Canadian midstream leaders see 2025 growth prospects
Two of Canada’s leading midstream companies said December 3 they see near-term growth potential in 2025, led by natural gas demand bolstered by growing LNG exports, continued coal-to-gas conversions and increased power demand driven by new datacentres.
Enbridge is projecting 2025 EBITDA between C$19.4bn and C$20bn, a 9% increase over its latest guidance for 2024 and 17% higher than its initial 2024 guidance, while AltaGas offered normalised guidance in 2025 of C$1.77bn to C$1.87bn, a 6% increase over its 2024 guidance.
“Global oil consumption has rebounded to all-time highs and increasing natural gas demand is being driven by LNG growth, coal to gas switching and the rapid increase in electric power demand stemming from new datacentre developments,” Enbridge CEO Greg Ebel said. “Enbridge’s incumbent footprint across its four core businesses puts the company in an unparalleled position to meet increasing conventional and new energy demand in North America and beyond.”
Like Enbridge, AltaGas said its 2025 guidance was supported by strong midstream opportunities, but also noted its utilities operations were also guiding higher for next year.
“The growth opportunities in front of us are tremendous,” AltaGas CEO Vern Yu said. “Our utilities have low-risk growth opportunities from continued customer additions, asset modernisation investments and system expansions. The potential of AI and datacentre demand for natural gas in Northern Virginia adds to this already robust outlook and reiterates the long-term need for safe, reliable, and affordable natural gas to keep society moving forward.”
Yu said AltaGas is position to benefit from “significant” natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) production growth, with new LNG developments on Canada’s west coast driving increased demand for gas processing, liquids handling, fractionation and export capacity.
“Our 2025 capital plan reflects these opportunities and our desire to balance this outlook against other strategic priorities, including de-risking the platform and completing our de-leveraging journey,” he said.
Utilities are expected to generate 54-58% of EBITDA growth in 2025, while the Midstream sector will contribute 42-25% of EBITDA growth, blunted slightly by a lower contribution from the company’s minority interest in the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which it plans to divest in 2025.
AltaGas is guiding 2025 capital expenditures of about C$1.4bn, with 51% directed to utilities and 45% to midstream.
Enbridge, meanwhile, says its Gas Transmission and Gas Distribution & Storage businesses will contribute total EBITDA of C$9.2bn, with C$9.6bn coming from its Liquids Pipelines business and about C$700mn contributed by renewable power generation.
Enbridge expects to deploy about C$7bn of capital in 2025, exclusive of maintenance capital.