WILLIAMS COMPANIES INC

Key variables for our businesses will continue to be:

•Obstacles to our expansion efforts, including delays or denials of necessary permits and opposition to hydrocarbon-based energy development;

•Producer drilling activities impacting natural gas supplies supporting our gathering and processing volumes;

•Retaining and attracting customers by continuing to provide reliable services;

•Revenue growth associated with additional infrastructure either completed or currently under construction;

•Prices impacting our commodity-based activities;

•Disciplined growth in our service areas.

Interstate Natural Gas Pipeline Assets

Our interstate natural gas pipelines, which are presented in our Transmission & Gulf of Mexico segment as described under the heading “Business Segments,” are subject to regulation by the FERC and as such, our rates and charges for the transportation of natural gas in interstate commerce are subject to regulation. The rates are established primarily through the FERC’s ratemaking process, but we also may negotiate rates with our customers pursuant to the terms of our tariffs and FERC policy.

Our interstate natural gas pipelines transport and store natural gas for a broad mix of customers, including local natural gas distribution companies, public utilities, municipalities, direct industrial users, electric power generators, and natural gas marketers and producers. Most of our interstate natural gas transmission businesses are fully contracted under long-term firm reservation contracts with high credit quality customers. These contracts have various expiration dates and account for the major portion of our regulated businesses. Additionally, we offer storage services and interruptible transportation services under shorter-term agreements. Our top ten customers of our interstate natural gas pipelines in 2023 accounted for approximately 47 percent of our regulated interstate natural gas transportation and storage revenues.

Gathering, Processing, and Treating Assets

Our gathering, processing, and treating operations are presented within our Transmission & Gulf of Mexico, Northeast G&P, and West reporting segments as described under the heading “Business Segments.”

Our gathering systems receive natural gas from producers’ crude oil and natural gas wells and gather these volumes to gas processing, treating, or redelivery facilities. Typically, natural gas, in its raw form, is not acceptable for transportation in major interstate natural gas pipelines or for commercial use as a fuel. Our treating facilities remove water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other contaminants, and collect condensate. We are generally paid a fee based on the volume of natural gas gathered and/or treated, generally measured in the Btu heating value.

In addition, natural gas contains various amounts of NGLs, which generally have a higher value when separated from the natural gas stream. Our processing plants extract the NGLs, which include ethane, primarily used in the petrochemical industry; propane, used for heating, fuel, and also in the petrochemical industry; and, normal butane, isobutane, and natural gasoline, primarily used by the refining industry.

Our gas processing services generate revenues primarily from the following types of contracts:

•Fee-based: We are paid a fee based on the volume of natural gas processed, generally measured in the Btu heating value. A portion of our fee-based processing revenue includes a share of the margins on the NGLs produced. For the year ended December 31, 2023, approximately 90 percent of our NGL production volumes were under fee-based contracts.

•Noncash commodity-based: We also process gas under two types of commodity-based contracts, keep-whole and percent-of-liquids, where we receive consideration for our services in the form of NGLs. For a keep-whole arrangement we replace the Btu content of the retained NGLs with natural gas purchases, also known as shrink replacement gas. For a percent-of-liquids arrangement, we deliver an agreed-upon percentage of the extracted NGLs and retain the remainder. Retained NGLs are referred to as our equity NGL production. Per-unit NGL margins are calculated based on sales of our own equity volumes at the processing plants. For the year ended December 31, 2023, approximately 10 percent of our NGL production volumes were under noncash commodity-based contracts.

Generally, our gathering and processing agreements are long-term agreements, with terms ranging from month-to-month to the life of the producing lease. Certain contracts include cost of service mechanisms that are designed to support a return on invested capital and allow our gathering rates to be adjusted, subject to specified caps in certain cases, to account for variability in volume, capital expenditures, commodity price fluctuations, compression, and other expenses. We also have certain gas gathering and processing agreements with MVC, whereby the customer is obligated to pay a contractually determined fee based on any shortfall between the actual gathered and processed volumes and the MVC for a stated period.

Demand for gas gathering and processing services is dependent on producers’ drilling activities, which is impacted by the strength of the economy, commodity prices, and the resulting demand for natural gas by manufacturing and industrial companies and consumers. Our gathering, processing, and treating businesses do not have direct exposure to crude oil prices. Our on-shore natural gas gathering and processing businesses are substantially focused on gas-directed drilling basins rather than crude oil, with a broad diversity of basins and customers served. Declines in crude oil drilling would be expected to result in less associated natural gas production, which could drive more demand for natural gas produced from gas-directed basins we serve.

During 2023, our facilities gathered and processed gas and crude oil for approximately 230 customers. Our top ten customers accounted for approximately 70 percent of our gathering and processing fee revenues and NGL margins from our noncash commodity-based agreements. We believe counterparty credit concerns in our gathering and processing businesses are significantly mitigated by the physical nature of our services, where we gather at the wellhead and are therefore critical to a producer’s ability to move product to market.

Gas and NGL Marketing

Our NGL and natural gas marketing services are presented primarily within our Gas & NGL Marketing Services segment. We market natural gas and NGL products to a wide range of users in the energy and petrochemical industries. In 2023, our three largest natural gas marketing customers accounted for approximately 10 percent of our gross natural gas marketing sales, and our three largest NGL marketing customers accounted for approximately 43 percent of our NGL marketing sales.

Our gas marketing business markets natural gas and provides natural gas asset management and wholesale marketing, trading, storage, and transportation for a diverse set of natural gas and electric utilities, municipalities, power generators, and producers, including for our own upstream properties. Additionally, our gas marketing business moves and optimizes natural gas to markets through transportation and storage agreements on our own strategically positioned assets. Our gas and NGL marketing services provide customers with access to diverse sources of supply and to various natural gas demand markets, including the southeastern and gulf coast regions which are the fastest growing natural gas demand regions in the United States.

We purchase natural gas for storage when the current market price paid to buy and transport natural gas plus the cost to store and finance the natural gas is less than an estimated, forward market price that can be received in the future, resulting in positive net product sales. Commodity-based exchange-traded futures contracts and over-the-counter (OTC) contracts are used to sell natural gas at that future price to substantially protect the natural gas revenues that will ultimately be realized when the stored natural gas is sold. Additionally, we enter into transactions to secure transportation capacity between delivery points in order to serve our customers and various markets. Commodity-based exchange-traded futures contracts and OTC contracts are used to capture the price differential or spread between the locations served by the capacity in order to substantially protect the natural gas revenues that will ultimately be realized when the physical flow of natural gas between receipt and delivery points occurs.

Monthly demand charges incurred for the contracted storage and transportation capacity and payments associated with asset management agreements are substantially indirectly reimbursed by our customers. As we are acting as an agent, our natural gas marketing revenues are presented net of the related costs of those activities. In addition, all of our natural gas marketing derivative activities qualify as held for trading purposes, which requires net presentation in our Consolidated Statement of Income. Prior to the integration in 2022 of our historical gas marketing business with the acquired Sequent gas marketing business, natural gas marketing revenues and costs for our historical business were reported on a gross basis. Following the integration in 2022, the entire natural gas marketing portfolio is considered held for trading purposes, and the related revenues are therefore presented net of the related costs of those activities in 2022.

Our NGL marketing business transports and markets our equity NGLs from the production at our processing plants, NGLs from the production at our upstream properties, and also NGLs on behalf of third-party NGL producers, including some of our fee-based processing customers, as well as the NGL volumes owned by certain of our equity-method investments. The NGL marketing business bears the risk of price changes in these NGL volumes while they are being transported to final sales delivery points. In order to meet sales contract obligations, we may purchase products in the spot market for resale.

We are exposed to commodity price risk. To manage this volatility, we use various contracts in our marketing and trading activities that generally meet the definition of derivatives. We enter into commodity-related derivatives to hedge exposures to natural gas and NGLs and retain exposure to price changes that can, in a volatile energy market, be material and can adversely affect our results of operations.

We experience significant earnings volatility from the fair value accounting required for the derivatives used to hedge a portion of the economic value of the underlying transportation and storage portfolio as well as upstream related production. However, the unrealized fair value measurement gains and losses are generally offset by valuation changes in the economic value of the underlying production or transportation and storage contracts, which is not recognized until the underlying transaction occurs.

Crude Oil Transportation and Production Handling Assets

Our crude oil transportation operations, which are primarily presented in our Transmission & Gulf of Mexico segment as described under the heading “Business Segments,” earn revenues primarily from a combination of fixed-monthly fees, contractual fixed or variable fees applied to production volumes, and contributions in aid of construction (CIAC) arrangements. Generally, fixed-monthly fees associated with production handling and export revenues are recognized on a units-of-production basis utilizing either contractually determined maximum daily quantities or expected remaining production. CIAC arrangements are recognized on a units of production basis, utilizing expected remaining production. Our crude oil transportation business is supported mostly by major oil producers with long-cycle perspectives.

Standalone, Market-Based Rate Natural Gas Storage Assets

Our standalone, market-based rate natural gas storage assets are presented in our Transmission & Gulf of Mexico segment as described under the heading “Business Segments” and include our NorTex assets acquired in August 2022 and our Gulf Coast storage assets acquired in January 2024. These natural gas storage assets provide natural gas storage services in interstate commerce under the jurisdiction of the FERC pursuant to the Natural Gas Act or Section 311 of the Natural Gas Policy Act. We are authorized to charge and collect market-based rates for all of the services that these natural gas storage assets provide.

We store natural gas for a broad mix of customers, including local natural gas distribution companies, public utilities, municipalities, direct industrial users, electric power generators, and natural gas marketers and producers. Most of these natural gas storage businesses are fully contracted under long-term firm reservation contracts with high credit quality customers. The contracts have various expiration dates and account for the major portion of the entities’ businesses. Additionally, we offer storage services and interruptible transportation services under shorter-term agreements. The three largest customers of this business in 2023 accounted for approximately 32 percent of its total operating revenues.