rates expected to go into service effective in 2027. And as a reminder, Utah and North Carolina saw new rates go into effect on January 1, '26 and November 1, '25, respectively.

Our gas distribution and storage business continues to deliver steady regulated growth through disciplined rate base investment. The T15 project is progressing, supporting the Roxboro power plants conversion from coal to gas and expected to have a phased and in-service from 2027 to 2028. At the Moriah Energy Center, the $600 million U.S. LNG storage facility will strengthen system resiliency by adding 2 Bcf capacity in 2027. Collectively, we expect our utilities to grow rate base by 5% annually through 2029. And while Ontario's growth is slowing, our diversity of assets allows us to redirect capital to the U.S., which very likely will exceed their 8% growth CAGR through 2029.

Now I'll move on to the Renewables segment. Our renewable power business continues to progress with disciplined focus on high-quality projects anchored by blue-chip customers and the long-term contracted cash flows. At Sequoia we will have 815 megawatts of generation capacity, about half of which is already in service, and the remaining capacity is expected to come online later this year.

We are also happy to announce we are expanding our partnership with Meta once again by sanctioning Cone, an onshore wind project in Texas, which we expect to invest USD 700 million and have the project enter service by the end of 2027. Our partnership with Meta has grown to over 1 gigawatt of power generation between Clearfork, Easter and now Cone and we expect the partnership to grow further. Beyond our sanction projects, we have approximately 1.5 gigawatts of additional safe harbor renewable projects, providing meaningful capital optionality. With all that, I'll pass it on to Pat to go over our financial performance through the start of the year.

Thank you, Greg, and thanks to everyone for joining the call today. I'm happy to say we're off to another strong start in 2026. Compared to the first quarter of 2025, adjusted EBITDA remained consistent, DCF per share is up $0.03 and EPS is down about 5%. In liquids, as expected, the absence of a litigation settlement lower contributions from our market access pipelines and lower Line 9 tolls resulted in a decrease compared to Q1 2025.

In Gas Transmission, favorable contracting on our U.S. gas transmission assets and strong storage results drove the year-over-year increase in EBITDA. Gas Distribution increased year-over-year after the recent rate cases in Utah and North Carolina took effect, as Greg mentioned earlier, and from rate escalators in Ontario. In Renewables, results were lower compared to last year due to the absence of investment tax credits relating to the Fox Squirrel solar project, partially offset by strong international wind resources in the first quarter of 2026.

A $0.07 decrease in the average CAD to U.S. FX rates year-over-year impacted all 4 business units, resulting in lower EBITDA in 2026. This was, however, partially offset in eliminations and other, due to our realized hedge rate being higher and closer to the actual FX rate we saw in the quarter.

Cash distributions in excess of equity earnings was higher in 2026 due to the absence of a legal settlement recognized in Q1 2025 earnings but primarily received in cash in subsequent periods. Higher depreciation from assets placed into service and higher income taxes from the absence of investment tax credits in '26 drove the decrease in EPS.

I'm pleased to reaffirm the 2026 guidance that we showed last December. Our resilient business model supports strong and predictable performance across all market cycles and conditions, something that is evident in our results, given the volatile periods we've seen recently. We're on track to achieve the midpoint of our guidance ranges for both EBITDA and DCF per share and are also reaffirming our post-2026 growth outlook, a 5% average annual growth rate for EBITDA, DCF per share and EPS. As a reminder, Q1 and Q4 reflect our strongest quarters as a result of higher utility demand and higher volumes in our liquids pipelines and gas transmission systems during winter months.

Moving on to our capital allocation priorities. Our approach remains unchanged in 2026, supported by continued equity self-funding and the stability of our regulated and predictable cash flows. Returning capital through dividends remains core to our value proposition. We returned $38 billion to shareholders over the past 5 years and expect to return $40 billion to $45 billion over the next 5 years. Our $40 billion backlog extends through 2033, providing strong long-term growth visibility, as we prioritize accretive brownfield opportunities. And with that, I'll pass it back to Greg to close out the presentation.

Thanks, Pat. Enbridge remains a first choice investment opportunity with a value proposition designed to deliver superior shareholder returns across all markets, geopolitical and commodity cycles. At the core of this is stability reflected in our low-risk utility-like business model and a fundamentally diverse asset base.

Our strength comes from predictable, resilient cash flows that support a strong balance sheet, disciplined capital allocation and ongoing strategic investments. Consistency is a defining feature of our story, highlighted by 31 consecutive years of annual dividend increases as well as 20 years of achieving financial guidance.

Looking ahead, we expect approximately 5% annual average growth through the end of the decade, driven by our growing secured capital program and we maintain the ability to deploy capital across our 4 franchises, allowing us to respond quickly to the most compelling opportunities in front of us. As the long-term total return performance on this slide illustrates, our business model has continued to perform through events ranging from financial crisis to global pandemics and geopolitical shocks.

Enbridge's scale, diversification and stable business model positions us well to continue delivering durable growth and long-term value to our shareholders, making us that first choice investment opportunity. We are in a world with an amazing growth macro for energy infrastructure, the best growth opportunities I have seen in 10 to 15 years. This could be a real upside for investors. Should we see the EBITDA multiples of that period reemerge as the macro fundamentals seem to suggest they should. With that, I'd like to thank you all for listening in, and we'll now open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from the line of Aaron MacNeil from TD Cowen.

Last quarter, you had a slide in your deck that highlighted $10 billion to $20 billion of near-term growth opportunities. One of the more interesting items on that slide was export optionality at Ingleside in light of the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the market's renewed focus on energy security and non-Middle East supply. So you noted the new storage in your remarks and announced the acquisition of the Flint Hills docks not too long ago.

I guess my question is, are you seeing a measurable increase in inbound inquiries for incremental export capacity at Ingleside and would you expect export growth to pull through additional pipeline debottlenecking upstream? Or is the sequencing the other way around?

Aaron, it's Colin and obviously, a timely question. And I think -- well, the short answer is yes, I can elaborate a little further. And we didn't see a lot of that come through in the Q1 period, right in March because of the trade cycle and things, but it showed up strongly in April, May and in June here, and everyone understands the dynamic there. We do expect a lot more business there. I think on a capital-efficient basis, right?

So as you mentioned, we purchased the neighboring docks a couple of years ago. We've got permitting headroom there. We just finished a 2.5 million storage expansion at Ingleside. So there should be some operating leverage here. So hopefully, it's capital efficient. But yes, on the dock and on the pipe as well over time, I mean there's an implicit comment there around the outlook for the Permian Basin, which we continue to believe is a winner, and the majors are there and I think you're seeing a lot of discipline at the outset here, a couple of producers adding some rigs. But I think the consensus view would be that the price of oil globally, it probably has a higher floor and we'll likely see rigs added through the fall budget cycle and into '27 as well.

Aaron, it's Greg. I just -- I would just add that everything Colin says bang on and exports now kind of pushing 6 million barrels just with the conflict. I think it will be really interesting to see is even when the conflict is solved, how much more reliance, and I think there will be on the U.S. Gulf Coast and Canada for that matter as well. And that should position well for those with the docks closest to Bluewater, which would be us.

But let's not lose track of how important it also is for the refining complexes, as people look for more secure product, you've seen refining capacity creep up. Obviously, that's important for inland pipelines as well as exports. And then as Colin said, let's -- I don't know exactly what the price will be, but if that oil was going to be 65% to 70%, I don't think you should be surprised that the new base is 75% to 80%, which is helpful for production, too. So it's actually lining up to be a super favorable environment for oil infrastructure in North America, both domestically and export wise.

Great. You mentioned the 1.5 gigawatts of safe harbor renewables projects in your prepared remarks. The wedge of renewables projects coming into service in 2027 is pretty significant. So I guess like -- do you think you could see another meaningful contribution in 2028? And when would you need to see announcements by in order to sort of lock that in?

Well, then, I'll let Allen to that. But one of the great things you pointed out is just have relatively quick cycle these are even though when we announced today, gets into '27, and that [indiscernible] in half is important. But Allen, do you want to speak to that?

Sure. Thanks, Aaron. So really have on the backlog, we could probably see some of those actually coming in, in probably '28, '29 time frame. That said these things tend to come in kind of chunky. I think you've seen quite a bit in the last few quarters where we've seen -- where we've had pretty much an announcement every quarter for quite some time. And you'll see probably a few more in the coming 2 to 3 quarters.

That may tail off for a little bit, and then you'll start to see more of them come back in as we're taking advantage of those safe harbor opportunities. And a lot of those opportunities that we have, not only are the safe harbor they have the permits, too. A lot of folks are concerned about the federal permits on land, and a lot of them have those federal permits as well. So a real opportunity for us.

I think you'll continue to see is the demand for renewables is really good right now. And I think that's evidenced by all the projects that we have to come in. So as you continue to see that demand be robust on the renewable side, I think we've taken advantage of it.

Yes, and it's not just renewables, it's power, right? So I think what you're seeing with the meta deals and the stuff that Allen talked about, and we've said this before, but I think it's bearing out, no one's talking about the color of electrons. The #1 thing that prevents AI from progressing further isn't GPU architecture, it's really access to energy, and that's the first time that's happened. So yes, game on for power, but that's why it's nice to have gas infrastructure and renewable infrastructure so we can serve those Mag 7 clients.

Your next question comes from the line of Rob Hope from Scotiabank.

I have 2 comments -- or 2 questions on the crude oil business. First, how are you thinking about the competitive positioning of MLO 2? But I guess, more importantly, MLO 3 versus some of the competing options, which, I would say, are bubbling up to the surface being Prairie Connector as well as a larger expansion of the Trans Mountain system?

Sure, Rob, a few points of color around that. Listen, I think you've followed us for a while, and I realize our mainline path is resilient and advantaged, so has defensive and offensive strength. It's demonstrated time and time again. We're growing it. As a reminder, Southern Illinois Connector and MLO1 are in execution and trending well. And we're commercializing MLO2, as we've discussed.

MLO2 is well engineered, relatively advanced on scope, capital costs well understood. We're actively engaged with a number of customers. And in contrast to alternatives, I think a reminder that MLO2 has -- was always intended to be an inside the fence expansion, permit light, executable, no new pipe per se, which is novel using existing pipelines and in service quickly, which is important. And another point, which is often lost with modest take-or-pay efficiency requirements right, given that the mainline is generally walk-up.

So that's trending well. I think we've seen other competitors respond to the quite favorable outlook in the Canadian basin, which is not surprising. I won't comment exactly on each of the competitors. I think they're well covered. But if we do see shippers term contract on any of these. And I think I would view it as a positive sign and a vote of confidence in the basin and the outlook, which should float all oil infra. So that's a very -- as Greg was saying, I think it's a very positive macro. And certainly, the mainline expansion program will get its share. You mentioned MLO3.

We're developing that still and with 7 pipelines in the right-of-way and now with amended U.S. presidential permits modernized and harmonized with respect to product type and flexibility around capacity limits. We've got a plethora of flexibility here to tailor and design whatever is needed at the right time. And we've got a number of versions, I would say, of MLO3, if you want to think about it that way. So that's how we see it play out here. It's -- I zoom back out and just observe that it's a very favorable macro. And we're all trying to serve customers who are monetizing a world-class resource.

Appreciate that color. Maybe then moving over to Line 5. It looks like there's been a number of updates there. So can you maybe add a little bit more color on some of the legal challenges on the tunnel as well as the construction in Wisconsin?

Thanks, Rob. Yes, I'll try to bring it in my answer. This question tends to get long. But maybe, yes, we haven't talked about Line 5 in a while, which is kind of a good thing. But I'll give you a quick update. As you know, big picture, Line 5 seems to be pretty critical energy infra for Canada and the U.S., Great Lakes region, contributing to this all-important energy security. The line is closely scrutinized, including by PHMSA, U.S. pipeline safety regulator, and it will continue to operate safely for the foreseeable future.

And I think courts have increasingly recognized this U.S. federal jurisdiction in recent court findings. But as a reminder, nonetheless, we are permitting and pursuing relocating 2 sections of Line 5 at the request of local governments and tribes at industry's expense. In Wisconsin, we're advancing a 41-mile relocation to discontinue operation across the Bad River reservation. And in Michigan, we're moving the pipe from the lake bed to the tunnel. Timeline-wise, we expect to complete these in late '26 and the early '30s, respectively. In Wisconsin, we have state and federal permits. We have easements on the 41-mile relocation route and have been completing preconstruction activities, think tree clearing and prepping the right of way way. It's May now.

So spring road bans have recently ended, and we'll advance construction here through the summer and late fall. With the permits now contested and well known and in hand, we're now better able to accurately estimate the Wisconsin project cost, which is now approaching USD 900 million. Now this is more than you typically expect for this 41-mile distance, but consider that about a third of that $900 million value is related to 6 years of considerable permitting, legal and tribal engagement and has been incurred. So we've got about $600 million left. And you should expect to see this project added to our secured project listing in the second quarter, Rob.

Quickly on Michigan, we don't have a refreshed estimate CapEx-wise for the tunnel at this time as we continue to await state and federal permits and conditions. And maybe the last point I'll just make here is a reminder that the investments in Line 5, infra, Wisconsin, Michigan, regular stuff are all covered as eligible rate base within our commercial arrangements and will be borne by our shippers through tolls over time. So I don't know if that catches you up, hopefully, Rob.

Your next question comes from the line of Spiro Dounis from Citi.

I want to start with opportunistic gains here and the results for the first quarter. Strong start to the year, but you're reaffirming the guidance. So I was curious if you could just walk us through how much of that 1Q performance exceeded internal expectations. And understanding that your assets are built for stability, it did seem like you were able to benefit from some of the volatility and weather out there. So to the extent that's accurate, how do you think about your ability to keep capturing some of that upside and volatility for the rest of the year?

Yes, I'll let Pat go at this. But I would say a reminder, and we rarely change our number in the first quarter no matter how good it may be, largely because we've got a strong first quarter and a strong fourth quarter. So -- and as you point out, with a highly contracted, very small commodity exposure. That's why we've structured the company that way. But Pat, do you want to speak a little bit to.

Yes. I mean there's probably 2 or 3 areas that we benefit from weather, as you're noting on the edges of the business model. First being in Ontario, where we've got weather impacts is about net year-over-year, only about $10 million because we had a colder Q1 last year as well. So there's about $10 million there. Aitken Creek, historically that we're currently expanding has the ability to take advantage, and there's probably $0.01 or so of overperformance there. And then a little bit on things like interruptible service on our gas pipes. So all in all, you can think of it as being a couple of pennies in the quarter.

And that just speaks to the business model that we have and the fact that we have like no commodity exposure. So I think more so than the weather, Colin's talked about the implication of a tailwind for things like Ingleside and Gray Oak, we'll monitor that in the second quarter and see how that goes and how long that lasts for and adjust as we go. But right now, we're still pretty comfortable with the range that we've given you.

That's great. Maybe switching gears to the Permian. Greg, you sound understandably pretty constructive on the basin. I think your reference was to the crude side, but of course, a lot of gas coming out of the ground with it. You're obviously pretty active there on the Permian gas egress side. You think over 10 Bcf a day of new pipelines coming will be enough to satisfy it, but already getting a lot of indication that, that might not be enough. So just curious how you're thinking about the need for more egress and Enbridge's potential involvement in more expansions there.

Yes. And let's not forget our position in Whitewater. And I think as you may see some information on that, I would agree with your bullishness in that regard. We are, too. We seem to fill up every pipeline industry-wide the minute they open up the valves in the Permian. So I think there's more opportunities there, and we're pursuing those. And Matthew, maybe you want to speak to some of that.

Yes, sure. A couple of areas of opportunity there. And as Greg mentioned and a reminder, our interest in the Whitewater assets, which is sort of our direct play on the pipes there, a couple of pipelines coming into service this year there. Still, we have Bayrunner coming into service later this year in Blackcomb. And then a whole bunch of other stuff going forward, we have a position, as you know, in Eiger. I think the other piece, though, for us that we see, and you saw this in our announcements is storage. And with all the activity coming out of the Permian a lot of that gas is obviously going to be going offshore and a lot of additional storage required just for additional demand and some of that for the LNG crowd. So we've got great exposure to that, expanding all of our storage assets in the Gulf. As you know, now we have almost 50 Bcf of expansion underway down there. So that's another way that we can profitably with low capital, high returns, play that theme.

The other nice thing about the storage is we always talk about our gas business growing at being able to build at 6 to 8x, but that project we talked with you and announced today is actually a little bit below that. So when you can get into the 5s when you're building brownfield storage and given some of the demands Matthew spoke to, those are super attractive for us.

Our next question comes from the line of Maurice Choy from RBC Capital Markets.

Just to pick up on one of the comments you made, Greg, in your prepared remarks. You mentioned that this is the best growth -- set of growth opportunities you've seen in the last 10 to 15 years. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that, but also speak to how the returns compare today versus in the past? And what kind of risks that industry players like Enbridge are experiencing today versus the past?

Yes, absolutely. So I'm thinking about that period, the 2012, '16 period, which was a super positive element, and you saw dramatically higher EBITDA multiples. And where I was going is, as you see the increased need for energy, energy security, whether it's global security issues or technology, AI and power growth, which you're well aware of is a multiple of what we saw. I haven't seen that opportunity from an investment perspective fully be realized by the market, you know, say, look, you got the tech companies, you got the Caterpillars of the world, but it's not being fully realized, I don't think by investors yet on the midstream side. And you're seeing very solid returns. I just talked to things like storage, our LNG projects and renewables. You're seeing low mid-teen type returns for us that are super attractive. And then even on the utility side, where you don't see the same type of returns, just seeing really quite phenomenal growth in rate base, which I just think a couple of years ago, nobody saw.

So it's not just -- and we've been speaking a lot about the oil business. So it's not just one business. It's all of these businesses playing off the theme of everything from tech which drives power, LNG, which is about security, oil, which is the refining complex is an industrial side as well as on the export side, all the pieces that Enbridge has seem to have a really great macro backdrop. So where I was going is it seems to me that investors haven't yet realized how beneficial and long run that will be. I mean we're talking about through 2030 very comfortably in terms of the growth folks see, which would be longer than what we saw in that 2012 to '16 period. So that's where I was going with that. And I think it soon will be recognized.

That's great. And maybe my one follow-up to that is, as you looking backwards now, as you look forward beyond this 2030 horizon. As you think about how customer demand requests are changing, are your 4 core franchises sufficient? Or are there incremental value chain additions that you think is appropriate?

Yes, it's a good question. We're always looking at that, either whether it's adjacencies or actually going further back. So again, you look at the super system that Colin and his team have built back into the Permian, obviously, and then on the export side, same on the gas side that we've done in that neck of the woods. Obviously, our extension on the distribution side. And the real element I see is there's no longer the discussion of again, what color your molecule is or electron is, it's how quickly can you get me electrons and molecules or barrels. And I think if you look at our project list, we're very focused on that, the quick cycle stuff at the distribution company. Actually quite quick cycle relative to some other forms of power on the renewable side of things, which is super attractive.

And again, the footprint we see on the gas distribution -- on the gas transmission side and the liquid side allows us to get there quicker than most people. And so I think the greenfield risk that we saw in prior periods is less relevant to Enbridge today given our footprint that's already there. So that's a really game on for growth from an Enbridge perspective.

So I appreciate the question. I like us talking about more growth as opposed to less growth and the removal from terminal value and we're talking about are we really valuing these companies given what's happening above and other parts of the economy that should be there. So as you can tell, we're pretty excited about it and we'll continue to bring projects forward. I know, Matthew, in the next couple of quarters. And it seems like every business unit, we're able to bring on some stuff each quarter to build that backlog. And then it builds EBITDA, which builds capacity, which allows us to continue to use both the internally generated equity and the balance sheet to grow.

Definitely value to the incumbency. I agree with you.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet from JPMorgan.

I see it's more expansions on the gas storage side here. I just wanted to get a feeling, I guess, for how big the opportunity set is there. We haven't necessarily had a lot of storage development in recent years and the gas market has grown. Just wanted to see your thoughts on that. And then at the same time, I guess, as an extension, further interest in LNG assets.

Jeremy, it's Matthew. Yes, we're very excited about our gas storage assets and our expansion program. Just looking at the fundamentals over the last 10 years, just the ratio of storage to production and demand in the U.S. has been cut in half. And actually, that kind of understates the gap between supply and demand because things are getting a lot more peaky, which requires more storage. So we need to catch up on that and the value of storage is on the rise. So as we've announced now with this new Tres Palacios expansion, we've got almost 50 Bcf under construction in the Gulf Coast coming on over the next, call it, 5 years or so. And then also, just as a reminder, up in Canada, we've got 40 Bcf under construction at Aitken Creek. So that is a great pipeline of growth for us.

In addition to that, just capital expansion, we do see as we roll contracts, higher storage rates. And so when you combine that just given the fundamental trends I was talking about with the expansion, we're definitely seeing double-digit type growth on those. We've got this great program in front of us, over USD 1 billion of expansion in storage now, if you add it all up, which is great. We'll build that out. There's probably a little bit more we could do around the margins on that. But those are probably the big ones for now. And we like the organic type growth. Others have been we noticed acquiring stuff. We think our returns -- I mean, building stuff at book value is definitely a huge advantage for us relative to those going out and paying multiples of that in the market. So like our position, great pipeline, and we're very excited about this program.

Jeremy, you also mentioned the LNG opportunities. So I -- yes, we're open to that. We like our model, though, of doing it in such a way that is lower risk and more toll-based, if you will. But we see those opportunities, and we'll look at that. I think that's some of the adjacencies. But we don't want to take on a bunch of commodity exposure. That's not our style from that perspective. But as Matthew says, even if we don't find those, the -- given our position we currently serve 100% of the Gulf Coast LNG, obviously, involved with that in BC and billions of dollars being spent there, both on our -- on behalf of our customers on our pipelines and storage. And so yes, we'll look at those opportunities as well. That sure doesn't look like it's moving away. And that's another example of some of the difficulties in the Middle East, meaning North American -- North America, whether it's the Gulf Coast or it's the West Coast of Canada is a choice place for consumers to be able to get a hold of LNG without taking on the risks that I think have become much more illustrated [indiscernible] there. So yes, we'll look at those 2.

Got it. That's helpful. And then I just want to shift gears a little bit here. And as far as the power markets and as far as, I guess, with the ISOs and regulation there, we've seen, I guess, some proposed changes and it seems like changes overall. I'm just wondering if that has impacted, I guess, the nature of your conversations with new gas-fired generation or just any thoughts you could share there and where you see the greatest near-term opportunity as you talk about this $10 billion of near-term capital opportunities.

Jeremy, it's Matthew again. Yes. So I think you're on to an important point. I mean there's 2 kind of categories or maybe 3 things going on here. One is -- and this is really kind of a very current and present thing, which is just regulated utilities that have embedded power generation for utility load with pent-up demand, and we're seeing a lot of that across our entire system for power.

Then there's the data center stuff, which is playing out. We have great conversations there on the power side for potential extensions. And I know Michele has a lot of that in her business, too. And I think maybe the thing that's more directly on point to what you're talking about is can we start signing up some of these merchant power plants based on what's in the past been kind of perverse disincentives, frankly, for them to sign up for long-haul gas pipeline capacity and whether that could change based on some rules.

I think there's some good ideas floating around on that piece. It's early days, but certainly, there's going to be more potential for that. And a lot of these merchant guys are going to end up direct drive into data centers. And so as they sign up for longer-term contracts on the offtake, we think there's great potential for them to then go upstream on the gas pipeline side, and we're having those conversations. So I think you're on to an important theme that's definitely going to be driving growth across our business.

Yes, it seems like a multiyear capacity market could shake things up there.

Your next question comes from the line of Robert Catellier from CIBC.

I wondered if you could elaborate on the comments in the presentation about favorable contracting in gas transmission. Does this relate to rates, term or something else entirely? What end markets are really driving this? I'm thinking in terms of LNG, power, et cetera, and which geographies are most important to that trend?

On the contracting side, I'm not exactly sure which part you're referring to. But look, I mean, if you look at on the storage side to start with, right, what used to always be short-term contracts, we're seeing, and I think we've talked about this before, half the capacity at Aiken, for example, is 10 years, very long-term contracts similar to that for the new Tres Palacios 25Bs we talked about today, which I think just speaks to nobody wants to be caught out without actually having access to the product.

So I think it's just a general comment, Rob, with respect to whether it's storage, whether it's pipelines and also our risk appetite, too. We're not going to build pipelines with 5-year contracts and get a little shaky at 10-year contracts to be quite honest, as well, storage is different. It's always been shorter. And you see the same kind of thing happening in Colin's business as well as we've extended some of the contracts and the market-facing pipes out into 2030s, which is not something that I think you could have done a few years ago. So I think it's less about regulatory, more about on the customer side, not wanting to be caught short in this opportunistically rich environment. And obviously, the Enbridge traditional perspective on how much risk we're willing to take on.

Okay. Just for a point of clarification, I was referring to the gas transmission comment on Page 11. I'll move on to my other question, which has to do with your rate case strategy, particularly in Ohio. So obviously, you filed for a rate case there. And I wonder how you could describe how your regulatory strategy in Ohio has evolved since that last rate case outcome.

Sure, Robert. It's Michele here. And yes, that last rate case was filed late in 2023 by Dominion. And really, what we're doing here is the fact is that we filed a new rate case in December, and the fact is there have been some material changes that just simply needed to be reflected since things were in place back in late 2023. And based on the timing, we -- what we're doing is we're seeking to recover our revenues that are sufficient, of course, to pay for our current operating expenses. Importantly, to service our debt, that's one of the biggest things that has shifted is the interest rates that were applicable back in '23 versus now.

And then it's any investments and deferrals from the 2 big rider programs that you'd be familiar with we have in Ohio, the CEP or the capital expenditure program and the pipeline integrity program. So those will get wrapped in to the end of June. They're already being recovered on because of the short-cycle nature of them and the monthly riders, but we sweep all that in. So it's in the discovery stage now with the status report is expected in July, and we expect to enter into meaningful settlement negotiations, then, with the rates going into place in the first quarter of 2027. But we are really working hard to keep this one tight as simply an update on a lot of the numbers that have changed materially that we had to update and ensure that we're recovering on.

Robert, I'm sorry, I was not following what you were looking to. So I see what you were talking about. That's vis-a-vis the tailwinds that we see for the rest of the year. So we're seeing settlements on things like East Tennessee that are favorable. As you know, we've seen the same on Texas Eastern in the past. So that's what we were referring to that weren't there at the start of the year. And I mentioned that in my spoken comments, how that's being filed with the FERC.

Your next question comes from the line of Ben Pham from BMO Capital Markets.

You've reaffirmed the 5% growth rate beyond 2026. I'm wondering when do you plan to update the market on guidance specifically beyond '26. I'm also curious what do you think is the right duration time frame for guidance for a North American pipeline company?

Yes. Well, just for clarity, what we said was 5% growth '26 plus. So through '26 through the end of the decade, we feel very confident with that. So I think when we put that out was March of -- 14 months ago, March of 2025. And we remain confident in that, and I'm glad to hear the Street looking to move up those numbers to that 5% type growth rate. We haven't -- we look beyond 2030. We haven't set out any numbers beyond 2030. But I expect either in the fall or early spring, we'll end up having another Investor Day and update you at that time.

Just as a reminder, and I think sometimes it gets lost, just since that Investor Day, which again was about 14 months ago, we have added $17 billion to our sanctioned backlog. So if we continue to see that type of stuff and all that is growth through now through 2030 and even a bit into 2031 and '32, if you look at some of the activity. So yes, it's not just for '26, it's for '26 plus right through 2030. And look, in this environment, giving you guidance out to 3 years, I think, would be pretty good, but actually giving you something right through the end of the decade, I would think is very helpful to investors as well as analysts to come up with their views on the company.

Okay. Got it. I always thought it was more of a post 2026 guidance, but I wasn't -- I was a bit confused on the endpoint of that. So that's all the way through 2030 then. That's good. And then the $50 billion of unsanctioned opportunity, I know you mentioned very similar numbers in the past on that. And you've inserted the $10 billion to $20 billion last quarter, next 2 years, can you bridge that for us? I'm assuming that's always included in that $50 billion, but is there a mix then of some early-stage projects in there as well?

Yes. And we're always adding to, right? So you're right. I mean you make a good point. In March of '25, it was about $50 billion. We've sanctioned $17 billion, which just tells you how the hopper in that time has easily filled in there, right? And everything from higher rate base growth on most of our businesses to power opportunities, that backlog just gets bigger. And I think, again, as attitudes change around energy security and the power of North America for exports, I'll be surprised actually if that opportunity set doesn't even get bigger. So that's where we're drawing those sanctioned projects from, but it's filling up at least at the same rate by which we're sanctioning projects.

Yes. So maybe just to add to that, then like $50 billion is the environment that we're in, the opportunities that we have, as Greg said, $50 billion a year ago, it's still $50 billion, even though we've secured a bunch of projects. The $10 billion to $20 billion that we talked about kind of over the next 24 months, I guess, now 22 months is really what we plan to FID in that period of time to give you a sense of what you should see on a ratable basis from us from an FID perspective, pulling from that $50 billion opportunity set, if that helps to clarify it.

Your next question comes from the line of Patrick Kenny from National Bank.

Just back on the robust outlook for crude exports out of the Gulf Coast. I guess the longer this Middle East conflict lasts and the longer prices at the pump remain elevated in the U.S., the higher the risk of political intervention related to banning or at least capping export levels. So I was just wondering if you might be taking any steps over the near term to protect your franchise operationally? And also, if you could remind us of any commercial protections you might have financially within your contracts at Ingleside?

Yes. I'll let Colin speak to that. I would be very clear that at least twice the Secretary of Energy has said that is not something they're looking at even as we've seen this run-up. So I think that's a really important perspective. And then, of course, we've just successfully contracted on Gray Oak, which is an important protection as well, obviously. But Colin, do you want to speak further to that?

I don't think there's a lot to add. I agree with everything you're saying. We've -- we're in regular contact with the administration. We're well attuned to the alternatives in play here and support and subscribe to the notion that constraining global exports will hurt -- not help the situation here as a global commodity. So as Greg mentioned, we've got very robust contract provisions around the export facilities.

It's a really interesting dynamic, right, because the United States government, I think, has not been shy about projecting power off the Gulf Coast by being able to export crude. And remember, much of that Permian crude is what gets exported because the U.S. refineries like the heavier products, which is what we provide out of Canada, so importantly. And you're even starting to see some more exports of Canadian crude modestly off the Gulf Coast as well. So there's no doubt there's a consumer voter element here, but I just don't see this administration changing their view of being able to use energy frankly, as a geopolitical tool despite the current conflict over and above military power.

Okay. That's great. I appreciate your comments on that. And then just on the balance sheet, I guess, with debt to EBITDA sitting at the top end of your target range. Just wanted to confirm if you're still expecting to remain within the range through 2026? Or is there now potential given the sanctioning of more growth CapEx that you've outlined to see leverage perhaps hop over 5x temporarily? And if so, the timing of when you might expect to come back down to, say, closer to the midpoint of that 4.5 to 5x range?

Thanks, Pat. I think it's fair to say that we're still comfortable with the 4.5% to 5% range. We're at the top this quarter for a couple of reasons. One is FX plays a little bit of a role in that and that it was $1.37 on the quarter, but then popped right at the end of the quarter there to be $1.40. So that moved it a little bit. We also expect it to be a little bit higher at the front end this year given that the vast majority of our projects come in, in the back end of the year, the big projects, things like Tennessee Ridgeline, T-North, Aspen, some of the Sequoia Easter type projects. So I think we're still pretty comfortable with it.

For when is it going to come down closer to the midpoint, I think I said a couple of quarters ago that we'll probably be in that upper half for the next couple of years just because we've got this large build in front of us. But of course, the capital -- near the end of '27 here and then a pretty large capital coming in '28 that should really help to bring those ratios back to kind of that middle point of it. So we're still feeling very comfortable and the low-risk business model helps with that. All this growth we've been talking about lines up perfectly with that risk return that we have discipline that we've had as an organization. I like the fact that when we're talking about these capital opportunities, they are long-term contracts with gas transmission assets, long-term contracts of liquids pipelines. So not having to step outside of our risk/reward view to continue to grow the organization. So feeling very comfortable about where we are from a financing perspective.

And your final question comes from the line of Manav Gupta from UBS.

I have 2 quick questions. First, can you talk about your growing partnership with Meta? Not many midstream companies are out there with 1 gigawatts of capacity with Meta. So if you could talk a little bit about that? And second, there were some news articles floating yesterday that [ Carney ] is looking to make easier for projects to proceed in Canada. Cenovus and CNQ have already talked about some of these things on their earnings calls. And basically, what they're saying is you can't hold back Canada in the current environment where the world needs crude and oil. And I was wondering if you have any views on any policy changes that could expedite projects in Canada to speed up the development of oil and gas projects over there.

Yes. Well, on the Google or on the Meta piece, I think you'll continue to see that relationship grow. Allen, do you want to speak to that? And then I'll come back on the oil front.

Yes. So thanks for the question, Manav. So on Meta, they've come out and said that they want to be net zero by 2030 and that 100% of our operations powered by renewables. So it really opens the door for folks with long-term relationships with them to do more with them. And so we do expect to see more with Meta. We really are excited about the relationship. And I'll just say that I think we've developed a really good trust relationship with them, and that's the foundation for future opportunities. So we feel really good there. And hopefully, we'll see more opportunities going forward.

Yes. And on the project front, look, I think there's been a lot of positive words in Canada and some concrete actions that have been taken. We got a very quick turnaround from the federal government on the final approval for Sunrise, which is critical to LNG. Obviously, there's a major project office there and projects in the national interest. So I think that's great news. And I'm hoping and expecting and taking the government at its word that we're even going to find ways to shrink down some of those time frames even for projects like Sunrise. But that being said, I'm perfectly aligned with our customers on the other issues that they raise.

Yes, Canada has an obligation, I think, to serve the world and has the ability to serve the world if it wants to be an energy superpower. And I think they're focused on the right P. We often focus on the pipeline P. But what has to come first is the production P, the permitting P and then you get the pipelines. So I think they're pointing out and making sure that all the policymakers are aware that without production growth, the infrastructure is kind of irrelevant.

And that concludes our question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Marlon Samuel for closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, and we appreciate your ongoing interest in Enbridge. As always, our Investor Relations team is available following the call for any additional questions that you may have. Once again, thank you, and have a great day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is David Taniguchi, Vice President, Legal and Corporate Secretary of Enbridge. Thank you for joining us at our Annual General Meeting today. Real-time captioning for the hearing impaired is also available today. There will be 3 parts to today's meeting. First, the formal business portion will address the matters to be voted on today and will be conducted by our Chair, Mr. Steve Williams. Next, after the formal business of the meeting, Greg Ebel, our President and CEO, will deliver his remarks to our shareholders. Finally, we will have a general question-and-answer session.

Before we begin the formal business portion of the meeting, I will provide some comments on voting and questions at today's meeting. As a reminder, only registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders can vote or ask questions during the meeting through the virtual webcast voting platform.

In order to vote during the meeting, you must log into the webcast with your control number or username and your password, which is enbridge2026, all in lowercase. Once voting has opened, the voting tab will appear at the left or bottom of the webcast page and the voting choices will be displayed. A confirmation message will appear when your vote has been received.

The polls are now open. Voting can be completed at any time from now until the end of the formal business portion of the meeting. Thank you to those of you who have already voted. If you do not wish to change your vote, you do not need to vote again during the meeting. For those who have not yet voted, we encourage you to vote now.

Questions can be submitted throughout the meeting. If your question relates to a specific motion, you must ask your question during the formal business portion of the meeting. Please start your question by identifying the specific motion or item of business so that we can address your question at the appropriate time.

[Operator Instructions]

If you have any questions that do not identify a specific motion or item of business, we will respond to those questions during the general question-and-answer session following the formal business portion of the meeting and the CEO's remarks. If you have a question that is personal in nature, we will follow up with you individually after the meeting.

Shareholders were also provided the opportunity to submit questions in advance of the meeting. If you -- if we have a number of questions that are the same or very similar, we may group those questions together to avoid repetition. We will endeavor to answer all questions submitted through the platform. However, please note that due to time constraints, we may not be able to address all questions today.

Questions received during the meeting, together with the company's responses, will be posted to Enbridge's website following the meeting. If you have any questions, we encourage you to submit them now.

Finally, we would like to remind you that our answers to your questions and our CEO's remarks may contain forward-looking information. By its nature, this information involves a variety of assumptions and expectations about future outcomes, which are subject to the risks and uncertainties discussed more fully in our public disclosure filings. We may also refer to non-GAAP and other financial measures.

In the event of technical difficulties or other significant issues that may disrupt the meeting, the chair of the meeting may adjourn, recess or expedite the meeting or take such other action that the chair determines is appropriate in light of the circumstances.

With that, I now welcome Steve Williams, Chair of the Enbridge Board of Directors, to call the meeting to order.

Thank you, David. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Steve Williams, and I'm Chair of the Enbridge Board. It's my pleasure to welcome you to Enbridge's 2026 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. As this is my first Annual General Meeting as Chair, I want to express my appreciation for the trust placed in me over the past year. I remain committed to strong governance, strategic oversight and delivering long-term value for our shareholders.

We are gathered today by technology from locations across North America where indigenous peoples have been and continue to be stewards of the land. I'd like to acknowledge and thank the people whose footsteps have marked these territories for centuries.

Before I call the meeting to order, I would like to call upon Jody Whitney to deliver a land acknowledgment message.

Hello. My name is Jody Whitney, and I'm from the Tsuut’ina Nation. Respectfully, we acknowledge that we are hosting this meeting today in Treaty 7 territory home to the Blackfoot Confederacy, which includes the Siksika, Kainai and Piikani nations, the Stoney-Nakoda nations of Bearspaw, Chiniki and Goodstoney, the Tsuut'ina Nation and Metis Nation of Alberta.

It is also important to acknowledge that our assets traverse many other treaty and traditional indigenous lands across North America, which is known to indigenous people as Turtle Island.

Thank you, Jody. I will now call the meeting to order. As Chair of the Enbridge Board and in accordance with our bylaws, I will act as Chair of today's meeting. David, Vice President, Legal and Corporate Secretary, will act as Secretary. Greg, our President and Chief Executive Officer, is also present at the meeting today. Our external auditors are also available to answer questions as appropriate.

In order to ensure that the business of today's meeting proceeds smoothly, David, who is a shareholder and duly appointed proxy holder, will move and the second the proposals relating to the items of business identified in the notice of meeting. As in past years, we have a general question-and-answer session after the formal business of the meeting is completed.

As previously noted, during the formal business portion of the meeting, we will also pause to address questions that are specific to the motions being presented. If you are a registered shareholder or duly appointed proxy holder with a question that you'd like to address during the formal business portion of the meeting, I ask that you submit your question now.

This afternoon, we will deal with the items of business outlined in the notice of meeting and management information circular. Shareholders will first be asked to consider the minutes of the last meeting of shareholders held on May 7, 2025. They will then attend to the regular business of receiving the annual financial statements together with the report of Enbridge's auditors. Shareholders will then be asked to vote on the election of directors and the appointment of the auditors for the next year as well as authorize the directors to fix the auditor's remuneration.

As has been the case in prior years, shareholders will then be asked to cast a nonbinding advisory vote to accept the corporation's approach to executive compensation, commonly referred to as say-on-pay. And then finally, this year, as we've done every 3 years, shareholders will be asked to ratify, confirm and approve the corporation's shareholders' rights plan.

All 12 incumbent directors are standing for reelection today. The number of directors to be elected today has been nominated by the Board to be 12. Mr. Stephen Bandola, a representative of the corporation's register and transfer agent, Computer (sic) [ Computershare ] Trust Company of Canada, is in attendance today, and I appoint him to act as scrutineer for the meeting. I will now ask David to confirm that proper notice of the meeting was given and that a quorum is present for the transaction of business.

Thank you, Steve. The notice of meeting and notice of availability of meeting materials were mailed on March 20, 2026, to shareholders of record at the close of business on March 9, 2026. Proof of mailing to registered shareholders will be filed with the records of this meeting. The scrutineer's report shows that 5,230 proxies have been received, representing a total of 1,424,254,891 shares, which is 65.26% of the shares outstanding as of March 9, 2026. Based on the scrutineer's report, I confirm that a quorum is present for the transaction of business at this meeting.

Thank you. I declare this meeting to be properly constituted for the transaction of business. David, may I please have a motion to approve the Minutes of the Annual Meeting of Shareholders held on May 7, 2025.

I move and second that the minutes of the Annual Meeting of Shareholders held on May 7, 2025, as now submitted to this meeting be taken as read and approved.

Thank you. Can you please advise if any questions specific to this motion were submitted?

No questions specific to this motion have been submitted.

Okay. Thank you. Unless we receive any objections otherwise, we will accept the minutes as approved.

The next item of business is to place before the shareholders the audited financial statements and auditor's report for the year ended December 31, 2025. The financial statements and auditor's report for the year ended December 31, 2025, are contained in the corporation's annual report. The financial statements have been approved by the Board of Directors and are available on the corporation's website.

The corporation's auditors, PwC, Alodie Brew of PwC will be available during the general question-and-answer session following Greg's remarks to answer any of your questions regarding the auditor's report.

The next item on the agenda is the election of directors for the next year. 12 directors are to be elected at this meeting. David, may I have a nomination for the election of 12 directors to serve on the Enbridge Board of Directors for the upcoming year.

Steve, I'm pleased to nominate each of the following individuals: M. M. (Mike) Ashar, Gaurdie E. Banister, Susan M. Cunningham, Gregory L. Ebel, Jason B. Few, Douglas L. Foshee, Theresa B. Y. Jang, Teresa S. Madden, Manjit Minhas, Stephen S. Poloz, S. Jane Rowe and Steven W. Williams for election as directors of the corporation to hold office until the close of the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until their respective successors have been duly elected.

Thank you. As no other nominations for director were received in accordance with the corporation's advanced notice bylaw, I hereby declare the nominations closed. I will now entertain a motion respecting the election of directors.

Steve, I move and second that the aforementioned 12 nominees be elected directors of the corporation to hold office until the close of the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until their respective successors have been elected.

Thank you. Can you please advise if any questions specific to this motion were submitted?

No questions specific to this motion have been submitted.

Thank you. We will now proceed with the vote. Please record your vote now, remembering that you've already voted in advance and do not wish to change your vote, no further action is required.

The next item of the business is the appointment of the corporation's auditors. PricewaterhouseCoopers have served as Enbridge's auditors for the past 32 years. The Board of Directors on advice from the Audit, Finance and Risk Committee of the Board recommends their appointment. David, may I have a motion?

I move and second that PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP be appointed auditors of the corporation to hold office until the close of the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders at such remuneration as shall be fixed by the Board of Directors.

Thank you. Can you please advise if any questions specific to this motion were submitted?

Steve, no questions specific to this motion have been submitted.

Thank you. We will now proceed with the vote. Please record your vote now, remembering that you've already voted in advance and do not wish to change your vote, no further action is required.

Thank you. We will now proceed with the vote. Please record your vote now remembering that if you've already voted in advance and do not wish to change your vote, no further action is required.

The next item of business today is a nonbinding advisory vote on the corporation's approach to executive compensation, commonly known as say-on-pay. Although this vote is optional or nonbinding, it gives shareholders an opportunity to provide important input to the Board of Directors. David, may I have a motion?

I move and second that the resolution to accept the corporation's approach to executive compensation, the text of which is set forth on Page 34 of the Management Information Circular be and is hereby approved.

Thank you. Can you please advise if any questions specific to this motion were submitted?

No questions specific to this motion have been submitted.

Thank you. We will now proceed with the vote. Please record your vote now, remembering that if you've already voted in advance and do not wish to change your vote, no further action is required.

The next business is a resolution to ratify, confirm and approve the shareholders' rights plan, which encourages the fair treatment of shareholders if there is a takeover bid for control of Enbridge. The shareholders' rights plan resolution must be passed for the shareholder rights plan to continue. Otherwise, it will terminate. Our shareholders' rights plan is confirmed by shareholders every 3 years, most recently in 2023. There are no substantive changes to the plan for 2026. The Board of Directors has determined that the continuation of the shareholders' rights plan as described in the Management Information Circular is in the best interest of the corporation and its shareholders and recommends that shareholders vote for this resolution. David, may I have a motion?

I move and second that the resolution to ratify, confirm and approve the shareholder rights plan, the text of which is set forth on Pages 34 and 35 of the Management Information Circular for this meeting be and is hereby approved.

Thank you. Can you please advise if any questions specific to this motion were submitted?

No questions specific to this motion have been submitted.

Okay. Thank you. We will now proceed with the vote. Please record your vote now, remembering that if you've already voted in advance and do not wish to change your vote, no further action is required.

[Voting]

Okay. The polls are now closed. Thank you again to all our shareholders who voted in advance of our meeting today. We will now pause for a moment for the scrutineer to tabulate the preliminary results of voting and provide those results to us. David, do you have the preliminary results of the voting?

Yes, Steve. I have received confirmation from the scrutineer that each of the 12 directors has been elected by at least 95.03% of the votes cast for the election of directors.

The motion to appoint PricewaterhouseCoopers as the corporation's auditors and have the directors fix their remuneration has been approved by at least 91.89% of the votes cast on that resolution.

The advisory vote on the corporation's approach to executive compensation has been approved by at least 95.58% of the votes cast on that resolution.

And finally, the motion to ratify, confirm and approve the shareholder rights plan has been approved by at least 95.82% of the votes cast on that resolution.

Thank you, David. Strong support there for the motions. I declare each of the resolutions considered at today's meeting in respect to those matters as carried. The exact number of votes cast in respect of each matter will be filled on EDGAR and SEDAR and made available on our website.

As all matters of business have been addressed, I now declare the meeting closed. I now call upon Greg, the corporation's President and Chief Executive Officer, to deliver the remarks and conduct the general question-and-answer session.

Good afternoon. My name is Greg Ebel, and it's my pleasure to lead Enbridge as your President and CEO. Today, I'm happy to speak with you and share what our company has delivered and our focus for the future. Enbridge is in a position of strength. We're resilient and well prepared for what's happening in the energy industry right now and for what's on the horizon. 2025 was a year of consequential change, including public policies, the speed and scale of energy demand and the focused attention on energy abundancy and affordability.

And that pace of change shows no sign of slowing down. Geopolitical uncertainty is creating challenges for billions of people around the world. At the center of this is the need for a secure supply of energy to meet growing demand. I'll share more shortly about how we're seeing the global energy environment, but let me first touch on our performance on your behalf in 2025. This past year, we demonstrated solid operational performance, a visible growth outlook and record financial results that continue to position us as the first choice energy provider in North America and beyond.

The changing geopolitical dynamics and increasing energy demand I mentioned validate Enbridge's all-of-the-above approach. This is reflected in our diversified asset footprint of gas, oil and renewable power to meet rising energy needs. Our financial discipline fuels our success and builds on our track record. We exceeded the midpoint of our '25 guidance for both EBITDA and distributable cash flow per share, marking the 20th consecutive year of meeting or exceeding our financial guidance.

In December, we sanctioned our 31st consecutive annual dividend increase with a 3% increase for 2026. We have maintained our leverage within our targeted debt-to-EBITDA range of 4.5 to 5x, preserving our strong investment-grade credit profile while growing our investment capacity. This financial discipline supports strategic investments that continue to strengthen Enbridge's leadership in connecting supply to key markets, sanctioning $14 billion of new projects and placing $5 billion of assets into service across our portfolio last year.

In our Gas Transmission and Midstream business, we capitalized on rising LNG, data center, power and industrial demand, announcing $4 billion in newly secured projects. The business also completed another indigenous partnership this time with 38 First Nations in BC for a 12.5% stake in our West Coast system valued at $715 million. This new partnership continues our strategy of partnering with indigenous communities and enabling them to benefit from the investment and play a greater role in shaping Canada's energy future.

On the liquids side, our mainline delivered record annual throughput. We sanctioned approximately $5 billion of new liquids pipelines to meet growing demand, deliver strong returns and support first choice customer service. Our gas utility business is the largest in North America, serving over 7 million customers in growing gas-friendly jurisdictions. This business is well positioned to benefit from increasing gas-fired power and data center growth with over 50 potential projects along with more opportunities to meet rising residential and commercial gas demand.

And in renewable power, we completed the Orange Grove solar facility and sanctioned Clear Fork Solar. These projects are backed by long-term agreements with blue-chip customers, including Meta and AT&T. Our low-risk business model and diversified mix of future projects enable continued leadership in supporting the energy needs of data centers, residential and industrial customers, but it's more than meeting demand.

Central to everything we do is our #1 value of safety for our people, our assets and the communities where we operate. In 2025, we made good progress integrating Enbridge safety standards in our new U.S. gas utilities and managing high energy hazards to protect people from very serious incidents. We performed well in process safety and safely transporting energy on our systems, and we believe that continuous improvement in safety practices supports effective execution of our growth plans across the business.

Building on the momentum from 2025, we are advancing a $39 billion project portfolio through the end of the decade. This represents investments across natural gas, liquids and renewable power to meet growing energy demand. It's a big lift, and the team is ready to do this safely, responsibly, on time and on budget.

Now let me share my perspectives on what's happening in our industry today and the outlook for our company. As we look ahead, one reality is clear. Geopolitics are shaping the energy system in real time. Conflict and instability in the Middle East and other parts of the world have created challenges for people globally. And we're seeing one of the most significant supply disruptions our industry has faced in decades.

At the recent CERAWeek conference in Houston, one speaker summed it up bluntly. When the world's most important oil corridor is compromised, the ripple effects hit everyone. That observation captures why reliability has become more than a competitive advantage. It's a necessity for economies, communities and customers. In this moment, North American reliability is a strength for global energy security.

We have the resources and the capability to meet domestic needs and in assisting the needs of global markets. Quite simply, we have the energy resources to keep moving forward and to help our partners do the same. The world needs more energy, more reliably delivered, more affordable and with continued progress on emissions reduction. From my perspective, I see 3 themes defining the path forward.

First, North American energy security and reliability are a real advantage. When global choke points are under pressure, customers and governments look to suppliers they can count on. North America's oil and natural gas supplies are abundant and dependable if we continue to invest and collaborate on infrastructure to deliver the energy where it needs to go, which leads to the second theme, building infrastructure has never been more relevant.

We need modern, efficient infrastructure to move energy to where it's needed, including global markets. Delivering this infrastructure depends on regulatory clarity and reform that supports investment and maintains strong safeguards. There have been positive moves on permitting reform in both Canada and the U.S. in the past year. That's very encouraging. But don't get me wrong, more needs to be done. We will continue to advocate for practical policies that support investment and competitiveness while maintaining our focus on safety and environmental sustainability.

And the lastly, energy demand is growing, and it's coming from everywhere. AI and data centers, electrification and developing economies are all pushing energy demand higher. The world needs more energy, and we believe that means more oil, more natural gas, more renewables, more of everything. This is not the moment to restrict where responsibly produced energy comes from. All electrons and molecules are needed to meet the demand.

So let me sum up with what this means for Enbridge. Our enviable asset position and all of the above energy approach has always been a strength, and that's even more true at this moment. Our liquid super system brings much needed Canadian oil to key refining markets in North America and for export from our Ingleside facility in Corpus Christi. Our gas system connects the most prolific basins in North America to the largest demand centers and LNG export markets.

Our gas utility business is well placed in natural gas positive regions. One in every 12 natural gas utility customers in Canada and the United States is an Enbridge customer. And our renewable power business will have the capacity to generate over 7 gigawatts of power. I'm optimistic about what we can achieve, and I'm confident in Enbridge's ability to deliver the energy people need today and for decades to come.

Our customers need energy that's safe, sustainable, reliable and affordable, and Enbridge is focused on executing across that spectrum. So as we look forward, our focus is clear: keep our system safe and reliable, keep building and operating the infrastructure our customers need and want, keep earning the trust of communities and keep delivering the solid returns you expect as shareholders.

Thank you for your continued support and trust in us. I'd also like to thank our Board of Directors for their guidance and ongoing oversight. Finally, thank you to the more than 16,000 Enbridge team members. Every day, you show up with focused commitment to safely provide energy to millions of people who need it. I'm proud of this team, and it's an honor to work alongside you. As we say at Enbridge, tomorrow is on, and we're all ready for it.

Thank you very much, Greg. We will now proceed with the general question-and-answer session. Mr. Marlon Samuel, Enbridge's Vice President, Investor Relations and Insurance, will read out the questions that have been submitted for Greg to respond to and we'll note any request to ask questions verbally. We remind you that verbal questions should be limited to 1 minute in length. Marlon, do we have any questions?

Yes, David. We have received a question on the phone from Jason Alsop.

President Alsop, please proceed with your question.

Thank you. Hello. My name is Gaagwiis Jason Alsop, and I'm the President of the Haida Nation and Vice President of the Coastal First Nations Great Bear Initiative. And I've been formally appointed to address the AGM by a shareholder with over $1.6 billion in assets under management.

Our proposed crude oil pipeline through Northwestern Canada is making headlines. However, the federal government has repeatedly stated that no project would proceed without the support of affected First Nations or the province in which it's proposed. As the legally recognized rights and title holders under Canadian and international law, we do not support this proposed oil pipeline, which could see over 200 oil tankers in our waters. And we, along with the province of British Columbia have called on the federal government to uphold their Oil Tanker Moratorium Act in its entirety with no exceptions or carve-outs.

No offer of equity or ownership will change our position. In 2016, Enbridge reported costs of $656 million on a never-built Northwestern pipeline with total impairment of $373 million before tax adjustments. And on March 24, Mr. Ebel stated that the conditions still don't exist for that pipeline to be built, but did not speak on the status of First Nations consent.

So we want to proactively save Enbridge and your investors from past mistakes. Can the members of the Board please describe how oversight will be provided to ensure indigenous rights and title holder positions on the proposed pipeline and tanker moratorium are respected and when a related risk assessment would be disclosed to investors in your decision-making process. Thank you.

Thank you, President Alsop. It's Greg Ebel. I appreciate the question very much. Maybe the first thing to say is that Enbridge is not a proponent of this pipeline. And frankly, nobody is at this point in time as the conditions just don't exist to commercialize such a proposal. So I think that's an important point here.

That being said, Enbridge is also very sensitive to the risks that you mentioned in your question and to any project like that. And we currently and have for a long time, taking into account all stakeholders' rights and obligations and issues and very much so with First Nations. And I think in my opening comments, I even discussed about First Nations involvements in projects that we have.

So for any project, not just the one that you mentioned that, as I said, we're not the proponent of, any project, we take those issues very seriously. It would go through the entire Board and our committee structure, including the Sustainability Committee, the Audit, Finance and Risk Committee and then the entire Board to make sure that we've met all of our obligations, both internally and externally, we've considered the risks and only in that situation, will we move forward. So I appreciate the question, but we have a robust process around that, ensuring that we do meet our obligations.

Greg. No further questions have been submitted.

Okay. Well, thank you very much. Since there are no questions, I'll now turn it back to Steve to close today's proceedings. And just let me thank all of our shareholders for their continued support of the company and our activities.

Thank you, Greg, and thank you to everyone again for attending today's meeting. We truly value your time and commitment to our company. You may now disconnect from the broadcast. Thank you for your support once again.

Good morning, and welcome to the Enbridge Fourth Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Marlon Samuel, and I am the Vice President of Investor Relations and Insurance. Joining me this morning are Greg Ebel, President and CEO; Pat Murray, EVP and Chief Financial Officer and the heads of each of our business units. Colin Gruending, Liquid Pipelines; Matthew Akman, Gas Transmission; Michele Harradence, Gas Distribution and Storage; and Allen Capps, Renewable Power.

[Operator Instructions]

Please note, this conference call is being recorded. As per usual, this call is being webcast, and I encourage those listening to follow along with the supporting slides. We will try to keep the call to roughly 1 hour. And in order to answer as many questions as possible, we will be limiting questions to one plus a single follow-up if necessary.

We will be prioritizing questions from the investment community. So if you are a member of the media, please direct your inquiries to our communications team, who will be happy to respond. As always, our Investor Relations team will be available following the call for any follow-up questions.

On to Slide 2, where I will remind you that we will be referring to forward-looking information on today's presentation and Q&A. By its nature, this information contains forecast assumptions and expectations about future outcomes, which are subject to the risks and uncertainties outlined here and discussed more fully in our public disclosure filings. We will also be referring to non-GAAP measures summarized below. With that, I will turn it over to Greg Ebel.

Thank you, Marlon, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining for our Q4 call. First off, let me welcome Matthew Akman in his new role as EVP and President of Gas Transmission and Allen Capps to his new role as Head of Corporate Strategy and President of Power and introduce Marlon Samuel as the new VP of Investor Relations. Their backgrounds and experience have positioned them exceptionally well for success in these roles, and I know they look forward to working with you.

Today, we'll recap another successful year, followed by an update on our opportunity set through the end of the decade before providing updates on our 4 businesses since our last quarterly earnings call. Pat will then walk through our record financial results, capital allocation priorities and give a refreshed view of our annual investment capacity.

Lastly, I'll end the presentation with a few reminders on Enbridge's first choice value proposition before we open the line for any questions from the investment community. We had another great year of record financial results, exceeding the midpoint of our 2025 guidance for both EBITDA and DCF per share, marking the 20th year of achieving or exceeding our annual financial guidance.

As we announced in December, we have now increased our dividend for 31 consecutive years, extending our status as one of the few dividend aristocrats in our sector. Our debt-to-EBITDA remains within our leverage range of 4.5 to 5x, maintaining our strong investment-grade credit profile while growing our investment capacity. From a growth and execution standpoint, we sanctioned $14 billion of capital across all businesses and placed $5 billion of assets into service during the past year. Our growth backlog has grown 35% since our Investor Day last March, underlying the ongoing and extended business and earnings growth opportunity we have before us. We continue to develop our relationship with our Whistler JV partners, acquiring a 10% interest in the operating Matterhorn Express pipeline.

We also announced a historic investment in our West Coast pipeline system by 38 First Nations groups, allowing Enbridge to create alignment with indigenous communities and helping to advance economic reconciliation while actively recycling capital. Operationally, our assets remain highly utilized during the quarter with the mainline transporting approximately 3.1 million barrels per day on average. Our gas systems were also highly utilized in the quarter. And in recent weeks, we saw a number of all-time peak demand days for both our Gas Transmission and Gas Distribution and storage assets.

To provide a couple of impressive stats, Texas Eastern recently hit new peak records, transporting over 15 Bcf per day in January. And in our utilities, Enbridge Gas Ohio hit its third highest throughput day in the company's 128-year history. And in the severely energy infrastructure short in New England, our Algonquin pipeline saw 9 of its top 25 all-time volume days this winter, underlying the need for energy affordability creating expansions of natural gas infrastructure in that region.

At the utilities, we reached constructive settlements at both Enbridge Gas, North Carolina and Enbridge Gas, Utah and filed a new rate case at Enbridge Gas, Ohio. Lastly, we successfully extended contracts on a number of LP assets. And once again, our gas transmission assets had another 100% contract renewal rate with customers on our major pipelines.

So now let's dive into exactly where we allocated our growth capital in 2025. Taking a look at the map, you can see we won more than our fair share of opportunities this past year, sanctioning over $14 billion of capital in 2025, putting us ahead of where we forecasted during last year's Investor Day. In Liquids, we FID-ed over $4 billion of projects, locking in the majority of opportunities we laid out for the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin growth within the year.

In Gas Transmission, we sanctioned projects supported by natural gas fundamentals, including industrial and data center demand, the LNG build-out, our customers' storage needs and deepwater offshore opportunities. Total capital secured in Gas Transmission during the year was approximately $4 billion, making significant progress on the $3 billion to $5 billion of opportunities we expected to sanction within 6 to 18 months of our Investor Day.

In the utilities, we continue to invest approximately $3 billion of foundational capital per year to expand our systems and keep them safe and reliable. And finally, in Renewable Power, we've added $3 billion of capital to support technology and data center operations for companies like Meta. This places us well ahead of the timing we outlined at the Investor Day, where we showed $3 billion of late-stage opportunities with potential FIDs between 2026 and 2027.

In total, our power and natural gas projects currently under construction are now completed, support over 7 gigawatts of power generation across multiple businesses. I think it's safe to say that just under a year since Enbridge Day, we have made tremendous progress on the commitments we laid out and continue to work hard to advance additional accretive projects. Continuing the momentum from 2025, our teams are busy advancing opportunities from our unsanctioned backlog. With fundamentals supporting expansion in each of our 4 businesses, we expect to reach FID on another $10 billion to $20 billion of growth projects over the next 24 months that will enhance energy security and affordability in North America and beyond.

Gas Transmission has the largest opportunity set of our core franchises, driven by industrial and power demand, along with growing LNG exports and storage. Potential projects include expansions on Vector, Valley Crossing, Texas Eastern, Algonquin, opportunities in the U.S. Southeast and the Homer City redevelopment as well as additional storage expansions at Tres Palacios.

In Liquids, supported by the WCSB production growth and overall global demand, we continue to advance opportunities, including MLO 2 and 3 and expansions to our regional oil sand assets. We'll continue to invest about $3 billion a year in our gas utilities to support new customer connections as well as opportunities driven by new power demand, including data centers. And in renewable power, we will remain opportunistic advancing projects to support demand driven by hyperscalers and other large tech companies and/or those seeking power from lower carbon sources.

Now let's jump into the BU updates, starting with the Liquids segment. In light of recent geopolitical events, let's take a step back and remind everyone of our irreplaceable Liquids footprint. Our mainline is a vital connection between the growing production in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin and the refiners in PADD 2 and PADD 3, which are consistently drawing higher volumes of Canadian heavy crude. We saw strong demand throughout the year on the mainline, which was apportioned for all but 3 of the last 12 months, delivering on average 3.1 million barrels per day.

In fact, the mainline was also in double-digit apportionment in January and February of 2026. Given Enbridge's unique asset footprint and our expectation that the low-cost established WCSB production and demand continues to grow, we do not expect any material impact from the recent geopolitical events involving Venezuela.

In Q4, supported by growing production, we sanctioned the first phase of mainline optimization, which will add 150,000 barrels per day of additional egress out of the basin. The project also includes a 100,000 barrel per day expansion on Flanagan South and is expected to cost USD 1.4 billion and enter service by the end of 2027. As part of MLO1, the majority of our customers elected to extend their Flanagan South take-or-pay contracts beyond 2040.

We're also commercializing mainline optimization Phase 2, which could add another 250,000 barrels per day of incremental egress in the 2028 time frame. Customers remain very interested in moving this project ahead, and it showcases the benefit of existing assets in the ground as this project leverages underutilized capacity on assets such as Line 26, Dakota Access and Chicap. MLO3 is also making progress. And although we're not in a position to provide much detail right now, the project will create further significant egress opportunities to support our customers well into the future.

A quick update on Line 5. The U.S. District Court recently ruled in our favor, preventing the State of Michigan from taking further action to shut down Line 5. And the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued their final EIS, another step in the right direction for the Line 5 tunnel project.

In our Gulf Coast and Permian franchise, the 80,000 barrel per day expansion of Gray Oak pipeline entered service in 2025 and the remaining 40,000 barrel per day expansion is on track to enter service in the first half of 2026. Lastly, we continue to expand our storage footprint at the Enbridge Ingleside facility as well as explore additional service offerings off the docks at Corpus Christi.

Now let's turn to our Gas Transmission business. Our Gas Transmission franchise is well positioned to serve growing energy demand across the continent, and the team is currently working on a number of exciting projects. These opportunities will address a range of demand drivers, including electric and gas utilities, LNG exports and emerging data center powered needs. Currently, we're advancing over 50 potential data center opportunities that could require up to 10 Bcf per day of natural gas, and we expect to begin sanctioning these additional projects throughout 2026 and more in 2027.

In the Permian, our JV investments in natural gas infrastructure are set to offer over 11 Bcf per day of long-haul capacity and are supported by over 2 Bcf of storage capacity at Waha. We're announcing today that along with our partners, the sanctioning of Bay Runner, an extension of the Whistler pipeline, which will supply gas to Rio Grande LNG facility in combination with previously announced Rio Bravo Pipeline for total capacity of up to 5.3 Bcf per day. We have also upsized the Eiger Express pipeline from 2.5 Bcf per day to 3.7 Bcf per day, driven by growing demand for natural gas transportation out of the Permian and supported by long-term customer contracts.

Lastly, we're extending our U.S. gas transmission modernization program another year into 2029 and to highlight that the Appalachia to Market II project is now in service. 2025 represented a milestone year for gas distribution and storage as it was the first full year of operations for the U.S. gas utilities as Enbridge Gas.

In Ontario, we continue to efficiently run Canada's largest natural gas distribution company with new rates in effect at the beginning of 2025. In Ohio, we received a somewhat disappointing rate case decision in the middle of the year, but maintained Enbridge Gas Ohio's allowed ROE at 9.8% on a slightly higher equity component. Since some time had passed since the original filing, we filed a new rate case at the end of 2025, updated with refreshed operating and financing costs. In Utah, we reached a supportive rate case settlement with rates in effect on January 1, 2026.

And in North Carolina, we received a supportive outcome as well with rates in effect in November 2025 and welcome the addition of new major capital project riders to allow us to meet our customers' growing needs and realize a quicker return of capital for our investors.

Finally, with growing power demand in all jurisdictions, we are finding increased need for access to low-cost gas feedstock for up to 5 Bcf per day of power generation and associated demand growth. This will further grow our utilities well into the next decade.

Now I'll move on to the Renewables segment. Building on the Clear Fork Solar project, which reached FID in mid-2025, we are excited to extend our partnership with leading technology companies like Meta Inc., sanctioning Cowboy Phase 1 and Easter Wind, supplying over 500 megawatts of renewable power to support data center operations. Cowboy Phase 1 is a 365-megawatt solar and 135-megawatt battery energy storage project in Wyoming with the output secured by a fixed offtake agreement and the battery component of the project secured by a fixed toll agreement.

The full output has been secured by a MAG 7 technology company. The battery system will be supplied and operated by Tesla, the leading supplier in North America and can be expanded up to 200 megawatts after the approval from the utility, which is expected in the first half of 2026.

This project's CapEx is USD 1.2 billion and is expected to enter service in 2027. Easter is an onshore wind project being built near Amarillo, Texas, with a capacity of 152 megawatts. This USD 400 million project is secured by a renewable power purchase agreement with Meta. In total, our power partnership with MAG 7 companies is set to provide over 1 gigawatt of renewable generation to support operations and add new generation to the local grids.

Looking ahead, we still have over 1 gigawatt of projects in the queue that we're advancing, remaining opportunistic while continuing to ensure these projects will realize mid-teen returns. Providing an update on 2 of our projects under construction, I'm happy to announce that the first phase of Sequoia Solar entered service in December, and our Courseulles Wind project in Europe remains on track to enter service in 2027.

With that, I'll now pass it over to Pat to go over our financial performance.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you, Greg. I'm pleased to report again record fourth quarter and full year EBITDA, DCF and earnings per share. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, adjusted EBITDA is up $83 million. DCF is up $0.06 and EPS increased $0.13.

In Liquids, strong mainline volumes, annual escalators and lower power costs led to year-over-year increase in the segment, net of earnings sharing. We experienced a strong fourth quarter in our Gas Transmission business with incremental contributions from the acquisition of an interest in Matterhorn and placed the Venice Extension into service. As well, we saw favorable spreads at Aitken Creek and had exciting recontracting on our U.S. Gas Transmission assets. The gas distribution segment is up relative to last year, driven by rate escalation, customer growth in addition to colder weather and strong storage results in Ontario, higher rates in North Carolina and recovery of capital investments in Ohio also increased the EBITDA.

In Renewables, results were lower compared to last year due to the absence of investment tax credits relating to the Fox Squirrel Solar project, which we put in service in Q4 of '24. Lower maintenance costs due to increased buying power at our gas utilities and lower current income tax driven by investment tax credits and benefits from U.S. tax legislation changes further increased DCF per share year-over-year. I'm also pleased to reaffirm the 2026 guidance that we put out in early December. We continue to be confident that we'll achieve our full year EBITDA expectations between $20.2 billion and $20.8 billion and DCF of between $5.70 and $6.10 per share. Our growth is driven by $8 billion of new assets expected to enter service throughout the year and across enterprise cost savings initiatives.

So far, in '26, the mainline has been apportioned in January and February, as Greg noted, and we've experienced colder-than-normal weather in most of the eastern parts of North America, providing a strong start going into the year. As a reminder, Q1 and Q4 are typically our strongest quarters, primarily driven by the higher earnings attributable to our gas utility franchises during winter periods, the absence of heat restrictions on our liquids assets as well as more peak days in gas transmission.

Now let's discuss our capital allocation priorities, which also remain unchanged in '26. We're committed to continued equity self-funding and benefit from the natural stability of our regulated assets and predictable cash flow streams. On the leverage front, our balance sheet remains strong. Our debt to adjusted EBITDA sits up 4.8 and our 4.5 to 5x range remains unchanged. Core to our value proposition, we will continue to sustainably return capital to shareholders through dividends with $40 billion to $45 billion of distributions expected to be paid out over the next 5 years, all underpinned by growing regulated and contracted cash flows. And our 60% to 70% DCF payout target range remains unchanged as well, with us sitting right around the middle of the range today.

To fuel long-term growth, we'll continue to target accretive brownfield projects supported by strong energy fundamentals. With the project additions this quarter, our current backlog now sits at $39 billion and extends through 2033, highlighting our ability to execute on the opportunity set we laid out in front of investors back in last March. With that, let's look at our annual investment capacity and how that also continues to grow. As our cash flows grow, so does our annual investment capacity, which now sits between $10 billion to $11 billion annually, supporting investments in growth projects across all 4 of our core business units.

Our balance sheet strength gives us the ability to pursue $6 billion to $7 billion of organic growth projects annually, in addition to the $4 billion of foundational capital that will support our utility growth programs, gas transmission modernization and liquids mainline capital investment. We continue to realize improving returns, showcasing our efficient use and deployment of capital. That's evident in our improving return on capital employed, which has consistently tracked upward these past number of years via optimizations of our business, annual cost savings from scale and technology advances and accretive M&A.

These returns are further compounded by the project slate we sanctioned in 2025. On average, the growth projects have strong return on capital employed with an average of approximately 11% across all organic projects. Securing strong return projects, combined with cost and revenue optimizations on existing assets creates a compounding effect, which will continue to grow our investment capacity into the future.

With that, I'll turn it back over to Greg to close out the presentation.

Well, thanks very much, Pat. And as you've just heard, it was a busy quarter, capping off an incredible year, and I'm proud of the rapid progress our teams have made since our last Enbridge Investor Day. In an ever-evolving North American energy landscape, Enbridge continues to be very well positioned to realize ongoing growth. Our disciplined capital allocation approach and our low-risk business profile continues to drive consistent long-term shareholder value and a first choice investor proposition. Supported by long-term agreements and regulatory frameworks, Enbridge generates predictable cash flows, which have enabled 31 consecutive years of dividend increases. And going forward, we expect to achieve 5% growth through the end of the decade, supported by our now $39 billion of secured growth capital.

Our scale and diversity provides us with capital optionality that few in our industry possess, and we will continue to evaluate accretive investments across our entire footprint. With that, I'll open the call to questions.

[Operator Instructions]

Your first question comes from the line of Sam Burwell from Jefferies.

Noticed that the investment capacity increased by $1 billion, which makes sense. But the longer-term post '26 growth trajectory still looks around 5%. So just curious how those 2 reconcile. And also curious if there might be maybe some underappreciated upside in '27, '28 EBITDA growth given that 2026 was a little bit of a softer year, but you've got a lot more capital entering service in 2027.

Yes, I think it's fair. I think TheStreet consensus still is probably like 3%. So as we've said, we're very confident in getting to the 5% number. obviously, that capacity grows with EBITDA growth. And as we bring in more projects, I think it reconciles with that, right? So as we spend more capital, you need more capacity. We've got the more capacity with the EBITDA growth. So I'm not sure, Pat, I don't know if there's anything to add on that front.

Yes. I mean I think that we've always assumed that if we put projects in on time, on budget with good returns that, that capacity would continue to grow. And so that was baked in or acknowledged as we thought about our growth rate through the end of the decade. And we just get more and more confident, as Greg said, with the backlog of strong returning low-risk projects that we'll be able to meet that. So I don't think it just helps TheStreet to understand that we've got a fair amount of capacity here as we move forward.

As I said, we're comfortable with the 5% growth. I guess if -- what other dynamics out there are we looking at? Obviously, from where we were a year ago, the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin situation looks positive, more production there, better attitude from governments about the competitiveness of Canada and seeing production grow there.

So I guess that could create some opportunities. And you're already seeing that in MLO1 and MLO2. And as we said, the possibility of an MLO3. Gas transmission, I think you just heard us talk today about you'll see more FIDs here in the next year and into 2027 as well.

Gas Distribution, you make a good point there. I think we bought those gas distribution assets in the U.S., we were looking at 8% type rate base growth through the end of the decade, and now it's closer to 10% rate base growth. And then I wouldn't be surprised if we exceed our power CapEx estimate that we laid out at the last Investor Day, and you see that already as we -- as customers are looking for electrons. I don't really care what color the electron is. They're looking for electrons, and you've seen us cut deals here announced today with Meta and MAG 7 players.

So all that plays into it. We're moving a big ship here, of course, at $20 billion and a couple of hundred billion dollars enterprise value. But I think you're on the right track and actually pleased to see TheStreet looking for more on top of the 5% as to wondering how we're going to get to the 5%.

Okay. Yes, that's a big ship indeed. And I appreciate your comments earlier on Venezuela, but I just wanted to drill down a little bit more on that. I mean, is it fair to characterize the framework being all right, there's growth in the WCSB. That growth will, in all likelihood, fill up TMX. And then after that, any growth that materializes and there should be growth that's already baked into the cake as projects going to be sanctioned, that needs to clear via your full path to the Gulf Coast, and that's what gives you confidence in advancing MLO2 and then mentioning MLO3 today.

Well, I think I'll let Colin chime in, but I think there are several aspects to it. A, there continues to be a need on the Gulf Coast for heavy crude even, and we don't underestimate it, even if you see Venezuela barrels come in, and I think the smart consensus is called that maybe 400,000 or 500,000 barrels. There continues to see Canadian crude export it. But we're continuing to see an increase of the utilization of the mainline. As you heard us say, all but 3 of the last 12 months, we saw apportionment and big start of apportionment, I think, going back to even before TMX started up in January and February. So I think producers want to go south first, Colin.

Yes. I think so. Sam, I think your framework is roughly right. And maybe there's a West Coast solution in there in a bigger way someday. But in the meanwhile, and in this uncertain environment, I think our historic playbook of iteratively expanding the mainline is a winning formula and kind of fits the pistol of customers on both the supply push and demand pull end of things for -- to try to find certainty. And MLO2 solves that 2028 egress bottleneck that's going to emerge. So its advantages that it's in service in '28. But I think you got your framework roughly right. And just watch that Canadian supply growth and disposition Gantt chart that we're filling in.

Your next question comes from the line of Rob Hope from Scotiabank.

Given the project backlog, which could include $10 billion to $20 billion of projects sanctioned here over the next 2 years, how do you think about the potential to exceed the $10 billion to $11 billion of annual investment capacity and relying on other sources of funding to capture what is an increasingly growth-rich environment?

Yes. I mean Pat can add in here, but I think we feel very good about it. Rob, even added those projects, they don't all happen instantly, right? Even our $39 billion current backlog runs through 2033 kind of time frame. So fits very much in that. And remember, that capacity will also grow as EBITDA grows, right? So to put it in rough terms, every dollar we raise in EBITDA is going to create capacity of $4 to $5 in debt capacity. So I think we feel very good about that.

Now that being said, we're always looking at recycling capital. You saw us do that last year in a very smart way and one that I think helps our overall business, such as Dawn project where we sold 12.5% of the West Coast pipeline to some 35, 40 indigenous nations. So there's opportunities like that, that we look at. So I feel very good with where we are from a balance sheet perspective. But yes, I always look at recycling capital to help create that buffer and allow us to continue to add more to the backlog.

That's great. I want to go back to Venezuela. So it doesn't appear that Venezuela slowed down MLO2 at all. However, when we think about MLO3 and the timing for that project, could we need to see increased clarity on either increased exports out off to the Gulf Coast, what the Venezuela situation looks like? Or do you think in any case, Canadian crude will find a home in the Gulf Coast and that MLO3 has a good chance of moving forward?

Well, I think it's a bit of the all above. The only other addition I would add there with MLO3, what we really need to see is actually the change in policy in Canada that meets the desires that the Prime Minister has articulated by increasing oil and gas production. So those changes are spoken about pretty openly. And that's what has to come first, right? Production growth first, pipeline second. So I think that's a big element of it. But Colin, I know we haven't got a lot of details out there on Line 3 yet -- or MLO3, but do you want to speak to that?

Yes. So let's call it MLO3, but you could probably call it MLO126 because we've expanded the mainline a lot of times. And we just simplified the numbering to keep it simple for current vintage of participants. But -- and there's -- we're developing multiple options for MLO3, small, medium, large, depending on what industry needs. I think on Venezuela, listen, it's early days and certainly, the longer-term outcome there is uncertain. But we'll see how quickly Venezuela grows its production, then we'll also need to evaluate what portion of that increased supply growth comes to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

It's on VLCCs for the most part, and some of it may well stay on the water and feed the global refineries it has historically, but perhaps at a higher price for that country. I think that's one of the objectives.

Also remember, Rob, that there is probably another 400,000 barrels a day of U.S. Gulf Coast heavy refining capability on top of what's being utilized today. And also don't forget about the inevitability of re-exports of Canadian crude off the U.S. Gulf Coast in meaningful scale over time. So listen, the U.S. Gulf Coast is the world's best heavy refining market and Canadian crude is a meat and potato part of the diet there. So I think it's still going to work pretty well all around.

Yes. Rob, I'd say there's multiple ways for us to win. So it's a good question. I think Colin's laid out some great ones here. And the Venezuela piece is a supplement to Canadian heavies, not a replacement. The other thing I think you should think about is if there is more of that kit on the Gulf Coast used with Canadian heavies, maybe that means less light Permian needed on the Gulf Coast, which would mean more of those light barrels would actually probably get exported. Guess where those get exported? From Ingleside. So I think it really underlines the Swiss Army knife as Colin likes to call it, of the super system we've created down there really to find ways for Enbridge liquids system to win in all scenarios.

Your next question comes from the line of Theresa Chen from Barclays.

Greg, on your last point about potential expansion capability or pushing further WTI volumes out of Ingleside should the Gulf Coast refining heavy up their crude feedstocks. Curious to hear what kind of expansion capability do you have there beyond what you sanctioned thus far? And to what extent would that necessitate expansion of your own pipeline feeding that facility versus barrels potentially going on competitor's pipelines in that area?

Yes. Remember, we have pieces of Cactus and Gray Oak. So those lines are seeing some expansion. In fact, some Gray Oak expansion continues to come on next year. Remember, we've added some storage capacity at Ingleside. And then, of course, last year, picked up some more dock space. So I think we're in good shape. And in fact, optimizing the utilization of the VLCCs, Aframax, Suezmax on the right dock, if you will, so that you fully utilize via the bigger dock, the VLCC docks as well as the smaller docks. So Colin, any other pieces to add there?

Yes. No, astute question, Theresa. We have lots of headroom at Ingleside, right? We acquired neighboring docks from Flint Hills. We've got lots of permitted headroom on the docks. We've got lots of land. We're still constructing right now tanks. We could do more of that, and we're 3/4 of the way through the Gray Oak expansion and can do more there, too. So that's a big long-term opportunity that we'll continue to realize for many years as the Permian grows again.

Understood. And on the heels of so many questions about the geopolitical backdrop, understanding that the situation is still evolving. And with your commercialization efforts on MLO2 and 3, how should we think about how the discussion of the marginal all-in rates are coming to terms is -- as the projects come to fruition late decade and beyond? And how do those economics compare versus the current committed and spot rates on mainline as we think about the upcoming renegotiation for the system, the ROE color over the next couple of years?

Are you asking about the competitiveness of our tariffs on the expansions basically?

I'm asking about like how the tariffs -- the discussion of where those tariffs are on the expansions under development changed since we've had incremental rerouting or expected rerouting of Venezuelan barrels to the Gulf Coast. I imagine no from MLO2 because that is into the PADD II market. I mean, those refineries are not going to see a drop of Venezuelan crude. But from MLO3, if that is a Gulf Coast oriented pathway, how does that change your economic thinking on terms?

Yes, I got you now. So yes, no, I don't think there's much to talk about here. Our tolls are competitive. They need to be competitive. They're often cost informed, right, especially as we socialize some of those tariffs to all mainline shippers. And remember that our expansions are optimizations. And so therefore, they're inherently efficient. So those tariffs should be in the money and very competitive.

And color, Theresa, just for clarity, like MLO2 is a full path. You're getting all the way to the Gulf too. So yes, you're getting demand pull and supply push into PADD II, but also all the way down to the Gulf too. And I think that's some of the great thing about the MLOs, they're modest incremental builds that allow producers to kind of witness the market as it develops and have that insurance egress, but also keep a keen eye on the geopolitical side of things. And that's one of the great things about it as opposed to, say, committing to a big greenfield that's probably post 2028.

Your next question comes from the line of Aaron MacNeil from TD Cowen.

I don't want to understate the Venezuela risks, but maybe for fun, I'll just take the other side of it. Not only have we seen apportionment on the mainline, but the level of apportionment has increased pretty meaningfully over the last few months. Has mainline demand surprised you to the upside? And have you observed sort of an increased sense of urgency from your customers given the high apportionment in February? And to the extent that you have a view, how are you thinking about Alberta storage levels going forward?

Aaron, I mean this has been going on for 30 or 40 years, right? My whole career, I think we've seen strong demand for the mainline for a whole bunch of reasons. I'm not going to list them out here. But I think in the last couple of years, I think Canadian supply has probably surprised the consensus view to the upside a little bit. There's been a number of optimizations like we're doing upstream by our customers, really high return, quick cycle, attractive economics just to get more out of their existing -- they're basically re-rating their kit.

And so I think that has probably surprised the consensus view, maybe us a little bit, but I think we've had a lot of conviction in the thesis the whole time. And it's in part why we designed the mainline tolling deal the way we did so that we could hustle for customers and participate in some of that upside. But as this continues and as Greg said, hopefully, the Canadian political deal continues and accelerates in light of the potential of Venezuelan competitive threat, and we can see more of this.

I think the other thing, Aaron, there's a good lesson in here, and you made the strong point about Western Canada. We've always had strong conviction, as Colin says, but I think the other aspect out there on the macro side that the market seems to underestimate is the power of consolidation and those major producers coming together and their ability, therefore, to wring out better economics and actually production at an economic rate. And that lesson needs to be considered as we think about the Permian, where, as you know, we've seen big consolidation there by really the best players on the planet in terms of oil production. And I fully expect they're going to find ways to grow that production at economic rates, which, again, I think is positive for Enbridge Systems, both north and south. So yes, good point.

Maybe switching gears to Gas Transmission. You mentioned the $10 billion of projects in the near-term opportunity bucket. Can you just speak to the growth rate of the segment currently. Obviously, it significantly exceeds the corporate average. And how sustainable do you see that sort of outsized growth rate for the segment specifically.

Well, Matthew is here and he's looking at his chop. So I'll let him go at it.

Yes. Thanks for the question. I think the big picture is everyone is starting to come on to the same page that the most important issues in energy these days for average people, which are affordability and reliability are going to be solved by natural gas. And so we see a long runway. There's, I think, a huge pent-up undersupply of pipeline capacity across the country. And that's the starting point. And then you layer on top of that the power demand and data centers that everyone is talking about. And of course, the export trends and looking to double exports out of the Gulf Coast. So we're extremely well positioned on all of those fronts. We talked this morning about some of the expansions out of the Permian and the Eiger upsize and the Bay Runner extension. But I think you can expect us also, as Greg alluded to, to be adding to our growth table in GTM on a few fronts in the near term.

I don't know if you saw, but we just finished an open season on Vector into Wisconsin, a lot more demand there for power and natural gas for utility distribution. Texas LNG1, which we're very close to, has made great progress lately on both offtake and financing. You might have read about that. And storage demand appetite is voracious in the Gulf Coast. We have some more expansion opportunities there in the near term.

So those are just some of the things I think you could expect us to be talking about pretty soon and adding to that near-term growth table. Longer term, when you look at all of our regions up and down the entire nation from the Northeast to the Southeast and pretty much all points in between, we see tons of opportunity in the Northeast, we have a relatively small expansion going on in Algonquin, but there's appetite for large expansion there. And you're starting to see things thaw in terms of permitting and the realization that it just doesn't make sense to have 40% of power generation come from oil -- burning oil in a cold snap or $150 gas, and we're the solution to that.

And in the Southeast, just population growth and obviously, economic growth, and we have a couple of pipelines into there. We've been expanding SESH and we have Sabal Trail. So yes, we're just seeing fantastic opportunities all the way up and down the country. And I think you can expect to see growth out of us there in the near term and for many years going forward.

I think from a capital allocation perspective, it also allows Pat and I to make sure we get to pick the projects that actually provide the best returns and be very picky about the regions. And if they don't meet the returns that are going to get our growth rate or accelerate our growth rate, we don't have to allocate capital there. So it's a pretty nice setup from an investor perspective, but also from a capital allocation perspective.

Your next question comes from the line of Maurice Choy from RBC Capital Markets.

Just want to pick up on that last question about returns. Slide 14, you've discussed the enhancing of asset returns with 2025 organic projects about 11% and 2026 just under 10%. When you think about your $10 billion to $20 billion of projects over the next 24 months, are we expecting these projects to have similar 10% to 11% levels? Or are the project mix so vastly different that might be outside of this range on a portfolio basis?

Yes, thanks for the question, Maurice. I think our view would be that given the amount of opportunities we have in front of us that they're probably going to average up that as we go through time here, whether it's our renewable projects that we've talked about being in those mid-teens, high-quality projects, strong returning in GTM. We haven't had as many liquids projects entering service as we will over the next 3 or 4 years, and those are some of our strongest projects as we go through things and then balanced out, of course, by the utility.

So I think we're very confident that we can continue to improve returns and not only from the projects we're sanctioning, but from optimizing the base assets that we have as an organization, whether that's through things we've done on the mainline volumes, whether that's through cost, technology. So I think it's kind of a two-pronged approach, not just returns on new projects, but also on the base assets.

I think the other thing we think about is risk-adjusted returns as well because obviously, the utility doesn't earn those similar returns. But even there, we've seen in some recent rate cases to get slightly thicker equity and ROEs on that equity. So I think we try to balance both of those, which is one of the reasons why you can increase the dividend 30 years solid without being concerned about being whipsawed back and forth by whether geopolitical or economic cycles or politics.

That makes sense. If I could take one step further in all our discussions about Canadian politics, given the Davos speech, geopolitical events, even the upcoming USMCA negotiations, have there been any signs in your regular engagement with the Canadian or Alberta governments on how they may support major energy infra projects, including perhaps backstopping cost overruns or financing?

Well, I have not heard that on the latter. But obviously, there's been lots of signs and signals. I think what we're looking for is actually concrete actions. So the MOU between the Government of Alberta and the Government of Canada was very encouraging. That's several months ago now, and the world keeps changing, right? So I think it's not so much about the signals and the speeches. It's more about the actions and the results that I think is what our customers are looking for, what our investors are looking for and what we're looking for. So yes, very positive on the signals very positive on the Prime Minister's comments about growing oil and natural gas.

In terms of backstopping, that's an interesting one. I guess you could say there's things like loan guarantees that happen for certain stakeholders. I don't see that happening for the -- for private sector players. But some of these projects that are really big, you're going to need some type of commitment of stable policy and maybe backstopping until it's built, if you will. But we do that in the Northeast, too. Our Northeast utility customers, Northeast United States, given some of the starts and stops we've seen there on the policy-wise, we're not going to take the financial risk on development of projects. We're quite happy once we get the go-ahead to take the risk on building them. But we're not going to take the risk of them being stopped before they go into service or frankly, even FID because some of these projects, you're spending hundreds of millions of dollars before you even get regulatory approval.

Understood. Just to clarify there, you're comfortable with the project development and your ability to deliver, but the policy protection and durability there that's the biggest crux of this.

Yes, that's exactly right. So many projects and the larger the project you want to go, you're talking many years, right, which you can get changes in policy and politics. I don't think investors or the infrastructure companies should be taking on all that risk of the development in jurisdictions that have historically created a challenge. Like again, I look at the Northeast United States, we've had projects where we would have spent several hundred million dollars and with the stroke of a pen project doesn't move forward. You saw that in Northern Gateway. We spent $600 million, combo of shareholder money and customer money and the rug was pulled out from underneath. So that's not the type of risk that we're looking to take on at this time. We don't need to with all the other opportunities.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet from JPMorgan.

This is Eli on for Jeremy. Just wanted to dive a bit deeper on the power demand opportunity set. Obviously, you've talked about the focus is on best returns. But we've seen some of your peers go for chunkier power solutions, including some behind-the-meter opportunities. Just in the context of this growing investment capacity, how should we think about whether you'd consider these larger power-focused projects and then what those returns might look like?

Yes. I think we're quite comfortable with finding the opportunities associated with power at GTM and GDS. I think as you look at GTM, sometimes I think it gets overlooked. But whether it's Line 31 in Louisiana or this AGT built or SESH or the TVA project, those are all chunky ways to play the power game. GDS, as you saw this morning, we're talking about 5 Bcf of gas infrastructure potential for power demand growth.

And that's on top of the things like over 1 gigawatt of power infrastructure we put in place for Duke. You've seen us do things like that in Ohio, Novva Data Center in Utah. So I think there's ways to play there. And then importantly, of course, the renewable side. And I'll go back to -- I don't think most of our customers are that focused on the color of the electron these days. I think they're focused on the electron and some 3 gigawatts in the last couple of years that we've signed up for.

We've been thinking about this a long time. In 2022, we bought Tri Global with a great background of large renewable projects that you can see us bringing into service. And you can't ask for better customers than Meta, than Amazon and Google, all of which we're playing. So don't see us going into the IPP, the gas IPP business. I mean maybe there's some bespoke opportunities here and there, but we like the long-term contracts that we're able to get with renewables, 15-, 20-year contracts, which are different than contracts often that you see in the IPP world of say, a decade or so. So the risk profile fits us better in the way we're going at this. And Allen is here, he may want to add to it as well.

I'll just mention one thing, too, that with the tax credit situation in the U.S., we've got over 2 gigs of safe harbored opportunities in the renewable space that should keep us busy for the next 3 years. So we have a really strong opportunity set on the solar, the wind and also the battery side as well. So we're excited about that, and I think we'll focus on that from a power perspective.

Awesome. Appreciate the color. And then maybe pivoting to the kind of B.C. storage opportunity landscape. Can you just talk a little bit about some of the storage economics out there and what you're hearing from customers? I think sometimes the storage opportunity gets overlooked, but I imagine it could be pretty sizable for you guys. So just any messaging there.

Sure. It's Matthew. So I think storage not just in BC, but across our entire footprint is a major theme. And the demand growth continues from obviously, LNG and then the power side. So we have in storage a significant expansion going on up in B.C. right now at Aitken, 40 Bcf.

The market there is very attractive. And in Canada, a lot of that is going to be based on the factors that have driven storage in B.C., which is the appetite for LNG that's picked up the market there. And we're looking for, obviously, strong stakeholder and government support for further LNG exports out of Canada. There's been talk of expansion of LNG Canada, maybe a second phase and other projects. So we see strong organic growth on the rates we're getting and then obviously, just the expansion. And when you combine those, we're expanding by 20% to 30% across our storage footprint. And then when you combine that with just steadily increasing storage rates from these fundamental trends that you asked about, we're seeing great organic growth out of our storage business for the next few years.

The other thing, Eli, and Matthew, I think you'd agree is that we're seeing really interesting contracting where we still -- look, contracts for storage tend to be in the kind of 2- to 5-year range typically, but we're seeing big chunks of our storage being contracted for the long term as well, in some cases, up to a decade. So it's fitting the risk profile, sort of fitting the return profile. And as you point out, I think Aitken Creek does get overlooked. I mean it's the only major gas storage play that you've got in British Columbia at a time when, as you've seen on the Gulf Coast, as LNG projects come in, it's a pretty exciting opportunity for us. So I appreciate the question.

Your next question comes from the line of Robert Catellier from CIBC.

I just wanted to see if you could follow up on your answers to Maurice's question and provide some updated views on the progress that you're seeing in the Alberta, Canada MOU and setting the right investment conditions for a pipeline to the West Coast?

Yes, Rob, thanks for your question. I think what we're looking for, there's 2 important milestones that have been out there for a while that are coming up close. The April time frame where the Government of Alberta and Canada, I think, are trying to come to a solution on industrial carbon charge, stringency, et cetera, on those matters. That's going to be super important for our customers, producers to get a feel for whether or not Canada is competitive enough for them to continue to see the kind of growth that we've been seeing.

So that's the key one. We continue to provide them advice along with others in the industry, SOBO, TMX, et cetera, on pipeline opportunity in the -- to the West Coast. But again, that's just on an advisory perspective. So I think there's -- I think there's a fair number of things still to come. But April is what I would look at to see if there's actually a solution, a competitive solution to the carbon issue for Canadian producers.

I agree with that.

Robert, sorry, I was just going to layer in. I think there's a lot of kind of media headlines around the West Coast pipe being kind of one of the Ps and then pathways being a second P. But grossly undercovered is the third P, which is, I think Greg -- getting production up to fill a West Coast pipe. And I think those are the signals that are dear to the equation that we should all be watching for.

And again, Rob, the nice thing is I think in the meantime, while we wait, I think we've got great solutions for our customers in MLO1 and 2. And if they get this right, obviously, 3, and we know somewhere down the road, perhaps additional pipelines in other directions. But again, I think the insurance egress we're offering there is an important one for our customers until the skies are a little clearer, if you will, on that P for production that Colin mentioned.

Okay. That's helpful. I guess we'll have to wait and see how it evolves. My second question was, I wondered if we could have a progress update on wood fiber and how costs are tracking there versus expectations.

Sure. Rob, it's Matthew. No major updates there. We remain on track for late '27 in service. We've made good progress on construction recently. We're about 60% complete on the project. 12 of the 14 modules are now on site. So we just have a couple left there, put in a new flotel in December. So everything tracking to plan and no updates on cost or in service.

Your next question comes from the line of Manav Gupta from UBS.

Congrats on the dividend hike. Investors always appreciate it. My question here is there's a lot of focus on Canadian heavy sour volume growth, but what is also growing out of Canada is light sweet crude, particularly if you look at some of the projections that CNQ is making. And one project which I find very interesting, which you kind of have been working on is trying to get like 250,000 barrels more to DAPL. I think you probably have to reverse the line that is going over there and then you probably work with it [ Ity ] to get more crude to DAPL. Can you talk a little bit about this particular project that gets more probably sweet crude from Canada into the U.S. refining system.

Sure, Manav. And good observation, right? A lot of talk on heavy and less on light. So MLO2 is kind of a 2 for that way. It deals with the light, right, as you've talked about the path and then heavy on the mainline. And you're exactly right. That is the path we would move lights down the mainline and then reverse a cross-border pipeline that currently flows south to north to be north to south and connect it with Dakota Access Pipeline, which has some headroom and then that this Canadian crude would not displace Bakken producer headroom. So it fits nicely into that DAPL underutilized asset, of which we own a portion of and then moves that light crude down into Patoka and then back up to Chicago and to feed those PADD II refining markets and probably more markets than it does today. So there's a few embedded win-wins here, Manav.

Perfect. My quick follow-up is and just -- you talked a little bit about it, but generally, what we are seeing is a lot of these behind-the-meter solutions come up and pipes are being -- laterals are being built, but we do believe not enough storage in terms of gas storage is being built, particularly around data -- where the data centers are coming up. So can you talk a little bit about gas storage opportunities in key target markets around the data centers. So if you could talk a little bit about that and how Enbridge could benefit from it?

It's Matthew. I think you're on point there. If you look at how peaky some of the power prices have been in certain of the regions pretty much across the country. That's just going to continue to get worse unless we have more storage, obviously, and pipeline capacity.

So those are some of the big opportunities. I think the storage itself is going to kind of be where the geology is. And we're really bullish on that, and that's why we're expanding. We're going to be up to 120 Bcf of storage in both the Gulf Coast and in B.C. over the next 2 years. Those are great positions and further expansion potential, as I alluded to. We're seeing storage rates that are very supportive of strong economics and returns. I think the contract duration is also extending, which is nice. And also the customer base is further diversifying. And so that is coming right further and further into our wheelhouse in the way we like to do things at Enbridge, longer contracts, strong double-digit returns and low or no commodity exposure. So we got a good position where we are, and you'll look forward to more expansions on those.

I think Michele, you might want to add. Sometimes it's forgotten, we have a nice unregulated storage position in our Gas Distribution business in the Great Lakes as well. And obviously, that's an area where you see both industrial growth, data center growth as well, too.

Yes, that's right. I mean we have about 300 Bcf of storage in the Great Lakes region just in Ontario, and we have another 50 or so. So I think it's 290 of which we have about 110 unregulated at Dawn and 180 that's regulated. Then we have another 60 Bcf in Ontario. And of course, we have Wexpro, which is an important asset in Utah, all of which is really helping on the affordability front to Matthew's point about volatility, I mean, Dawn saw very stable prices in the last few weeks when we saw things escalating elsewhere.

But in terms of expansion capability, we're looking across all of the GDS systems for more storage. We think it's incredibly important for our customers. And then on the unregulated side, we just keep chipping away. We added a BCF last year. We've got 4 Bcf we're adding to Dawn this year. We've got a number of projects in the pipeline. We see a lot of potential to keep adding to that and the same sort of dynamics that Matthew discussed about longer-term contracts, good contracts, exactly what we like.

Your next question comes from the line of Ben Pham from BMO.

I had a couple of follow-up questions on the renewal power sleeve of your business. You mentioned the 1 gig you're working on the 2 gig safe harbor. Can you add context on the total development portfolio that you have in gigawatts? And what are your plans in terms of do you want to replenish it or not going forward?

Yes. Thanks, Ben. So right now, I mean, the total gross generation that we have when you include the growth is about 7.4 gigawatts. That's on a gross basis. I say that just because we do have some JVs that would dilute that a bit. But I think on a net basis, we're like 4.3 gigs if you include all of the growth that we have in the portfolio right now in the existing and what we have actually in service and up and running.

But the point I was trying to make is that in a time where tax credits are a bit challenged with some of the -- with what's facing us probably in July 4, we've got a portfolio of diversified projects that meet well over 2 gigs of opportunity that we think all of which are -- have a lot of veracity and we think have a good shot at going into FID and ultimately into service, and that will keep us full for the next 3 years.

Ben, if your question is around would we pick up additional assets. I mean, I guess we could look, but that's not something we're looking at right now. We've got a nice backlog of stuff, as Allen said. And then post '28, we'll see where we are on whether power prices move up and/or there's change in policy and stuff, but a good setup right now for the coming years and through the decade.

Yes. I just want to clarify some of those numbers. So that 4.3 gigawatts, that's in service at this operation?

Yes. If you take what's in service, that's our net basis. So basically, some of our stuff is in JV. So on a net basis, our interest. If you take what's in service today plus what we've FID-ed and what we have under construction, you get to 4.3 gigs.

Okay. And then -- so then beyond that, you don't have lease agreements and land that -- some of these renewable companies have 10, 20, 30 gigawatts of sites that they're developing. I was more curious about that number.

Yes. Ours is more like about a little over 2. And if you think about it, when you think about the $1 billion to $1.5 billion of capital that we're targeting to spend on an annual basis, that's right in the sweet spot for us, like I said, over the next 3 or 4 years.

I got you. Maybe there's a left question on this on Ontario. You've -- in the past, you've all electric transmission, you got out, looks like the promise may be looking at competitive bidding projects. Is that something Enbridge will be potentially interested in going back in?

Well, you know we have the Gichi-gami project that we're looking at right now and which is a wind project. And we're bidding into the -- we bid into the ISO. They're waiting to hear back whether or not our bid was successful. That's something we're focused on in Ontario. Again, I'll just say this, one of the things on the Canadian side is it's a very competitive market and that sometimes people are willing to take returns that are lower than what we would. So we always have to focus on capital allocation. Our business unit competes against the other business units here on a healthy basis. So we have to make sure that we have good return projects. And sometimes it can be a bit challenged, but we think the Gichi-gami project could be a real good one if it does land.

But specific to electric transmission, I don't see us getting back into -- we were only there for a brief period of time, worked out okay on the sale. But electric transmission is a very different risk profile, and I would not hunt currently in Enbridge's opportunities.

Okay. Got you. I was specifically referring to that subsea transmission project that the government is looking at.

And we have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Marlon Samuel for closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, and we appreciate your ongoing interest in Enbridge. As always, our Investor Relations team is available following the call for any additional questions that you may have. Once again, thank you, and have a great day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Good morning, and welcome to the Enbridge Inc. Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Rebecca Morley, and I'm the Vice President of Investor Relations and Insurance. Joining me this morning are Greg Ebel, President and CEO; Pat Murray, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and the heads of each of our business units: Colin Gruending, Liquids Pipelines; Cynthia Hansen, Gas Transmission; Michele Harradence, Gas Distribution and Storage; and Matthew Akman, Renewable Power.

[Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference call is being recorded. As per usual, this call is being webcast, and I encourage those listening on the phone to follow along with the supporting slides. We will try to keep the call to roughly 1 hour. And in order to answer as many questions as possible, we will be limiting questions to one plus a single follow-up if necessary. We'll be prioritizing questions from the investment community. So if you are a member of the media, please direct your inquiries to our communications team, who will be happy to respond. As always, our Investor Relations team will be available following the call for any follow-up questions.

On to Slide 2, where I will remind you that we'll be referring to forward-looking information in today's presentation and in the Q&A. By its nature, this information contains forecast assumptions and expectations about future outcomes, which are subject to risks and uncertainties outlined here and discussed more fully in our public disclosure filings. We'll also be referring to non-GAAP measures summarized below. And with that, I'll turn it over to Greg Ebel.

Well, thanks very much, Rebecca, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us on the call today. Before we start, I'd like to take a moment to congratulate Cynthia, who announced plans to retire at the end of 2026. Her outstanding leadership and dedication to Enbridge over the past 25 years is inspiring, and I'm grateful that she'll be continuing to provide guidance to our executive team through the end of next year. I'd also like to congratulate Matthew, who will transition to President of our GTM business at the end of this year as well as Allen Capps, who has been appointed to succeed Matthew as the Head of our Corporate Strategy Group and President of our Power business. As we've said before, and it remains true today, our investment in people creates a deep bench of executive talent to ensure a smooth transition and strong leadership as we move forward.

Now moving on to our agenda for this morning. I'm excited to share another strong quarter and highlight the significant progress we've made throughout all segments of our business. It has been a busy quarter for us with new projects serving a wide range of customers across our core franchises. We're going to start today with an update on our financial performance, execution of our increasing number of secured growth projects and prospects. And I'll also highlight the strong returns and stability our business continues to demonstrate and provide an update on each of our four franchises. Pat will then walk through our financial results and capital allocation priorities. And lastly, I'll close the presentation with a few comments on our First Choice value proposition before we open the line for questions from the investment community.

We had another strong quarter of results, including record third quarter adjusted EBITDA. That growth was driven by incremental contributions from a full quarter of U.S. gas utilities and organic growth within our gas transmission business. This keeps us on track to finish the year in the upper half of our EBITDA guidance, and we expect to land around the midpoint of our DCF per share metric. Our debt-to-EBITDA is 4.8x for the quarter and remains within our leverage range of 4.5 to 5x. Our assets remained highly utilized during the quarter with the mainline transporting approximately 3.1 million barrels per day, a third quarter record, thanks to strong demand.

We reached positive settlements at both Enbridge Gas North Carolina and Enbridge Gas, Utah, which we expect to drive growth as rates begin to take effect. We're still on track to sanction Mainline optimization Phase 1 this quarter and Phase 2 next year, and we'll get into more details on those projects during the business update. Over the quarter, we added $3 billion of new growth capital to our secured capital program, showcasing continued execution on the commitments we laid out last Enbridge Day.

In liquids, we sanctioned the Southern Illinois Connector, adding incremental egress out of Western Canada and providing a new long-term contracted service to Nederland, Texas. In Gas Transmission, we sanctioned expansions of our Egan and Moss Bluff storage facilities to support the LNG build-out along the U.S. Gulf Coast. And in the deepwater Gulf, we're expanding our previously approved Canyon system to provide transportation services for bp's recently sanctioned Tiber Offshore development. And earlier in the quarter, we sanctioned the Algonquin Gas Transmission enhancement project in the U.S. Northeast as well as the Eiger Express gas pipeline out of the Permian. And finally, we have advanced a joint venture with Oxy to develop the Pelican CO2 hub in Louisiana. These projects demonstrate the competitive edge from our all-of-the-above approach and our ability to meet growing energy demand across all parts of our business.

Now let's look at our value proposition and recap our year-to-date execution before diving into the business updates. Enbridge's low-risk model continues to deliver superior risk-adjusted returns in all economic cycles. Our cash flows are diversified from over 200 high-quality asset streams and businesses that are underpinned by regulated or take-or-pay frameworks. Over 95% of our customers have investment-grade credit ratings. We have negligible commodity price exposure and the majority of our EBITDA has inflation protection.

All of this results in Enbridge's industry-leading total shareholder return while maintaining lower volatility compared to peers and broad index constituents. Looking ahead, Enbridge's utility-like business model remains well-positioned and policy support for new investment in critical projects is improving, creating a business environment that incents coordination, dialogue, and growth. And I'm very pleased with how the team continues to grow the business and excited by the opportunities ahead for Enbridge.

With that said, let's jump into the business unit updates, starting with Liquids segment. Mainline volumes had another strong quarter, delivering a record 3.1 million barrels per day on average for Q3. The system was a portion for the entire quarter, reflecting continued strong demand for Canadian crude and the need for reliable egress out of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. Given the continued strong demand for the Mainline this year, we expect to reach the top of the performance color ahead of when we initially anticipated. This is a great sign for us and our shippers.

We're achieving the maximum allowable returns under the mainline tolling settlement, delivering competitive value to our shareholders and our alignment with customers incentivizes us to move the increased volumes and provide them with access to the best markets. This leads in well to mainline optimization projects that I'll discuss shortly here, in addition to the previously announced projects like Mainline capital investment.

In the U.S., we sanctioned the Southern Illinois Connector project, which is backed by long-term contracts for full path service from Western Canada to Nederland, Texas. Once complete, the new pathway will add 100,000 barrels per day of contracted full path capacity to the U.S. Gulf Coast via a 30,000 barrel increase per day on Express-Platte system, 56 miles of new pipeline between Wood River and Patoka, and utilization of 70,000 barrels per day of existing capacity on the Spearhead Pipeline.

Looking ahead at additional egress projects, we are continuing to advance approximately 400,000 barrels per day of incremental capacity to the best refining markets in North America via mainline optimization Phase 1 and 2. MLO1, which will add 150,000 barrels per day of incremental egress is entering the final stages of customer approvals. and we are still on track to make FID this quarter and place the project into service in 2027. MLO2 has made significant progress as well, and that project could now add another 250,000 barrels per day of additional capacity in 2028. This second phase of mainline optimization will utilize capacity on the Dakota Access Pipeline, and we're happy to announce that we're teaming up with Energy Transfer to make that happen. So stay tuned for more on MLO2, including an open season announcement early in the new year.

Relative to potential greenfield projects that would require significant energy policy change, these brownfield opportunities offer the quickest and most cost-effective way to adding close to 500,000 barrels a day of capacity to satisfy the near-term production increases forecasted out of the basin. Finally, for liquids, we added the Pelican sequestration hub to our backlog, a project in Louisiana, which will provide transportation and sequestration for 2.3 million tons per year of CO2 and is underpinned by 25-year take-or-pay offtake agreements. We will partner with Occidental Petroleum to advance the hub with Enbridge managing the pipeline infrastructure, while Oxy develops the sequestration facility.

Now let's turn to our gas transmission business. This quarter, we've sanctioned an additional capital-efficient connection to our Canyon pipeline system to support bp's Tiber development in the deepwater Gulf. Originally announced last October, the Canyon system will transport both crude oil and natural gas under long-term contracts with the Tiber system expected to cost USD 300 million, taking the total Canyon pipeline development to about USD 1 billion and entering service in 2029.

In the U.S. Northeast, the AGT Enhancement will increase capacity of the Algonquin pipeline, providing additional natural gas to the critically undersupplied U.S. Northeast, serving local utility demand and reducing winter price volatility. That project is expected to cost USD 300 million and enter into service in 2029. Switching over to the Permian. The Eiger Express Pipeline is a 2.5 Bcf a day Permian egress development running adjacent to the operating Matterhorn Express system and is now sanctioned and expected to enter into service in 2028.

Since our initial 2024 investment in the Whistler joint venture, which holds these pipelines, we have invested $2 billion in operating assets and sanctioned another $1 billion of capital expected to enter service through 2028. Also in the Gulf region, we've sanctioned two natural gas storage expansions to support the market, which continues to tighten due to increased LNG, Mexican exports, and regional power demand. Egan and Moss Bluff storage systems, both salt caverns with exceptional connectivity and withdrawal rates are being expanded to offer a combined 23 Bcf of incremental capacity.

We expect to invest approximately $500 million in these facilities at 5 to 6x EBITDA builds and come into service in phases through 2033. It's worth taking a moment to dive a little deeper into the growing North American storage market and how we are positioned to serve our customers. Between Moss Bluff and Egan as well as the expansion of Aitken Creek announced last quarter, Enbridge is now set to add over 60 Bcf of new natural gas storage directly adjacent to the major LNG centers in North America. These expansions will come in a timely manner as there is over 17 Bcf per day of additional LNG-related natural gas demand expected to enter service by 2030. This demand dramatically shifts supply economics and increases the importance of strategically located storage capacity.

We are connected to all operating U.S. Gulf Coast LNG terminals and continue to invest heavily in infrastructure to enable the future growth of North American LNG. To date, we have sanctioned over $10 billion in projects with direct adjacency to operating or planned export facilities. There is a growing storage deficit across the U.S. Gulf and British Columbia coasts and having existing assets with the opportunity to execute brownfield expansions is incredibly valuable to our customers and investors. Through acquisitions and expansions, we have positioned ourselves as an industry leader in the storage space. With more than 600 Bcf of storage across our North American businesses, we can strongly support our customers as they continue to build out North America's LNG capacity and navigate the overall power demand growth we are expecting in the future.

Now let's spend a few minutes recapping all the work we've done in Gas Transmission segment since Enbridge Day earlier this year. At our Investor Day in March, we shared Enbridge's $23 billion gas transmission opportunity set, noting the potential to FIT up to $5 billion in projects within 18 months. This opportunity set has grown since then. And today, a little over 6 months later, we've already announced over $3 billion of new projects across our footprint, serving all pillars of natural gas demand growth, including reshoring, LNG, coal-to-gas switching and data centers. With over 23 Bcf a day of new gas demand coming online by 2030, critical investment will be needed to ensure reliable service for customers. And with this list here, you can see we are doing our part, deploying capital to meet the significant increase in natural gas demand across North America regardless of the end-use market.

Now let's turn to our gas distribution business. The GDS segment is yet another way for us to capitalize on power demand theme. We've seen data center and power gen opportunities continue to be a tailwind for the segment with over 50 opportunities that could serve up to 5 Bcf a day of demand, including almost 1 Bcf per day of demand for already secured projects. During the quarter, we also reached positive rate settlements with two of our U.S. utility regulators, which are currently being reviewed for final approval.

In North Carolina, allowed return on equity increased to 9.65% on an equity thickness of 54%, resulting in a revenue requirement increase of some USD 34 million. The settlement also introduces additional rate riders that allows for quick cycle return of capital for our major projects in North Carolina. These rates came into effect on an interim basis on November 1. In Utah, we filed a settlement for a revenue requirement of USD 62 million, which supports continued investment at attractive returns. We are expecting a rate order before the end of the year with rates to come in effect on January 1, 2026. Both these rate cases showcase the importance of natural gas as a safe, reliable source of affordable energy.

Now I'll continue with the power demand theme with our Renewables segment. As you can see from this slide, renewable projects have been a great place to invest in the last few years, driven by strong PPA prices, decreasing supply costs, and the associated tax benefits. The four projects on this slide showcase over 2 gigawatts of power backed by agreements with some of the largest technology and data center players in the world, including Amazon and Meta. Fox Squirrel and Orange Grove are currently operational. Sequoia Solar will fully enter service in 2026 and Clear Fork will follow entering service in 2027. Looking ahead, we still have a number of projects in the queue that we're advancing. But as always, we'll remain opportunistic and continue to stand by our strict investment criteria.

With that, I'll now pass it to Pat to go over our financial performance.

Thanks, Greg, and good morning, everyone. It's been another strong quarter across all four business units, thanks to continued high utilization of our assets as well as recent acquisitions. Compared to the third quarter of 2024, adjusted EBITDA is up $66 million, DCF per share is relatively flat and EPS is down from $0.55 to $0.46 per share. The decrease in EPS is primarily due to the profile change associated with our gas utilities, where Q3 tends to be a softer quarter for EPS as EBITDA is seasonally lower, but items such as interest and depreciation remained flat quarter-over-quarter.

In Liquids, despite the strong mainline volumes, contributions from the Mid-Con and U.S. Gulf Coast segment are tracking lower due to tighter differentials and strong PADD II refining demand. In Gas Transmission, we experienced a strong third quarter with favorable contracting and rate case outcomes on our U.S. gas transmission assets and contributions from the Venice extension and the Permian joint ventures we added since last year. The Gas Distribution segment is up relative to last year, thanks to a full quarter contribution from Enbridge Gas North Carolina as well as benefit of the quick turn capital we experienced within our Ohio utility.

In Renewables, results were up from last year with higher contributions from our wind assets and from the Orange Grove solar facility recently placed into service. Higher financing and maintenance costs from the acquisition of the Enbridge Gas North Carolina assets kept DCF per share relatively flat year-over-year. I'm pleased to once again reaffirm our 2025 guidance and growth outlook across all metrics. Our resilient business model positions us to deliver strong and predictable results through all cycles. We remain confident we will achieve full year EBITDA in the upper half of our guidance range of $19.4 billion to $20 billion, but don't expect to exceed the top of the band.

As we mentioned on previous quarterly calls, due to higher interest rates, particularly in the U.S., we continue to expect DCF per share at the midpoint of our $5.50 to $5.90 per share guidance range. Mainline volumes, FX rates, and the acquisition of an interest in the Matterhorn Express Pipeline earlier in the year continue to be the tailwinds to the full year guide. This is partially offset by higher interest rates, along with tight differentials and strong PADD II refining levels, which are expected to continue into the fourth quarter and thus have been reflected as an additional headwind relative to our assumptions heading into the year.

Now let's quickly discuss our capital allocation priorities. We remain firmly committed to a thoughtful capital discipline process, remaining within our $9 billion to $10 billion per year annual growth investment capacity as we pursue the wide suite of opportunities ahead. Our highly contracted cash flows support a growing and ratable dividend within our 60% to 70% DCF payout target range, ensuring long-term shareholder returns. We've grown our dividend for 30 consecutive years, a real testament to the stability of our business and the fundamentals that underpin it. On the leverage front, our consolidated net debt to adjusted EBITDA remains comfortably within our target range of 4.5 to 5x. This quarter, we saw $3 billion of newly sanctioned capital advanced.

As I've mentioned in the past, I like the fact that we're generating opportunities in all of our businesses, supplementing the next few years with accretive projects while also adding visibility into the back part of the decade with opportunities like our gas storage expansions and our offshore gas transmission projects, which we've announced this quarter. Our capital allocation focus will remain with brownfield, highly strategic and economic projects supported by underlying energy fundamentals, and I'm excited to see this opportunity set materialize into the future.

With that, I'll pass it back to Greg to close the presentation.

Thanks very much, Pat. It was indeed a busy quarter on the growth capital side, and I'm extremely pleased with the progress we've made since Enbridge Day in March. The North American energy landscape continues to evolve with energy demand driven by LNG development, power generation, data centers and baseload growth. Enbridge will continue to play a pivotal role in that growth within a disciplined framework that delivers consistent long-term shareholder value. Our low-risk utility-like business with predictable cash flows is underpinned by long-term agreements and regulatory mechanisms that has allowed us to increase our dividend for 30 consecutive years across a wide range of economic cycles and conditions.

Going forward, we expect to achieve 5% growth through the end of the decade, supported by our $35 billion in secured capital. Our scale offers optionality that few in our industry possess, and we'll continue to evaluate accretive investments across our footprint. Lastly, I'll just point out one housekeeping item. As has been typical, we intend to issue our '26 guidance for investors in early December. So please watch for that announcement on December 3. With that, I'll open the call to questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from the line of Spiro Dounis from Citi.

I wanted to start with gas distribution and storage. The release mentioned seeing an acceleration there in commercial activity and it sounds like demand from data centers and power being those initial expectations. So just a multipart question here, but curious what's suddenly driving that acceleration, if there's a particular region where you're seeing it? And how are you thinking about the time frame for when these could start to materialize?

Sure. So it's Michele Harradence here, Spiro, and happy to discuss that. And I would say we're seeing it across the board. I mean that's the real value of the diversity of the utilities we have. So -- when we look at about the projects that make up that 7 Bcf or so of data center opportunities that we're talking about, we divide that aspect into what I'd call our baseload demand, our data centers itself and the coal to gas. So it's a lot about power generation. It's the electrification tailwind that we've talked about.

So you could bucket that, I would say, the baseload demand is there in Ontario, it's there in Ohio, it's there in Utah, data center growth, lots of early-stage developments in Ohio and Utah in particular. I would say we're seeing up to 8 gigawatts between the two of them. And that's some of the early-stage developments we're seeing. And then the mid-stage stuff, we're estimated to be serving over 6 gigawatts in those two jurisdictions alone. And Ontario has a lot of growth as well.

And then finally, coal-to-gas conversion, again, to support power generation would be in North Carolina. But really, when we look across all the capital opportunities we have for GDS, that's maybe 20% of what we're looking at is the data center and power generation opportunity. I mean just the good standard core utility growth, leveraging our modernization program, still lots of opportunity there. We're seeing a lot of what I'd call major projects. We just put our Panhandle regional project into service. That's close to $360 million in Southwest Ontario. We have our Moriah Energy Center, the LNG plant in North Carolina. We have 215 Phase 1 and 2 in North Carolina. That's -- those two combined are USD 1.2 billion alone. We're doing a reinforcement project in Ontario up in Ottawa. That's another $200 million.

I mean, there's a lot of growth and opportunity going on in the utilities. And then our residential growth, although it softened in Ontario, continues to be strong in places like North Carolina and Utah, where there's a lot of folks coming. And finally, we're looking at our storage opportunities, and there's a good chunk of our capital that continues to go to storage for us. So a good suite of capital there, but hopefully, that answers your question.

Yes. Good upside, Spiro, from what we thought when we bought the assets 2 years ago. We didn't -- a lot of the folks hadn't seen the data center, particularly in places like Ohio, we knew Utah and North Carolina would grow nicely. But Ohio, the opportunity there that's happening on the industrial side and the power side and data center related is really great. I think people are kind of forgetting the fact it's not just about power right across the board, not only the secondary benefits, i.e., industrial growth, caterpillars, GEs, et cetera, having to build things and equipment, there's tertiary growth associated with DC and AI, which is really going to drive all these commodities, including oil, as you see, higher GDP, higher industrial growth. Who's building all this stuff? They're using gasoline, they're using diesel, they're using oil. And that -- so I see it right across the entire system.

Great. That's helpful color. Second question, maybe just going to Line 5. You all recently received a favorable decision from the Army Corps there. And it sounds like you expect state permits to be confirmed soon. So just curious how you're thinking about starting construction on that segment? And how do the outstanding item in Michigan play into next steps here?

Sure, Spiro. It's Colin here. So I'll try to abbreviate this answer, sometimes Line 5 questions get a little longer. But I would say that the permitting on both the Wisconsin reroute and the Michigan tunnel are regaining momentum, obviously, with the White House and energy security and just getting things done. So I would say that we are -- in Wisconsin here, we're awaiting the administrative law judges findings on the hearing that we've recently completed should have that soon. And we'd look to complete the Wisconsin reroute in 2027 and the tunnel is a few years behind that.

Your next question comes from the line of Aaron MacNeil from TD Cowen.

It's great to see the new disclosure around Mainline optimization Phase 2. Am I right to view this as an acceleration in terms of the cadence that you're planning to offer expanded egress to Canadian producers? And if so, what's driving that expedited timing? Is it customer demand? Is it sort of a race to be first to market? How should we think about it?

Well, maybe I'll start with a little context because I think you're right. This is maybe not one some people expected, although I'd say people have always underestimated what we can do with that super system. So remember, first of all, you got customers out there that are in particular Canadian customers looking at from an oil sands perspective, you don't have the type of depletion issues that are going on in some of the shale plays. You've got a strong U.S. dollar, which is critical, driving netbacks. So you got quite a different environment going on, obviously, in Canada and some other jurisdictions that analysts may focus from that perspective. But really the attitude of customers and what we can offer. But Colin, do you want to talk about that super system element of it?

Yes. I think -- I don't know that it's an acceleration here per se. I think it's being game on here for a while here. And I think the Canadian basin, as Greg was saying, is it turns out relatively advantaged compared to other basins. So maybe we have lost focus on it, but our customers haven't. And we've been all over the fundamentals, we see that 500,000, 600,000 a day of supply growth by the end of the decade. And I think our announcements here line up with what we talked about at Enbridge Day generally. I mean, the team is working hard on this, and I'm very proud of them, the engineering and commercialization of it is very creative and trying to seize the moment.

Yes, if there's bigger policy unlocks, there could be much more upside to monetize the trillions of dollars of value up in Northern Alberta. But even under the base case, the 600,000 a day is significant. We have, I think, consistently talked about our southbound playbook. And again, if there is an unlock much bigger, then the West solution can come into focus, kind of a companion to that unlock. But in the base case, South is where it's at. Our customers prefer that direction, integrated business models, lots of big efficient, long-lived refineries that are very competitive and of course, less competition now from Venezuela and Mexico, inbound heavy. So Canadian Oil will gain market share in that basin.

I think our solution set is unchanged. We're proud to sanction Southern Illinois Connector. Maybe in baseball terms, that's our leadoff hitter, and it's now on base. We've sanctioned this. This is a dual flow path, 30,000 new egress on Platte and the other 700 coming down our spearhead pipeline existing capacity, and we're going to move that on ETCOP with our -- which we partially own with our partner Energy Transfer. MLO1 is at the plate right now, and we expect to make commercializing announcement here in the next couple of months before year-end. Again, that's 150 a day. I think that's well chronicled. It's capital efficient. permit light using existing pipe in a right of way.

And recall, we've already successfully run an open season on the Flanagan South path through Seaway with our partner enterprise products. So that's well advanced. So MLO2, continue the analogy here, I'd say is in the batter's box. And as Pat and Greg mentioned, it's got a bigger bat than we thought we had before. We've upsized that from 150 to 250 a day. And again, similar to MLO1, existing pipe and right of way. And so again, using joint venture partners, this is all coming together nicely, not an acceleration, but I think continuing through here and hopefully get the basis loaded.

Yes. I hope -- and obviously, not lost on you, Aaron, but as Colin goes through that, you just tick off all those pipeline systems. And it's not just about the mainline. You got Express-Platte, you got ETCOP, you got DAPL, which we own all of our parts of right through the whole system. So there's multiple ways for us to serve our customers and multiple ways for our investors to win. And that's the pretty exciting part that I don't always feel gets fully valued in the market for sure.

That's a ton of great context. As a related follow-up, a significant portion of the $35 billion of secured capital comes into service in 2027. As we think about all these liquids projects that you just outlined, continued success in GTM, steady growth across the utilities. Do you see sort of a, I guess, what I'll call a high plateau in terms of capital entering into service towards the end of the decade? And do you see any timing or capital sequencing issues to maintain the spend between $9 billion and $10 billion?

Maybe Pat will want to add to this, but I don't think so. I mean, we're constantly adding to the back end. Look, I think that's not unusual for companies like ourselves. Just go through the stuff that Colin went through, right? You're talking '27, '28 and then '29, '30, you'll see additional pieces as well. The gas trend deep Gulf stuff is all '29. Storage piece comes in some late '29, '30. So I think it will stay up at that amount. That's what gives us the confidence on 5% growth. It's a bit of a flywheel that's going on right now, which is quite positive. But from a balance sheet perspective, we feel very good about that 9 to 10. Pat?

Yes, I think so at the end of the day, we've got a pretty fulsome '26 now. We've reserved some capacity for these MLO 1s and 2s. I mean, 1, we'll have some spend in '26; 2, probably not as large as it's a little later, but we'll reserve some capacity given how confident we now are in those moving forward. And then as Greg said, we're really happy to continue to build out the back part of the decade. And hopefully, that's adding a lot of clarity into the growth that the enterprise can have.

And I think it's pretty common in our infrastructure business where you got -- you have secured some capital for the next couple of years. It's kind of close to or just below your kind of capacity in any out years you're filling up. And I think the team has done a great job in the last 6 months of doing that. So we're very comfortable.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet from JPMorgan.

Just want to kind of maybe follow up a little bit on the last line of questions there with regards to growth over time and having talked about this 5% EBITDA growth potential over the medium term post '26. And I know you're not going to give us the December update today, but just wondering any foreshadowing you might be able to provide us here or thoughts into how we should be thinking about how that update could unfold?

Yes. I'm not sure we are going to give you much of that right now because as you say it's December. But look, I think -- look, you've heard what we've been able to do on the gas side today with announcements. The liquid side, Michele gave you a good tour to tab on that side as well. And despite what some people have looked at, we've even done a number of things on the renewable power side in the last year. So I think it's the benefit of the portfolio. And again, those secondary and tertiary benefits of everything from power demand, from policy changes, from GDP growth that actually give us that confidence, and we see growth right across the system.

So if your question is, do we see pullbacks in areas? No. In fact, we see acceleration even the renewable stuff that we have, a lot of that stuff is a long ways down the trail and anything we do sanction would have already been in a good spot from a policy perspective. So -- and as Pat just mentioned, we've got the balance sheet capacity, internally generated cash flow to be able to meet those demands. And obviously, every dollar of EBITDA we add adds another $4 or $5 of capacity. So we're very focused on that. So it's probably where I'd leave it today. I don't know, Pat, would you add anything further?

Yes. I mean I think our message, if you remember back 6 months ago at Enbridge Days was that the whole goal here was to add clarity into that back end of the decade growth rate. And I think it's fair to say that we're doing a substantial amount of projects that should help to clarify that. So we're confident in the growth rates that we've put forward, and we'll continue to add to this backlog. We know there's more to come in really every business, which is what I like the most about it. We've got a very diverse set of opportunities over what really turns out to be a 5- to 7-year time line now. So yes, we're feeling good about the growth rates.

Fair enough. I figure it's worth a try. Just wanted to dive in a little bit more into Western Canada and gas storage there. With LNG Canada ramping up. Just wondering if you could provide maybe a little bit more color on the tone of customer conversations there. It seems like the market is going to need a lot more logistics. You're expanding gas storage capacity there. Just wondering if you could elaborate any more on how you see this unfolding. It seems like these would be fundamental tailwinds to rates and economics overall, but just wondering what you guys are seeing.

Yes. Thanks, Jeremy. It's Cynthia Hansen. I would agree with you that we are having these tailwinds, particularly when it comes to storage. Of course, in the last quarter, we'd announced our expansion, a significant expansion of our Aitken Creek storage. We are the only storage in that BC area. So we currently have about 77 Bcf of storage there, and we announced another 40 Bcf. So that will -- we'll start construction of that in the first part of next year, and that will be in service in a couple of years following that. When we have the conversations, it was -- when we announced that opportunity, we had 50% of that storage signed up right away in a long-term contract. So -- our customers understand that there is that opportunity and they're willing to back that kind of expansion.

As we continue to look at other opportunities, the current discussions about LNG Canada Phase 2, all of that creates an opportunity, not just for our storage, but for the opportunities to expand our West Coast system. We've announced earlier this year the Birch Grove, which is an expansion of T-North that ties into that, too. So strong opportunities, but I would say that we'd like to continue to see that growth of those opportunities for LNG export. That will need the support of the BC and Canadian government as we go forward to make sure that we are positioning those projects to attract the capital they need in the long term to support that opportunity.

Your next question comes from the line of Robert Catellier from CIBC Capital Markets.

I'd like to go back to the Data Center and Power Generation opportunities. Obviously, that's a hot part of the market right now. And I think your own gas distribution business is advancing more than $4 billion of related projects. Can you provide some detail on how you're managing cost risk, in particular, in areas like that, that are hot and where there's a lot of competition, supply chain constraints and customer focus on time to market?

Yes. Obviously, several areas there. And as they relate to the gas distribution side, obviously, prudency kicks in. But recall, those are rate base type driven setups, right? So you're getting on a capital structure, call it, 10% return in the U.S. on about 50% equity. So as long as we're being prudent, I'm not feeling too concerned about that. Now that being said, given the size of the company, we are actively and we're out there doing that, making sure that we've got good alliance agreements with various contractors, giving us the best rates, actually going forward and even stockpiling, if you will, compressors and things like that.

And remember, on the inflationary side, I'd say about 30% most of these large projects would be CapEx related to equipment and things like that. So those relationships are really critical. And a lot of them, obviously, we're avoiding tariff structures through contract mechanisms as well. So far, so good. The biggest concern I have is on the people side of things and just getting the time and equipment in place. So we're pretty good at that.

I think we feel in terms of those long-term relationships with contractors and stuff like that. But Rob, it's something definitely we're watching closely. It's also why I love some of the projects that we announced today that are all relatively small, as Colin said, singles and doubles and quick cycle, relatively speaking, so that you don't have long drawn-out processes. And then the last piece is, as you know, a better attitude with policy around permitting and acceptance of these critical projects. And that takes a risk off the table from a CapEx perspective as well.

Okay. That's very helpful. And then a bit of a regulatory question here for Colin, and maybe we'll have to take this offline. But I'm curious about the Mainline optimization too and the interplay with the Dakota Access Pipeline, given there's still some lingering permitting issues there. So maybe, Colin, you could walk us through whatever relevant regulatory updates on DAPL that relate to the Mainline optimization too.

Yes. Sure, Robert. And it's a good question and one we've thought through. So we don't need a new presidential permit across the border. And we're confident that the DAPL EIS will come through in the spirit of energy security and energy dominance. So we're confident in that line of thinking.

Your next question comes from the line of Rob Hope from Scotiabank.

You've mentioned a couple of times that the policy environment is getting better for energy infrastructure. In Canada, how are you interfacing with the Canadian major projects office? Enbridge has over, we'll call it, $8 billion of projects in development in BC. You could do more on the liquid side there as well. Is there a way to get incremental support to further derisk these projects?

Yes. At this point in time, we haven't put projects through the office. It's great that it's set up. Hopefully, that will be helpful for those national interest projects. But most of the things or all the things we're talking about are short cycle, relatively permit light. And so we haven't seen the need to go down that route. But that being said, we've had several conversations with them. Obviously, Don is well known in the industry and respected and has been very good to don't hesitate if you need some help around permits, et cetera, and working through the lab of the Canadian government. So we won't hesitate.

But to date, and I don't see that actually on any of the projects that we have. As you know, we have several billion dollars of projects being done in BC, things Colin's talked about today. But a lot of them are relatively permit light and even not giant CapEx as individual chunks. So I just don't see us using the major project office at this point in time.

Appreciate that color. And then maybe just going back to the Mainline. I appreciate all the details on further expansions, Colin. But maybe to dive in a little deeper, and I know it's early days, but what would an MLO3 look like? And how much more incremental capacity do you think you can get out of the basin without, we'll call it, a good amount of large diameter pipe?

Robert, you're reading my mind. So we've got some hitters warming up in the dug out. MLO3 and 4 are stretching. Our engineers are looking at that as well because there is a scenario here, right, where Canada and the U.S. do a bigger trade deal and energy is part of it. And the imperative may accelerate further. So we do have some, again, in-corridor in fence line solutions for that. But it's premature for us to probably talk about those.

Your next question comes from the line of Manav Gupta from UBS.

We are actually seeing a lot of resurgence in solar stocks in the U.S., and you actually have a very strong solar portfolio. But because you have everything else, which is also so good, sometimes it's underlooked. So can you talk a little bit about your renewables portfolio and solar in particular and more deals like Clear Fork with Meta, if you could talk on those points, please?

Sure. Manav, it's Matthew here. Yes, you're quite right. I mean I think investment discipline is the order of the day in renewables, given some of the cross currents in the policy landscape, but we have to keep our eye also on the opportunity here because the customer demand for this remains very, very strong. We are still in the window where we've got interconnection-ready projects that are in fantastic locations with strong local support and great resource while the production tax credit window remains open. And so there's definitely a lot of interest from customers on the data center side around that, in particular, on our solar portfolio.

We've talked about Project Cowboy out in Wyoming. We are building a lot of stuff, as you know, you mentioned Clear Fork with Meta and ERCOT. But that Wyoming project has a tremendous amount of interest. and is potentially a very big one and is well advanced. And so again, we're going to be navigating carefully, but there should be win-wins here because customers know that there's this window. And there aren't that many projects that can actually get in into their windows and they need the electrons, and they want it, if possible, lower zero emissions. So I think we're really well positioned. But again, we'll be navigating this and with a very close eye on our risk profile and making sure that we are consistent with our low-risk business model across everything we do.

Perfect. My quick follow-up is your partner, Energy Transfer, talked about the Southern Illinois connector, exactly the kind of crude that U.S. refiners need. Can you also highlight some of the benefits of this project? And can you confirm if this is probably 2028 start-up, if you could talk a little bit about that?

Yes. Thanks, Manav. Yes, I agree with your thesis. And what else can I tell you here? This is a new market off our mainline system to Nederland, Texas. And yes, you can imagine we've got a map of all the refineries, and we're trying to feed all of them. We've got about 75% of U.S. refineries connected to our Mainline system. So this isn't a new market for us. technically not super complex using existing capacity on spearhead, just longer hauling that capacity. It used to go to the Patoka area, now that 100 -- of the 200 on Spearhead will go down in Nederland, Texas, and we're expanding the Platte system, I think pretty simple scope there, pump refurbishment. So high confidence execution. And so yes, the time line should work.

Your next question comes from the line of Sam Burwell from Jefferies.

Some of this has been touched on already, but just a quick one on Southern Illinois and the whole path. So I mean the Mainline optimization seem like they're on the right track and Mainline volumes were 3Q record. But downstream of that, low volumes in 3Q, and it seems like it's going to be a headwind in 4Q as well. So just curious if you have a view on when that could improve? And then is there anything to read into the 100,000 barrels a day capacity on Southern Illinois because I think the open season figure was higher than that, like 200. So just curious on your thoughts on full pass volumes improving over time.

Sure. I can take that. So I think it's a temporary anomaly here. That path on our liquid system south of Chicago down to the Gulf has been pretty robustly used for a long time. It's been recently weaker, still pretty good, but a little bit weaker as you saw in our disclosures, Pat talked about it. That is due really not the weakness the South per se, but more so that, that demand, that upper PADD II demand has been unusually strong in the last quarter or 2. So higher absorption of that high Mainline throughput, just a bit further North. And so double-click on that, why is that? A couple of reasons. One, our product levels were lower given fuel demand. And so those refiners were running pretty hard, so higher utilizations to replenish those inventories. And secondly, they had I would say, higher than average just uptime. And so the combination of those two factors kept a lot of that mainline oil at home, so to speak, in the upper PADD II market.

I think Q4 should be maybe a little better than Pat suggested. We've seen some early quarter improvements here. And then moreover, I think just longer term, we've got a lot of confidence in that path. In fact, we just have successfully run two open seasons for that path, both have been oversubscribed to expand it. So I'd say it's a temporary effect. You also asked about 200 versus 100, yes, pardon me. So yes, we we're pretty happy with the 100 with our partner there. We actually had oversubscription for the 100, but we end up settling it at 100. It's just the most efficient kind of sweet spot on that project for economics overall.

Your next question comes from the line of Ben Pham from BMO Capital Markets.

I wanted to touch base first on the Woodside LNG project. Could you remind us going forward how the mechanism works on the contract as you close on the in-service dates?

Yes, I think you mean Woodfibre. Cynthia can take that, right? You mean...

Woodfibre, sorry.

Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yes. So the way our contract works is that we will be setting that final toll closer to the in-service date. So with our contract terms, we will get our return based on that toll structure that's finalized at that date. So we continue to benefit from the delay in that term as the cost increase and that will allow us to actually have limited exposure to some of these cost overruns that we're starting to see on that project. Now -- we are really excited, though, that we're 50% complete overall on the construction, and we believe that there's a really strong path to getting us to the 2027 in-service date.

Now the other thing, we'll have to see how it plays out, but the Canadian budget did have some accelerated bonus depreciation for LNG projects that have low emissions. And I think as we've talked about before, this will be amongst, if not the lowest emission LNG project globally given how it's getting its power. So we'll watch for that, which should be helpful from a return perspective as well.

Got it. And I have to chuck when I said Woodside because I do have a follow-up question on that partnership more specifically. Just think about your investments in on the BC Coast. And I'm curious just with LNG additions ahead and some of the strategic partnership you've seen with Williams in particular, is there appetite for Enbridge, may not something specifically like that, but maybe just appetite for LNG beyond what we have right now.

Yes. Ben, we're not opportunity light. We are opportunity rich. So us taking on -- I can't see us taking on an LNG facility with commodity exposure, which is what some other folks that you mentioned have done. We'll get done the Woodside opportunity here, and then we'll see. Obviously, there's a lot of water still to go under the bridge about getting things built in off the BC Coast. So let's continue with our Woodfibre project. Sorry, I said Woodside. Now you got me saying it. The Woodfibre project before we look at other ones.

And Look, you saw us announce today those storage projects are serving LNG on the Gulf Coast. Aitken is going to serve LNG in BC. A lot of the projects that Cynthia mentioned, the pipeline project, that's the stuff we know and know very well and earn solid regulated rates of return on. I think in this environment, that's probably a better setup for us. So we'll always look. We get an opportunity to take a look at everything, but I don't think our investor proposition is open to taking on a bunch of commodity exposure. We don't want to.

Your next question comes from the line of Maurice Choy from RBC Capital Markets.

First question is about your crude oil production growth projections. I remember back in Enbridge Day, you've made a forecast that you may see more than 1 million barrels a day of growth through to 2035. Assuming that projection was made based on the landscape at that point in time, how would you view this growth now given what appears to be a supportive regulatory and political landscape in Canada?

This is Colin. Yes, great question. And I think our -- I think both of those projections are, I think, internally consistent, and I think our view of that is stable. There is an upside scenario here that if Canadian federal policy comes through on this vision of a global energy superpower, which we believe in strongly. We have a unique perch on that. I think there is upside -- there's for sure upside in that scenario. But it's an if at this point. So we've calibrated our business plan to the base case and are -- to a question a few minutes ago, are generating further solutions if the upside comes to be.

You're going to get a good insight on that, I think, as well, Maurice, right? Because if the policy conditions form in Canada that ensure that as a producing nation, it's actually competitive. The first sign of that is going to be our producers and then being more optimistic about production, and then we'll be able to react as capital forms. So -- but at this point in time, we wouldn't change the million by 2035. And the MLOs and the Southern Illinois Connector and our Mainline investment capital is all consistent with how we see that rolling out between now and the end of the decade, all other things being equal.

That makes sense. If I could finish off with a question on the Pelican CO2 hub. Oftentimes, these types of projects are perceived to have a lower return than the 4 to 6x build multiple that you can deliver within liquids pipeline outside the Mainline. Recognizing that you do have an internal competition for capital among your various businesses, I wonder if you could comment on the returns here or just more broadly about lower carbon opportunities, how do they compete for capital internally?

Yes. Look, I think both ourselves and Oxy are pretty darn careful on this front. If this project didn't earn at least the returns that we get from other Liquids projects, as you say, outside the Mainline, it wouldn't have got sanctioned. So obviously, I would even argue there's always some policy risk, so you want to make sure you get this right. So this is very much in that wheelhouse, if not a bit better.

And obviously, the tax incentive structures, we've got a lot more clarity on that out of the OBBB bill that came out so that we know exactly what our tax incentives are on that. And it's got a long-term 20-, 25-year contract with offtake player. So I would say returns are at least, if not a little bit better than what we're seeing in this world. Policy support is there where it may not be for some of the other unconventional investments. And we love our partner on this front who has very similar return type parameters.

I might just add on that.

I was just going to layer on that it's a very selective investment. We're going to take a crawl, walk, run approach to developing low-carbon infrastructure. I think the pace of it generally is a lot slower than most observed a few years ago. So we're going to take a very careful and disciplined approach here, as Greg mentioned.

It's great to hear. My -- I guess, all the best to Cynthia on your retirement, and congrats to Matthew in your new role.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Theresa Chen from Barclays.

I would also like to congratulate Cynthia on her retirement. Thank you for all your insights over the years, and I'd like to congratulate Matthew as well on his new role. Going back to the discussion around the Mainline expansion. So when it comes to resourceful solutions for moving incremental WCS barrels to the U.S. Gulf Coast, leveraging your JV system with Energy Transfer is certainly a capital-efficient approach. And as the downstream southbound capacity fills up over time, have you or would you also consider partnering with other pipelines such as topline, which also runs from the upper Mid-Continent to the Gulf Coast and currently has available capacity?

Yes, Theresa. And I think joint ventures are a big part of Enbridge's playbook. Cynthia has got a bunch, Matthew's got a bunch. We've got a bunch in our portfolio, and we're proud to partner with basically everyone in the industry. And I think that's going to be a part of everybody's playbook going forward. We also partner with enterprise products on Seaway. We've gone from 0 barrels a day through that system to what's going to be not far from now, 1 million barrels a day. So I think we've utilized joint ventures extensively. We've got a whole bunch of others across the system as well. So we're open to that. I think teamwork makes the dream work here in an exciting environment.

Got it. And looking at your medium-term outlook, not asking you to front run the guidance update to come, but just looking at what's already out there, how do you plan to align DCF per share growth with EBITDA growth over time, that 5% -- given that DCF per share has recently trailed EBITDA growth, what are the key drivers in bridging the two over time?

Yes, it's Pat. Thanks for the question. Yes, I think we have been pretty clear that the reason they kind of disconnected over the last couple of years was primarily related to cash taxes, and we see that plateauing. We've seen some pretty positive tax decisions made in the U.S. There's lots of conversations about things that could happen in Canada. But generally, we just see that the cash taxes are returning to be more in line with -- not having the growth that it had over the last number of years. So that's why those two primarily converge as you move later into the decade.

Your next question comes from the line of Praneeth Satish from Wells Fargo.

On the Egan and Moss Bluff gas storage expansions, can you break down how much of the 23 Bcf of capacity is already committed under long-term contracts versus any shorter-term contracts or merchant capacity? And then given that you're moving forward with the expansion, I assume pricing is favorable, much higher than historical levels. But can you provide some color on the contract durations? Is it kind of in the typical 3- to 5-year range? Or are you able to get something longer in this environment?

And then I guess as a follow-up to that, like how do you think about the trade-off between locking in longer storage term contracts versus keeping them shorter so you could potentially benefit from higher recontracting rates in the future?

Thanks, Praneeth. It's Cynthia. I would say that where we are right now, we have Egan, the first cavern that we're developing there is about 50% contracted and we'll, over a period of time, lag into that. We're managing these assets. It's an existing portfolio. So we're going to manage those contract terms consistently with how we've operated those assets. When we look at the overall contract terms, it is a speed from that 2- to 5-year kind of average overall. We always look for those longer terms as to be part of that portfolio. But as you noted, just with the opportunities right now as we continue to see the demand for storage increase, and we've seen some strong pricing associated with that, that's really supporting this ongoing development that we're doing. We want to try and manage the portfolio to really optimize that structure as we go forward.

Yes. And that 3 to 5 years, 2 to 5 years is pretty typical the way that we've done it historically. And look, I think we've got a super high level of confidence in the LNG coming in on the Gulf Coast. So that probably lets us leg into the contracts and we want to. But it depends on the location, right? Like, for example, the Aitken Creek contract, I think we took about half of that and have it under a 10-year contract. So it just depends on the situation, and it's worked extraordinarily well.

I'm glad you raised the storage question because we got 600 Bs or so across North America, all with great optionality outside the regulated piece. But we're adding just the announcements in the last 12 months, 10% to that number. So it's a big uptick for us at the right time in the market, and I feel very good, as Cynthia says, the way we'll leg into this.

And then I'm sure you saw that Plains recently announced the acquisition of the remaining interest in the EPIC Crude pipeline. They've talked about potentially expanding the pipeline, may or may not do it. But if they do, it seems like it could be a positive for your Ingleside assets. So just curious if you have any thoughts on that deal or just the overall landscape now at Corpus and the puts and takes for your Ingleside and Gray Oak assets.

Yes, it's Colin here. Yes, and we've observed that, obviously. And we're partners with Plains on Cactus II already. I'm sure there's more work we can do together to the spirit of the question a couple of minutes ago on teaming up. Our franchise is remains a work in progress, but it's still really a good one. Ingleside is the #1 export terminal on the continent. It's poised to grow all the advantages it has, Gray Oak. It's great. So we're pretty confident with our system there and hopefully can do even more with Plains going forward.

And that concludes our question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Rebecca Morley for closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, and we appreciate your ongoing interest in Enbridge. As always, our Investor Relations team is available following the call for any additional questions that you may have. Once again, thanks so much, and have a great day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.