Investors are underpricing the AI and geopolitical demand surge, CEO says
North America's largest pipeline operator says it is sitting on the best energy infrastructure investment climate in over a decade — and is moving fast to capture it.
Enbridge chief executive Greg Ebel told a conference call Friday the company is evaluating between $10bn and $20bn in potential new capital investments over the next 24 months, Reuters reported.
The opportunities are driven by AI power demand, rising global energy consumption, and geopolitical instability.
“The best growth opportunities I have seen in 10 to 15 years” are now in energy infrastructure, Ebel said.
Investors, he told the Financial Post, have not yet grasped how “beneficial and long run that will be.”
The Calgary-based company reported first-quarter adjusted earnings of $2.1bn, or $0.98 per common share — four cents above analysts' average estimate, according to LSEG data cited by Reuters — while adjusted EBITDA held steady year-over-year at $5.8bn, per the company's earnings release.
Distributable cash flow rose to $3.9bn from $3.8bn in the same period of 2025.
GAAP earnings fell to $1.7bn from $2.3bn, a decline the company attributed to non-cash derivative losses and the absence of one-time gains that had lifted first-quarter 2025 results.
Enbridge sanctioned roughly $2bn in new projects during the quarter, bringing its total secured capital backlog to approximately $40bn through the end of the decade, according to its quarterly earnings release.
The largest single sanction was a US$700m, 300 MW onshore wind facility in Texas to supply Meta Platforms Inc. data centres.
A deal the Financial Post reported pushes Enbridge's power generation partnership with Meta past 1 GW.
Enbridge said in its release the company is also advancing approximately $50bn in unsanctioned opportunities.
The conflict involving Iran has added another tailwind.
Enbridge confirmed in its earnings release that it has seen a surge in customer interest in export capacity at its Ingleside terminal near Corpus Christi, Texas.
The largest crude oil storage and export facility in the US, according to Reuters.
Ebel told analysts, as reported by the Financial Post, that exports are running at roughly 6m barrels per day amid the conflict, and suggested structural demand for Gulf Coast export infrastructure will persist even after the conflict ends.
Even after the conflict ends, Ebel said, the question is “how much more reliance there will be on the US Gulf Coast — and Canada, for that matter.”
Domestically, according to Reuters, Enbridge's Mainline pipeline averaged 3.2m barrels per day in the first quarter and has been in apportionment all year, meaning demand exceeded capacity.
The pipeline moves about 30 percent of all crude produced in North America.
The Financial Post reported that Enbridge is planning a further Mainline expansion of about 430,000 barrels per day by 2028, and Reuters reported the company is also gauging commercial interest in an additional 250,000 barrels per day second phase.
Enbridge projects Canadian oil output will grow by 1m barrels per day by 2035.
Liquids Pipelines division president Colin Gruending told Reuters he welcomes competition from rivals such as South Bow, calling their pipeline proposals "a positive sign and a vote of confidence in the basin and the outlook."
Ebel told analysts customers are no longer concerned about the source of energy, the Financial Post reported.
“There’s no longer the discussion of what colour your molecule or electron is,” he said. “It’s how quickly can you get me electrons or molecules or barrels.”
Enbridge reaffirmed its full-year 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $20.2bn to $20.8bn and DCF per share guidance of $5.70 to $6.10, and declared a quarterly common share dividend of $0.97 per share, payable June 1.
