When a midstream CEO tells analysts the company might be updating guidance again next quarter, he has effectively set the agenda for the next report. That is the setup for ONEOK heading into its third-quarter release after the close on October 27. Management has lifted its 2026 outlook twice since February, and last quarter it openly floated a third move. Delivering on that hint would confirm that the volume recovery is real. Holding steady would not be a disaster, but it would land as a mild letdown against expectations the company created itself.
The Street's quarterly numbers look cautious. Consensus calls for earnings of $1.46 per share, down about 2% from $1.49 a year ago and below the $1.53 ONEOK posted in the second quarter. Revenue is projected at $11.77 billion, up roughly 36% year over year. For a fee-heavy pipeline operator, that top-line jump says more about commodity pass-through than about profitability, so the EPS line and adjusted EBITDA deserve far more attention. On the full year, analysts sit at $5.63 per share, a bit below management's raised target of about $5.68. That gap is small, but it suggests the Street has not fully bought into the latest raise, much less a fourth step.
The second-half dip baked into estimates has an identifiable cause. Management warned that natural gas pipeline earnings would step down as new Permian takeaway capacity narrows the Waha-to-Katy price spread, removing a tailwind that helped earlier in the year. The NGL segment also saw blended margins soften as higher ethane recovery in the Bakken and Mid-Continent swapped full-rate propane and heavier liquids for lower-rate ethane. Mid-Continent contract renewals resetting to lower market rates add another headwind, though the company says that is already in guidance. A quarter where these pressures show up roughly as forecast is not a problem. A quarter where they bite harder than expected would be.
The offset has to come from volumes, and that is where the previous call was most encouraging. NGL raw feed grew 7% year over year in the second quarter, with Gulf Coast and Permian flows up 15%. Refined products rose 8%, and Midland crude gathering climbed 10% sequentially as rig counts on the system topped 30. Firmer Waha prices also pushed up to roughly 100,000 barrels a day of third-party NGL volume onto the system, a newer tailwind worth testing for durability now that the basin's pricing dynamics are shifting. The Denver refined products expansion entered service August 1, giving this quarter its first full look at that contribution, and Seabrook crude exports were climbing sharply into the summer. Sustained throughput growth across all four segments would validate the bullish turn in tone; flattening volumes would undercut it.
Longer-dated items matter for the multiple more than the quarter. The LPG export dock reached its 80% contracting threshold, Bighorn was upsized to 400 million cubic feet a day, and the cash-tax runway now stretches to 2031. Data-center and power demand remains the soft spot: management conceded commercialization is moving slower than hoped, with projects still short of final investment decisions beyond the 1-gigawatt supply award. Any movement toward FID would be a meaningful upgrade to the growth story.
The market has already leaned in. Shares have gained 6.4% since the last report against a nearly flat S&P 500, and sentiment has improved from clearly bearish to only modestly so. At $93.31, the stock trades comfortably above its 200-day average near $87.57 but sits about 7% below its post-earnings high of $99.85, leaving room to run without being priced for perfection. The verdict will hinge on whether volume growth is strong enough to absorb the Waha and ethane headwinds and still justify the raise management practically promised.