Operator
Good morning. My name is Joel and I will be your conference operator today.
At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Keyera's 2026 first 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 *, then the number 1 on your telephone keypad.
If you would like to withdraw your question, please press *, followed by 2. Thank you.
I would now like to turn the call over to Dan Cuthbertson, General Manager, Investor Relations. You may begin.
Dan Cuthbertson
Thanks, and good morning. Joining me today will be Dean Setoguchi, President and CEO; Eileen Marikar, Senior Vice President and CFO; Jamie Urquhart, Senior Vice President, Liquids Business Unit; and Brad Slessor, Senior Vice President, G&P and NGL Pipelines Business Unit.
We will 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 on our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dean.
Dean Setoguchi
Thanks, Dan, and good morning, everyone. Two days ago, we successfully closed the acquisition of Plains' Canadian NGL business in its entirety.
This is a transformative deal that materially expands Keyera's integrated platform. This transaction is a natural extension of our strategy to extend our integrated value chain.
It enhances connectivity across our system and improves our ability to efficiently process, transport, and market products. For our customers, the combined platform provides improved access to key markets, greater flexibility, and increased reliability.
It also represents an important step for Canada, bringing critical energy infrastructure under Canadian ownership. It enhances Canadian energy security, supports economic resilience, and establishes a stronger, more efficient cross-Canada NGL corridor.
As previously disclosed, the Commissioner of Competition has filed an application with the Competition Tribunal in connection with the transaction. As you can appreciate, this matter is now before the tribunal, we're limited in what we can say about this process.
We are confident in the strength of our case and excited to demonstrate to our shareholders and to our stakeholders the strategic rationale and the value creation that will result from this transaction. Our focus now is on integration and capturing the synergies of the expanded system.
Turning to our quarterly results, we continued to execute on our strategy, building a more connected and efficient system to support our customers and strengthen our platform. In Gathering and Processing, we delivered a new quarterly record for realized margin, driven by record throughput at Wapiti and contributions from our recently acquired interest in the Simonette East gas plant.
We also continue to advance our growth projects. The KFS Frac 2 debottleneck remains on schedule for completion by the end of June and is now expected to come in below budget.
Frac 3 and KAPS Zone 4 continue to progress well, both on time and on budget. These projects are highly contracted and will continue to drive growth in stable fee-for-service cash flow, supporting the strength of our balance sheet and long-term dividend sustainability.
Now turning briefly to AEF. Following the previously announced outage, the repairs have been completed.
We're also now completing the turnaround planned for the fall, eliminating the need for a separate shutdown later this year. The facility is expected to return to full operating capacity by the end of May.
While the reliability of the asset has been below expectations, we recognize the importance of AEF to our business and the value it delivers. During the outage, we completed a comprehensive review of the facility and its operating plan.
As a result, we expect to enhance our maintenance strategy by supplementing the existing 4-year major turnaround cycle with a smaller planned outage between major turnarounds. Our objective is to maximize production of iso-octane during a 4-year cycle while ensuring safe and efficient operations.
With that, I'll turn it over to Eileen to walk through our financial results and outlook.
Eileen Marikar
Thanks, Dean, and good morning, everyone. Keyera's first-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 $232 million, and distributable cash flow was $133 million, or 58 cents per share. Net earnings for the quarter were a loss of $122 million.
In our fee-for-service segments, Gathering and Processing delivered record quarterly realized margin of $118 million. In Liquids Infrastructure, realized margin was $141 million.
Results included record throughput across our condensate system, supported by continued growth in oil sands production. Turning to the Marketing segment, realized margin was $13 million for the quarter.
The decrease compared to last year was primarily attributable to the AEF outage and corresponding butane risk management activities. We ended the quarter with net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 2.2 times, which remains below our long-term target range and provides continued financial flexibility.
Following the completion of the NGL contracting season, we are providing 2026 Marketing segment realized margin guidance on a stand-alone basis. Marketing realized margin is expected to range between $210 million and $250 million, with the majority of contributions weighted toward the second half of the year.
All other Keyera stand-alone 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
Thanks, Eileen. Keyera continues to execute on a clear 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.
With the closing of the Plains acquisition, we're entering into the next phase of growth for the company with an expanded platform that further enhances our ability to serve customers across the basin. Looking ahead, we'll remain focused on disciplined integration, continued execution of our growth projects, and delivering long-term value for our customers and shareholders.
On behalf of the 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.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session.
Should you have a question, please press *, followed by the 1 on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised.
Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press *, followed by the 2. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing the keys.
One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Robert Hope with Scotiabank.
Your line is now open.
Robert Hope
Morning, everyone. Would like some more color on the Competition Tribunal process.
You have 45 days to put in your application there. Can you maybe give us a little bit more incremental color on what the key themes that you would like to put forward to the Competition Bureau to state your case that the acquisition should close as filed and as well as, do you think it'll take the full 45 days or could you accelerate that?
Dean Setoguchi
Yeah. Good morning, Rob, and thank you for the question.
We're not in a position to speak in more about what our position is. I just want to emphasize that we're very confident in the strength of our case, and again, because the matters before the tribunal, we're limited in what we can say.
With respect to the actual process, maybe I'll just turn it over to Eileen and she can speak to it more detail.
Eileen Marikar
Sure. Thanks.
Good morning, Rob. There's not too much incremental from what was already in Dean's opening remarks.
The matter now will proceed through the tribunal process, and it's an impartial and independent specialized court, which gives us the opportunity to have our case heard by a panel of judges and non-judge tribunal members. As Dean mentioned, we believe in our case and look forward to presenting it to the tribunal.
At this point, it's really too early to speculate on what the timeline will be.
Robert Hope
All right, thanks. Thought I'd try.
Maybe moving over to the marketing guidance, ex Plains. Can you maybe help us understand what commodity price assumptions are included in that, just given it is looking similar to kind of the prior guidance, yet commodity pricing looks quite a bit different than before?
Eileen Marikar
Thanks, Rob. I can take that one.
The guidance we did provide is on a stand-alone basis, and it does incorporate the AEF outage, which was approximately $110 million. I would say it's conservative at this point in time.
It does include the impact of butane, which is lower than our 10-year average, so that's a positive. Certainly, there were some hedges on the inventory where we took a loss in the front months, but we'll start to see that as we sell the inventory.
The one thing that, again, could be a tailwind to the guidance we put out is the iso-octane premiums. As you are aware, that's something that we cannot hedge.
As AEF comes up and, by the end of the month and we get into the summer driving period, that is a potential tailwind to the guidance that we provided, but largely in line with the assumptions that we had laid out, the hedges that were already in place, which is the 210 to 250.
Dean Setoguchi
I think, just to add on to Eileen's comments, Rob, in overall, we think that there is more of a macro tailwind to our marketing business. If you think about the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, the longer that that blockage lasts, it really puts a higher floor under the whole price complex for crude oil, natural gas, and also LPGs for a longer period of time.
We think that's positive for frac spreads. We think that's positive for our octane business.
Eileen talked about the premiums, but obviously, if you look at the gasoline cracks, they're very strong as well, and the underlying crude oil price is very high. We think the forward prices is for the rest of this year—we do have some hedges in places, but into 2027 as well—those are positive tailwinds overall for our business.
Robert Hope
Appreciate that. Thank you.
Dean Setoguchi
Thank you for your questions.
Operator
Your next question comes from Spiro Dounis with Citi. Your line is now open.
Spiro Dounis
Thanks, Operator. Good morning, everybody.
Want to start, Dean, with some of your closing comments there on the next phase of growth. You've got three major projects now sanctioned and under construction.
If I think back, those projects were highly visible to you and us well into sanctioning them. Just curious as you look beyond '28, how are you thinking about that next wave of expansions and when you think you'd be in a position to start communicating them?
Dean Setoguchi
Yes, good morning, and thank you for the questions. What I would say is that, speaking to the three major projects, they are progressing very well.
Our team is doing an outstanding job of executing those projects. Nothing's done until they're done, but so far, they're progressing very well.
We're very excited about the Plains acquisition, and when we think about how we add value for our customers and our shareholders, the lowest-hanging fruit is going to be with the Plains assets. We've talked about $100 million of synergies, which we have very high conviction in, but we're seeing some really great opportunities well beyond the $100 million.
We are going to capture that low-hanging fruit as fast as we possibly can. We've been operating obviously as separate companies until the last two days, there is certainly a period of time that it's going to require us to get further up to speed on some of the opportunities on their side and get more detail behind it.
We just think that there's a lot more upside than we had envisioned at the beginning when we signed this transaction. I think that's very positive.
On top of that, I think it's great that we're hearing more positive momentum on LNG Canada Phase 2 and also, crude oil export pipelines and adding more capacity from that front. I think both from our gas gathering and processing perspective, there's going to be more of that required, which translates to more volumes down our KAPS pipeline and potentially downstream from there, but also our oil sands business.
I can see more capacity expansions around that. Maybe I can just turn it over to Brad and you want to speak specifically to the gas gathering and processing side and maybe some other opportunities we see there?
Brad Slessor
Sure. Thanks, Dean, and thanks for the question.
I think on the gathering and processing side, we see really great activity progressing around our northern plants. You can see it in our volumes and in our quarterly results, including the new assets we've brought in.
We see at both Simonette and Wapiti opportunity to debottleneck those facilities. Then we're starting to look at incremental things past those projects as well.
As Dean said, more gas processing comes with more liquids that need to make it down the value chain and all the way through the integrated chain, we're excited to see what the basin will give us, and as Dean said, we see some of those tailwinds behind the basin as well.
Spiro Dounis
Got it. That's great to hear.
Second question, maybe just pivoting here to condensate a bit. Came up quite a few times on the last call, and that was of course before Iran.
Since then obviously things on the macro side seem to have improved. There's potentially over a million barrels a day of crude egress being contemplated out of Canada.
Just maybe wanted to get your latest views and how you're thinking about the impact to condensate, and whether or not those volumes can unlock more expansions on your current footprint.
Dean Setoguchi
That's a really great question. I think a lot of people when they think about crude oil egress, I think it's fantastic that there's likely to be a lot more capacity built for crude export pipelines, but people have to remember that for every two barrels that you flow down a pipe, you need a barrel of diluent, which is the condensate to flow with it because the bitumen is so viscous.
That's really great for our business because we have the hub for condensate. Roughly 2/3 of the condensate that flows up to the oil sands comes off our system.
That's our pipeline connectivity, that's our storage caverns, and we also have the Norlite pipeline that also delivers up to the oil sands. That is a business that's in big demand, but I'll maybe just turn it over to Jamie to provide additional commentary.
Jamie Urquhart
Thanks, Dean. I don't know what more I can add really other than we've anticipated this or positioned ourselves to be able to understand how our condensate system can be expanded in the most capital-efficient and time-efficient manner.
Just remind everybody as well that we do have an ownership in the Norlite pipeline, which is in our minds a very strategic pipeline that we're working with our partner to maximize the opportunities as industry's looking at expansions up in the oil sands area. Oil sands is often a part of our business that doesn't get focused on very much.
It's a huge contributor to our business, and we see that there's significant opportunity for growth.
Spiro Dounis
Great color. I'll leave it there.
Thank you, team.
Dean Setoguchi
Thanks a lot. Have a good day.
Operator
Your next question comes from Robert Catellier with CIBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Robert Catellier
Hey, good morning and congratulations on the closing of the transaction. I imagine we're going to get a more fulsome update at some point, but I'm wondering what you can tell us about the impact the Plains acquisition will have on that 7% to 8% fee-based growth CAGR you have.
Obviously, there's going to be some uncertainty related to the tribunal process, but on an as-is basis, what is your confidence level in that fee-based growth extending beyond the current forecast timeline you've given?
Dean Setoguchi
Good morning, Rob, and thanks for your question. I just want to emphasize that we see a lot of synergy value with Plains and, but with that, I'll turn it over to Eileen and she can maybe add more color.
Eileen Marikar
Thanks, Rob. We do plan to provide an updated guidance for probably around that mid-to-late June time frame, and it will be a refresh fee-based EBITDA growth rate, again, on the combined basis within the coming weeks.
We do want to give some time to actually operate the assets for a period of time, but we are really excited to provide you with that update. Just remember, our existing CAGR, it goes out to 2027, and we've largely hit that, and that was really from filling white space, again, which we have done.
Now as we bring on all of these new projects that we're currently in the process of executing, like Zone 4 and all of the frac expansions, those come in in '27, '28, those have very, very strong returns that will continue to improve that growth rate to the end of the decade, as well as the synergies and the synergies beyond the $100 million that Dean just spoke about. An update is coming shortly.
Robert Catellier
That's understandable. Then just on the synergy side, I wonder if you could describe the path to that full synergy capture.
I'm thinking that we don't know what the outcome on the tribunal process might be, of course. How do you go about capturing those synergies when there's some uncertainty as to what the final product might look like?
Dean Setoguchi
As I said before, we see a ton of synergies here, and we capture the majority of them on day 1. A lot of it is just the overhead.
We're able to run this business more efficiently by combining them together. When you look beyond that, we've talked about some of the synergies.
There's certainly operating synergies. We're going to be able to apply our supply chain and procurement strategies across the entire entity and leverage our expanded size.
There's maintenance activities. Our company will be spending north of $200 million a year in maintenance activities.
Can we get better at that and more efficient at that? Absolutely.
Jamie's talked about our railcar fleet and our logistics. We're going to be much more efficient with this cross-Canada corridor, NGL corridor, we're going to be able to deliver product to market more efficiently than the past.
We'll need less railcars and things like that, which are very expensive. On top of that, we do see some issues or opportunities where we can increase reliability.
With the combined asset base, we have more redundancy in our system, I think that can translate to more effective capacity overall, which is good for our customer and good for our shareholders. There's commercial opportunities, too.
When you add all that up, we believe that we should be able to deliver well beyond the $100 million of synergies that we put out there. Anything else you want to add, Jamie?
Jamie Urquhart
No, I think you nailed it.
Robert Catellier
Just a follow-up to the condensate questions, then. I'm wondering if you had anything in terms of timelines or potential capex requirements for whatever solution you might have to expand that condensate system?
Jamie Urquhart
I can speak to the timelines, and it's just consistent with what companies are communicating to the market around the timing of their projects. We fully expect that we'll be able to see continued growth in that business in the '27-'28 time frame.
Robert Catellier
Okay. That's it for me, and good luck with the integration.
Dean Setoguchi
Thanks, Rob. Have a great day.
Operator
Your next question comes from Benjamin Pham with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Benjamin Pham
Hi, thanks. Good morning.
You had a comment in the MD&A around the South Region production growing by a couple percent, though. I think the last time we've seen that basin grow at all for some time.
Can you comment on the outlook you're expecting there and any sort of impact you anticipate on your assets in the region?
Dean Setoguchi
Good morning, Ben. Thanks very much for the question.
I'm going to turn that over to Brad.
Brad Slessor
Hey, good morning, Ben. Glad to get a question on the South.
Our team has been working very, very hard on that asset base. In the last several years, they've really worked to transform the contract behind that asset base as well, and you're seeing that with the increased utilization.
We've put much longer-term contracts into that asset than we've historically seen. In the past, a lot of that South Basin was really driven off of gas pricing.
What we're seeing now is an increased uptake in Duvernay drilling with the West Shale Duvernay and Carrot Creek, and we're seeing those volumes working their way into our system. Those are also ultra-liquids-rich, we see those coming into some of our gas plants in the South, which are already connected into our value chain all the way to Fort Saskatchewan.
Good example of that is our Rimbey gas plant. It's a large deep-cut plant that's super well positioned to capture a lot of the gas that you're seeing coming out of the Duvernay play.
We're very happy with how those assets are performing. We think that there's still lots of legs for that to keep on going.
Benjamin Pham
Got it. And—and thanks a lot for that—maybe go back on the business update and you think that the mid-to-late June time frame, is the focus really being extending that guidance CAGR time frame that you have there currently?
Eileen Marikar
Morning, Ben. Yes, that is the idea, to extend the CAGR near the end of the decade.
Benjamin Pham
Got it. Thank you.
Thanks for the color.
Dean Setoguchi
Thanks a lot.
Operator
Your next question comes from Teresa Chen with Barclays. Your line is now open.
Teresa Chen
Morning. Going back to the tailwinds related to the iso-octane business and stemming from the global supply shock in liquids products, including premium gasoline, with the significant refining infrastructure sustaining physical damage in the Middle East coupled with curtailed exports from major Asian suppliers, do you view this as a transient benefit, i.e., the elevated octane spreads we're seeing now would dissipate when the strait is fully open, or do you view this as a more durable uplift to your iso-octane margins, given your ability to readily source feedstocks and the reliability of supply?
Does this factor into your commercial discussions related to this business at all?
Dean Setoguchi
That's a very good question, Teresa, and I'll turn it over to Jamie. Just maybe a couple comments is that I think there are some elements that are very durable going forward.
Part of it is there is more refining capacity being shut down too in North America and mainly in California. Some of the markets that we serve in interior the United States, they're now going to feed more gasoline to California to make up for that loss of production.
We think that's maybe net positive. What else is happening right now is that some of the naphtha crackers in Asia are shutting down and they're basically getting displaced with crackers that take a lighter N-feedstock.
Those naphtha crackers, they produce more chemical octanes, which they do compete in the octane world off the water. I think overall with less octanes supply, that should be a net tailwind for our octane premiums, when you think about the trends going forward.
Anyway, those are just some of the tailwinds that we see, but Jamie, I'm sure you have some more thoughts.
Jamie Urquhart
Maybe I can layer a little bit more on. It's a great observation and a great question is that the one thing I'd mention as well is that I think the destruction of infrastructure and the timing of being able to repair that infrastructure is going to have ripple effects throughout a lot of different commodities.
Certainly, that's impacted propane pricing as well in the longevity we see of elevated propane pricing. Dean touched on that.
That's going to support our deal for export on the West Coast that we're stepping into with AltaGas in the 2028 time frame, and just the fundamentals. Also frac spreads that we're now assuming more exposure to with the Plains assets.
It's also impacting non-North American refining capacity as well, specifically in Asia. As we think about the global flow of gasolines, we also see a pull out of North America to serve those markets.
That's going to leave us a little short. Dean's touched on the fact that we've got lower naphtha costs that ultimately are a primary feedstock for blending, and ultimately you need octanes to mix in that blending activity to be able to generate gasoline.
If we connect all those dots together, certainly you've seen that in the RBOB crack or the gasoline crack pricing in '26 and '27, and you're also seeing that with respect to the octane demand and associated octane premiums that we're seeing unfold not only in this summer driving season, but our expectation is going into '27 as well.
Teresa Chen
That's very helpful. Thank you.
Related to the AEF facility specifically, do you have an update on how the turnaround is progressing following the unplanned outage? Can you share some of the key learnings here?
In relation to the new maintenance strategy, what exactly are you planning to do during the smaller planned outages between major turnarounds that is supposed to enhance reliability of the asset? What does that work entail?
Jamie Urquhart
Yeah. Great question.
Can't really get into the specifics of the root cause of the outage that we incurred in January other than we did determine the root cause, and we're applying those learnings to ensure improved reliability go forward. To get to your question with respect to the shorter, we're calling it a pit stop, in between our regular 4-year turnaround schedule, it's more around inspections and ensuring the integrity of equipment and making sure that we're being proactive with respect to our maintenance activities based on comparing condition of equipment relative to baselines to ensure that we're not reacting to things at AEF, rather than we're being very proactive from our maintenance activities.
Dean Setoguchi
As we said before, our objective is to make as much octane over a 4-year cycle. We've learned a lot over the last 5 years.
We've had a number of unplanned outages, and we feel with all the work that we've done and the evaluation of the entire facility while we've been out for this extended period of time, that's really benefited us. We do believe that minor pit stop and a 4-year turnaround is the best way to go and to produce the most octane over that period.
Teresa Chen
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from Patrick Kenny with NBCM. Your line is now open.
Patrick Kenny
Thank you. Good morning.
Appreciating it's business as usual or integration as planned here until further news comes out of the tribunal process, but just thinking in the meantime as you look to compete for new business in the field, perhaps offer customers access to your extended value chain, just wondering how you're managing the commercial dynamics while waiting for the final decision here?
Dean Setoguchi
Good morning, Pat. Thanks for the question.
It is business as usual. The number one objective for us is obviously safe operations, reliable operations.
For our customers, this has to be seamless. We have to deliver them a great service.
We believe that we're going to have a superior service offering right across the board for our customers, and we have to deliver that. We're going to be working with all of our customers like we do and the new customers that we're going to pick up and new contracts that we'll pick up with Plains.
As always, we work very closely with our customers to understand what's important to them and understand their needs. We work to customize a solution that adds the most value for them, and that's exactly what we're going to do as we add value through this integration and synergy process.
Is there anything else you guys want to add? No.
Patrick Kenny
Okay. Then I guess looking at forward frac spreads, obviously, there's still a healthy level of backwardation into '27 and beyond, but I'm just curious if you're able to capitalize on some of the near-term commodity price volatility here from a hedging standpoint while you're waiting for final resolution?
Dean Setoguchi
That's a great question. Certainly, just want to remind everyone that we have a 12-month hedge in place.
That was negotiated as part of the original transaction and terms of the transaction. We have that in place, and we want to make sure that we had good cash flow stability from that part of the business for the first full year.
It's a majority of production, we're still exposed a bit beyond and above that, and partly because the flows through Empress have been higher than what we've modeled, which is a positive. As we said before, we certainly think the pricing floors is higher than what it was pre the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Again, the longer this outage lasts, we believe that the higher prices, especially for propane, are going to linger higher, which will give us opportunities to further extend the hedge past the 12 months, and we'll look for opportunities to do that.
Patrick Kenny
Sounds good. Then last one for me here, I know it's a bit of a what-if question, but just thinking from a balance sheet perspective, with the sub receipts now converted to shares, I guess if you do find yourselves in a position of receiving some proceeds from certain assets being sold, would you look to redeploy that cash right away into other opportunities, either organically or through tuck-ins, or would you maybe prioritize buybacks or further debt repayment?
Dean Setoguchi
That's a great question. We really believe in the strength of our case, and we're not focused on remedies.
That wouldn't include any sales associated with this acquisition. As a company, our strategy is always to look at our asset base and high-grade it.
As you saw, we sold our Wildhorse terminal last year, and we're redeploying those proceeds into our Canadian business. We see a lot of opportunity going forward.
We'll look to reinvest our cash flows to capture that opportunity to deliver expanded service to our customers. Is there anything you want to add to that?
Patrick Kenny
Okay. Great.
That's great. Thanks, Dean.
Dean Setoguchi
Thanks a lot, Pat.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please press *1. Your next question comes from Maurice Choy with RBC Capital Markets.
Your line is now open.
Maurice Choy
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. If I could just focus on what seems to be the next phase of big project developments once you have a combined entity.
I know you shared your accomplishments on KFS Frac 2 debottleneck, costs have come down there. As you think about your next phase of growth here, what are some of the emerging areas of a project's development that you are anticipating will require greater focus and perhaps pinch points that needs to be dealt with early?
Dean Setoguchi
Good morning, Maurice, and thanks for the question. As we said before, certainly with more egress for all products, for natural gas, for crude oil, more exports capacity that's getting built, we just think that there's going to be a lot of core infrastructure, NGL infrastructure that will need to be built with it.
At the front end of that, as Brad talked about, there'll be more gas gathering and processing capacity that will have to be built. We're located in the best spot in the liquids-rich part of the basin and the Montney Basin, we think that we can participate and offer a great service both with the connectivity to our existing infrastructure and to add incremental capacity beyond that.
For us, it's all about allocation of capital, and we want to allocate our capital and our resources to where we can add the most value. As I said before, with the Plains assets that we just acquired, we see a tremendous amount of opportunity there.
We're going to direct a lot of our efforts to, again, enhance our service offering for our customers and to maximize the value we deliver to our shareholders as well.
Maurice Choy
If I could finish off with a question on how you touched on incremental gas and crude egress from the basin. Obviously, there's been a major upstream M&A recently, and I wonder if you could just talk to any direct or indirect impacts to your company, given your commercial relationships and just more broadly what you think means for health of the basin?
Dean Setoguchi
I'd just say it's a positive for our basin and an industry in Canada if this means that the probability of LNG Canada Phase 2 moves forward. We should be exporting that and adding way more capacity and exporting a lot more LNG off the West Coast of Canada.
This is fantastic from that perspective. I'd say that there's a part of me that feels a bit sad, to be honest.
I look at a company like ARC that's homegrown Canadian company that's been around for over two decades. Terry Anderson, his team is they're fantastic people to work with, and we've worked very closely with them for a long period of time.
They should be very proud of what they built, but I'm sad to see that management team go, and hopefully, they start up something new and build another ARC. With regards to Shell, we've tried to work with them on different projects already, we're very familiar with them.
One of our directors is the former country chair of Shell, we do have some connections, Michael Crothers. Whether our customer is Shell or a very small company, every customer is important to us, and we are going to work very closely with each one of them, including Shell, to understand what's important to them, how we can add value to their business, and we'll deliver them the best service possible.
Is there anything else you guys want to
Maurice Choy
add? That was great.
Thank you very much for that.
Dean Setoguchi
Thank you.
Operator
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Dan for closing remarks.
Dan Cuthbertson
Thank you all once again for joining us today. Please feel free to reach out to our Investor Relations team with any additional questions.
I hope everyone enjoys the upcoming May long weekend in Canada.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your line.
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