The companies on the Global 500 employ 70.2 million people, and their revenue represents more than one-third of the world’s GDP.

Fortune Global 500

With a combined revenue of $21 trillion and $2.1 trillion in profits, the 2026 Fortune 500 is the definitive list of America's largest companies.

Fortune 500

The corporations on our annual list of the world's 500 largest companies combined to generate $41.7 trillion in revenue over the past year.

Almost $20 trillion in revenue—and a record-breaking $1.87 trillion in profits. Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive list of the biggest companies in America.

The corporations on our annual list posted aggregate revenues of $41 trillion for the second year in a row.

Industries included in the sector are mining, oil and gas exploration and services, pipelines, refining, and utilities.

Fortune Sector Leaders: Energy

The Fortune 500, in its 70th year in 2024, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

The corporations on our annual list of the world’s largest companies delivered a record $41 trillion in aggregate revenues.

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

F500-2023-074-Plains GP Holdings

The publicly traded company that operates pipelines and infrastructure for crude oil, natural gas liquids, and natural gas climbed 14 spots on the Fortune 500 this year. 
<ul> 
 	<li>At No. 74 on this year’s ranking, Plains GP Holdings brought in $57 billion in revenue—a 36% increase from the previous year.</li> 
 	<li>Willie Chiang, chairman and CEO, said he expects continued growth in 2023 in the company's joint venture in Texas's Permian Basin, the nation’s biggest shale oil basin.</li> 
</ul>

Aggregate sales hit $37.8 trillion last year—an increase of 19%, the highest annual growth rate in the list’s history.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

Plains GP Holdings operates over 18,000 miles of pipeline and provides other energy infrastructure and logistics services for crude oil, natural gas liquids, and natural gas in the U.S. and Canada. The company jumped 39 spots on the Fortune 500 list, driven largely by fast-rising oil prices and Plains GP’s ability to profit from the revival of oil and gas production in Texas’ Permian Basin.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

The pipeline operator, based in Houston, Texas, is a master limited partnership focused on the transportation, processing, and storage of crude oil and natural gas liquids and related products throughout the U.S. and Canada.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $33.3 trillion in revenues and $2.1 trillion in profits.

Plains GP Holdings is the parent of Plains All American Pipeline (PAA), which provides infrastructure and logistics services for crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids (like ethane and propane) in the U.S. and Canada. Revenues shrank by 1% last year, to $33.7 billion, and profits dipped by roughly the same rate. And the coronavirus-related shutdowns this year, which have clobbered demand for oil and gas, aren't making things easier for 2020. One immediate setback: A planned joint venture between Plains and Phillips 66 to create Red Oak Pipeline—intended to transport crude oil from Cushing, Oklahoma, and the Permian Basin to key markets along the Texas Gulf Coast—has been deferred, as economic activity has slowed across the board. To keep more cash in its coffers, PAA has reduced its capital spending program and cut distributions to shareholders by half. The company also plans to sell off a total of $440 million in assets this year.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

Plains GP Holdings is the parent of Plains All American Pipeline (PAA), which provides infrastructure and logistics services for crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids (like ethane and propane) in the U.S. and Canada. Revenues shrank by 1% last year, to $33.7 billion, pushing it down four spots on the Fortune 500, and profits dipped by roughly the same rate. And the coronavirus-related shutdowns this year, which have clobbered demand for oil and gas, aren't making things easier for 2020. One immediate setback: A planned joint venture between Plains and Phillips 66 to create Red Oak Pipeline—intended to transport crude oil from Cushing, Oklahoma, and the Permian Basin to key markets along the Texas Gulf Coast—has been deferred, as economic activity has slowed across the board. To keep more cash in its coffers, PAA has reduced its capital spending program and cut distributions to shareholders by half. The company also plans to sell off a total of $440 million in assets this year.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $27.7 trillion in revenues and $1.5 trillion in profits.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 64th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 63rd running of the list.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $27.6 trillion in revenues and $1.5 trillion in profits.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 62nd running of the list.

The world's 500 largest companies generated $31.2 trillion in revenues and $1.7 trillion in profits in 2014. Together, this year's Fortune Global 500 employ 65 million people worldwide and are represented by 36 countries.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

Global business is back. After limping through a worldwide financial crisis and economic slowdown, the 500 largest companies ranked by revenues shattered all sorts of performance records in 2013: They racked up combined revenues of $31.1 trillion, up 2.5% from 2012, and profits soared 27% to nearly $2 trillion. China’s 95 companies (up from 89 last year) posted $5.8 trillion in revenues. The U.S. has four fewer companies on the list than last year but remains (for now) the country leader, with 128 corporations on the list—including No. 1 Wal-Mart Stores—reporting $8.6 trillion in revenues. 

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

Key Financials (last Fiscal Year)

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Plains GP Holdings is a midstream energy company that stores, transports, and processes natural gas and oil, connecting suppliers with distributors. Based in Houston, with a Canadian headquarters in Calgary, it operates pipelines, railcars, and storage facilities for both crude oil and natural gas, as well as natural gas processing facilities. Many of its ownership interests are joint ventures with other companies.

Q2 2026

Q1 2026

Q4 2025

Q3 2025

Q2 2025

Q1 2025

Q3 2024

Plains GP Holdings (PAGP): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Plains GP Holdings

plains gp holdings

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the PAA and PAGP Third Quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Blake Fernandez, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Andrea. Good morning, and welcome to Plains All American Third Quarter 2025 earnings call. Today's slide presentation is posted on the Investor Relations website under the News and Events section at ir.plains.com. An audio replay will also be available following the call today. Important disclosures regarding forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures are provided on slide two. An overview of today's call is provided on slide three. A condensed consolidated balance sheet for PAGP and other reference materials are in the appendix. Today's call will be hosted by Willie Chiang, Chairman, CEO, and President, and Al Swanson, Executive Vice President and CFO, along with other members of our management team. With that, I turn the call over to Willie.

Thank you, Blake, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Earlier this morning, we reported solid third quarter adjusted EBITDA attributable to Plains of $669 million, which Al will cover in more detail. It's an exciting time for Plains as we continue our multi-year strategy of building the premier North American pure-play crude midstream company. Over the past few years, our team has successfully executed on our strategy by meaningfully lowering our leverage profile, maximizing free cash flow, and optimizing across our broad system, all while remaining capital disciplined and returning cash to our unit holders through meeting and beating our targeted annual distribution increases. With the pending sale of our NGL assets expected to close early next year, our portfolio will become even more crude-focused with a more stable and durable cash flow stream.

As discussed on our previous calls, the NGL sale is a win-win transaction at an attractive valuation for Plains, and our capital allocation priority has been to deploy those proceeds to a strong return DCF accretive bolt-ons while staying within our targeted leverage range over the long-term. To that point, we're pleased to announce that we now own and operate 100% of the entity that owns the Epic Crude Pipeline. This past Friday, we closed on the previously announced acquisition of a 55% non-operated interest in Epic from Diamondback and Kinetik, and on Monday this week, we signed and closed the acquisition of the remaining 45% operated interest in Epic Crude Holdings from a portfolio company of Ares Private Equity funds for approximately $1.3 billion, inclusive of approximately $500 million of debt.

As part of the 45% transaction, Plains has also agreed to a potential earnout payment of up to $157 million tied to the sanctioning of potential expansions of the pipeline system by year-end 2028. The Epic acquisitions are summarized on slide four. These transactions are highly synergistic and very strategic to Plains' existing footprint and are expected to generate a mid-teens unlevered return. We anticipate a 2026 adjusted EBITDA multiple of approximately 10X, which we expect to improve meaningfully over the next few years. Going forward, we intend to rename the pipeline system Cactus Three, which complements our integrated Cactus long-haul system that we have operated for years.

The acquisition of the remaining 45% of Epic gives us the opportunity to assume operatorship, which accelerates and increases the synergy capture of the full pipeline, including meaningful cost, capital, and operational synergies, while improving the takeaway flexibility of our crude system to meet customer needs. near-term, we're poised to benefit from contractual step-ups, reduced operating costs and overhead, quality optimization opportunities, and utilizing the broader Plains Permian and Eagle Ford asset base to drive volumes to Epic Crude's downstream assets. longer-term, the potential expansion capacities of the system provide Plains and its customers with additional egress to the U.S. Gulf Coast and will generate strong returns as demand dictates further expansions. Regarding the divestiture of our NGL business, we're on schedule to complete the transaction by the end of the first quarter 2026.

We've received two of the three required regulatory approvals, U.S. Hart-Scott-Rodino and the Canadian Transportation Act, while the approval process for the Canadian Competition Bureau is ongoing. Importantly, the majority of the proceeds to be received upon closing of the divestiture have effectively been redeployed through our acquisition of Epic, which will result in an accretive and more durable cash flow stream. Due to timing differences between the closing of the transactions, we do anticipate our leverage ratio will temporarily exceed the upper end of our target range until the NGL divestiture is finalized, at which point we expect our leverage ratio to trend towards the midpoint of our target range of 3.5. With that, I'll turn the call over to Al to cover our quarterly performance and financial matters.

Thank you, Willie. For the third quarter, we reported crude oil segment adjusted EBITDA of $593 million, which benefited from higher volumes and contributions from recently completed bolt-on acquisitions, as well as the impact of annual tariff escalations. This was partially offset by certain Permian long-haul contract rates resetting to market in September. Please note that the fourth quarter should serve as a baseline representing the full impact of lower contract rates out of the Permian. Moving to the NGL segment, we reported adjusted EBITDA of $70 million, which was down sequentially due to lower sales volume tied to temporary downtime on a third-party transmission system, as well as the startup of LNG Canada. Slides five and six in today's presentation contain adjusted EBITDA walks that provide additional details on our performance. We are narrowing our full year 2025 adjusted EBITDA guidance range to $2.84 billion-$2.89 billion.

To reflect lower realized crude prices and contributions from our completed acquisition of Epic. Please note the benefit from Epic for the remainder of the year is forecast to be approximately $40 million. A summary of our 2025 guidance metrics and assumptions are located on slide seven. Overall capital spending remains consistent with our prior forecast. Growth capital spending for the year is expected to be approximately $490 million. The $15 million increase is primarily associated with new lease connects and capital associated with acquisitions, while the 2025 maintenance capital is trending closer to $215 million, representing a $15 million decrease from our last forecast. In September, we issued $1.25 billion of senior unsecured notes consisting of $700 million due in 2031 at a rate of 4.7%, and $550 million due in 2036 at a rate of 5.6%.

Proceeds were used to repay the senior notes that matured in October and to partially fund the Epic acquisitions. With that, I'll turn the call back to Willie.

Thanks, Al. We've made significant progress in our journey of becoming the premier crude midstream provider over the last several months, and we believe there are significant opportunities to continue to create value for unit holders through initiatives that are within our control. As seen on slide eight. The combined benefits from bolt-on M&A, synergy capture, and streamlining efforts across the broader organization will provide Plains self-help tailwinds through the near-term volatility. As part of our 2026 guidance in February, we intend to share additional details on these initiatives. Our strategy centers on the view that crude oil will remain essential to global energy and society for decades, as outlined on slide nine.

Despite near-term volatility, we remain confident in our ability to navigate current market dynamics, and we expect improving fundamentals longer-term, anchored by continued global energy demand growth coupled with underinvestment in organic oil supply growth and diminishing OPEC Plus spare capacity. I will now turn over the call to Blake to help lead us into Q&A.

Thanks, Willie. As we enter the Q&A session, please limit yourself to two questions. For those with additional questions, please feel free to return to the queue. This will allow us to address questions from as many participants as possible in our time this morning. The IR team is also available after the call to address any additional questions. Andrea, we're ready to open up the call for questions, please.

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Michael Blum with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Sarah. Good morning, everyone. I wanted to ask on the Epic deal. Can you give us a little more detail on the synergy capture? How much of that is going to be cost savings versus commercial synergies? Where do you see the timeline where you capture those synergies and then reach that mid-teens return?

Michael, good morning. This is Willie. First thing I want to do is I want to compliment our team. If you think about these transactions, these are never perfect timing, and they're hard to do. We were able to do the two portions, and particularly with the 45% just announced, it gives us the ability to have more control over every question that you asked. I would also refer you to slide four. If you look at the map and you see how integrated it is with the system, I think that helps illustrate the number of ways that we can win. There are a lot of ways we can do this. There is a lot of cost structure savings. There is overhead savings. A lot of this will be immediate, and we'll be able to capture it. In 2026.

If you think about the expansion opportunities, it's not one step change function on expansion. Because we operate it, we'll be able to dictate partial expansions as we go and whatever market demands will be. There are a lot of different ways to win, and it's not simply the expansion. I would tell you a good portion of it is the cost synergies, capital synergies, and integration with our existing systems. Jeremy, do you have anything to add to that?

No, just from a timing standpoint, I think Willie hit a lot of it. Just the compression in multiple to next year is step-ups in contract and cost savings. Things that are almost immediate and contractual. Beyond that, that is all the things Willie talked about. We are very confident in the ability to compress this over time and part synergies, but part expansions. Just recognize we sell a substantial amount of barrels at Midland, and we can move those barrels. We have demand from customers to go to the docks. The docks are willing to expand and ready to expand. There are additional markets that we are not connected to in Corpus that we can move barrels from Midland today that we sell into that pipeline. As Willie mentioned, we can expand the pipeline system. We can capture cost synergies.

There's a lot we can do immediately, and that's contractual. That will compress to the 10x we announced. The compression beyond that, a lot of that's in our control as well.

Remember, Michael, we operate in that quarter, right? Hence the Cactus Three. It is not that we have to learn new ways of doing business. This really fits hand in glove with our existing system.

Great. Thanks for all that. Second question, just with the sale of your Canadian NGL business and now this Epic acquisition, can you just refresh us on your expectations for capital return and whether this extends the runway now to deliver the outsized distribution growth you've been providing now for a while?

Michael, this is Al. Yeah, our view is that we will continue to increase distributions by $0.15 until we hit our targeted coverage. The year where we're transacting here, part of it will depend on when does the NGL sale close. We expect to continue to grow the company in 2026, 2027, and beyond. Again, once we hit our target coverage level, we will revert back to a DCF growth concept. We expect to be able to grow. If you think of the embedded growth in Epic from today through next year, that's pretty significant. As that multiple kind of compresses from 10% to a 15% unlevered, we see significant growth on this asset. Really no change in our approach there.

Michael, this is Willie again. We have quite a bit to digest here. I think what you can see is we will be looking—we continue to look at a lot of things. If we were to transact on things, they would likely be smaller bolt-ons that fit into the system, as we have talked before. We have plenty of things to get accomplished here over the next six months.

Next question comes from Keith Stanley with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. I want to follow-up on the distribution question first that Michael just asked. Al, on your answer, you referenced how there is some noise potentially next year related to the Canadian NGL sale. To the extent you were not at the coverage threshold for a $0.15 increase next year because of timing factors related to that sale and redeployment of proceeds, would that impact how you look at the distribution, or would you see through that and look more at kind of where the run rate DCF would be?

I'll take a shot and Willie jump in. Yeah, clearly we would look through noise to run rate. As to how we would think about that. Clearly, if the NGL asset doesn't close early in the year and takes, we'll have more DCF. So some of that noise necessarily wouldn't be. A limitation per se. Again, our view would be to look beyond the current year as we evaluate this. Clearly, management and the board have robust discussions around distributions and what we're expecting to do. Clearly, the first call on that will be early January when we announce our distribution for February.

Keith, Willie here. You know our coverage target is 160% of DCF coverage. That gives us a little bit of flexibility in this outset. We always play for the long-term. Our focus is return of cash to our unit holders. I think a lot of that would play into it, and I would agree with everything that Al said.

Thanks for that clarification. The second question going back to Epic, can you give some color on the duration of the contracts and how you would characterize rates on that pipeline relative to market? It sounds like 2026, there is somewhat of a recontracting benefit already that gets you to the 10X.

Sure. Keith, this is Jeremy. There's a substantial portion of the pipeline that's contracted for long-term, and I believe that was announced in the restructuring last year that Epic did. The balance of the pipe has medium-duration contracts. We feel comfortable in our ability to work with those shippers to either extend those contracts or add new shippers to those contracts. We're just taking over this week, so it'd be premature to talk about everything associated with it. I'd say we like where we sit. The rates are at current market rates, they're not meaningfully above market rates, which means longer-term we expect this to be a stable and growing cash flow profile, which leads to Michael's question earlier about DCF accretion between the sale of the NGL and this business.

We think that will be substantially DCF accretive over time, the trade of those two assets.

Keith, I might just help. I think publicly previously we said the portfolio had a weighted average duration through 2028. With Epic, this should extend that out to October of 2029 in case that's helpful.

Thank you. Our next question comes from AJ O'Donnell with TPH. Please go ahead.

Morning, everyone. I just wanted to go back to Epic. Now with three pipelines in the Permian to Corpus Christi corridor under your control, how are you thinking about portfolio optimization and maybe what kind of opportunities there are to move flows across your pipelines and or reduce operating costs among the three assets?

AJ, this is Jeremy. Great question. All of the above, and it all depends on market conditions, right? As the pipes get tighter or looser, you're going to do different things. You can obviously optimize operating costs, variable costs across the pipeline system. You can offer flexibility across the pipeline system between common shippers to access more markets and push barrels into different connections. You can optimize capital across the system. You can optimize tankage. There's a lot you can do with it. Chris's team is going to do a great job, and they've been actively involved in the diligence of the system. I think we're very excited with that. We're just scratching the surface. It extends beyond the long-haul business. This is optimizing flows through the POP JV to get to the origins, quality at all those locations as well as in the Eagle Ford.

This touches hundreds of miles across multiple assets for us. We think there are a lot of ways, even on the operating costs, aside from the initial cost reductions we will see, to optimize our costs across the system, our quality optimization, and connectivity across the system, and flexibility for our customers. The same thing that has allowed us to grow a strong position in the gathering business in the Permian, we can apply all those same things and extend the runway from the gathering business through the long-haul business to the docks, through the markets at Corpus, and throughout the Eagle Ford as well.

Okay. Great. Appreciate that detail. Maybe just one more on Epic. Thinking about potential capital requirements to achieve some of these synergies. Excluding larger projects such as powering the pipeline up to the full design capacity, what kind of additional capital requirements do you see for making these connections either in the Eagle Ford or downstream? Are they relatively small in nature, or could we potentially see CapEx moving a little bit higher next year beyond the normal range?

AJ, this is Chris Chandler, and I'll take that. The short answer is the investments for the activities you talked about are expected to be on the modest side. Our near-term capital spending related to Epic is certainly going to be directed towards that synergy capture. I think about connecting the systems throughout, whether it's at the origin for supply optionality or throughout for operating and quality optimization. We see some good opportunities there, but it won't be significant from a capital standpoint. The update to the guidance we gave for 2025 certainly incorporates what I just mentioned there and our guidance in 2026 and beyond. I'll capture that as well. We don't expect it to be significant.

Okay. Thanks, Chris. Appreciate the comments. Thank you all.

Our next question comes from Brandon Bingham with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions here. Just wanted to maybe look into 2026 a little bit if we could. Operator commentary so far this earnings season seems a little mixed with some guys talking about flat crude and others kind of still blowing and going to a certain extent and everything in between. Just wondering what you guys are hearing currently or seeing from your customer base and kind of how that fits with this year's expected Permian growth. It also looks like the Permian volumes guide is implying a decent step up in four Qs. Just anything that you guys can comment on as we set up for 2026.

Hey, Brandon, let me start with that. For the reasons that you described, it's really hard to kind of get a good gauge on 2026. My observations have been you've got two of the large majors that are very, very steady and continuing to grow. There's others that have taken the stoplight approach and maybe be a little more hesitant. I think it's a very difficult call on where oil prices are near-term. longer-term, we're very bullish. The Permian, we're very bullish. Canada, we're very bullish North American oil growth. I think there's a lot of signals that have to play out through that. We've been, if you think about where our portfolio is, I made a comment in the prepared comments.

You think about global demand continuing to grow, which I do believe it will because it's going to be we need oil for all the different reasons that we all know, green quality of life. The thing that I've been watching for quite some time is drill bit or organic investment. If you look at the trends, now these are not my numbers, but other people that study this, if you look at the last trends. Organically, we're not replacing reserves, right? It's below 100%. You can't do that for an extended period of time. That's why we're very, very bullish on North American oil sources. I think the whole restructuring of the flows of trade from barrels going into North America to leaving is going to continue. I would say we're in.

Mid-innings on the efficiency of being able to do that with oil. Certainly, we're doing it. Plains isn't doing it, but you got NGLs, you've got gas. All that is an export story. I think there's a lot of opportunities to win going forward. Calling 2026 is a really tough one. That is why we have decided to go to February to be able to give you the best intelligence that we've got. Sorry for the long-winded answer, but hopefully it lets you know how we feel about it and where we fit in the long-range outlook.

Yeah. Very helpful. Thank you. And then just a quick one. The sales proceeds are effectively utilized now for the most part. Could you just maybe discuss your thoughts on FREF retirement and how it fits into the capital allocation strategy moving forward and just kind of what the pecking order is? I think you discussed a little bit in your prepared remarks, but just any updates there.

Sure. This is Al. Yeah. Since we announced the sale in June, we have now deployed $3.1 billion via acquisitions. The BridgeTex acquisition earlier in the year, and now $2.9 billion here. So effectively, the proceeds will go to debt reduction. That will allow us to get to roughly the midpoint of our leverage range. Shift ahead after closing and reducing debt and being at the midpoint. We will go back to our normal capital allocation, which will look at return cash to shareholders through distributions, as well as bolt-on acquisitions, retirement of the press, and/or opportunistic common repurchases. But quite honestly, when you are sitting at the midpoint of the leverage range and still seeing potential opportunities to deploy capital with good returns, we will be more biased towards looking at the bolt-ons at that point.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Sunil Sibal with Seaport Global. Please go ahead.

Morning. Thanks for all the clarification. Just a quick one from me. Now that you transitioned to a pure play crude. The DCF coverage ratio of 1.6x. Could you talk about that in terms of how you think about that in more medium to longer-term with the new business mix?

Yeah. Sunil, this is Willie. The coverage that we set on 1.6x, you'll recall, I think it was late 2022 that we announced that. It's something our board looks at regularly. Clearly, without the NGL assets and the more durable cash flow stream that we have, that's something else we can look at. We still expect to be conservative in our approach. No change to the 1.6x. As we go forward, the way I would characterize it, we've got a lot more levers that we can work with as we go forward and get a better triangulation of what the future brings.

Okay. Thanks for that. When you look at your crude portfolio in the Permian post the Epic, could you talk a little bit about your operating leverage in the system with the ways between your gathering and in-basin pipeline and the long haul? Where do you see the most operating leverage?

Sure. Sunil, this is Jeremy. We've been working on contracting. You saw additional volumes on Basin through the summer. We've done more contracting there with the acquisition of BridgeTex with Oneok. We've worked with them to put more barrels on that system. We are executing with operating leverage now. Despite the falloff in contractual rates, we are backfilling that using operating leverage. We see a lot of opportunity to do that with Epic. That creates a new opportunity for us to use operating leverage in a substantial way, given that the rest of our system is heavily contracted. Within the gathering system, there are a few underutilized laterals within Epic. We'll work with our POP JV partners to fill those up. That creates capital avoidance opportunities and the ability to reduce operating expenses through it.

Epic's providing us additional operating leverage in the gathering, intra-basin, and the long-haul system for us to then go fill through the long-term contracts we have on the gathering business. We're excited about the full-through benefits for the entire system.

Hey, Sunil, this is Willie. You asked about the Permian. I might make a broader comment on North America. When you think about the broader macro, there has been a lot of chatter in North America, particularly around Canadian crude. Ability to get more Canadian crude to markets. You are very aware of the expansion that has happened on or the new line of TMX going to the west. Canada has vast resources that could get reduced if there are more export routes to markets. When you think about our system and other systems across North America, one of the challenges is if you can stitch all that together, there is a lot of ability to get to global markets, primarily by going south through the U.S..

As you know, we have a large pipeline called Capline that goes from Patoka down to the Gulf Coast that's got a lot of spare capacity, to your point, on leverage. We haven't taken our eye off the ball of being able to solve a broader problem of oil that might be in the next inning or even the next inning to be able to get more energy and oil to global markets. With the footprint we have, we've got a lot of flexibility around that also.

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan Securities. Please go ahead.

Just wanted to pick up with thoughts you might be able to share on 2026. Granted, as you said, with the Permian, it's too early to really have much specificity there. Just wondering, at a high level outside the Permian for other basins that you're in, if you could provide any kind of high-level thoughts as far as direction of travel in volumes there over time, that would be helpful.

Sure. Jeremy, what we've seen this year is a slight decline in the Rockies and Mid-Continent regions across the gathering assets. Some in the Eagle Ford as well, modest. We see activity levels being able to sustain that. Some of that was you had significant growth in the DJ and Bakken from blowing down drilled and uncompleted wells. That's out the system. We see more stable production in the next year in those regions. In the Permian, we see maintenance-level activity for the short term, but we see significant leverage to increasing that. You've seen it. Everybody's reducing capital but maintaining production. You can see through this fourth quarter so far in the earnings that efficiencies are there and the ability to drive. We see resource expansion in New Mexico and other locations.

longer-term, it's giving us more confidence in the ability to grow the Permian and maintain the other basins at a lower break-even price. That gives us some confidence, but that's the near-term look.

Got it. That's helpful. Thanks. Just a smaller question, if I could, on the Keyera sale. How are you guys going about managing FX risks there, given the volatility we're seeing in FX?

We fully hedge that basically at the time of the transaction. We did a deal contingent structure that effectively locked down the rate. If for some reason the transaction did not happen, we are not exposed to the adverse movement that could have happened.

Got it. Very helpful. I'll leave it there. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Manav Gupta with UBS. Please go ahead.

Okay. Quick follow-up. I think you answered it in a way, but I just wanted to follow-up. There are some good deals out there, and you have been very prudent and very smart about these bolt-on deals. I'm just trying to understand if there is a good deal out there which meets all your threshold criteria, even if you're slightly above the midpoint of your leverage targets, would you hold back, or you probably are okay with moving towards the top end and closing on a good opportunity, which you think should not be just let go just because you're slightly over the midpoint of leverage? If you could talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, Manav, thanks for the question. We always look for opportunities to grow the enterprise value. I would like to think that our judgment would be good enough to be able to sift through what I would call short-term noise versus long-term noise. If it was characterized as you did, it was something that met all of our thresholds, was strategic, with a high risk of being able to execute it. That's something we would absolutely consider.

A quick follow-up on Keyera, what is the gating item here, if you could. Which needs to be done before the deal can be closed? If you could help us understand that a little better.

I wish I could help you understand it better as I'm not an expert in this, but it's the Canadian Competition Bureau and the process that they go through, similar to our FTC HSR process.

Next question comes from Jean Ann Salisbury with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. Just one for me. As you're considering whether or not to expand Epic, can you give us an update of the relative attractiveness of Houston and Corpus for export? It seems like over the next few years, there are rollouts on pipelines to both destinations that would be competing for recontracting. I know Corpus has historically been more desirable, but is that narrowing at all with the Houston ship channel expansion?

Jean Ann, this is Jeremy. I would say nothing's materially changed. Certainly, both ports are competing. You've seen expansions of Corpus as well. The Ingleside dredging's been done. The channel's largely been dredged. It's way more efficient than it's ever been. For me, Corpus is getting more and more efficient, even more so than Houston from a large ship standpoint. The quality differential is a big one just because it's only Permian barrels touching the docks versus touching a lot of barrels that come from the Mid-Continent. There's a quality benefit and a logistical benefit, and that continues to hold the advantage. That's why you see the premium on the water at Corpus versus Houston. Pricing is also indicating the preference for Corpus over Houston.

Great. Thanks, Jeremy. Very clear. I'll leave it there.

Thank you. Our next question comes from John Mackay with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hey, everyone. Thanks for the time. Willie, I wanted to pick up on your comments around potential involvement on some incremental Canadian crude egress. Could you maybe just talk to us about what some of the moving pieces are? I know you do not have a kind of formal project yet, but would love to hear a little bit more color on maybe what you guys are thinking.

Fundamentally, you've got resources that are trapped. If you think about the Canadian down to the U.S. Gulf Coast, you've got refiners that want to run that heavy barrel. You've got different players with different strengths and weaknesses. There are some large long-haul lines out of Canada that could have expansion capacities. You get to the border, and there's a number of different options. You can get barrels from the border to key hubs. Patoka is one of them. You've got a large unutilized capacity at Capline that could ultimately be a solution. That's not to say it's the only solution.

My point on this is really just to reinforce when we talk about a crude-focused midstream business, this is exactly the things that we are looking at of how we might participate in being able to get low-cost, reliable solutions to additional markets without having to build a brand new long-haul line from source to destination. Hopefully, that helps, John.

That's clear. Thank you. The second one will be quick, I think. Thanks for Al. Just on the Epic debt, is that when you guys just expect to kind of refinance that at some point, or could that be a, I guess, net use of cash from the Plains side?

Yeah. Our plan is the base plan was we assumed it, and so it's now ours. Our view was, depending on the timing of these closing and us being owning 100%, which happened obviously on the early track. Our view is to repay it with the proceeds from the NGL sale. It will be going away. The question is how quickly. Our view will be now that we've closed and depending on how long we think if the NGL transaction does not close until maybe later in the first quarter, we might look to do a term loan up at the parent and funnel the proceeds down to repay it earlier. The economics may support doing that. It's a function of how long the term loan needs to be out.

That's something we'll explore now that we can catch our breath a little bit after getting the thing signed up and closed.

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'd now like to turn it back to management for closing remarks.

Listen, everyone, thanks for joining us this morning. We'll look forward to giving you further updates and seeing you on the road in the near-term. Have a great day.

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

Plains GP Holdings (PAGP) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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