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Crestwood Equity Partners LPÂ (CEQP)
Q3Â 2019 Earnings Call
Oct 29, 2019, 9:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good morning, and welcome to today's conference call to discuss Crestwood Equity Partners' Third Quarter 2019 Financial and Operating Results. Before we begin the call, listeners are reminded that the Company may make certain forward-looking statements as defined in the Securities (sic) and Exchange Act of 1934, that are based on assumptions and information currently available at the time of today's call. Please refer to the Company's latest filings with the SEC for a list of risk factors that may cause actual results to differ. Additionally, certain non-GAAP financial measures such as EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow will be discussed. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in the news release issued this morning.
Joining us today with prepared remarks are Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Bob Phillips; and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Robert Halpin. Additional members of the senior management team will be available for question-and-answer session with Crestwood's current analysts following the prepared remarks. [Operator Instructions]
At this time, I will turn the call over to Bob Phillips.
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Hey, good morning. Thanks, operator, and thanks to all of you for joining us today. We're certainly very pleased to report another great quarter here in the third quarter of 2019, also want to provide you with an update on our expectations for the remainder of the year and provide some preliminary insight into our 2020 outlook. It's certainly an exciting time at Crestwood. We've got great momentum as a company in all the areas that we operate. I want to highlight four things that come to my mind, year-to-date 2019. Number one, our business continues to exceed internal and market expectations quarter-after-quarter. I think we've proven this management team can set lofty goals and deliver on those goals. Number two, our projects are being completed as expected with great safety performance. Safety has always been our top priority, but when you have an active campaign going where you've got a lot of construction people in the field in multiple areas to deliver the kind of safety performance we have is exemplary performance in the midstream space.
Number three, our operating cost continue to decrease as margins improve, want to highlight there, the great job that our PRB operations team has done in transitioning operations away from Williams starting in April of this year. The last six months by our calculation, operating cost per unit are down about 27% compared to a similar six-month period last year under the previous operator. So, operating cost continue to decrease and margins improve across all of our assets. And finally, and most importantly, number four, we're beginning to see real volume ramp-up and cash flow ramp-up in the Bakken, in the Powder and the Delaware, and that's delivering great investment multiples and we think peer group leading financial metrics. So that's the bottom line for year-to-date 2019. On last quarter's call, we said the third quarter was going to be a very important inflection point in the cash flow trajectory of Crestwood. And I'm pleased to announce that this quarter we achieved that key milestone with adjusted EBITDA of $141 million, that's a 39% year-over-year increase and distributable cash flow of $83 million and that represents a 60% year-over-year increase. We'll talk about it in more detail, but this is a direct result of the three-year capital program that we've had.
At these cash flow levels, I would point out to you that we're delivering very healthy coverage at 1.9 times and leverage of 4.2 times respectively. And our target remains below 4 times in 2020. Our third quarter results I think also highlight the value of our diversified portfolio of midstream assets with our Gathering and Processing and our Marketing, Supply and Logistics segments having great quarters again as they have all year long, and that leads us to the upward revision of full-year 2019 adjusted EBITDA in the range of $520 million to $535 million, and that's a slight increase from our previous guidance with the midpoint up about 2% to a revised $527.5 million. So, very pleased that we continue to push upwards throughout the year, expect to close with a solid fourth quarter, we have good visibility into that and so we're revising guidance upward and that will give us momentum into 2020.
Let's look back on '19 a little bit. I want to credit our continued outperformance so far this year really on four things. Number one, financial discipline with the balance sheet, credit Robert and the finance team doing a great job so far this year keeping us within the guardrails that we set early in the year with the budget. Number two, solid partnerships with our joint venture partners. I think you all remember that we were one of the first in the industry to use joint venture partnerships to help finance and expand commercially our competitive positioning in the regions that we operate and that's been an important part of our success and will remain so. Number three, strong execution on our key 2019 capital projects by the field operations team, our great technical services group, our safety team and our commercial teams all working together to deliver these projects as we expect them in the budget.
And then finally number four and I witnessed this last week and I'll give you a little color on it, and that's the collaborative relationships that we have with our customers on both sides of the midstream value chain, whether it's G&P storage and transportation or downstream at the refinery and petchem level with our MS&L Group. We have great relationships with our customers. I witnessed that and I was impressed by that in our recent Arrow customer meeting that we had in North Dakota last week, where we all jointly focused on very efficient use of capital. We all know that we're going into a capital-constrained period in 2020, and I was just really impressed with the collaboration between our guys and our customers' teams to make efficient use of capital and also our joint commitment to the environment and to regulatory compliance, we spend a lot of time focused on making sure that we keep flaring below the minimums and that we all coordinate our efforts to make sure that the gas production on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation represents the best gas capture program in the state of North Dakota and I was very impressed with that.
I think the collaborative relationships we have with our customers ensures that we're going to provide great customer service, so we give repeat business with these guys provides best-in-class flow assurance, reliability is very important to producers. We're showing improving netbacks particularly in the Bakken and we've got plenty of future capacity for long-term growth. And that's true in all three basins, so we built out the backbone systems in the Bakken, the Delaware and the Powder and so they've got plenty of room to grow and they know that and they're going to be working toward that with their development plans over the next couple of years. I'm also proud of the Crestwood culture that we're developing here focused on the vitaly important ESG Sustainability initiatives. Those include employee and contractor health and safety, minimizing our environmental impact, reducing our footprint and increasing the social investment in the communities where we operate and where our employees live. We've made great progress in 2019 on that and we'll make on that and we'll make even better progress in 2020. So as we near the end of 2019, let me give you a status report on our three-year capital expansion program. We've been talking about this for several years. We've been articulating the amount of capital we're spending and where we're spending it in the projects and what the impact will be. And I'm pleased to say that we're within one quarter of being finished with this program after three years and I can't tell you how proud I am of the organization, which if you'll recall, if you've been with us from the beginning, we've built this company around M&A, but about four years ago, we transitioned and built a great organic project management team. We've managed these projects, we've designed them, we've negotiated them and built them all on our own and I think the team has done a great job.
We're nearing the end. On a net-net basis, we've spent about $1 billion of net growth capital on the projects and with the JV contributions in the areas where we have JV ownership, and we're building out vital long-term infrastructure assets in the Bakken, in the Powder and the Delaware basins. And we're building out these critical midstream assets in support of very clear visible long-term supply development plans that our customers have from very large dedicated acreage positions in some of the most core areas of the most economic and productive shale plays in the industry and again, that's the Bakken core on the FBIR.
The Southern Powder River Basin and the Deep Play, where the Turner and the Nio are prolific, and as each quarter goes by, we see bigger and bigger wells and better and better economics on a normalized basis for those producers. And then, of course, in the Delaware, where we've got a 100-mile 20-inch pipeline system with big gathering systems on either end and that is absolutely the richest part of the Delaware. So, we're building assets that are going to be there for 50 years, gathering production that's going to be there for longer than 50 years. So, we think we're in a great spot with this three-year build-out program.
Our producers are clearly having a great 2019 also as reflected by the record volumes that we're posting on all -- in all three basins. And we believe and if you do the work on it, you'll see that our producers believe, they have years of undrilled inventory yet to develop around this backbone capacity that we've built over the past three years. Just to give you some context, since the end of 2016, our three-year capital expansion program has increased our high and low-pressure pipeline infrastructure by 32% up to 2,200 miles of pipe in the ground. Our gas processing capacity has been increased by 90% to 1.2 Bcf a day, significant production of NGLs that our MS&L team has done an incredible job of marketing to the best markets available providing flow assurance to our producers and our plants and in some cases, actually improving on the netbacks and we think netback margin improvements going to continue throughout the fourth quarter of this year and into 2020.
Our gas compression capacity, we are largely a gathering and processing company that takes low-pressure gas and compresses it into the nation's pipeline capacity. Our compression capacity is up by 37% to over 550,000 horsepower compression. We are a large gathering company in every sense of the word. As a result of all that, our gas gathering system capacities have increased by about a third to 3.5 Bcf a day. Our crude oil gathering capacity is up 20% to 150,000 barrels a day, and our produced water disposal and gathering capacity has grown dramatically up over 200% to 125,000 barrels a day. This is a monumental expansion program by any measure and it positions Crestwood and our partners and our customers with ample capacity for years of growth with only modest maintenance and well-connect capital required to handle the expected increase in volumes.
Taken as a whole, we think the program demonstrates again that Crestwood has achieved meaningful scale in the last three years in the areas that we operate. We've made prudent investments in the right areas. We've been able to maintain our balance sheet discipline and it provides our current and our future customers with significant capacity to grow. We're in a really good spot in the history of Crestwood. Our expanded systems also support Crestwood and our customers' joint commitment to sustainability by taking a significant number of trucks off the road and significantly lowering emissions from reduced flaring in the areas that we operate. We take this seriously and we are among the industry leaders in reducing emissions and reducing flaring in the areas we operate.
Importantly to our investors, each dollar invested has followed a very strict criteria to maximize returns, and the big aha here is that from 2017 to 2020 with that billion dollar net investment, we expect to grow cash flow by over $225 million a year, driven by this expansion program, and we think that provides very impressive return on invested capital and cash flow multiples of approximately 4 times to 4.5 times. This is the way you deliver accretive DCF per unit to investors in an MLP world today. So now that we're nearing the completion of the major build-out program, our 2020 capital budget is not insignificant, but as we've been signaling for the last couple of quarters, it's significantly lower than it has been. We're expecting right now to decrease capital spending to a range of $100 million to $150 million a year in 2020, that compares to about $425 million to $475 million in 2019.
Just a little bit of color on our 2020 capital program. These are currently identified projects, and obviously, we have a very competitive business development team that's out there looking hard, working hard for third-party production and additional expansion opportunities, but these are the identified projects that we see today. We'll focus that capital on completing the Bucking Horse II processing plant, which will be finished in the first quarter of 2020, and will be largely finished with gas processing in the PRB for a long time. We've got a lot of excess capacity and there's a number of producers in that region that will use 2020 to increase their delineation program in the areas surrounding our core Chesapeake acreage dedication.
We'll also be continuing to expand the Jackalope gathering and compression system with expansions throughout the year. We've got three compressor station projects that are under way and are almost complete, but will be completed at various times throughout 2020 and those will add to the effective capacity we have gathered and processed gas there. And we're going to continue with our expansion program on the Bakken Arrow produced water system. And I just might point out that we're very, very close and will complete in the fourth quarter what we call the Gondor wells, which should add 25,000 to 35,000 barrels a day of additional water gathering and disposal capacity, that capital is largely been spent, that project is almost complete, we should be bringing it into service within the next couple of weeks, and that will drive a lot of the produced water system capital expansion in 2020. There's still a significant amount of water on the reservation and we need to get those trucks off the road. So we're going to be emphasizing Arrow produced water expansion in 2020.
Most importantly, I want to remind our investors that we have exceptional well-connect agreements with our producer customers and that's really going to benefit us in 2020. It meaningfully limits the amount of capital that we have to spend to bring new wells on line. And let me just remind you, in those three areas in the Bakken, our well-connects are 100% reimbursed by the producer. In the Powder River Basin, we're reimbursed for connections longer than 600 feet, that's basically a hot tap in a meter run. And in the Delaware Basin, want to remind you that our CPJV joint venture structure buffers Crestwood's balance sheet from large capital requirements there. And that system is largely built out and what I predict in 2020 are just more interconnections to third-party systems to be able to compete for gathered gas to process given the competitive advantage we now have that our CPChem downstream NGL contract is kicked in really gives us quite an advantage in marketing our processing capacity. So in all three basins, we're largely protected from our well-connect capital and that contributes to the much lower capital spend forecast that we have for 2020. As Robert is going to point out spending $100 million to $150 million allows us to get to free cash flow very early in the year and supports our primary financial metric of getting our leverage sub-four times in 2020.
Before I hand the call over to Robert, let me just take a moment to thank the Crestwood employees, all of our business partners, our joint venture partners and our contractors and tell you how proud I am of the entire organization and their efforts to produce another standout year for Crestwood. We challenged our operating teams to come in with 10% lower cost and they've just absolutely demolished that number in our operating results so far this year. We're really proud of how the team has focused on productivity and improved efficiency and not only the way we operate the services we provide, but the amount of capital and dollars that we spend on the operating side. We've talked a lot about the project management teams delivering these projects as expected in the budget and as our producer customers expected -- in 2020, we're going to continue that, but we're going to benefit from that key inflection point in the third quarter, where we begin to see volumes and cash flow significantly ramp up to provide these kind of industry-leading metrics that we're talking about in 2020.
And I do want to highlight and again Robert will talk about it in more detail that our primary financial objective in 2020 will be to become free cash flow positive in the first half of the year. We think that's going to be attractive to investors and think you'll be able to see that reflected in our stock. If we do that, we'll certainly be operating at sub-four times leverage with coverage at two times or above and that's going to give us a lot of financial flexibility. These are milestones for us and we're going to aggressively pursue those milestones in 2020 like we have the capital plan over the last three years. It sets the stage for us we think to execute a best-in-class capital allocation strategy. We've talked to many of you about this over time. We'll continue to self-fund accretively our capital projects. We'll reduce our leverage when we have excess cash flow. We'll start thinking about distribution growth as long as it's stable and it's permanent and we'll have the potential for common and preferred unit buybacks.
We know that each of those categories is important to different stakeholders that we have. But most importantly, we're going to evaluate each one of those opportunities very opportunistically with the goal of maximizing returns for our unitholders. We are still an MLP and we're proud of it. We don't mind being small, but we want to be the best small MLP out there and I think 2019 setting a great platform as we roll into 2020.
So with that, happy to turn it over to Robert, our CFO for a third quarter financial review and a comment or two on the balance sheet and then maybe he can transition us into Q&A. Robert?
Robert Halpin -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Great, thank you, Bob. The third quarter has been another very strong quarter for Crestwood, driven by continued execution in our Gathering and Processing segment, as well as our Marketing, Supply and Logistics segments. Our third quarter 2019 adjusted EBITDA was $141 million, that up 39% year-over-year compared to $101 million in the third quarter of 2018. Our distributable cash flow was $83 million, that up 60% year-over-year compared to $52 million in the third quarter of 2018. For the third quarter of 2019, our general partner declared a distribution of $0.60 to our common unitholders resulting in distribution coverage for the quarter of approximately 1.9 times.
In our Gathering and Processing segment, EBITDA totaled $99 million in the third quarter of 2019, that representing an increase of 27% over the $78 million that we reported in the third quarter of 2018. Third quarter 2019 segment EBITDA growth was driven by the in-service of our Bear Den II processing plant in the Bakken, which compared with the completion of the majority of our debottlenecking projects led the way for increased volumes across all three products on the Arrow system, partially offset by some declines in our legacy natural gas basins. Our Storage and Transportation segment EBITDA totaled $17 million for the third quarter of 2019 on average volumes of 2.2 billion cubic feet per day. This represents an increase of 15% over $15 million in the EBITDA that we reported in the third quarter of 2018.
On July 1st, Crestwood began receiving a 50% cash distribution from Stagecoach Gas Services, which represented the final step-up in the agreement with our joint venture partner, Con Edison. And at the COLT Hub, the facility benefited from the in-service of the Bear Den plant as it saw additional demand for NGL loading and storage services. Our Marketing, Supply and Logistics segment EBITDA totaled $26 million for the third quarter, driven by record NGL production driving higher utilization of our NGL storage, trucking and rail terminal assets coupled with our marketing team's ability to successfully capture the value of wider seasonal spreads resulting from softer NGL pricing during the summer inventory build season.
Now moving to the balance sheet. As of September 30th, Crestwood had approximately $2.3 billion of debt outstanding, including $1.8 billion of fixed rate senior notes and $498 million of outstanding borrowings on our revolving credit facility. Leverage as of September 30th was 4.2 times and Crestwood remains committed to long-term leverage of 3.5 times to 4 times, a target we expect to achieve by mid-2020. In the third quarter of 2019, we invested approximately $139 million in consolidated growth capital projects and joint venture contributions, primarily focused on the Bear Den II processing plant in the Bakken and the Bucking Horse II processing plant in the Powder River Basin. As previously communicated, Crestwood intends to continue to fund its growth capital needs through excess retained distributable cash flow, availability under our revolving credit facility and proceeds from any potential non-core asset divestitures.
Now looking forward to 2020 as Bob mentioned in his commentary, we expect to invest between $100 million to $150 million in growth capital almost exclusively in our key growth areas of the Bakken Shale, the Powder River Basin and the Delaware Basin. Crestwood will continue to maintain a close dialog with our customers to further optimize our capital spending as they finalize our 2020 plans. And similar to 2019, we expect to fund our 2020 capital program with 100% of organic capital spend covered with excess retained distributable cash flow. The third quarter of 2019 has been another very successful quarter for Crestwood. Consistent execution year-to-date has positioned us to tighten and increase our adjusted EBITDA guidance for 2019 and sets us up for a clear path in 2020 to generate substantial free cash flow, achieve our long-term leverage objective and position the company to begin executing our strategy to optimize returning capital to unitholders.
With that, operator, I'll now turn the call over to questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]
Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Tristan Richardson with SunTrust. Please proceed with your question.
Tristan Richardson -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Hey, good morning, guys. Just curious, we appreciate all the commentary on priorities for cash flow and the timing of the shift to free cash flow positive, seems like leverage is the primary financial objective next year, at the point where you're comfortable maintaining that sub-four times level, where do priority shift for free cash flow at that point?
Robert Halpin -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes, thanks, Tristan. I think it's really kind of as we've continued to stay, our primary objective long-term is to maintain our balance sheet strength as we talked about. We feel very comfortable in the 3.5 times to 4 times range given our capital needs and how our business is positioned with the excess capacity we have in our key growth basins going forward. And with the excess cash flow that we plan to build with roughly two [Phonetic] times coverage in 2020, we begin to look hard at how we can optimize returns to our investors through returning capital. We'll always have a continuation of pursuing highly attractive high return BD opportunities around our portfolio and we'll certainly expect to capture our fair share of those and allocate capital toward those. But I think beginning in 2020 looking at how we can optimize returns through some form of distribution increase, as well as potentially opportunistic buyback of units is how we would think about with any excess above and beyond our organic capital needs.
Tristan Richardson -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Helpful. Thanks, Robert. And then could you talk a little bit about the maybe loosely bucket, the 2020 capex budget between your three growth areas, I know you kind of highlighted a project at Jackalope and three other compression projects. Just generally, high level, how to think about that $100 million to $150 million?
Robert Halpin -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes. Of the $100 million to $150 million, I'd say, it's probably about 40% Bakken, 40% Powder River, then the balance to Delaware Permian, rough numbers.
Tristan Richardson -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Perfect. And then just last one for me. Just opportunities you guys seeing in the Permian with, we're thinking about weighing your Chevron deal that came on line and just generally, narrowing basis for residue gas against a broader backdrop of general pullback. Can you talk about customer plans or to the extent, these market developments have opened up the valves for your large customer?
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yes, Tristan, that's something that we monitor very carefully, and as you know, we're just at the end of October, I haven't even gotten into a full budget season yet for our producers. They're pretty mindful of commodity prices before they finalize plans, which based on our experience typically is even as late as January. I think everybody will be talking to their boards in November about preliminary views on capital. As I mentioned, we just had a Bakken producers meeting and there wasn't a single producer there that had finalized their 2020 budget yet. So, having really good conversations in the Delaware, couple of things that I would point you to, number one, our biggest producer is Shell, and Shell like most majors has the tendency to drill through commodity cycles and is not really as impacted by short-term price constraints like we've witnessed with natural gas prices just in the last couple of weeks. Having said that, we're watchful on commodity prices out of the Delaware for all three products, oil, gas and gas liquids. On the oil side, which is the primary economic driver of the basin and drilling activity we believe there is ample oil capacity and the basis is trading reasonably right now. Is that correct, Rob?
Robert Halpin -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
That's correct.
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
So, no real impact there. On the gas side, as I mentioned, there has been a recent downturn in net gas prices in the Waha region, notwithstanding the fact that Gulf Coast Express just went into service. The forward markets tell us that it's largely filled up or is filling up, and so in the forward market, there is a little bit of a basis change for natural gas. Having said that, natural gas liquids despite the low commodity prices have remained reasonably stable throughout the year, in other words, the basis differentials or the T&F, the Transportation and Fractionation, you have to pay to get Y-grade from the Delaware to the Gulf Coast been reasonably stable.
Our Chevron Phillips Chemical contract provides us with a better than market T&F. It's a long-term contract with increasing volumes starting January 1 of 2020, and it's going to enable us to be more competitive as a gathering processor to attract volumes into our plant and pass that strong NGL netback price on to our producers, we believe that the combination of the stable oil price netback innovation and a stable NGL price netback in the basin, which for most of these production in the area we operate is probably 75%, 80% of the total barrel, we think those economics will prevail throughout 2020.
And while there maybe some softness at the beginning of the year, I think throughout the entire 2020 year, we're going to have equal to or greater supply development activity in the areas that we operate and we've got excess capacity at Orla and we're going to be aggressively competing for volumes from the major interconnects that we've completed in the second half of the year with a fairly optimistic view that our producers are going to drill throughout the year on a balanced basis. So, we don't see any near-term impact on volumes and don't see any near-term impact on drilling. But if I had to guess for the small independent producer, there will be a pullback in the first half of the year and that will probably improve in the second half of 2020 as more capacity comes online, that's probably more than you wanted to know, but you asked me what time it was, so I told you how to build a watch. Tristan, you're still there? Okay.
Operator
Our next -- our next question comes from the line of Elvira Scotto with RBC. Please proceed with your question.
Elvira Scotto -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Hi, good morning, everyone. Just to follow up on the growth capex question. The preliminary estimates of $100 million to $150 million for 2020, thanks for the detail that you provided, but how much of that growth capex is from projects that you are still completing versus some of the expansions that you mentioned, and then how quickly can you change that capex if producers do pullback activity?
Robert Halpin -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes, Elvira, I think my breakdown of being roughly 40% Bakken, 40% Powder and the balance in Delaware Permian. If you look at the composition of that, I would say Bakken is largely all new-build expansion, some new projects largely focused on the water side of the business as Bob mentioned in his commentary. The Powder River Basin is predominantly focused on finishing the Bucking Horse II plant and then the Delaware Basin component is largely well connect capital, well completion capital for Shell's ongoing development plans around our Nautilus system. So, if you break those three buckets down, I think there is tremendous stability to optimize our water spent in the Bakken, but given where we are on that system and the amount of water that is behind pipe today, I don't expect we will incur any of that given where our producers are and what we expect to be their development plans heading into 2020.
In the Powder River Basin, as I mentioned, most of that is just completion of the Bucking Horse II plant, which will go in service in early 2020, so that's largely committed to and we're going to get that plant done to have that capacity liable for Chesapeake and other third parties that we've talked about that we're actively pursuing. And then the last one, well connect capital, obviously, that's 100% driven by the timing of well completions and how that development plan ultimately pans out. But as Bob mentioned, Shell is pretty fixed in terms of what they plan to do long-term.
Elvira Scotto -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Thanks. That's helpful. And then just on the Marketing, Supply and Logistics, you increased the guidance, EBITDA guidance of $65 million to $75 million from the $55 million to $60 million previously. Does that -- is that just a 2019 phenomenon or does -- how should we think about run rate EBITDA in Marketing, should we still think of that as closer to $55 million kind of going forward?
Robert Halpin -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
I think you got to -- you got to look, Elvira, a little bit in our business kind of what the team has accomplished over the last, call it 12 months to 24 months, what transpired in the market this year and kind of how we're positioned heading into 2020 to really understand kind of the full perspective on that question. I think generally speaking, we saw market opportunities in 2019 that the team successfully captured that we don't believe will be repeatable year-in year-out has proven the degree of outperformance that we've seen.
That said, I think we also believe that our business as we built out the platform, as we built out the capability and are now marketing around some of our hard assets that we've scaled up in the Bakken and elsewhere, we probably see the baseline in that business being in excess of the $50 million to $55 million that we guided to at the beginning of this year. Still finalizing our plans for the outlook, but I think we're going to see upside of that on a sustainable basis in 2020 and beyond, but probably not see the same degree of dislocation that we saw this year that we captured to the upside. John, any -- can you expand upon that?
John Powell -- Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, MSL
Yes, I think we just had a couple of things particularly in the third quarter here. I mean, we had record high inventories larger than normal carries that we saw that we were able to capture and I think the team executed extremely well on that. In addition to that, we had a little bit of market consolidation out there particularly in the space that we are in and so we're able to continue to grow from that standpoint. And also you know as they alluded to, the increased G&P activity on volumes across the platform, we're running a very well integrated platform. And we spent over the last three years really trying to create a much more integrated platform implementing a lot of efficiency gains, providing scalable activities particularly as we knew these volumes would grow up and I think that's really the diversity of having a good supply and logistics platform across the US. And with that, we're going to maintain some of this momentum here to provide top quality service and pricing for both our producers and our consumers.
Elvira Scotto -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Great, thanks for that. And then just the last ones for me. So, in the press release and even in your -- in the prepared remarks, you kind of talked about using the proceeds from any non-core asset sales to self-fund to hit your leverage target etc. Are you in active discussions here with respect to potentially selling some non-core assets? And then in addition to that, how are you thinking about the M&A opportunities or the landscape over the next 12 months to 24 months?
Will Moore -- Senior Vice President, Strategy & Corporate Development
Yes, this is Will. Right now, we're not in any active negotiation on any divestitures. I think that comment is just that we will be opportunistic if someone values an asset more than we do, we would entertain that as a possibility to help us further delever, but nothing active right now on the divestiture front. From an M&A perspective, I'd say, it's not a priority here. When we talk about M&A, it has to check all of our boxes. The first has been in our core basin, it has to be a -- have appropriate return on invested capital. As Bob talked about in his comments, our organic capital, we spent about four times to five times multiples. So that's tough to compete for capital with when you're looking at M&A. Additionally, it's got to be immediately accretive to us from a DCF per unit basis and it's got to be financed in a way where it's leverage enhancing to leverage neutral. So, when we look through those four lenses, if you will, at acquisitions, we haven't seen anything other than what we were able to do on the consolidation at Jackalope, that really hits all those metrics. And so while we'll continue to be active and look at opportunities, I think it's as I said not a priority and it's -- although if we do find something that checks all four of those boxes and makes sense for us, I think it's something that we'll work hard on as well.
Elvira Scotto -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Great. Thanks. That's all I had.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Kyle May with Capital One Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Kyle May -- Capital One Securities -- Analyst
Good morning. Maybe following up --
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Kyle.
Kyle May -- Capital One Securities -- Analyst
Maybe following up I believe that was Will, and you'd talked about consolidating the PRB from Williams. How are you looking at the landscape for your other JVs and how does that fit in your capital allocation over the next one or two years?
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
That's a great question, we get asked that a lot by investors particularly on one-on-ones, because we threaded the needle on the Williams' Jackalope deal and it worked out incredibly well for us, it wasn't easy to not only strike a bargain with them at a price that made sense for both of us, but to finance that in a way that made sense for us. We did it. It was accretive upfront to us. It gave us the ability to take over operations. I've already commented that taking over operations in the Jackalope has resulted in, we think about a 27% reduction in operating expense comparing the six months that we've operated to the six months previously that they operated.
We've also dramatically improved the reliability of the system largely through reducing operating pressure that were parts of the system that we're running in excess of 400 pounds. The contract was a 90 pound contract. We are now in compliance across the system. We've done that by instituting a pigging regimen, that is much different than the previous operator had used. And so the result overall is just better use of capacity and better reliability across the system. We're going to always look for opportunities like that. If we can buy somebody in the areas that we operate and operate the system better than they do, then that adds real value to the transaction. It's not just run rate volumes or forecasted growth times and margin. We're really good at operating systems. And I think we've proven that over the last several years, we're good at taking over operations from other people. Oftentimes, these were people that have been in business for a long time, they just have a different way of operating.
I think our focus is on the environment, it's on the public in the areas we operate and it's on providing a great customer service, and to do that, you've got to be an efficient operator and you've got to be in tune with your producers' needs and have a collaborative relationship. So, these are the -- are the elements or the principles that we look at in a deal.
From a purely economic standpoint, we are absolutely invested in the three areas that we talk about over and over and over again. It is the Bakken, it is the Powder and it is the Delaware. We have identified and our business development team has identified and we continue to watch and monitor expansion opportunities, where we can acquire assets, that would be bolt-ons to our existing systems and take advantage of taking over operations and seeing that 27% reduction in operating costs and seeing that improvement in customer relations that leads to quicker well connects and higher volumes across the system and better flow assurance and hard netbacks for our producers.
At our August Board Meeting, we identified all those opportunities in the areas that we operate. We like to rock, we like our core assets as being a backbone system and we see numerous opportunities to acquire things and bolt them on to our existing system. Having said that, it's Will Moore's job to find those opportunities and be timely about it and working in combination with Robert and the finance team to be able to deliver something that checks all four boxes and grows our portfolio in a financially prudent and financially disciplined manner. So, we'll not sure how much color you want to give, but we know in the Delaware, the Powder and the Bakken that there's other operators out there that, that might be opportunities for us. Do you want to talk about that?
Will Moore -- Senior Vice President, Strategy & Corporate Development
Yes. Real quick just to get back to Kyle's question on the JVs, obviously nothing in our plans on consolidating the JVs. I think the Permian is probably the most natural, that business needs to mature over time and I think we'll have an opportunity to work with our partner, First Reserve there on what we do when they're ready to exit that, but nothing imminent there. So, it is something that we somewhat control, but that transaction is going to get priced to the highest value and we may or may not be competitive there.
On the other JVs that we have, we're happy to operate with our partners there and don't see any near-term consolidation on any of those. On the broader M&A market, I think Bob covered it, there we see opportunities in and around our footprint for consolidation and efficiencies that can be gained as these basins mature, but it has to go through the screens that we talked about and check all the boxes. And right now, there's still a disconnect between buyers and sellers on getting to appropriate values and so we're going to stay disciplined.
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
So having said that though, Kyle, I would tell you that and you guys can do the research, you just draw a circle around our three core areas. There is other assets in those areas where the owner operators are over their skis, whether they paid too much for it as is the case in most of the Delaware stuff or they over-levered it as is also the case there or there's just other reasons why it's an opportunity. We're going to continue to be very disciplined in the way that we think about growing our portfolio in these regions.
And I think it's from our standpoint, it's a buyers' market. We have built a great balance sheet. We've got lot of momentum as a company. We can deliver industry-leading DCF per unit to our investors, and if we can expand our portfolio and link them out our inventory position in these three core areas, where there's 50 years of supply development then we're going to do that, but we're going to do it at a price and a structure that makes sense to us.
Kyle May -- Capital One Securities -- Analyst
Got it. That's a lot to chew on, but a lot of good information. I appreciate it. Maybe one thing kind of switching gears to operations, in the press release you mentioned substantial room for future volumes on the Arrow system. Can you just give us kind of an update on your expectations for utilization of Bear Den II, and then maybe a broader look at processing demand in the basin?
Robert Halpin -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Sure. I think we can speak first to just our system what we communicated. Obviously, we've got as we commented in our press release today, with Bear Den II going into service and getting fully lined out by the end of the third quarter, we're now gathering and processing 100% of the gas on system. We are seeing substantial step-up in utilization as a result of that and well completions keep coming. We had 83 wells connected year-to-date. We still expect to be around 120 for the year. And recent communication from a lot of our producers heading into 2020 as recent as our customer meetings last week suggest that the development is going to continue and we're going to continue to see that step-up in utilization. I think we're still very focused on optimization of that plant. We expect that we will be probably at full utilization quicker than we would have otherwise thought given the development plan. I think that we will first look at how we can optimize incremental available capacity in the basin in around with other third parties to make sure we're all being as efficient as we can with capital.
But I do think there will be expansion opportunities above and beyond what we have in the plan longer-term as you get out to '22, '23 and beyond with the ongoing productivity we're seeing out of these wells. To overall processing capacity in the basin, I mean, there are expansions ongoing. I think we were quick to get ours done and it was very timely to be able to take all the gas off, one and put it on our system and meet our producers' near-term demands, we think we've got good runway for them for the foreseeable future and we'll continue to work closely with them on when the next leg of expansion is needed or warranted.
Kyle May -- Capital One Securities -- Analyst
All right, great. Well, that's all for me. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.
Jeremy Tonet -- JPMorgan -- Analyst
Hi, good morning. Just want to start off with the guidance as you talked about it before, three-year guidance going through 2020 of greater than 20% growth. Just wondering if you could update us there on your thoughts or maybe you could just talk about in general, what type of per share growth do you expect is a normalized level that Crestwood can deliver given the opportunity set ahead of you?
Robert Halpin -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes, Jeremy, I don't think anything's changed relative to the -- through 2020 outlook. Obviously, that timeframe in that outlook was largely centered around the capital investment program that Bob talked a lot about on the call and the corresponding ramps in volumes and cash flow we expected from that. So, no change. I think we communicated it generally close to 15% plus EBITDA growth rate over that timeframe from baseline '17 to year-end '20, and 20% or more than 20% growth in DCF per unit over that timeframe. I mean, as we sit today, I don't expect there to be any change to that heading up to 2020 and beyond.
Jeremy Tonet -- JPMorgan -- Analyst
Okay, great. Thanks. And then maybe turning to the PRB, I was just wondering if you could touch a bit more as far as what type of growth you're seeing there, I think you'd thrown out some numbers for cash flow before that you expect to see, and then in the PR, you're talking about being in kind of late-stage discussions with offset third party producers, wondering if you could expand a little bit there?
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yes, just a couple of notes and then will have more information as we go through the year and work with our producers in the area. Chesapeake is years ahead of everybody else in terms of delineating the geologic structure out there and understanding the geology of the Turner formation and the Niobrara. If you do the research on the material they have that's public. There is clearly a delineation of the Turner formation into what I think is similar to the three windows of the Eagle Ford. There is a oil-prone window, an oil and rich gas window and then a gassier window. As it would not surprise you, they've been focusing on the oilier window in 2019 because that's where the best economics come from. Oil prices on a relative basis higher than gas prices out there.
Having said that, they're still in a fairly early delineation phase of those different windows. And to our surprise and excitement, a recent well, a Turner well that they drilled of two wells, two well pad, that maybe we thought was going to be in the oilier window winds up being in the oil and gas window and the gas production at 15 million a day out of two Turner wells exceeded anybody's expectation. So that was very exciting new IP rate for a new pad that we just introduced into the system. We're spending a lot of time with Chesapeake right now to better understand their 2020 plan. In fact, we've -- I've got lunch with Doug on Friday and we're going up there to compare notes.
We have largely built out the system and as Robert said, we'll finish up the Bucking Horse II plant in the first quarter and turn that on, we'll see better recoveries for NGLs out of that plant versus Bucking Horse I, which was built that way of several years ago, different technology, so we'll have better NGL capture and reliability out of that plant. So we'll turn that on in February or March and they'll get the benefit of that. We continue to add compression to the system to bring pressures down to get the benefit of uplift. And we've seen that, Diaco [Phonetic], we had record gas volumes in I think early October, what was --
Diaco Aviki -- Senior Vice President, Business Development and Commercial
That's right. 173 million.
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
173 million a day. I mean, you guys can remember, the early part of this year, we were still sitting at 100 million, 120 million a day range. So, they drove a lot of wells and added a lot of gas production and a lot of oil production out there. It's too early yet to know exactly what they're going to do. I think they'll message that sometime next week when they have their announcement and start to give preliminary guidance, and so we don't have that information. But I can tell you that the offset operators, who are under contract. An example of that would be Panther. They have two rigs running right now. They have a couple of wells down there about to complete here in the fourth quarter, and so we'll be able to see what kind of production they're going to have, we're excited about that, because just in the last few months, they have increased the number of permits to 18. And so that is -- I think that's exciting news to us and we're beginning to have preliminary plans for what looks like it might be a pretty robust drilling program in 2020 by the Panther guys. Anadarko-Oxy also as you know has a big acreage position. And what we understand is their early 2020 delineation program we think is focused on the area that's closest to our gathering system.
We've been in constant communication with them. We've discussed contract options for how we would get their gas into our system and we're excited about the opportunity to provide services to Oxy if they have a 2020 drilling program there. So, I think overall we're in really good shape volumetrically for the year. Our capital programs will be largely done by the end of the first quarter and then we'll sit back and we'll watch and we'll wait and we'll see what these producers can do with the netback prices that they're going to get in 2020. I know number of them have been hedging forward and so they probably got better economics in the current market would show. Hope that answers the question on what we're seeing going forward in the Powder?
Jeremy Tonet -- JPMorgan -- Analyst
Got you. That's helpful. Thanks. And one last one if I could, just wanted your thoughts as far as Bakken take -- residue gas takeaway, how you guys see kind of supply demand there? Do you think that there's going to be enough takeaway to match all the processing plants that are coming on line or how does that progress?
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yes.
Robert Halpin -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes, right now on the Bakken, we're continuing to displace the Canadian gas coming down I think you'll see next couple of years we'll have ample takeaway capacity there. I know there's some rumblings in the industry out there, people are looking at other options. We'll continue to monitor and you will see on top of it, right now next couple of years we should have enough takeaway.
Jeremy Tonet -- JPMorgan -- Analyst
That's all from me. Thanks for taking my question.
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Jeremy.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Shneur Gershuni with UBS. Please proceed with your question.
Shneur Gershuni -- UBS Securities -- Analyst
Good morning, guys. Long call today. Just a few questions if you can believe there's still some left. Starting off, I found it interesting that you mentioned the preferred in your press release is one of the options for returning capital. Is that something that's a priority or would you be looking for us to get upgraded to IG before you would look to take that out or given the high yield on it, that's actually a priority, if something that you would want to direct capital toward?
Robert Halpin -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes, Shneur, I think I wouldn't read too much into the comments there. I think what we're highlighting is that our primary focal point is to first generate the free cash flow. We're highly confident we're going to do that, and then from there, we've got a whole lot of optionalities to how we can maximize returns to our investors through how we choose to allocate that capital. It will be a combination of self-funding the organic program, both the one that's in the current backlog for 2020 and anything new that comes up and beyond 2020, it will be some form of distribution and then as we look opportunistically around optimizing the capital structure and investment in common and preferred, that's fluid [Phonetic].
If we talk about that with our Board regularly at every quarterly meeting and even intermittent between then and it's something that we have the flexibility to capitalize on windows of opportunity pop up. So, we don't have any predisposed or preconceived plan around what we would do, how much we would do, we know we're going to be in a substantial position of positive free cash flow and we're going to optimize that as we go.
Shneur Gershuni -- UBS Securities -- Analyst
That makes sense. And or -- do you expect to have discussions with the rating agencies about where you're rated right now?
Robert Halpin -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
We do. We have conversations with them throughout the year and one big annual update at the start of every year. I think given the three-year performance of the business, where we're trending and where we look to head into 2020 from a balance sheet standpoint, we'll continue to press upon them the execution. I think we've got a really good working relationship. In all honesty, our cost of capital on the debt side is pretty competitive right now, so I don't think we're too fussed about where we are. The market remains open to us. And I think that really in all honesty, the greatest limiting factor is still going to be a scale dynamic with the agencies in terms of meaningful upward mobility. So, we'll always have a dialog with them, but I think we're pretty well positioned right now.
Shneur Gershuni -- UBS Securities -- Analyst
Okay. And just two more questions. Your capex number for 2020, does that include an FID of Bear Den III? I'm just sort of looking where your volumes are and so forth, it kind of seems like that's something that should be on the horizon reasonably soon?
Robert Halpin -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
No, does not. As we talked about the bulk of the capital in the Bakken for 2020 is largely focused on all the water is behind our system right now.
Shneur Gershuni -- UBS Securities -- Analyst
Okay, got it. And then finally your comments about two times coverage for next year. Does that is -- already assume a distribution increase or that's kind of where you're at this stage right now? And can we think of it as an early indication of how you're thinking about 2020 from an EBITDA perspective as we sort of back into, what would give you two times coverage?
Robert Halpin -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
I think yes, yes and yes to all those. So, I think it is -- it is in line with the guidance we've given in the past throughout our 2020 outlook and kind of the impact we expect from the capital projects we've executed on. We do expect to have some incremental return of capital through the distribution in 2020. It will be prudent and it will be consistent with our long-term strategy to realize our balance sheet objective and to continue executing on our business plan around our portfolio. So that two times is consistent -- is inclusive of anything we would do on an incremental returns of capital.
Shneur Gershuni -- UBS Securities -- Analyst
Perfect, thank you very much and thank you for taking my questions today guys. Enjoy the day.
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Shneur.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of J.R. Weston with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.
J.R. Weston -- Raymond James & Associates -- Analyst
Hey, thanks. Recognize we're pretty late in the call here, so I'll just ask one real quick. I was looking at the 2021 guidance for Jackalope, and I just wanted to be sure that any development from Panther would be upside to that and that was -- the guidance was really just originally driven by Chesapeake. Is that correct?
Robert Halpin -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
That's correct.
J.R. Weston -- Raymond James & Associates -- Analyst
Okay, that works. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Ned Baramov with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.
Ned Baramov -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst
Hey, good morning. Real quick for me as well. Thanks for taking the question. But just going back to the PRB, any thoughts on additional opex reductions in the region not that the 27% realized today, it is not meaningful enough, but mostly in light of the new opportunities you're pursuing for incremental dedications with the offset producers you talked about? Thanks.
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
No, I don't think so on the operating side, I mean, we are going through our -- the final stages of our 2020 planning process. The PRB teams had their arms around this asset for six months. It's a look-alike to the way we operate our Delaware system with big high-pressure compression -- high-pressure, low-pressure system with a lot of compression at the wellhead and a big processing plant at the end, takeaways are similar. I think the operations are aligning themselves out right now. We might see modest improvement as we get a full-year, but I don't -- I don't think we see any big things. What we are going to see though is potentially better netbacks for our producer, as we get the new plant up and running, get better recoveries, I think for this year, we'll see better netbacks.
And then we're going to be very, very disciplined in the way we add compression to this system going forward. In the past I would say that a lot of compression was spent in bulk. And I think the backbone of the system is largely built out right now. I think adding compression and laterals will be incrementally done as we see wells get drilled and pads be ready for first production. And so that will be a difference in the way we efficiently use our capital more so than our operating expense. Diaco, you want to comment on anything?
Diaco Aviki -- Senior Vice President, Business Development and Commercial
Yes. Thank you, Bob. Yes, absolutely. One of the things that we're doing is, as we're going out and developing the additional compression stations that we talked about earlier in the call, we are tying them together, so they can leverage each other, so that will reduce our capital going forward and allow us to effectively move Chesapeake's volumes or any other producers volumes across the system and lower the pressures immediately. So there's some redundancy ...
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yes, and it's a different design.
Diaco Aviki -- Senior Vice President, Business Development and Commercial
Yes.
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yes.
Diaco Aviki -- Senior Vice President, Business Development and Commercial
Yes, there's some redundancy built in the system that will be effective for us from a capital perspective moving forward.
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
So we could continue to see lower compression expenses, lower fuel, because we're optimizing the design of the system, which I think -- we think that it was not being done previously. That was all baked into our acquisition economics when we stepped up and paid a full price to Williams for their 50%, but I think we had these type of efficiencies in mind. So yes, we will see some savings from that standpoint.
Ned Baramov -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst
That's great. Thanks. And maybe one more. Could you just break out how much of the outperformance and upwardly revised guidance for the Marketing, Supply and Logistics segment is related to the in-service of the Bear Den II plant?
Robert Halpin -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Not directionally I would say, Ned. We haven't really gotten into that granularity. Most of that we're working on optimizing pricing for our producers through the pass-through of the economics. So, it's been -- the team has done a phenomenal job of providing that flow assurance and making sure we can vacate all the liquids off of our plant. In this interim period, while we work toward getting Elk Creek in service here in the fourth quarter when we'll give our liquids to ONEOK. So, haven't given that specific granularity, the bulk of the outperformance, I would say, with the other factors we mentioned in the MS&L (sic) segment.
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, and our producers will see a netback improvement once we go on line with Elk Creek. We've got a fairly unlimited volume capability on that pipeline. We will get the trucks in the rail out of the equation. And I think our producers could see as much as $0.10 to $0.15 of improvement just on their netbacks by us not having to vacate those liquids by truck, rail and terminal. And so it's important and I know that, we've just talked about at our customer meeting, they'll see a pretty good improvement in netbacks once we switch over.
Ned Baramov -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst
That's great. Thanks for the time today.
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yes, thanks, Ned.
Operator
Our final question comes from the line of Selman Akyol with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.
Selman Akyol -- Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. -- Analyst
Thank you. So just going back to the PRB for a minute, in the press release you guys referenced discussions with third-party producers, and I'm wondering, number one, when would you expect those to maybe come to fruition or have an outcome, and then number two, as you think about your 2020 capex guidance of sort of the $100 million to $150 million, if those discussions were successful or does that take you above the $150 million or should we really think of the $150 million is being a hard ceiling for 2020 as it allows you to pursue your other objectives?
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Do you want to add, go ahead.
Diaco Aviki -- Senior Vice President, Business Development and Commercial
Yes, hi. Thank you. Good question. Hey, the capital estimated for 2020 includes the third-party opportunity that we're talking about, so we're being conservative in our guidance and our upper range of our guidance and that's the $150 million range.
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yes. Having said that it's not meaningful capital because we've got existing compression, existing processing capacity, all we're doing is just laying the lines and meter runs out to couple of potential pads that are going to be drilled inside our existing footprint. It's not a big stretch, and it's not adding significant backbone capacity or adding compression that would otherwise be idled and it will all be incremental. So that would be a great upside if we can do it and like Diaco said, we're being conservative in the way we're budgeting that capital, so that's already included.
Selman Akyol -- Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. -- Analyst
So then is it correct if we think about the $150 million is really a hard ceiling as to what you see for 2020 as of right now?
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
As of right now, that's correct.
Selman Akyol -- Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. -- Analyst
Very good. Thank you.
Operator
Mr. Phillips, I would now like to turn the floor back over to you for closing comments.
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you very much, operator. We've gone too long, but we appreciate all the great questions and the interest in Crestwood's performance. I want to thank the employees again for delivering yet another great quarter. We'll close the call. We're saying Go Astros and look forward to meeting with you again in the February timeframe to give you more specific information about our 2020 plan, but hopefully, if you paid attention and do the work, you get a really good idea as to what next year is going to look like for Crestwood. So, I hope we've answered that, if not, call Josh and our team and you'll have more answers. Thank you very much, operator, and thanks to all of you for joining us this morning.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]
Duration: 69 minutes
Call participants:
Robert G. Phillips -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Robert Halpin -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
John Powell -- Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, MSL
Will Moore -- Senior Vice President, Strategy & Corporate Development
Diaco Aviki -- Senior Vice President, Business Development and Commercial
Tristan Richardson -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Elvira Scotto -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Kyle May -- Capital One Securities -- Analyst
Jeremy Tonet -- JPMorgan -- Analyst
Shneur Gershuni -- UBS Securities -- Analyst
J.R. Weston -- Raymond James & Associates -- Analyst
Ned Baramov -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst
Selman Akyol -- Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. -- Analyst
