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Q4 2008 Boardwalk Pipeline Partners LP Earnings Conference Call - Final.

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OPERATOR: Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the fourth-quarter Boardwalk Pipeline Partners LP earnings conference call. My name is Nesall and I will be your coordinator for today. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will be facilitating a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes.

I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today's call, Ms. Allison McLean, Director of Investor Relations. Please proceed, ma'am.

ALLISON MCLEAN, DIRECTOR, IR, BOARDWALK PIPELINE PARTNERS: Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the fourth-quarter 2008 earnings call for Boardwalk Pipeline Partners LP. I am Allison McLean from Investor Relations and I'm pleased to be joined today by Mr. Rolf Gafvert, our CEO, and Mr. Jamie Buskill, our Chief Financial Officer. If you would like a copy of the earnings release of associated with this call, please download it from our website at www.bwpmlp.com.

Following our prepared remarks this morning, we will turn the call over for your questions. We like to remind you that this conference call will include the use of statements that are forward-looking in nature. Statements in this earnings call related to matters that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's beliefs and assumptions using currently available information and expectations.

Actual results achieved by the Company may differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statement. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements made during this call.

I would also like to remind you that during this call today we may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures such as EBITDA. With regard to such financial measures, please refer to our earnings release for reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP measures.

Now I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Rolf Gafvert.

ROLF GAFVERT, PRESIDENT & CEO, BOARDWALK PIPELINE PARTNERS: Thank you, Allison, and good morning, everyone. I hope you have all had a chance to review the press release we issued this morning. We closed out the year with a good fourth quarter both in terms of the progress made on our expansion projects and the positive impact these expansion projects are having on the operating cash flow.

We are pleased to announce that the Board approved a fourth-quarter distribution of $0.48 per unit, a half-cent increase from our prior distribution. Jamie will describe our financial performance in greater detail.

I will first discuss our expansion projects and other key business results. I am pleased to announce that we have recently signed proceeding agreements for 0.2 Bcf per day of capacity that will support expanding our system from the Haynesville production area in Louisiana to Perryville. This project consists of adding compression on our existing Gulf South system at an estimated cost of up to $105 million, depending on configuration and potential upsizing and which we hope to finance with additional debt.

This expansion is an excellent example of how the footprint of our system, which has grown significantly with the addition of our expansion projects, will provide us with additional growth opportunities and allow us to optimize our assets, often with a relatively low capital investment. We will, of course, continue to explore such attractive growth opportunities.

I now want to report on the progress we have made on our remaining expansion projects. In January we placed in service the remaining compressors stations for our Southeast expansion and construction on this expansion project is complete. The pipeline is currently capable of serving up to 1.8 Bcf per day of firm commitments. As of December 31, we have invested $707 million in this project out of an expected total investment of $775 million.

A large portion of our Gulf Crossing pipeline from near Sherman, Texas, to an interconnect with Texas Gas near Sterlington, Louisiana, was placed in service in January 2009. This represents approximately 85% of Gulf Crossings' total pipeline mileage. Construction is progressing as planned on remaining pipeline and compression assets associated with the first phase of the project, which should be placed in service in the next few weeks and will provide an additional capacity of 1.2 Bcf per day.

We have applied for the authority to operate the pipeline at higher...

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