ONEOK Partners L.P. Earnings Call Nuggets: Williston Basin Volume Growth and Oil Project Opportunities

ONEOK Partners, L.P. (NYSE:OKS) recently reported its fourth quarter earnings and discussed the following topics in its earnings conference call.

Williston Basin Volume Growth

Christopher Sighinolfi – UBS: John just curious following on your last comments around moving towards fee-for-service business, it was stated in last night’s release that you are experiencing less favorable contract terms associated with the Williston Basin volume growth, just wondering what you meant by that, is it worse than what you were expecting or as it sort of interfaces with rest of your business is just lower than what was there to begin with. Can you just give more color on that?

John W. Gibson – Chairman, President and CEO: It’s a term that we’ve used consistently in our Qs our Ks and previous press releases. It drew a bit more attention than it probably deserves and this point in time because we are reducing 2013 and everyone is trying to understand why. But the basic is as we renegotiate expiring contracts and contract for new, we’re having to revise those terms to meet current market conditions, and those are less favorable than perhaps either we thought they would be or they have been in the past.

Christopher Sighinolfi – UBS: And so time to the incremental growth that you have planned in that basin it doesn’t change your forecast for (indiscernible) spend versus what the returns on those projects are?

John W. Gibson – Chairman, President and CEO: That is correct.