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Plains GP Holdings LP (PAGP -0.76%)
Q4 2018 Earnings Conference Call
Feb. 05, 2019, 5:00 p.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
See all our earnings call transcripts.
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good day ladies and gentlemen and welcome to today's PAA's and PAGP's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2018 Earnings Call. I would like to remind everyone that this conference is being recorded. And at this time I would like to turn the floor over to Roy Lamoreaux. Please go ahead.
Roy Lamoreaux -- Vice President, Investor Relations & Communications
Thank you Greg. Good afternoon and welcome to Plains All American's Fourth Quarter and Full year 2018 Earnings Conference Call. The slide presentation for today's call can be found within the Investor Relations News & Events section of our website at plainsallamerican.com.
Slide 2 contains important disclosures regarding forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures. The appendix includes condensed consolidating balance sheet information for PAGP.
Today's call will be hosted by Willie Chiang, Chief Executive Officer; and Al Swanson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Additionally Harry Pefanis, President and Chief Commercial Officer; and Jeremy Goebel, Senior Vice President Commercial; and Chris Chandler, Senior Vice President Strategic Planning and Acquisitions; and other members of our senior management team are available for the Q&A portion of today's call.
With that I'll turn the call over to Willie.
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Thanks Roy. Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We're pleased to have delivered solid performance in 2018 and we're well positioned as we enter 2019. We characterized 2018 as the year of execution focused on several key initiatives including our deleveraging plan, our Permian-focused capital program, multiple commercial and operational initiatives and driving improvement in our safety and environmental programs. I'm pleased to report we've executed across each of these initiatives and as reflected on slide 3 we delivered solid results against our goals for the year. We've provided a summary of our key highlights on slide 4. With respect to the 2018 financial results this afternoon we reported fourth quarter and full year results that exceeded our guidance.
Full year adjusted EBITDA totaled approximately $2.68 billion which was approximately $130 million above our November guidance and $380 million more than our beginning of the year expectations. These results were underpinned by our fee-based business which grew by approximately 10% year-over-year and was generally in line to slightly above expectations. Our overperformance was primarily related to our margin-based S&L segment reflecting proactive coordination among our operations, engineering and commercial groups to accelerate certain pipeline projects and achieve higher utilization rates on key Permian long-haul capacities.
These efforts across the U.S. and Canada combined with record levels of throughput on certain of our assets enabled us to participate in capturing regional location differentials particularly in the second half of the year. In addition to delivering solid operating and financial performance, we also made meaningful progress in delivering on our deleveraging efforts throughout the year. In regards to 2019, we have provided our 2019 adjusted EBITDA guidance of plus or minus $2.75 billion calibrating for lower crude oil price environment and the expected impact on producers as well as other market changes and market impacts on our anticipated performance. In regards to our fee-based business, we expect solid year-over-year fee-based growth of 8% or 11% pro forma growth adjusted for our partial sale of BridgeTex.
We also expect a continuation of strong near-term S&L contribution in 2019. Al will discuss our 2019 guidance in greater detail in his section. Now let me address CapEx and our Permian-focused capital program which is approximately $1.9 billion in 2018. We placed multiple key projects into service on time or ahead of schedule including our Sunrise pipeline expansion which added more than 300,000 barrels a day of incremental takeaway capacity from the Permian Basin. We also continued to progress our Cactus II pipeline on schedule with partial service expected in late third quarter of 2019 and full service plan by April 2020. Throughout 2018 we advanced several complementary Permian gathering intrabasin and terminal expansion projects which are expected to be placed into service throughout the first half of 2019 and ramping into 2020.
A number of these projects are anchored by additional new acreage commitments to our Permian systems which will drive increased utilization for our overall Permian asset base. We also positioned ourselves to advance multiple growth opportunities that will drive fee-based growth well beyond 2019. Specifically as shown on slide 5, last week we announced along with ExxonMobil and Lotus Midstream, the execution of definitive agreements forming the Wink to Webster Pipeline LLC joint venture sanctioning the project with long-term shipper commitments sufficient to proceed with the development of a new 36-inch long-haul Permian pipeline targeted to be placed into service in the first half of 2021.
Plains will lead construction activities on behalf of the joint venture with ordered line pipe and land acquisition and permitting activities are now under way. The pipeline is designed to transport more than 1 million barrels a day of crude and condensate in a vast (ph) system from the Permian Basin to the Texas Gulf Coast with origination points at Wink and Midland. We've a 20% ownership interest in the joint venture and expect a net 2019 capital investment of approximately $250 million. We expect total project capital to be invested primarily through throughout 2019 and 2020 with returns on our total investment to be consistent with our targets of 300 basis points to 500 basis points above our weighted average cost of capital. We look forward to providing additional updates in the future.
As shown on slide 6, we continue to progress several other strategic and accretive growth projects that leverage our existing system. We've finalized joint venture agreements with the Capline owners and Marathon Petroleum Corporation as operator has launched binding open seasons for Capline reversal that would support movements from Patoka to St. James and from Cushing to St. James via a joint tariff. The target in-service date is third quarter 2020 for light oil service and early 2022 for heavy oil service. Pending a successful open season, the Cushing to St. James movement would include a 200,000 barrel a day of expansion and a modest extension of our Diamond JV pipeline that will connect the Capline.
On the Red River expansion project we're working with potential customers to advance plants that will provide an additional 100,000 barrels a day of Cushing takeaway capacity. Successful advancement of the expansion of these existing assets may allow us to add to our -- may allow us to add to our capital program in 2019 and 2020 at attractive returns.
With that I'll turn the call over to Al.
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
Thanks Willie. During my portion of the call, I'll share a brief recap of our fourth quarter and full year results and provide an update on our 2019 guidance growth capital program and current financial positioning. Our fourth quarter results exceeded expectations as we reported adjusted EBITDA for the quarter of $949 million which equates to a year-over-year increase of more than 50%. This was driven by strong performance in our S&L segment resulting from strong execution across the organization to capitalize on favorable regional crude oil basis differential in Canada and the Permian Basin. As shown on slide 7, on a sequential basis 4Q '18 fee-based adjusted EBITDA grew by 8% versus 3Q or 13% when adjusting for the impact of our sale of a 30% interest in the BridgeTex Pipeline.
As shown on slide 8, on a full year basis our fee-based results slightly exceeded our beginning of the year guidance and our S&L segment materially outperformed. Full year 2018 adjusted EBITDA of $2.68 billion and DCF per common unit of $2.46 exceeded our beginning of the year guidance by 17% and 21% respectively. Additionally diluted adjusted net income per common unit of $1.88 for 2018 represents a year-over-year increase of $0.78 per unit or 71%. As Willie noted, we've provided our 2019 guidance. Our full year adjusted EBITDA guidance is plus or minus $2.75 billion which is 2% lower for our fee-based segments versus our November 2018 preliminary estimates.
This includes our current view on a number of factors including the impact on production volumes of a meaningful crude oil price decrease that began in late 2018. Our 2019 guidance includes plus or minus $350 million of adjusted EBITDA for our S&L segment. We currently expect the S&L contribution in 2020 will be materially lower than 2019. We entered 2019 with a much improved balance sheet and improved financial flexibility and expect to generate DCF per common unit of $2.58 which implies more than $900 million of cash flow in excess of distributions based on our current distribution level.
Additionally as illustrated on slide 9 our long-term debt-to-adjusted EBITDA ratio at year-end was 3.4 times which does include the benefit of the strong S&L performance. We have substantially completed our previously announced deleveraging plan and expect to formally complete this plan in the first half of 2019. Consistent with our prior expectations and as shown on slide 10, we've increased our 2019 capital program by $450 million to approximately $1.1 billion. The Wink to Webster JV pipeline represents a largest single component of this increase with the majority of the balance comprised of several new smaller Permian capital projects plus a shift in some capital investment from 2018 into 2019.
As Willie noted we continue to advance multiple capital-efficient opportunities that may add to our capital program later in the year. Importantly we plan to self-fund at least the equity portion of this capital program with retained cash flow. As a result we do not plan to issue any incremental common equity in 2019. As mentioned earlier we expect to formally complete our deleveraging plan in the coming months. Upon completion we intend to communicate an updated financial strategy including our capital allocation framework, distribution management and leverage targets. We don't intend to go into details on this call but as we've previously communicated and summarized on slide 11 we remain committed to maintaining a significant level of financial and operational flexibility retaining a level of cash flow that limits if not eliminates the need to issue common equity to fund routine growth capital programs and support metrics that are consistent with mid-BBB credit ratings over time. Before turning the call back over to Willie I wanted to know that our 4Q GAAP results included a mark-to-market derivative gain of $610 million as reported in the selected items impacting comparability table in the press release. We used derivatives to hedge purchases and sales of physical commodity, basis differentials and inventory. Approximately one-third of the gain is attributed to reversals of losses from prior quarters and the majority of the balance is associated with hedging 2019 and 2020 basis differentials in Canada and the Permian Basin and fractionation hedges associated with our straddle plants in Canada. These hedge positions were favorable to market conditions at year-end.
With that I'll turn the call back over to Willie.
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Thanks, Al. 2018 marked a strong year of execution for the partnership. I want to publicly acknowledge and thank our PAA team for their hard work and dedication in delivering its results. Looking forward we expect 2019 to be a very active year as we execute on our plan and position PAA for 2020 and beyond. Slide 12 sets forth our goals for 2019. We look forward to providing updates on our performance versus these goals as we progress throughout the year.
With that I'll turn the call back over to you Roy.
Roy Lamoreaux -- Vice President, Investor Relations & Communications
Thanks Willie. (Operator Instructions) Additionally Brett Magill and I and the Investor Relations team plan to be available this evening and tomorrow to address additional questions. Greg we're now ready to open the call for questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
(Operator Instructions) And first from UBS you'll hear from Shneur Gershuni.
Shneur Gershuni -- UBS -- Analyst
Hi. Good afternoon, guys. Maybe to start off, I wanted to chat about the Exxon JV that was FID-ed. I was wondering if you can give us some color with respect to what percentage points you'll own of the project when it's done? And then are there any operational leverage benefits that Plains will receive mostly to itself from a gathering perspective? Or is it really just a benefit of the pipeline itself?
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Hi, Shneur. Thanks for the question. As we said we're going to be a 20% owner of the joint venture currently. This is Willie. So I think that answers your first question. And maybe I'll just step back and as we think about how benefits Plains and ExxonMobil we've a preeminent position with a lot of flexibility in the basin with the capability to aggregate a lot of volumes in the Permian. And so when you think about matching the strategic needs of an ExxonMobil with their production capabilities and trajectory in the Permian tied to their downstream capabilities on the Gulf coast, it really is quite a natural fit. So as we think about what this brings to us, not only does it bring the capacity on the line but it's further integrated into our system through many different context and of course the other piece of this is building a strong relationship with ExxonMobil as we do other things. Jeremy, do you have anything you wanted to add?
Jeremy Goebel -- Senior Group Vice President, Commercial
No Willie. I guess the number one thing though is aligning with our customers to downstream market as markets move to Gulf Coast for export and expansion of demand just as they've announced recently (inaudible) marketing barrels as well as our (inaudible) third party on our system.
Shneur Gershuni -- UBS -- Analyst
Great. And just one more follow-up. With respect to Capline and I recognize it's been open season and so forth, I think you'd mentioned in your prepared remarks with respect to Capline as well as the other project -- the Red River project that it would have attractive returns. How should we be thinking about it with respect to your historical views on returns? I mean does it kind of like a brownfield type of return and kind of a four multiple type of thing on EBITDA? Or should we be thinking lower or higher around with respect to those types of returns?
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
This is Willie again. I'm going to ask Harry to comment on this. But clearly having an existing footprint and pipe in the ground gives us a significant advantage of getting the projects done as well as cost-efficient way of capital efficiency. And so when we think about what returns those might bring I think you can expect them to be significantly higher than what our normal threshold is. I don't want to get into what exact numbers are because I think it's a little early and we need to let the open season take its course. Harry?
Harry Pefanis -- President and Chief Commercial Officer and Director
Yeah. I mean, I think Willie hit most of the points. It's really going to be tied to the open season results. The open season doesn't generate enough returns to generate the type -- enough interest to generate the type of returns we're forecasting, we wouldn't spend the capital.
Shneur Gershuni -- UBS -- Analyst
Great. Fair enough. Thank you very much guys. I will jump back in the queue.
Operator
Moving on you have Jeremy Tonet with JP Morgan.
Jeremy Tonet -- JP Morgan -- Analyst
Hi. Good afternoon. Someone in the marketplace had thought that this pipe Wink to Webster could be combined with another kind of competing pipe out there. I was wondering if you might be able to talk about the decision tree and what brought you to going with the project alone? It seems like there could be benefits as far as operating leverage that it brings to your system and kind of other synergies that would be uniquely beneficial to you. At the same time there could be concerns that there's too many pipes coming out of basin could adversely impact other things in your system. I was wondering if you could kind of walk through some of the gives and takes there.
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Jeremy this is Willie again. We've -- as we've articulated before this has been a great project for us. We remain very excited about it. We were pleased to have enough to sanction the project and move forward. That being said, we're always looking at not only additional shippers on the line but talking to others on how we might be able to improve the returns for not only us and others. So while open to all that we're still progressing forward and what really wanted to do is get to the point where we could order pipe and get the process going. So what that says is, we haven't -- we certainly haven't eliminated an opportunity to make the project stronger and conversations continue. But at the base core of it we've got pipe ordered and we're ready to go.
Jeremy Tonet -- JP Morgan -- Analyst
That's helpful. Thanks. And then just turning to guidance here. It looks like the facilities guidance, you've been exceeding it it seems like the past several quarters and it points to something a bit lower next year but it seems like you keep coming ahead of what you've been saying. Is there asset sale timing or kind of other stuff involved there? Or could you expand a bit more about what drives the assumptions as far as being lower year-over-year there?
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
Yeah, I'll take a shot at that. This is Al. Yeah, exactly what you said. If you recall and went back a year, our guidance for 2018 was $665 million, the same guidance we provided for 2019. The segment performed above expectation this year. Some of that we aren't forecasting continues. We will see if that turns out to be conservative or not. There was a small bit of asset sale that impacted year-over-year but it's pretty small. We're using a little bit higher of the FX rate assumption for our Canadian business which impacts it. But generally speaking it is just that we've overperformed this year and we're kind of using the same forecast for next year.
Jeremy Tonet -- JP Morgan -- Analyst
Sorry, which part over performed this year?
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
The facility segment. I mean the throughput at terminals being the primary bit. We picked up more rail activity late this year than we expected. But really a large part of it is some of the throughput that we've seen at some of our market hub terminals like Cushing, Patoka, St. James.
Jeremy Tonet -- JP Morgan -- Analyst
That's helpful. I will get back in the queue.
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Yeah, Jeremy one other thing to think about if you think about, for example, the rail impacts on our facilities, we had very, very wide Canadian differentials earlier in the year. And one of the things that kind of changed our outlook at the end of the year was the production -- the mandated production cuts in Canada which has taken the differentials much, much tighter. So it's things like that that have impacted some of the facilities' earnings.
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
Or forecast.
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Yeah, forecast for 2019.
Jeremy Tonet -- JP Morgan -- Analyst
Great. That's helpful. I will get back in the queue. Thanks.
Operator
Next question comes from Spiro Dounis with Credit Suisse.
Spiro Dounis -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Hey, good afternoon. I just wanted to start off on Capline if we could. Trying to get a sense of the total potential capacity there once you fully reverse it, how to think about that? And then maybe bottlenecks as well, either upstream at or Dapple (ph) or even Diamond. Basically how much flow should we expecting to be coming down to the Gulf Coast?
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Diamond probably has about 2000 barrels a day of capacity. Well, not today but can be expanded to work and move about 200,000 barrels a day. It's really going to be a function of how much of the volumes are light and how much are heavy. In (inaudible) it could move about 1 million barrels a day from North to South. But it will be meaningfully less because with the introduction of Canadian crude moving South and it will be a function of how many pumps. So it's probably too early to say from Patoka down but too many factors I think, access to Canadian crude, pumps and the type of crude that goes into the pipe.
Spiro Dounis -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Got it. Appreciate that. And then just switching gears a bit here on Rockies volumes. They were a lot higher than we had expected this quarter. So just wondering two things. One what drove that and how sustainable are the volumes that we just saw?
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
I think Canadian diffs drove a lot of it.
Spiro Dounis -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
All right. Appreciate the color. Thank you.
Operator
Next up we've Gabe Moreen with Mizuho Securities.
Gabe Moreen -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst
Hey. Good afternoon everyone. I'll be the first I guess to ask about us. Al just in terms of I guess things having changed a bit since November between West Texas and Gulf spreads and what happened as Willie alluded to in Western Canada, can you just talk about I think your prior view was basically spreads being wide in the first half of this year and then narrowing in the back half of this year. Can you just talk about kind of what your market view is to what extent you need that view to play out to hit that plus or minus $350 million and just kind of a degree of confidence in that guidance given where spreads have gone?
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Hey, Gabe this is Willie. I'll take a stab to start it and others can jump in. When we looked at 2019 we did expect spreads to stay wide until lines started getting built and put into service. One of the things that changes there are some third-party lines that are going into service earlier than we thought which I think has impacted the differentials. And so there is a piece of that that is impacting our thoughts on 2019. I think the other perspective I'd give you is that Al talked about our adjustments to our mark-to-market at the end of the year. We've roughly $610 million of which a third of it was reversing losses from the previous quarter. But the balance of that was really a mark-to-market on what we've hedged in '19 and '20. And if you think about what we've done there's a good portion of that that is probably covered under that as part of hedged for this year. We came out with a guidance of $350 million which we feel very confident we can meet. I think going forward if the arbitrage opportunities are very slim between Permian -- the Permian and Midland it would be harder to capture additional differentials. But that's kind of where we sit.
Gabe Moreen -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst
Okay great. Thanks Willie. And then following up basically on the leverage slide. I don't know if currently under review statement around the historical target range on leverage is new or not, but can you speak to that a little bit? And how that might play into your thoughts about capital returns? I guess everyone's expecting you to announce later this year.
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
Yeah, Gabe this is Al. I guess we added that comment there but the one slide we've been using for probably about six months on distribution management, we are trying to tie all of this together as we think about kind of the financial policies, capital allocation thoughts, distributions leverage. So all that is being kind of combined in our thought process and as we kind of conclude that in the first half of this year we would expect to come out and discuss it with the broader community. That comment clearly we brought our leverage down, gotten back into our range and what our view is is that we need to challenge whether the lower range should be reduced and so that will be part of our thought process.
Gabe Moreen -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst
Thanks, Al.
Operator
And next from SunTrust we have Tristan Richardson.
Tristan Richardson -- SunTrust -- Analyst
Hey. Good afternoon guys. Just a quick question on the transport volumes you talk about for the budget for 2019. Can you talk about the Permian component of that? And how it compares to the 3.7 which you guys reported for 2018?
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
Yeah this is Al. We didn't provide a separate number for Permian, but I think on our guidance you can see I think we've showing about 7 million barrels a day of total transport and you can see the growth from this year. The vast majority of that growth is coming off the Permian business.
Tristan Richardson -- SunTrust -- Analyst
Understood. That's helpful. And then just thinking about Capline in terms of the discrete time line of the different crude grades. Should we think about the majority of the potential return opportunity coming at that later date when you're able to start flowing heaviers? Or is there potential to see early cash flows from that project with the lighter grades?
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
(inaudible) earlier Capline contributions from prior grades. So the capacity from Cushing down to St. James should be available on a quicker time frame than the heavies moving down from Patoka. We'll see what the open season results are but certainly that would be our expectation.
Tristan Richardson -- SunTrust -- Analyst
Understood. Thanks, guys, very much.
Operator
Next question comes from Jean Ann Salisbury with Bernstein.
Jean Ann Salisbury -- Bernstein -- Analyst
Hi. You have Cactus II for partial service in third quarter and full service in April 2020. I think that the holdout between them is about to build out at Corpus. I believe both Enterprise and Kinder Morgan say that they have room on their pipes in Corpus Christi and there may also some spare Corpus export capacity with someone else. Are you guys exploring any interim solutions that might allow Cactus II to run at full service earlier?
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Jeremy why don't you take this one?
Jeremy Goebel -- Senior Group Vice President, Commercial
Jean Ann, this is Jeremy Goebel. We're well ahead I think of the other party connectivity (inaudible) infrastructure. This is our first pipes down there. In addition with Cactus II we've got dock capacity for our customers so we think we'll be able to ramp up pretty quickly. We're actively engaged on construction to get into as soon as possible in addition to getting the connectivity in place. We feel from an aggregation standpoint, from a distribution standpoint, we're in good shape with connections that are planned and really don't see a need for capacity at the Houston at this time for Cactus II specifically.
Unidentified Participant -- -- Analyst
Okay, that makes sense. And then just a quick one. What is your internal estimate of your weighted average cost of capital currently?
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
This is Al. It clearly fluctuates frequently but roughly 9%.
Jean Ann Salisbury -- Bernstein -- Analyst
Okay. And that's kind of what you would use for project return plus 300 to 500? Okay. Cool. Thank you.
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
Yeah, so 12% to 14%. Clearly we would like to do more than the high end but that's kind of the target.
Jean Ann Salisbury -- Bernstein -- Analyst
Makes sense. Thanks.
Operator
Next from Jefferies we have Vikram Bagri.
Vikram Bagri -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Hey, guys. I wanted to understand all the moving parts as it relates to CapEx. What all projects are included in there? Is the estimate for Capline versus Diamond extension the Red River project is it all in there? And if not how much higher can this CapEx plan for 2019 be? And is it a plan to do any more asset sales to fund that capital program? And how should we think about all that?
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
This is Al. No, those handful of specific projects you mentioned are not in the $1.1 billion. We are not planning to provide a asset sale target this year. We don't feel like we need to look to sell assets to fund growth capital. We've made substantial progress on our leverage plans. So our view is that we -- if the capital program grows that we will fund it with retained cash flow and some modest amount of debt increase.
Vikram Bagri -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Thanks. Great. And the second question I had was on Capline. The 18-month gap between light and heavy, I just wanted to understand what the limiting factor there is. I recall from the last conference call that, I think you mentioned Memphis -- southbound from Memphis can be reversed in 18 months and six months after that you can reverse the entire pipeline. You set an embedded assumption for Keystone XL or line three in there and that's why the gap is so wide? And secondly, can there be a potential partner, an additional partner on Capline who can provide additional volumes at Patoka? Are you looking at that option as well?
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Harry, do you want to take that?
Harry Pefanis -- President and Chief Commercial Officer and Director
Sure. Yeah, the limiting factor of Patoka's access to Canadian crude is time-to-time reversal with when we think Keystone or Enbridge would add additional capacity into Patoka. The base case does not assume any additional parties in Capline. Of course if there were compelling economics to have another partner in Capline, we would obviously consider that.
Vikram Bagri -- Jefferies -- Analyst
So the assumption is line three comes online sometimes much sooner than 2022. Is it -- is the assumption that line three doesn't come online on time or you might not get any barrels from line three expansion 375,000 barrels a day which is being planned?
Harry Pefanis -- President and Chief Commercial Officer and Director
I'm not sure we have a good enough handle on when line three is going to come online. But as you know that Enbridge is not able to contract additional capacity until mid to late 2021. So that's part of the thought process and the timing.
Vikram Bagri -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Sounds good. Thank you very much.
Harry Pefanis -- President and Chief Commercial Officer and Director
Line three still has -- it still has permits (ph). I think we'd love to see them in service much earlier than 2022. But that's -- it's like I said they still have permits and they can actually complete the project.
Vikram Bagri -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Sounds good. Thank you very much.
Operator
Next question will come from Dennis Coleman with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Dennis Coleman -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Good afternoon everyone. Thanks for taking the question. I want to just circle back to the derivatives gain if I can. You gave us a little bit of color on sort of two-thirds of it was for positions in 2019 and 2020. And Al you rattled off a number of different things that were driving that, Canadian diffs, the Permian diffs. Can we get any granularity on which of those might be more of it. Is it half the Canadian differentials and anything would help?
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
Yeah. This is Al. We normally don't provide that level of breakout. But clearly if you look at it both those spreads have tightened meaningfully late in the year. The Permian spreads as you know as well as WCS does. Oil prices came down which as far as our fractionation hedges for our straddle plants bringing the NGL value down as well. So all three of those things really drove the bulk of it. All of those results flowed through our S&L segment. And again that's partly why we haven't had to change from November S&L guidance till today is because we hedged a meaningful part of it.
Dennis Coleman -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Okay. Thanks. And then just a more detailed one if I can. You gave us CapEx for the Wink to Webster I think for 2019. Is it -- should we assume a similar number for 2020?
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
No. I would think about it -- this is Willie. I would think about it as a typical S-curve on a construction project and I think that's the most resolution we can give you.
Dennis Coleman -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Okay. Thank you.
Operator
Next from Wells Fargo we have Michael Blum.
Michael Blum -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
Hey, good afternoon everybody. Couple of quick questions on Capline. What is the timing of the open season? And I guess when would be the earliest you could move to FID status on that?
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
The open season extends through April 30th.
Michael Blum -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
Okay. And then in terms of the -- any incremental CapEx that you add to the budget for 2019, is it basically if Red River or Capline reach the finish line? Are those the kind of the two projects to watch for?
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
This is Al. Yeah, I think those two would be. But there's also -- I mean those are the ones we're publicly have talked about. But we're continuing to look at other stuff again maybe smaller in nature but those aren't the only two things that we're trying to advance.
Michael Blum -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
Okay. Great. Thank you.
Operator
Next question will come from Ethan Bellamy with Baird.
Ethan Bellamy -- Baird -- Analyst
Hi guys. We've seen a shift in financial metrics than what investors would like to see for infrastructure companies from DCF growth to, say, earnings and free cash flow. What are the current management compensation metrics? Are they the right metrics to use and would you anticipate any changes to those going forward in the next couple of years?
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Ethan this is Willie. One of the things we've done is we historically had performance metrics around distributions and hitting certain marks and we've shifted that to DCF per unit and that's something that's already happened and I think you'll see us further build on that.
Ethan Bellamy -- Baird -- Analyst
All right. Thanks. And then and just one follow-up. Are you seeing any steel or labor cost inflation related to the tariffs and are the E&C cost accelerating given how many large diameter long-haul pipes are planned?
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
E&P costs?
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
E&C.
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Pardon.
E&C. We're seeing higher pipe costs that's for sure. Yeah, Ethan, we don't have -- I don't have a good price number for you today on what U.S. steel is. I had some numbers previously. When the tariffs were implemented we certainly saw a pop-up, but I just don't know exactly where it stands today.
Ethan Bellamy -- Baird -- Analyst
And would you say you have a significant exposure to cost inflation or most of your cost locked in at this point?
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
For Cactus II all are locked in with the two companies as well as the pipe. And for the Exxon JV we actually priced it in September and we priced it again now and the prices came down. So they have kind of peaked earlier and then they have come down some, but it's still higher probably you would have estimated a year ago. On the E&C side, we continue to manage it. Our procurement grew progressively, fed (ph) down everything and we will work to manage those costs. But from a labor standpoint it is real short than it has historically been, but we're going to actively manage those costs and we think the capital estimates we are using are very reflective of the current markets.
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Yeah, Ethan, we've actually placed the order for the line pipe for the Exxon -- the Wink to Webster project. And just a side point is it's from U.S. steel producers. So it has less exposure perhaps to tariffs and other duties.
Ethan Bellamy -- Baird -- Analyst
All right. Thanks so much.
Operator
Moving on we have Colton Bean with Tudor, Pickering and Holt.
Colton Bean -- Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. -- Analyst
Good afternoon. Just to frame the 2019 CapEx discussion a bit differently. I appreciate you are probably still working through a few details there on Capline, but any preliminary thoughts on what work may be required in 2019 to hit that Q3 '20 in service may be Diamond expansion or southern segment there?
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
Well the diamond expansion includes Thomson (ph) and extension line 30 miles or so. The Capline portion of it is just going to be reversing pumps and cleaning the line versus -- purging the line, cleaning it and additional pump capacity and some modifications at the manifold at both receipt and delivery locations.
Colton Bean -- Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. -- Analyst
And in terms of timeline on the construction, how much of that would need to be in 2019?
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Yes, Colton I would think about that project as it's not hundreds of millions of dollars right. When you think about the exposure for us it would be -- we would be a partner in that and I would think about the exposure for 2019 in a smaller number than that. Does that help?
Colton Bean -- Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. -- Analyst
That's helpful. Yeah. And just on the NGL pipes, pretty significant step up versus what we've seen in the last couple of years. You guys have stopped for a bit of commentary on what the primary drivers were?
Jeremy Goebel -- Senior Group Vice President, Commercial
On which pipes?
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Which pipe was that, Colton?
Jeremy Goebel -- Senior Group Vice President, Commercial
On the NGL pipes. (multiple speakers)
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Yeah, so a lot of that -- it's a little bit on the gathering system, it's mostly movements in the market area around (inaudible).
Colton Bean -- Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. -- Analyst
Got it. Thank you.
Operator
Next question comes from David Amos with Heikkinen Energy.
David Amos -- Heikkinen Energy -- Analyst
Hi guys. I just wanted to see if you wouldn't mind going into a little bit of detail about the revisions to your commodity and volume assumptions between your third quarter guidance and your fourth quarter guidance.
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Al?
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
You're talking about the difference between the $2.45 billion and the $2.4 billion for our fee-based segments?
David Amos -- Heikkinen Energy -- Analyst
Right. I think you mentioned earlier in the call that that was reflective of a revision to your volume guidance based on potential change to commodity outlook?
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
Yeah, (inaudible) basically what we have provided in November is what we call preliminary guidance. It effectively was our shadow guidance from August of last year adjusted for the BridgeTex sale. So clearly a lot of things have changed in that period of time. It's roughly a 2% change. Currently we do expect to see some impacts on producers' activity relative to what we had expected previously with the price move. Clearly there's been some impacts with regard to pipes coming on earlier than what we were thinking before which is partly why you see the spreads that we've been talking about coming in a little quicker. Lower prices does impact the value of our PLA that we collect as part of the tariffs. We also are going with a little higher FX rate which affects those things. There is no one underlying thing but the macro environment I think we feel like we should be a little bit more cautious relative to it as a result of kind of the price environment producer activity levels as well as these pipes coming on earlier.
Jeremy Goebel -- Senior Group Vice President, Commercial
Al, this is Jeremy looking to add as the impact of the Alberta (inaudible).
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
Yes. That's a good point.
David Amos -- Heikkinen Energy -- Analyst
Okay. Thanks. And then just trying to understand the Red River expansion project a little bit better. Are those -- is there a portion of this 100,000 barrels a day of barrels expected to get consumed in the East Texas region or all of these supposed to go to St. James? And if so how do you connect and how comfortable do you feel about the connection?
Jeremy Goebel -- Senior Group Vice President, Commercial
This is Jeremy. It will be a mix. Ultimately it will be demand driven but it will be a mix of locations and how it will be consumed.
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
And there's also some infrastructure in the Longview area down to the Gulf Coast. So there are several markets that (inaudible) system.
David Amos -- Heikkinen Energy -- Analyst
That's helpful. Thank you guys.
Roy Lamoreaux -- Vice President, Investor Relations & Communications
Hey Greg. I think we have got time for one more question. So if we could wrap up after that.
Operator
Okay. In that case we will take our final question Jerren Holder with Goldman Sachs.
Jerren Holder -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Thanks. Just a quick one on Capline. And can you guys move light crude from Patoka in 2020?
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Yes. We should be able to.
Jerren Holder -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Okay. And then --
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
We should be able to.
Jerren Holder -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
And then a quick follow-up on crude exports. What are the opportunities there for Plains? Obviously a lot of projects have been announced. Just trying to see how you guys are thinking about that.
Jeremy Goebel -- Senior Group Vice President, Commercial
We have our facility at Corpus Christi and we have a facility at St. James that could both could explore further.
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
And Jerren this is Willie. The other piece of this is Harry mentioned the assets we do have. We went into this
a couple of years ago particularly around the open season for Cactus II. We were thinking about an integrated solutions of pipe versus -- pipe and dock and what we found is that shippers want to have choices of docks. So we shifted our strategy a little bit to we think where the best solution to be able to get barrels to the coast and what we strive to do is to have connectivity to the many, many docks that are being expanded to be able to get access to water. And that's so far has -- there's been a lot of interest in us being able to get connections.
Jerren Holder -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Great. Thank you.
Roy Lamoreaux -- Vice President, Investor Relations & Communications
Hey. Thank you everyone for joining us today. We appreciate your time and look forward to talking to all of you very soon. Thank you.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen that does conclude our call for today. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect.
Duration: 46 minutes
Call participants:
Roy Lamoreaux -- Vice President, Investor Relations & Communications
Willie Chiang -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Al Swanson -- Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
Shneur Gershuni -- UBS -- Analyst
Jeremy Goebel -- Senior Group Vice President, Commercial
Harry Pefanis -- President and Chief Commercial Officer and Director
Jeremy Tonet -- JP Morgan -- Analyst
Spiro Dounis -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Gabe Moreen -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst
Tristan Richardson -- SunTrust -- Analyst
Jean Ann Salisbury -- Bernstein -- Analyst
Unidentified Participant -- -- Analyst
Vikram Bagri -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Dennis Coleman -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Michael Blum -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
Ethan Bellamy -- Baird -- Analyst
Colton Bean -- Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. -- Analyst
David Amos -- Heikkinen Energy -- Analyst
Jerren Holder -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
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