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DCP Midstream, LPÂ (DCP)
Q3Â 2020 Earnings Call
Nov 6, 2020, 11:00 p.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Q3 2020 DCP Midstream Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]
I would now like to hand the conference over to your host, Senior Director, Investor Relations, Sarah Sandberg. Madam, please go ahead.
Sarah Sandberg -- Senior Director, Investor Relations
Thanks, Latif. Good morning and welcome to the DCP Midstream third quarter 2020 earnings call. Today's call is being webcast and I encourage those listening on the phone to view the supporting slides, which are available on our website at dcpmidstream.com.
Before I begin, I'd like to point out that our discussion today includes forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ due to certain risk factors that affect our business. Please review the second slide in the deck that describes our use of forward-looking statements. And for a complete listing of the risk factors, please refer to the partnership's latest SEC filings. We will also use various non-GAAP measures, which are reconciled to the nearest GAAP measure in schedules in the appendix section of the slides. Wouter van Kempen, CEO; and Sean O'Brien, CFO will be our speakers today. And after their remarks, we'll take your questions.
With I'll turn the call over to Wouter.
Wouter van Kempen -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Sarah, and thanks, everyone for joining us. I hope you're all safe and well. Our team has delivered another strong quarter as we successfully navigate the ongoing challenges of 2020. And I offer my thanks to each and every DCP employee for their continued hard work.
As a result of our multi-year strategic evolution, we started this year on a strong foundation and that has served us very well throughout this period of uncertainty. Over the past decade, we made investments to fully integrate our value chain to capture more earnings, while rightsizing the portfolio to ensure a high caliber footprint in the country's premier basins. We diligently executed the supply long, capacity short strategy, while optimizing existing assets and functions within digital transformation established in 2016. These strategies enable us to be well prepared heading into this downturn and we expect them to accelerate our recovery in a post-COVID world.
Specifically looking to our Q3 performance, with an unwavering focus on operational excellence, we have maintained top safety and reliability performance, while driving emission reductions and I look forward to talking about this more later in the call.
Turning to our financial performance. As a result of our disciplined and optimization efforts in Q3, our assets generated $331 million of adjusted EBITDA totaling $963 million year-to-date. We expect to beat our year-over-year cost reduction target of $120 million and we have delivered 71% reduction in total capital expenditures year-to-date. What started as swift and aggressive self-help measures at the onset of this downturn has now evolved into a sustainable restructuring of our cost basis. Couple this cost and capital discipline with a proven earnings power of our asset base and we have generated $152 million year-to-date. And we define excess free cash flow as distributable cash flow less distributions and less expansion capital expenditures.
We've delivered on our commitment to delever the Company with $156 million of debt reduction in Q3 and an improved bank leverage ratio of 3.9 times. And despite disruptions in our business from the coronavirus, we've remained committed to our DCP 2.0 transformation and sustainability efforts. Specifically to advancing our sustainability goals, earlier this year in partnership with Kairos Aerospace, we launched the largest industry-led methane survey in the United States to deduct and repair fugitive emissions within our asset footprint.
We continue to explore and pilot additional technologies to reduce our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions and these efforts in combination with our sustainability and DCP 2.0 advancements were recently recognized by the World Economic Forum. DCP Midstream was one of 10 new additions to the World Economic Forum's Global Lighthouse Network, which is a community of world-leading companies that have succeeded in the adoption of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies at scale.
Of the 54 total sites and companies within the World Economic Forum's Lighthouse designation, DCP Midstream is one of only five companies in North America and is the only US-based oil and gas company to receive this distinction. More so, incredibly, incredibly proud of our team for this and for all the other accomplishments this year.
So now to talk through the details of the Q3 results, our financial position and outlook, let me turn it over to Sean.
Sean O'Brien -- Group Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Wouter, and good morning. On Slide 4 you'll see that we had another solid quarter, generating DCF of $232 million, representing a 22% increase in DCF year-over-year and driving $130 million of excess free cash flow, which again is after fully funding $20 million of growth capital and $81 million of distributions.
Our strong third quarter results were driven by continued commitment to cost disciplines, supported by our DCP 2.0 efficiencies, which more than offset an adverse $24 million year-over-year impact from lower commodity prices and dampened volumes. Our risk-based prioritization of projects coupled with no product replacement will drive our 2020 sustaining capital expenditures below the low end of our guidance range.
Growth capital slightly exceeded the high end of our range in Q3 as a result of cost overruns on the Cheyenne Connector. Adjusted EBITDA for the L&M segments saw an 8% increase year-over-year with solid earnings from Sand and Southern Hills offsetting lower NGL marketing results as pricing volatility dampened in Q3. We saw an increase in NGL pipeline throughput year-over-year, driven by increased ethane recovery, short haul volumes and Southern Hills extension and the Front Range in Texas Express pipeline expansions.
Adjusted EBITDA for the G&P segment saw 5% increase year-over-year, despite a decrease in overall G&P volumes over the same period of time. Our G&P performance is a result of increased higher margin wellhead volumes in the DJ Basin and Permian and continued cost discipline throughout our footprint.
Moving to Slide 5, you'll see our solid financial position as we continue to strengthen the balance sheet through this cycle. With 62% of our earnings coming from our logistics and marketing segment and 83% of our margin either fee-based or hedged, our footprint is fully integrated with stable cash flows. We achieved a $130 million or 17% reduction in year-to-date cost compared to 2019, and we believe that the vast majority of this reduction is sustainable.
Couple our cost and capital discipline with our strong portfolio of assets, favorable contract structures and strategic hedging program, we generated $152 million of excess free cash flow year-to-date. This has enabled us to lower our debt by $175 million in 2020 and improve our bank leverage ratio to 3.9 times better than our 4.0 times target for the year.
With continued solid liquidity of $1.3 billion, our top financial priority is to utilize our growing excess free cash flow to continue delevering the Company.
On Slide 6, I want to provide additional color on our Q4 outlook. First, our Q3 volumes have been in line with our second half expectations with slight sequential declines impacted by planned maintenance in the Permian and on the Discovery asset in the south. We anticipate sequential increase in G&P volumes as rig and frac crews work within our footprint and we exit the Q2, Q3 lows of the downturn.
In line with our outlook on the Q2 call, throughput on our NGL pipes is expected to decline as commodity prices force increased ethane rejection. As mentioned earlier, the team has worked incredibly hard to control what we can control and reduce costs this year more than offsetting the impact of production declines and lower commodity prices. With that being said, we do expect both increased costs and sustaining capital in Q4 as deferred projects are reprioritized.
Growth capital for the remainder of the year is expected to be minimal as we finalize expenditures from the Cheyenne Connector and the Latham 2 offload.
Finally, we expect commodity prices to be at or above our targets for the remainder of the year. In all, our Q3 outperformance demonstrates the resiliency and durability of the DCP business model and we anticipate continued strong execution throughout the remainder of this year. I want to say thank you to our team for another great quarter. And with that, I'll hand it back to Wouter.
Wouter van Kempen -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Sean. So before I end our prepared remarks, I would be remissive if I didn't acknowledge this week's election. No, it's too soon to speculate on the future of energy policy, let me say this, our consistent strategy is built for the long term and is not reactive to election outcomes. We will continue to proactively engage in energy policy and efficacy at all levels of government, including the federal, state and local officials. We're eager to work with any administration and we're proud of our track record of operations and our vision for the future.
We know from Colorado, how to successfully operate within the country's most stringent regulations and for years, for our DCP Technology Ventures front, we've been seeking the industry's leading cutting-edge technologies to ensure DCP sparked climate solutions of the future, not a part of an obsolete industry of the past. As global population increases and quality of life improves around the world, natural gas will be a critical piece of our energy ecosystem for decades to come. And as we collectively work to solve climate change, the oil and gas industry has some of the brightest minds, the best talent and our methane management efforts should be focused on keeping it out of the air, not keeping it in the ground.
So let me move to Slide 7. I want to offer some clear insight into our strategic priorities. First, our vision to be the safest, most reliable, low-cost midstream service provider serves as our constant foundation. Through our dedication to sustainability, financial discipline and strength and our DCP 2.0 transformation, we continue to drive toward this vision and long-term success.
We have evolved our focus on operational excellence to encompass a broader set of environmental, social and governance goals, which enhance our sustainability, but we've had strong commitment to sustainability for years including air emission targets in every single DCP employees' compensation since 2007.
Our team has responded to our 2020 call to action on ESG with vigor and innovation. We've made step change improvements in our emissions and launched the country's largest industry-led methane survey, but we know we must look beyond the E of ESG.
We've also published our inaugural sustainability report, established a Sustainability Council and an Inclusion and Diversity Committee, continues our engagement and investments in our communities and maintain top safety performance and more.
In tandem with our sustainability efforts, we remain dedicated to further optimizing our business, piloting new technologies and ultimately leading the midstream industry in innovation through our DCP 2.0 transformation. These initiatives combined with our multi-year evolution to become a fully integrated midstream service provider and our substantial cost restructuring efforts has set the Company up extremely well for long-term success.
Moving forward, we will maintain a laser focus on our best-in-class cost and capital discipline, as we transition to a lean manufacturing model prioritizing returns rather than capital growth. As a result we're generating sustainable excess free cash, which is being utilized to improve our leverage and strengthen our financial flexibility and stability. That reduction is our top capital allocation priority and we have line of sight to delever our balance sheet and hit our mid-3 sized bank leverage target, all while offering a competitive distribution to our investors.
In all, our strategy is built to support the thriving company, creating long-term value and drive the increased unitholder return. And with that, I want to say thank you again to all of our employees for their hard, hard work and to all of our investors for their continued commitment to DCP.
And I look forward to taking your questions. With that, Latif, why don't you kick us off.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Yes, sir. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet of J.P. Morgan. Your question, please.
Joseph Martoglio -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Hi, this is Joe on for Jeremy. Wanted to start around some of the upstream consolidation recently, do you see that impacting your business at all and also, do you think midstream could kind of follow upstream's footprint and we could see some midstream consolidation as well also at some point?
Wouter van Kempen -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Hi, Joe, let me take that one. I think you're absolutely right. Like we're seeing consolidation on the producer side, I think we're going to see consolidation on the midstream side. The question is, when is that going to happen? If I look in general at where some of that consolidation has impacted us, I look at it from a producer point of view as a net positive for us and you see here in the DJ Basin, for instance, you get larger producers and I think that can bring some efficiencies to what is a great basin.So -- and that's on the producer side, I look at it as a good thing.
I think from a midstream point of view, we've been talking about the need for this industry to consolidate for years. We expected it in kind of '15 and '16, it didn't happen. My expectation personally, yes, it will happen here. The industry -- the midstream industry is kind of built with an infrastructure in many cases for about 14 million barrels, 15 million barrels a day of crude oil production. We were on track to hit 13 this year, we went down to 10 and we're probably going to end somewhere around 11 and I don't think that's going to change massively in the next year. So yes, the midstream industry needs to consolidate, needs to come together. I think it needs to happen the way it happens on the producer side right now, so it's low-to-no premium type of deals, stock-for-stock, unit-for-unit so that all the synergies you create really flow through to the respective shareholders.
I think from our point of view, if you think about our strategy that we have had for the last couple of years. We've had a strategy of being supply long, capacity short. We believe we're going to come to the end of the super cycle of growth that we have for seven-plus years and that's what is going to change. So we didn't want to own the last pipeline, the last fractionator, the last gas processing plants and that's why we've been doing a number of outflows in our earnings. We started working on, what I would call, a lean manufacturing type of profile.
DCP 2.0, our digital transformation. We have a leading digital platform, which would lend itself really, really good and then I think if you look at what we've done this year and what the team has accomplished from a cost point of view, we completely restructured our cost basis. We are a low cost operator and lean manufacturing kind of digital -- digitally enabled, low-cost platform lends itself I think really, really well on the consolidation cycle.
Joseph Martoglio -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Okay, that's very helpful. And then I also wanted to ask on ethane rejection and just I guess, what are you seeing currently around at ethane recovery for the fourth quarter, does it seem consistent with the levels in the third quarter and also kind of I guess, are you seeing any impacts from ethane cracker outages due to hurricanes?
Sean O'Brien -- Group Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. Hey, Joe, this is Sean O'Brien. Hey, we are seeing a little bit of a reduction in the recovery levels, so obviously an increase in rejection as we head into Q4. Not driven heavily by some of the disruptions more so the frac spread -- the frac spread has tightened a little bit and we're seeing -- the good news is it's not full rejection. I think we were somewhere around 35 a day on the rejection side in Q3. Just to remind you from our portfolio standpoint, we were in the 90 a day range previous quarter. So quite a bit -- it came off quite a bit, I think -- we think we're going to head back up a little bit in Q4, that's what we're seeing so far this year, more so driven by frac spread, stronger gas prices. We're all rooting for ethane, which many times correlates with the gas to start moving up and then we'll see that back off. So what we're calling it is sort of partial rejection or partial recovery, whichever way you're looking at it, but definitely less recovery in Q4 so far.
Joseph Martoglio -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Got it. That's helpful. Thank you. That's all for me.
Sean O'Brien -- Group Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Thanks.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Shneur Gershuni of UBS. Your question, please.
Shneur Gershuni -- UBS -- Analyst
Hi, good morning, everyone. Maybe to start off here. Just wondering if you can go through kind of the volume cadence on your system. Originally, the expectation was that second-half volumes would exceed second quarter, third quarter is down a little bit, was it more about the shape that it was supposed to be in 4Q, is it the maintenance items that you just sort of mentioned in the prepared remark and maybe as part of the question, if you can give us an update on where you see rigs on your footprint by basin? What you're seeing in terms of frac crew -- completion crews and so forth? Just kind of wondering if you can give a little bit more color on that.
Sean O'Brien -- Group Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. Hey, good morning, Shneur. Let me start and I know that Wouter has been in contact with a lot of our -- the CEOs of our producers, so he'll maybe talk for the accounts a little bit. But in terms of the trends I think you're on it, we definitely had in Q3, some maintenance, specifically in the Permian. We saw some of that coming, but that definitely impacted some of the volumes. Obviously, they're not long-term wearing out [Phonetic] everything when it's planned. Also on the Discovery system, which would impact the South we saw some maintenance. There is a little bit of shape. I think that's what you are alluding to a stronger Q4. In my read remarks I gave a little bit of color that we do see the G&P side strengthening a little bit in Q4 and then let me give you some other stats that I think are important. If you think about the exit rate, I know we're looking at a lot of average Q2 to average Q3 but if you look at the exit rate, i.e. coming out of September versus coming out of June, the DJ was up 5% coming out of September versus June.
The Permian was up 3% to 4% and that was even with some outages. And then this one is pretty strong. The South again predominantly driven by the Eagle Ford was up 10% coming out of Q3 versus Q2. Midcontinent is kind of on an natural decline and it wasn't impacted as much by the shut-ins. All those other three areas were, which is why you see some of those upticks.
So by and large, I think as we exited Q3, things were in line with what we thought. I think, we think things will get a little bit stronger in Q4. Last thing I'll mention before I hand it over to Wouter for some of the rig stuff. Remember that obviously we're seeing some of the growth in some of that areas that we have a better net back, some of the areas the producers have the better netbacks. So you saw it in our own margins, our G&P margins performed quite well. That's because the DJ is performing well and the Delaware. They are higher return areas and they are also the higher return areas for the producers.
Wouter van Kempen -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, maybe Shneur, Wouter here, just got a couple of thoughts on what we see with our various producers. I think for most of the producers like, there tends to be a bit of story in like, hey, we hope that we can keep things flat year-over-year from 2020 to '21 but it's also a little bit too soon to tell depending on what is going to happen with the economy, what's going to happen with recovery, what's going to happen with vaccines and the coronavirus. But I would say that a lot of our producers I have seen are cautiously optimistic. We have seen some people bring back rates, we have seen people bring some completion crews. So at the same time, I think it's a bit of a wait-and-see still here and I think we're getting a lot more clarity here in the coming months.
Shneur Gershuni -- UBS -- Analyst
Okay, fair enough. Maybe to just follow up on the last question there. I hope I coined your phrase correctly here, digitally enabled lean manufacturing.
Wouter van Kempen -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah.
Shneur Gershuni -- UBS -- Analyst
Just kind of curious is there, in your view, that is the way to basically increase your sustainability ratings and that's kind of the sustainability focus for the Company and it kind of seems like you've built kind of a best-in-class mousetrap in terms of reducing costs and optimizing capital. Does that become a strategy for you to pursue M&A at some point, either whole companies or acquiring some assets here and there, obviously once your leverage is in check? I'm just kind of curious how you're sort of thinking about that on a holistic basis.
Wouter van Kempen -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
No, I think in general, Shneur, like you paraphrased it really, really well. Like this has been our strategy for a long time. We believe that industries once they go through a major growth cycle, you tend to go into consolidation cycle, you got to be ready for that. Some of it we've been doing over the last number of years. On the one hand is to find prudent growth, even though we didn't or we wanted to be supply long, capacity short, so not go after all pieces of growth and at the same time build that lean manufacturing, digitally enabled platform, which really when you get into a consolidation cycle or a cycle of less growth, you can get as much out of your asset base as you want. So that is absolutely in parallel. We've been advancing these two pathways.
And obviously, I kind of look at it, if you think about consolidation I'm like you got to have the right to consolidate, correct. You've got to have the right to take whatever you have and build a better mousetrap versus companies that are stand-alone. And I think there is absolutely no doubt about it. What we have done and what this team has done over the last four to five years, our bundled digital transformation is best-in-class in our industry. Hey, it's not just the World Economic Forum who says the only US based oil and gas company that is really applying fourth industrial on digital tools -- fourth Industrial Revolution digital tools to their business model. So I think there's a lot of great that the team has done. It is great if you keep the company stand-alone and keep to -- kind of survive and thrive stand-alone. I think it is also a great model to partake in a consolidation cycle.
Shneur Gershuni -- UBS -- Analyst
Really appreciate the color on that. Thank you very much.
Wouter van Kempen -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
You're welcome.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Spiro Dounis of Credit Suisse. Your line is open.
Spiro Dounis -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Hi, good morning, guys. Wanted to start off with buybacks, which obviously trending these days among your peers and I know last time we talked about some of the deleveraging was really the only thing on your mind for the next 18 months or so. Sounds like that's still very important for you, but here we are kind of below 4 times at this point. So I'm just wondering, is that still the case? And I guess what are you looking for to maybe change that view and increase your appetite to do something like a buyback?
Sean O'Brien -- Group Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Spiro, couple of things, right off the bat, I think your assessment is accurate. I'm incredibly pleased and impressed with the Company's ability to generate excess free cash flow. We've stayed true to our plan and strategy of delevering, we've taken a $175 million off. I still think there is some work to do there, Spiro, but the good news is we're well on our way. We're generating a lot of excess free cash flow. I see that growing next year. And I want to make sure that we stay focused on that approach and I think that's going to keep the Company going in terms of the strategy for the foreseeable future into 2021 for sure.
Wouter van Kempen -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
And Spiro, maybe to add just a little bit to that. I think buybacks as a strategy or as a capital allocation tool does make sense for certain companies but our priority right now is to delever the company. We have delevered year-to-date already $175 million and that's going to grow here in the fourth quarter and it's going to grow next year. So for us, getting the balance sheets and call it a 3.5 mid 3 sizable leverage ratio is going to be the key priority.
One thing that I think it's interesting. If you look over the last 10 years, where our industry has been criticized by sell-side analysts, by buy-side analysts, by investors in this industry, by generalist investors it has all been about hey, this industry is not good in allocating capital. And that is a key criticism for the industry. Buybacks makes sense but buybacks makes sense when A, you have a balance sheet that strong and B, your yield is high. If one of those is not there, it is absolutely not the right time. That is not the right capital allocation strategy. And so for us having a strong balance sheet is the most important thing right now. It's good for equity holders, it's good for debt holders and I -- in my mind, it's an absolute no-regret move for DCP to continue to strengthen the balance sheet at this very moment.
Spiro Dounis -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Understood. I appreciate your discipline there. Second question just on the guidance. I think last quarter you talked about maybe being closer to the low end. And so I'm sorry if I missed in your remarks just around the fourth quarter and the trajectory there, but it just seems like that's a fairly conservative figure at this point, even the mid-point, other guidance would -- when applied down quarter-over-quarter. So just can you give us a sense of where you are in that respect right now?
Wouter van Kempen -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, I appreciate that. I just want to kind of take people back a little bit because this year is such an interesting year and so many things have happened, so we reissued our original guidance. So not a COVID-lower guidance or other stuff, we reissued our original pre-COVID, pre-OPEC, OPEC loss, pre-global pandemic guidance just three months ago. And we are, to your point, we're well and well on track. So I think if you look at the end of the year, we're approaching the near kind of the mid-term on the EBITDA, I think if you look at the end of the year, we're going to be well above the midpoint on DCF and at -- and even currently at this very moment. If you think about excess free cash flow, we have already surpassed the low end at this moment, nine months in and obviously Sean and I have the advantage of looking at October as well.
So we feel really, really good about that piece as well. In the end I think what we're doing it's all about controlling what we can control. I think the team has executed tremendously strong. We were out of the gate very fast on self-help and other things and you're seeing that in all the numbers. So if you kind of rewind the clock kind of a year ago and you could say that you know what, you're going to be at or above most of your guidance items in a world where you had negative crude oil prices for a while, where you had OPEC and OPEC plus doing some interesting things to US production and you have a global pandemic, the first one in probably of this size kind of in the last century and you are going to do what we're doing here right now as a team. I think we're pretty happy.
Spiro Dounis -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Yeah, so we feel; certainly impressive given that context. Last one if I could, just a quick follow-up to Shneur's question with regards to DCP 2.0 being highly valuable tool for M&A. Do you have a sense on where you are in terms of, if you were to purchase someone else's processing plants run-of-the-mill kind of average and you start running it and integrating it and overlaying DCP 2.0 on it, on day one are you starting out with, I don't know, 30% lower costs? How do we actually think about your advantage over the average once something is overlaid with DCP 2.0?
Wouter van Kempen -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
That's a tough one. It's a good question, Spiro, I appreciate you answering it. I think I'm going to be -- I'm going to choose to be a little coy around this. We have built a mouse trap that is a very good mousetrap. You have seen our safety getting better, you've seen our reliability getting better, you will see our emissions getting lower, all while doing, working and executing this with less people, with better service for our customers. Clearly, something is happening and working here that is working quite nicely.
We have third-party companies come to us and think about, hey, can you help us with this. We -- I spoke about the World Economic Forum and that's not a small feat and like that is a global -- globally, not just an oil and gas company. They look at every single company, industry in the world and people who are actually making a difference. And we clearly make a difference. We're going to continue to move forward with that, to execute on that and continue to lean the system out and be more efficient and how can we do to other people or with -- together with other people, for other people or with other people's assets, the answer is absolutely yes. But we'll see how to play that out.
Spiro Dounis -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Yeah, fair enough. Appreciate you taking at stab at it. Thanks, guys.
Wouter van Kempen -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Spiro.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Elvira Scotto of RBC Capital Markets. Your question, please.
Elvira Scotto -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Yeah. Hey, good morning. So just to follow up on the upstream M&A impacting midstream. I understand that having a larger, better capitalized customer base is a positive, but how do you think it affects midstream in terms of upstream contracting power I guess, for lack of a better word?
Wouter van Kempen -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
So the question, I think it's -- I would say it depends. I think it depends on what basin do you play, what alternatives do producers have. I think in general, and I think this is why consolidation is very important. I said earlier that you have an industry that maybe built for 14 million, 15 million barrels a day of capacity and all the infrastructures kind of line up to that. So you have overcapacity. So if you're in a place where you're dealing with a larger customer and there is significant over capacity then there probably is going to be pressure on rates when there is a renewal. So I think that's what you buy, you got to continue to lean your company out and take cost out, so you can work with that. But I also think that overall, consolidation is going to be important, because you're going to be able to kind of direct gas to the efficient asset in it to benefit from it.
Elvira Scotto -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Thank you. That's very helpful. And then I appreciate all the comments that you made on lowering emissions and your methane emission survey. Can you talk a little bit more around energy transmission? So outside of lowering methane emissions, how do you see DCP participating in the energy transition? Is there any potential to repurpose some of your assets? I mean is there potential to do carbon capture? Just kind of thinking a little longer term.
Wouter van Kempen -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I think on the last two that you're kind of talking about the answer is yes and yes. And we're looking at a variety of different ways around our asset footprint to deal with that. I think one thing that's really, really important, Elvira, is that you can't just sit here and think about hey, this asset base is got to be gone shortly. I know that people are talking about terminal values, which is a really, really strange concept to me.
We're in the natural gas business and natural gas will be around for decades and it's going to be around either for direct electrification or it's going to be around as a back-up to a growing renewable energy mix. It's going to be around as a lot of other industry rely on our product, think about the chemical industry, think about a slew of other different industries. So this business is absolutely going to be around for a long, long time. So our focus is to be the best operator.
Be safe, be reliable and continue to reduce your environmental footprint and I highlighted that for almost 15 years. Like that's a decade and a half. Every single employee within DCP Midstream has emissions performance as part of their pay check and it's something that we have never spoken about but it's something that we always look at. So this is going to be inherent, it's the same way as safety for the same decade and a half or longer people get paid on being -- making sure that you're the safest company out there.
So we -- I spoke about the largest -- the Kairos Aerospace study that we're doing on focus to keep basically, fugitive emissions within the pipe, within the compressor, within the gas processing plant. So our focus is to be on -- is keeping it out of the air, not keeping in the ground. I think that is the key thing to focus on. This industry is going to be around. We're going to be a major player and we believe that the oil and gas industry is going to be a major player in actually solving for climate change and I think DCP is going to be a strong -- has a strong role in them for years and years and years to come.
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Tristan Richardson of Truist Securities. Your line is open.
Bronson Fleig -- Truist Securities -- Analyst
Good morning. This is Bronson on for Tristan. You guys have talked about your contracts in G&P and mitigating risk, which was a meaningful benefit in 2Q during the commodity volatility, were some of those revenue for features of benefit to G&P in 3Q and just given your expectations for lower CT volumes in 4Q, should we expect some of those revenue for us to perhaps kick in or be a benefit here in G&P in the 4Q period as well?
Wouter van Kempen -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
I think what you're talking about is some of the incentives that we gave for people to stay on our systems. Those were very temporary incentives but have we see benefits of those? Absolutely. Like -- one of the parties that we gave that incentive to, we extended our contract for multiple years. So there is a long-term benefit doing the right thing for your customer, we strongly believe that. And is there going to be kind of a Q4 outgoing impact of that? No, that program was really focused on during, I would say May, June time frame when customers were looking at taking wells offline. And I think we are well beyond that right now.
Sean O'Brien -- Group Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, Bronson, just to add a little more color. It was exactly tied to the shut-in environment that we saw where a lot of producers were trying to figure out which wells were profitable, where were they going to shut in while they were adjusting to lower demand. So two things have happened since then, obviously the demand has come back to some level and we were very helpful with some of those producers during that period to try and make sure that our assets received volumes and kept running during that time period. But we're beyond that. Obviously, demand has come back as I've mentioned, and commodities also strengthened some since then as well.
Bronson Fleig -- Truist Securities -- Analyst
Okay, thanks. That's helpful. That's it for us.
Operator
Thank you. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to Sarah Sandberg for closing remarks. Ma'am?
Sarah Sandberg -- Senior Director, Investor Relations
Great. Thank you for joining us today. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me and have a great week.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]
Duration: 40 minutes
Call participants:
Sarah Sandberg -- Senior Director, Investor Relations
Wouter van Kempen -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Sean O'Brien -- Group Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Joseph Martoglio -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Shneur Gershuni -- UBS -- Analyst
Spiro Dounis -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Elvira Scotto -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Bronson Fleig -- Truist Securities -- Analyst
