Energy Transfer’s Q2 Earnings Reveal the Real Winner: Intrastate Natural Gas

Key Takeaways for Energy Transfer Stock as of August 2026

• Guidance Raise: Energy Transfer lifted full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance to $18.8B-$19.1B, up ~$0.5B at the midpoint, while organic growth capex guidance moved to $5.6B-$5.9B.
• Earnings Beat: Q2 revenue hit $34.33B, 18.96% above Street estimates, and adjusted EPS of $0.59 beat by 53.39% and rose 83.57% YoY.
• Margin Compression: EBITDA margin slipped to 14.76%, 96bps below Street and 534bps below Q2 2025, even as EBITDA itself climbed to $5.07B.
• Segment Surge: CFO Dylan Bramhall pointed to broad-based strength, noting Midstream, Intrastate and Crude each beat by roughly $100M while NGL beat by “over $200 million.”

Energy Transfer just blew past every Street estimate while margins actually shrank. See exactly which segments carried the quarter on TIKR for free →

Energy Transfer’s Q2 Earnings Crush Street Estimates as Hugh Brinson Comes Online Early

Energy Transfer (ET) posted a second quarter that outran Wall Street on nearly every line for the period ended June 30, 2026. Revenue reached $34.33 billion, 18.96% above Street’s $28.86 billion estimate and up 78.43% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $5.07 billion against a $4.53 billion estimate, an 11.71% beat, while adjusted EPS of $0.59 topped the $0.38 consensus by 53.39%.

That growth came with a catch. EBITDA margins fell to 14.76%, 96 basis points below Street’s forecast and 534 basis points below the 20.09% posted a year earlier. Net income still jumped 41.81% above estimates to $2.03 billion, so the business grew earnings faster than the top line even as the mix diluted margin. CFO Dylan Bramhall explained where the outperformance actually came from on the Q2 earnings call: “The majority of this is strong beats across almost all segments this quarter.

Midstream, Intrastate, Crude were all about $100 million roughly beats and NGL over $200 million as we really saw just strong activity across the board on the NGLs, everything from stronger export and domestic sales, higher fees across the docks, stronger blending margins.” Intrastate Natural Gas EBITDA jumped to $377 million from $284 million a year ago, the largest percentage move of any segment, driven by wider basis differentials as bottlenecked Permian gas finally found an outlet.

That outlet has a name. The Hugh Brinson Pipeline entered commercial service during the quarter and management now expects it to hit its full 1.5 billion cubic feet per day Phase 1 capacity by September 1, 2026, ahead of the original schedule. Mustang Draw I, a Permian processing plant, also came online in June and is already running near capacity. Those two projects, layered onto record NGL export volumes at the Nederland and Marcus Hook terminals, pushed management to raise full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance to a range of $18.8 billion to $19.1 billion, roughly $0.5 billion higher at the midpoint than the prior quarter’s outlook.

Growth spending is rising to match the opportunity. Organic growth capital guidance now sits at $5.6 billion to $5.9 billion for 2026, excluding Sunoco and USA Compression, and management said on the call it expects capex to stay above $5 billion annually through 2029. A newly sanctioned $1 billion ethane export expansion at Nederland is fully contracted into the 2040s, with 80% of volumes bound for Asian markets outside China.

Hugh Brinson is running ahead of schedule and guidance just moved up $0.5B at the midpoint. Dig into the full segment breakdown on TIKR for free →

TIKR Values ET Stock at $26 by 2030, Pricing In the Guidance Raise

TIKR’s mid-case model values Energy Transfer at $26 by December 2030, implying 29% total return from the current price of $20, or 6% annualized over the next 4.4 years.

That 6% annualized figure sits well below the growth Energy Transfer just reported this quarter, which suggests the model leans on the partnership’s distribution and steady contracted cash flow rather than on multiple expansion to get investors to the target. The return profile reads as an income-and-modest-growth case, not a re-rating story.

The target looks reachable against what the quarter just showed. Guidance already moved up $0.5 billion at the midpoint on the strength of Hugh Brinson’s early ramp and Mustang Draw’s near-capacity run, and management’s commitment to $5 billion-plus in annual growth capex through 2029 gives the EBITDA base multiple years of visible expansion ahead of the model’s 2030 realization date.

TIKR’s model puts Energy Transfer at $26 by 2030, a 29% return from today’s price. Check the assumptions yourself on TIKR for free →

Should You Invest in Energy Transfer LP?

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Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!