Keyera (TSX:KEY) reported second-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company's second-quarter earnings call has been provided below.
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Summary
Keyera successfully closed two strategic acquisitions: the Plains Canadian NGL business and the remaining 50% interest in CAPS, focusing on integrating these assets and identifying synergies.
The company reported record quarterly realized margins in both Gathering & Processing and Liquids Infrastructure segments, aided by contributions from the new acquisitions.
Keyera raised its dividend by 4% and aims to maintain long-term dividend sustainability through growth in fee-for-service cash flow.
Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter, excluding transaction costs related to the acquisitions, was $309 million, while net earnings were $308 million.
The company aims to deliver a 16% to 18% fee-based adjusted EBITDA per share CAGR from 2025 to 2027 and a 7% to 8% CAGR from 2027 to 2029, focusing on synergies and capacity optimization.
Keyera is focused on deleveraging and returning to its target debt range following the recent acquisitions, indicating a cautious approach to further M&A activity.
Management expressed optimism about growth opportunities in the oil sands and condensate demand, with plans for capital-efficient debottlenecks and continued investment in the KAPS pipeline.
The company remains committed to integrating and optimizing acquired assets, expecting some initial increase in maintenance costs to meet Keyera's standards.
Keyera reaffirmed its 2026 realized margin guidance range of $360 million to $390 million for its Marketing segment, with expectations of strong contributions in the second half of the year.
Full Transcript
Jenny, Operator
Good morning. My name is Jenny and I will be your conference operator today. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to Keyera's 2026 second quarter conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press Star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press Star then the number two.
Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Dan Cuthbertson, General Manager of Investor Relations. You may begin.
Dan Cuthbertson, General Manager, Investor Relations
Thanks and good morning. Joining me today will be Dean Setoguchi, President & CEO; Eileen Marikar, Senior Vice President and CFO; Jamie Urquhart, Senior Vice President, Liquids Business Unit; and Brad Slesser, Senior Vice President, G&P and NGL Pipeline Business Unit. We'll begin with some prepared remarks from Dean and Eileen, after which we will open the call to questions. I'd like to remind listeners that some of the comments and answers that we will give today relate to future events.
These forward-looking statements are given as of today's date and reflect events or outcomes that management currently expects. In addition, we will refer to some non-GAAP financial measures. For additional information on non-GAAP measures and forward-looking statements, please refer to Keyera's public filings available on SEDAR and our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dean.
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Dan and good morning everyone. This quarter we successfully closed two strategic acquisitions, the Plains Canadian NGL business and the remaining 50% interest in CAPS. These acquisitions are part of a strong foundation we have assembled for the next phase of disciplined growth and long-term value creation. Our focus now turns to integrating these investments, executing our growth projects and delivering greater value to customers and shareholders.
Our team is working hard on integrating the Plains business and continues to make meaningful progress on identifying and delivering synergies. We will continue to provide updates as that work progresses after the quarter. Keyera also submitted its response to the Competition Tribunal regarding the Competition Bureau's Notice of Application. Because this is an ongoing litigation, we are limited in what we can say but remain confident in the strength of our case and look forward to demonstrating the value creation that will result from this transaction.
Turning to our quarterly results, in Gathering & Processing we delivered a new quarterly record for realized margin driven by strong contributions across the segment. We also set a new quarterly realized margin record in Liquids Infrastructure reflecting contributions from the Plains Canadian NGL business. We continue to deliver and advance our growth projects. KFS FRAC 2 debottleneck was brought into service in early June, more than one month ahead of schedule and 20% below its original budget.
KFS North debottleneck, KFS FRAC 3, Capstone 4 and ACE Rail Terminal continue to progress well, all on time and on budget. These projects are highly contracted and will contribute to growth and stable fee-for-service cash flow supporting the strength of our balance sheet and long-term dividend sustainability. Yesterday the board approved another 4% annual increase in the dividend. Dividend increase reflects our confidence in the business and allows us to preserve our balance sheet strength and financial flexibility to invest in further fee-based growth.
Now turning to AEF, the facility was restarted at the beginning of June and has been performing well. We continue to view this asset as an important part of our integrated value chain and a meaningful contributor to Keyera's long-term value creation. During the outage, we completed a comprehensive review of the facility and its associated operating plan and have identified opportunities to strengthen performance and reliability. Our objective is to maximize isooctane production over the full four-year cycle while maintaining our focus on safe, reliable and efficient operations.
With that I'll turn the call over to Eileen to discuss financial results and outlook.
Eileen Marikar, Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Thanks Dean and good morning everyone. Keyera's second quarter results reflect continued strength in our fee-for-service business which was offset by lower Marketing contributions. Excluding transaction costs related to the Plains acquisition, adjusted EBITDA was 309 million and distributable cash flow was 101 million or $0.39 per share. Net earnings for the quarter were 308 million. In our fee-for-service segments, Gathering & Processing delivered record quarterly realized margin of 128 million.
In Liquids Infrastructure, we also delivered record realized margin of 222 million. Results include contributions from the Plains Canadian NGL assets and the CAPS acquisition. Turning to the Marketing segment, realized margin was 36 million for the quarter. Decrease compared to last year was primarily attributable to the AEF outage and corresponding timing impacts related to risk management activities. The risk management timing impacts are expected to partly offset over the second half of 2026 as physical volumes are sold.
Looking ahead, we continue to expect Marketing to deliver strong contributions through the second half of the year, and we are reaffirming our 2026 realized margin guidance range of $360 million to $390 million. We ended the quarter with net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 3.3 times, above our long-term target range. The increase reflects higher net debt related to recent acquisitions and lower Marketing contributions in the first half of 2026. We remain focused on deleveraging and returning to within our target range.
In 2028, we remain on track to deliver a 16% to 18% fee-based adjusted EBITDA per share CAGR from 2025 to 2027 and a 7% to 8% fee-based adjusted EBITDA per share CAGR from 2027 to 2029. This growth outlook is underpinned by several clearly defined drivers, including our current synergy target of 120 million to 140 million, the continued filling of available system capacity and our portfolio of sanctioned growth capital projects. Beyond those drivers, we continue to see meaningful potential upside from additional synergies, further capacity optimization, our condensate system, additional CAPS contracting and capital-efficient investment opportunities across the entire asset base. As our integration work progresses, we're encouraged by the additional value creation opportunities we've identified. We're also identifying opportunities to further enhance reliability across the acquired assets, which may modestly increase maintenance capital requirements over the next couple of years as we continue to apply Keyera's operating standards. Lastly, Keyera's 2026 guidance for growth capital, maintenance capital and cash taxes remain unchanged.
With that, I'll turn it back to Dean for closing remarks.
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Eileen. Keyera continues to deliver its strategy to strengthen and extend our integrated value chain, building a more connected and efficient system that supports customer growth and improves access to key markets. Looking ahead, we will remain focused on disciplined integration, continued execution of our growth projects and delivering long-term value for our customers and shareholders. On behalf of our board and management team, I want to thank our employees, customers, shareholders, Indigenous rights holders and other stakeholders for their continued support.
With that, we'll open the line for questions. Operator, please go ahead.
Jenny, Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touchtone phone. Should you wish to cancel your request, you may press star two. Once again, that is star one should you wish to ask a question. And your first question is from Rob Hope from Scotiabank.
Rob Hope, Analyst at Scotiabank
Morning everyone. First question is on the Liquids Infrastructure segment. So the $78 million of incremental contribution from Plains was, you know, quite a bit higher than we were expecting, as well as commentary when the deal was first announced. Can you maybe speak to the specific drivers of that strength? Whether that can be annualized or whether we'll call it abnormally high volumes in Q2?
Jamie Urquhart, SVP - Liquids Business Unit
Good morning Rob, and thank you very much for the question. I think the general comment that we'd like to emphasize here is that the Plains Canadian NGL business has been performing better than the way we originally modeled it and envisioned it. And, you know, that's right across the board from, you know, their core pipeline, the frac business in Fort Saskatchewan and also Empress. The volumes have been strong and the extraction cuts there have been better than what we had modeled.
So overall, the assets are performing and the business is performing very well. We're still getting up to speed. Obviously, it's been less than three months since we've taken over the operatorship of those assets. We see a lot of great opportunities across the portfolio that we're getting more details on and trying to prioritize and get at them as soon as we can. But I'd also like to caution that this is a partial quarter. And I would say it's premature to try to extrapolate a whole year's, you know, EBITDA based on a partial quarter right now.
But generally, I want to emphasize that the, you know, the business performed very well.
Rob Hope, Analyst at Scotiabank
Appreciate that. And then maybe moving over to your condensate assets, you know, a key theme this quarter has been kind of the outlook for increasing condensate demand and supplies in Western Canada. You know, can you speak to how your business is positioned to handle an
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, that's a great question. And, you know, first of all, I'd just like to comment that we are extremely excited with the developments that we've seen here and the cooperation that we've seen from the B.C. and Alberta governments and also the federal government. And with that, we feel a lot more optimistic that we're going to see a lot more pipeline egress out of the province, which is going to help more oil sands growth in the future. As you know, we have the hub for condensate, and roughly two thirds of all the condensate that goes up to the oil sands for diluent originates off of our system.
So, you know, when we think about the growth in oil sands production over the last couple, two to three years with Trans Mountain coming into service, we've seen that part of our business — our pipelines that receive the condensate and our storage business and also our interest in the Norlite pipeline — those volumes have been increasing very well. And so that part of our business has been very, very strong. We anticipate more growth in the future with, again, more pipeline egress.
So we certainly envision more capital-efficient debottlenecks on that system to continue to provide that service. But what I would say is that it is a tailwind for our entire business because a lot of that condensate is also going to come from the liquids-rich Montney and also the Duvernay, for which we're very, very well positioned — both, I would say, in the Deep Basin and also up in the Montney fairway up to the north-northwest in Alberta and also to B.C. I'd also like to emphasize this is part of the reason why we doubled down on KAPS, because we believe this is going to be an essential service that will be required by the industry for the next decade. So we're very pleased to have 100% of that pipeline to provide that service. Incremental to that, we are looking at other solutions, which I think is premature right now. We have capabilities to rail in more condensate but are also looking at other solutions to provide more condensate or diluent as that demand increases.
Jenny, Operator
Thank you. Thank you. Your next question is from Robert Kadoya from CIBC. Your line is open.
Robert Kadoya, Analyst at CIBC
Hey, good morning. I just wanted to follow up on the condensate discussion. Maybe you can give us a little bit more color on your capabilities to deliver from Edmonton up to the oil sands. And it looks like you're at contractual, near contractual capacity in the Fort. So maybe some color on what you're looking at there to debottleneck and, you know, the timing of any potential opportunities. And the timing in particular I wanted to talk about just because, you know, as the oil sands gets going, it might take a while before production ramps to meet the pipeline or the other egress in-service dates.
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, that's a great question, Rob. And you know what, I'll turn that over to Jamie, and that's certainly part of his business and things that they're focusing on.
Jamie Urquhart, SVP - Liquids Business Unit
Yeah, thanks for the question, Robert. And I think I alluded to this last quarter as well, that we have a very well-defined capital execution plan to basically increase the capacity of both the Fort Saskatchewan condensate system but also working with our partner Enbridge on the Norlite pipeline. Those things can either be fairly quickly implemented — like DRA, drag-reducing agent — or installing pump stations, or even looping pipe for a segment of the pipeline where we can increase capacity.
So we've identified all those. We believe that they're all very capital efficient, as Dean alluded to. I'd also like to emphasize that we are in conversations with all the oil sands players with respect to making sure that we're in their minds and we're their solution as they think to expand maybe two, three, five, ten years out.
Robert Kadoya, Analyst at CIBC
Okay, so lots going on. So we'll wait and see there. I just want to touch on the frac spread. You gave your levels or proportion of hedging, and you've chosen not to disclose the price, but presumably you're hedging at levels above your underwriting case. So I'm just curious about the '27 level, the 65% of frac spread hedges — is that all from the hedge level you had coming into the Plains deal, so the levels that were in place at closing, or has there been incremental hedging since then?
And, you know, just pricing relative to your underwriting assumptions?
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Rob, those are great questions. And we have layered in incremental hedges both this year and next year. As you know, we had a 12-month hedge in place already with Plains, so it left us more exposed in the second half of 2027. And we've layered in a significant amount of hedges in the second half as well as topping up, again, the first half of '27 and the rest of this year. We think that's important for a number of reasons. One is the frac spreads have been very strong, so well above our deal thesis.
And two, as Eileen mentioned, we're beyond our stated range of where we'd like our balance sheet. We're still in a very comfortable range, but we'd like to be in a more conservative range. And this will ensure that we'll be able to deliver the balance sheet as Eileen described.
Robert Kadoya, Analyst at CIBC
Okay, last one for me is just, you're going to give an update, I think, on the synergies later in the year. But with what you know now, what areas are most likely to generate additional opportunities? Is that going to come from the cost side or the commercial side?
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
I would say all of the above. As we've already announced, we delivered $90 million of synergies on day one, and we're still operating redundant systems and things like that — we weren't able to convert them all on day one. So we still have G&A savings yet to come. We have operating savings yet to come. Certainly synergies in maintenance and turnarounds as well. We've talked about logistics opportunities for more optimization there, and generally what we've seen across the board is there's been an underinvestment in the business.
So we just see a lot of opportunities both to integrate our existing Keyera business and the business we just acquired, but also more growth opportunities, commercial opportunities on the Plains assets that we acquired as well. So we're very optimistic about the upside we see. We also would caution that there will likely be a little bit more maintenance costs in the first year, year and a half to two years. There are a few things that we would like to accelerate to get it to the operating standard that we like and to get to a steady state after that.
But that initial maintenance cost that we might be exposed to — and we're still evaluating that — is very small relative to the upside that we see overall with the business.
Robert Kadoya, Analyst at CIBC
Okay, thank you and congratulations on closing those two acquisitions.
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, thanks a lot, Rob.
Jenny, Operator
Thank you. Your next question is from Benson from BMO. Your line is now open.
Benson, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
Hi, good morning. First question is on acquisitions. You've now closed two major ones, the Plains and the remaining KAPS. And I'm curious, as you think the next couple of years going forward, should investors view Keyera as more of a harvest — you mentioned a deleveraging focus — or do you think with your footprint there's any white space or further M&A opportunities that you see in the next few years?
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Ben. Those are great questions. I really want to emphasize that our focus right now is 100% on capturing the opportunities that we see both in the KAPS acquisition and also the Plains NGL business. And those opportunities are very significant in our mind, and we can deliver a lot of value for our customers and our shareholders for the visible future. Eileen described the upside that we talked about: the 16% to 18% from '25 to '27 fee-for-service EBITDA growth, and then 7% to 8% out to '29.
We see growth opportunities well beyond that, especially when you think about the macro environment that we're in. I think that we're in a 10-year cycle of really great growth in our basin, for which we're very, very well positioned. Will we consider future M&A? Sure we will. But I want to just emphasize that our primary focus is delivering on the value of the acquisitions we've already made and our base business. We have a lot of big projects that we're also executing on, and we want to make sure that we do the best possible job on that as well.
Benson, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
Okay, got it. Thanks for that, Dean. Maybe on the organic growth side, you had some good news on the KFS Frac 2 execution. I know it's a small project, big percentage benefit on the budget. As you think about your remaining projects, you're moving and advancing them more. Do you see maybe potential read-throughs on similar optimizations? And just on that topic, can you remind us, with cost savings versus budget, is that a benefit to Keyera customers?
Is it a mix between the two?
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, well maybe I'll start answering your question and I'll toss it over to Jamie. On the cost-saving side, we're pursuing both. There are areas where it will accrue 100% to us, especially places like Empress, but also some of the costs at our KFS North location. But we also want to pursue opportunities where we create more value for our customers. So if we can reduce our costs and those costs flow through to our customer, provide a better service to them and more value to them, we are equally as incentivized to pursue those as well.
But in terms of our overall execution of our program, maybe I can turn it over to Jamie.
Jamie Urquhart, SVP - Liquids Business Unit
Yeah, thanks, Dean. And thanks for the question, Ben. I think the factors behind the success that we've seen in the KFS2 debottleneck and how we've seen success to date in the projects that we're executing — the bigger projects — is multifold. I think we've matured as an organization with respect to project execution. We've hit the market at a good time with respect to the service providers, the constructors in the field, but also shop space is available.
That's benefited us in the short term, but it's also, we believe, going to benefit us in the long term because we've consciously developed partnerships with those service providers that are long term in nature, and for us giving them line of sight to long-term business. We've reaped the benefits in the short term, but we also believe that we're going to reap the benefits in the long term because there will be a change in our environment. You can even see it unfolding right now in Western Canada with respect to more projects putting pressure on the skill set that's available, and we believe that that will give us a competitive advantage going forward
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. And maybe just to add one more thing to Jamie's comments is that one thing we've really put more focus on is just more oversight on all our contractors. In terms of fabrication shops and things like that, we have our people embedded in those shops to ensure that the quality of what we're getting that gets delivered to site is in accordance with the spec that we set out to deliver.
Benson, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
Okay, that's great color. Thank you.
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Jenny, Operator
Thank you. And your next question is from Maurice Choi from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Maurice Choi, Analyst
Thank you and good morning, everyone. I wanted to take a high-level overview of your cash flow profile. I wonder if you could discuss, between the three buckets of take-or-pay, fee-for-service that have volumetric exposure, and then marketing, directionally where do you see the split today and where do you reckon you want to be by the end of your forecast period in 2029, and what gets you there?
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Maurice. I'll turn that question over to Eileen to answer.
Eileen Marikar, Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Thanks. Maurice, great question. I would refer you back to when we announced the Plains acquisition. And, you know, at that time we were 70% fee-for-service on a pro forma basis; 30% was marketing. Of that 75%, 45% was take-or-pay with average contract length around 12 years, again on a pro forma basis, which is very strong. And that is just an average from 2026 to 2028. So as we continue to bring on these projects and with more of the KAPS that we just acquired — 100% of KAPS where the contracts are, you know, long duration, well over 10 years, 75% take-or-pay — Frac 3, the ACE terminal, all of these projects, that just continues to grow that very, very strong cash flow. So, you know, we will provide an update again when we provide, you know, a greater update on some of the other items on what that revised cash flow [will be]. But I can assure you it does continue to improve as we start to execute and bring on these projects.
Maurice Choi, Analyst
Understood. And if I could finish off with a question on the macro, and in this case I'm going to request that you speak on behalf of the industry on this one. You mentioned earlier that you believe on the macro side we're on a 10-year cycle of growth. What, if anything, do you think the industry still needs — be that from the government, from other indicators — for this cycle of growth to proceed?
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, that's a great question, Maurice. You know, first of all, I do want to emphasize — because sometimes I think our industry, we complain about the things we don't have and we don't maybe sometimes stop and give enough credit for the tremendous progress that's been made. And I just, I want to give a lot of credit to, you know, our federal government, you know, our Prime Minister is driving us in the right direction, working with Premier Smith and, you know, also Premier Eby in B.C. And so, you know, when I think back two years ago and the things I worried about, it was the top three things I worried about were all government-related, mainly our federal government. And that's much different now. So yes, we need more progress and more clarity in terms of policy and improvements in some regulations to streamline things. But I just want to say there's a tremendous amount of momentum that's carrying us in the right direction, and I have a high level of confidence that, you know, our governments are going to get to where we need to be to be that energy superpower and, you know, for our industry to thrive and continue to grow for the benefit of all Canadians.
Maurice Choi, Analyst
That's great to hear. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Jenny, Operator
Thank you. Your next question comes from Patrick Kenney with National Bank Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Patrick Kenney, Analyst at National Bank Capital Markets
Good morning, everyone. Maybe just back on the consolidation of KAPS and, you know, thinking outside of the financial accretion — Dean, maybe you can just expand on some of the other strategic benefits that you've alluded to. You know, what other commercial opportunities, either upstream or downstream of the pipe, that you know, you might now be able to accelerate as 100% owner? And then, I guess with these opportunities in front of you, if you might consider further non-core asset sales as just a way to build some dry powder and also accelerate the timing back to three times.
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, well those are great questions, Pat. Maybe I'll start backwards on the asset sales. I mean, I think we've been very disciplined about continuing to high-grade our portfolio and making sure that our resources are focused on the things that matter most for the company, not just today but for the long-term future. So, you know, we have sold a number of facilities over the last three years and we'll continue to high-grade our portfolio, especially the stuff that is not super core to our long-term strategy.
Having said that, I wouldn't expect anything super significant in terms of a dollar value sale that is going to meaningfully change our debt position in the next 18 months. As we mentioned, we've been very disciplined about locking in our hedge, especially on the frac spread, but also with our isooctane business to make sure that we have the cash flow to drive, you know, to drive that leverage just with the performance of the business. With respect to KAPS, I mean, you know, when you go back on KAPS, it was — I would say in my time it's probably the biggest decision we've ever made at the time, but probably the best decision we ever made.
And, you know, KAPS connects our downstream and upstream business. And so for us to provide the best value-add service for our customers, KAPS is a core, core piece of that. And again, when you think about the NGLs and condensate that is going to get produced in this basin with all the pipeline egress that's going to get built for crude oil and more LNG facilities, that is going to be [an] essential asset that we're going to fill to capacity. So we just think that it's a core part of our overall integrated service to make our business more better and more competitive.
Any guys want to add?
Keller
No, like, I mean, I think, you know, as we think about our assets and the opportunity to integrate it with Plains — like, I mean, as Dean alluded to — we’re, you know, I think we're very pleasantly surprised with respect to the quality of the people. You know, we alluded to the assets are, you know, foundational, core assets for us going into the future. We may need to spend a few dollars, I think, here in the next year or two to get them up to our standard, as Dean said.
But that will enable us to, you know, grow our collective business. And I think the short-term — one of the short-term benefits is allowing [us] to take the very talented people that we brought into our organization to think more broadly around the system of assets that we've brought into the asset. They tended to look at things more on an asset-by-asset basis, where they're highly integrated and the decisions we make at one asset impact other assets as well.
That's one of the short-term benefits that we've been able to see in action very quickly. And then, as Dean alluded to, the long-term integration opportunities [we're] extremely excited about. But, you know, that would be all I would add to the Plains acquisition element of it.
Patrick Kenney, Analyst at National Bank Capital Markets
Okay, that's great, Keller. I appreciate that. And then maybe just to follow up on the marketing outlook — I know you're well hedged — but I guess just curious, given the strong crack spread, you know, refined product environment, if these market dynamics continue, might there be some further tailwinds here for the isooctane margins going forward? And maybe just confirm where any potential outsized marketing contributions would first be directed, namely balance sheet versus growth.
Eileen Marikar, Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Pat. Great question. So in terms of the marketing itself, I think, you know, we — again, for this year, the $360 to $390 million, we feel, is still very appropriate, weighted very much towards the second half of the year. And of course it reflects the outage that we had in the first half of the year at AEF. And as you said, as we look forward, we're set up well — really well — for 2027 from a marketing perspective. And as you noted, those RBOB to WTI spreads, or what we refer to as RBOB cracks, have been incredibly strong.
And we have been layering on our RBOB hedges into next year as well as even into 2028 because the values are that strong. So I think that is — that's a positive. And as you know, Dean mentioned earlier, on the frac spread side, we're more than, like, 65% of the volumes are also hedged at better values than our deal thesis. And then the propane business is also, in general, set up quite well. You know, again, our ability to export propane to Asia through the AltaGas export facility, where demand remains strong.
So I think for next year we're set up quite well in terms of cash flow. Yes, you know, back to capital allocation — we do. Our priority is to bring the balance sheet back within the target range. And you asked about asset sales. But the good thing is our leverage is still — it's conservative at two and a half to three times. Even though we're a bigger size and we don't need to sell assets. It's more just a matter of cleaning up the portfolio as part of normal course.
Patrick Kenney, Analyst at National Bank Capital Markets
Okay, that's great. Thanks, Eileen.
Eileen Marikar, Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, everybody.
Jenny, Operator
Thank you. Once again, that is star one should you wish to ask a question. Your next question is from Erin McNeil. Your line is open.
Erin McNeil, Analyst
Hey. Morning, all. Thanks for taking my questions. Dean, one of the strategic rationales for the Plains transaction was increasing connectivity across the NGL value chain. And again, I'm not trying to get you to front run a capital project or anything like that, but now that you've been operating the assets, I'm wondering if you could provide an example or an anecdote of something that would support that previous messaging that maybe you hadn't touched on in the past.
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Good morning, Erin. That's a great question. I mean, we're just tremendously excited by the combination of the two asset bases because our business was more centered in the West and also getting molecules down into the U.S. And we've had our hands on this business for now for two and a half months and now we're getting more exposure out to the eastern markets and draw price off of Mont Belvieu. And we just see tremendous opportunity to take those molecules to the East, but also to be able to distribute them in the Mid-Continent too, right from Empress down into the U.S. and accessing also into Wisconsin and Michigan as well. So we just like those markets. I mean, we're a supply-based basin. So, you know, a big part of the value that we add is being able to access markets efficiently. And, you know, while the Asian markets are very strong off the West Coast and we're well positioned there, you know, continentally, the eastern markets are strong too, especially in the wintertime. And we're very happy to have the assets that can serve those markets as well.
But I don't know if there's anything else you guys want to add.
Keller
Yeah, no, I think just to add on to something I shared with the last answer to the question was, without getting into specifics, we certainly see opportunities to debottleneck the assets in a very capital-efficient way to, you know, to facilitate some of the opportunities that perhaps the previous owner just didn't have the commitment and the focus to pursue. And, you know, so there's no big projects that I think we're in a position to be able to announce over the next little while.
It's kind of boring, but, you know, I had a boss once that said bunt singles score runs, and there's just a lot of bunt singles that we're unearthing [that are] going to result in some really impressive, I think, growth for our organization over the next year or two.
Erin McNeil, Analyst
Like you sensed my next question — I wanted to ask about bottlenecks. You know, I think that the KAPS volume ramp is well documented, as are your fractionation and rail capacity additions. So, where do you see the greatest bottlenecks across the added platform over the next three to five years? Is it the Plains business? Is it something else? Is it GMP? How would you rank sort of what's most urgent to not as urgent?
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
That's a great question. I mean, you know, the great thing is that we, you know, we have, you know, sanctioned projects in place to address some of the, some of the bigger ones. So, you know, with our frac projects and, and, you know, but we still have capacity on CAPS and yes, we'll have to add more pumping stations and things like that. But we still have great capacity there to serve the Montney and Duvernay developments at that part of the basin.
You know, we, we think that we can use our assets more effectively together. So, like some of our storage assets perhaps, you know, to get better effective utilization out of the, out of the storage as an example. So I think that's positive. We talked about our oil sands assets. So, you know, the pipe connectivity and the capacity on that between Edmonton, Fort Saskatchewan and, you know, storage is included as part of that. But also the Norlite pipeline.
And so, you know, there might be the bottlenecks that are required on those assets over time. And as Jamie just described, you know, there's the bottlenecks that we're. But these are all generally low-capital debottlenecks that I'm talking about now. So I would envision that they're all very capital efficient and are going to generate very high returns for us overall. So I'd say the biggest need, capital need over time is probably on a G&P front where, to process all the incremental gas that's going to get developed, there's going to be likely more processing capacity.
Brad, you want to add some comments?
Brad
Yeah, thanks Aaron. It's Brad here. Really appreciate the question. I think as leveraging off what Dean said, as the oil sands continues to call for more condensate, we think that's going to come from the Montney and the Duvernay. We think we're well, very well positioned to capture our fair share of that growth coming down the CAPS pipeline. But all that drilling for condensate brings the need for more gas processing and more NGLs to make it to market as well.
And you've seen us talk in the past about really capitally efficient debottlenecks at Simonette, at our Wapiti gas plant. And we also recently talked very, very briefly about getting in front of the incremental need for gas processing we see out in the basin in the Montney, especially for sour gas processing, which is complex and is right in our area of expertise. And so that's some of the areas that our team is certainly focused on. And we look forward to chatting more about that in the coming quarters.
Aaron, Analyst
Thanks everyone. I'll turn it back.
Jenny, Operator
Thank you. And your next question is from AJ O'Donnell from TPH. Your line is now open.
AJ O'Donnell, Analyst at TPH
Hey, good morning everyone. Just wanted to focus on some of the macro interbase and just thinking about some of the incremental progress that's been made on the data center development and particularly, like given your position of land in the Industrial Heartland corridor, could you maybe talk about, you know, your surplus of land or maybe potential gas supply capability that could potentially support, you know, a similar power generation project or something—data center adjacent opportunity.
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Good morning A.J., you know, great question. I mean, I think that we're going to see a lot of opportunity for many developments in the Industrial Heartland. And as you mentioned, we have 1,300 acres of land there that is situated in a very, very good spot. It has very good pipe connectivity right through those lands for pretty much every product; the pipes run right through the land. So that's a big advantage. We do have the salt rights to build cavern storage.
We have our ACE Rail Terminal that's getting built which we can multipurpose for other projects. And also I'd point out that Shell's carbon capture line cuts through the northeast corner of that land as well. So, you know, if there's any projects that require, you know, carbon, carbon sequestration, we have a short tie-in to get into their line. So, you know, there's a lot of advantages there. You know, I won't speak specifically to, you know, data centers, I mean that's always a possibility and I think it's great to have more demand centers for our natural gas.
But I would just say that any developer that requires reliable supply of feedstock, they're going to look to Alberta. This is a great, great place to do business and, you know, again, I can't think of a better place to locate new opportunities on our, you know, than our lands and in that area. So, you know, our team—we have a business development team that's working on opportunities. It's too early to talk about what those opportunities look like, but I think that for the long-term future growth of Keyera, you're going to see a lot more development on that land because it's so well situated and has so many amenities that advantage it.
AJ O'Donnell, Analyst at TPH
Okay, thanks Dean. And maybe just the last one. Just thinking about your system and tying it back to the macro and just overall volume growth into the remainder of the year. Just wondering if you could refresh us all on kind of how producer activity is tracking right now, kind of what you're expecting for the cadence of volume ramp through the end of this year and into 2027.
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
Thanks. Yeah, well, listen, you know, as I mentioned before, I mean we are very, very excited about the, about the macro future—the long-term future, both short, medium, long term. Will there be some cycles and blips to there? Sure there will be, but generally I think there's a very strong tailwind for our entire business and that is good for Keyera. We have core basin infrastructure that helps to enable the basin to grow. We provide services that add value to our customers, the producers, which help them, incent them to continue to drill more because it's profitable for them.
You know, we. So we've already published our guidance for our fee-for-service EBITDA growth, which again is, I believe it's the very best out of all the midstream providers—16 to 18% fee-for-service EBITDA growth from 2025 to 2027 and 7 to 8 from 2027 to 2029. So that guidance is what we're locked in on delivering and, and as we said, we see a ton of opportunity that's going to carry our growth well beyond 2029. So we're very excited.
AJ O'Donnell, Analyst at TPH
All right, thank you very much.
Dean Setoguchi, President & Chief Executive Officer
All right, thanks.
Jenny, Operator
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. Please proceed with the closing remarks.
Dan Cuthbertson, General Manager, Investor Relations
This is Dan Cuthbertson with Investor Relations. Thanks all again for joining us today. Please feel free to reach out to our IR team with any additional questions. And with that, I hope everyone enjoys the rest of the summer.
Jenny, Operator
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. That concludes the conference call for today. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.
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