You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: As always, we appreciate your continued trust and investment in ONEOK.
ONEOK's solid first-quarter results are providing positive momentum as we enter warmer operating months.
Volumes on our system and our outlook for the year continues to improve, supporting the increase to our financial guidance which we announced yesterday.
Even without the weather-related earnings impact in the first quarter, our base business earnings increased compared with the fourth quarter.
But while the quarter's results were positive, Winter Storm Uri did provide us with significant operational challenges that I want to highlight.
Our employees' preparation before the extreme weather event and hard work during it enabled us to operate with very few interruptions.
Operations teams ensured our assets were weatherized for extreme conditions, and that our employees were on-site and prepared to make the necessary adjustments to keep our assets running.
Many of our employees were faced with challenges of their own, including limited or no heat, running water or electricity at their own homes, but still worked to help ONEOK provide essential natural gas and NGLs when needed most.
Despite these extraordinary winter -- weather conditions, we continued to meet the critical needs of our customers, including natural gas utilities and electric power plants.
Our natural gas pipeline and storage assets were particularly well positioned to address the needs for natural gas.
The segment's ability to continue providing reliable service helps meet increased natural gas demand and contributed to higher adjusted EBITDA during the quarter.
Kevin will provide more details in a moment.
Despite weather-related volume impacts across our operations, strength in our base business was evident in our Rocky Mountain region NGL and natural gas volumes during the quarter.
The Williston Basin continues to outperform expectations and provide us with solid and stable earnings.
As I've said before, ONEOK's earnings growth in 2021 is not dependent on increased rig activity or increasing commodity prices.
The opportunities available to us are from a robust drilled but uncompleted well inventory, increased natural gas capture and rising gas to oil ratios in the Williston Basin and increasing ethane demand.
The opportunity for earnings growth without the need for significant investment is unique to ONEOK and our strategic assets in key operating areas.
With yesterday's earnings announcement, we raised expectations for 2021 and now expect adjusted EBITDA growth of more than 17% compared with 2020.
Our higher guidance expectations include the latest producer forecasts and drilling plans, and our earnings range also includes the potential impact from a shutdown of the Dakota access pipeline.
Increasing producer activity, higher commodity prices and strengthening energy markets have further enhanced our view of 2021 and are setting up to provide positive momentum as we exit the year.
As we look toward 2022, high single to low double-digit growth in EBITDA appears reasonable in the $50 to $70 per barrel price range when you adjust 2021 for the approximately $90 million weather impact to revised guidance.
We also continue to look for opportunities outside of our traditional growth drivers to enhance our businesses.
Our sustainability and renewables teams continue to actively research opportunities that will complement our extensive midstream assets and expertise.
They're focusing on opportunities to lower our greenhouse gas emissions while enhancing profitability, further strengthening the vital role we expect to play in a low-carbon economy.
Opportunities under evaluation include the further electrification of compression assets, potential carbon capture and storage projects, sourcing renewable energy for operations and other longer term investments, such as hydrogen transportation and storage.
And as always, we'll remain disciplined in our capital approach as we develop these opportunities.
Demand for the products we transport remain strong.
The pandemic and recent weather events have further highlighted the importance of natural gas, NGLs and the many end-use products they help create, which all play a vital role in helping us to lead safer and healthier lives.
Our ability to transport these products safely and responsibly to markets is key to their ultimate end use.
This quarter once again proved our ability to do that, even in the most extreme conditions.
With yesterday's earnings announcement, we increased our 2021 net income and earnings per share guidance 10% and adjusted EBITDA guidance 5% compared with our original expectations provided in late February.
We now expect a net income midpoint of $1.35 billion or $3.02 per share, and an adjusted EBITDA midpoint of $3.2 billion this year.
At the segment level, we increased 2021 adjusted EBITDA guidance for the natural gas gathering and processing and natural gas pipeline segments, primarily due to increasing producer activity from higher commodity prices and incorporating the results of the first quarter.
Adjusted EBITDA guidance for the natural gas liquids segment decreased slightly, primarily due to reduced volumes and lower ethane demand in the first quarter related to Winter Storm Uri.
Total capital expenditures for 2021, including growth and maintenance capital, remain unchanged from our original expectations of $525 million to $675 million, a more than 70% decrease compared with 2020.
This range includes capital to complete the Bear Creek plant expansion and associated field infrastructure in the fourth quarter of this year and a low-cost expansion of the Arbuckle II pipeline in the second quarter.
Now a brief overview of our first-quarter financial performance.
ONEOK's first-quarter 2021 net income totaled $386 million or $0.86 per share.
First-quarter adjusted EBITDA totaled $866 million, a 24% increase year over year and a 17% increase compared with the fourth quarter of 2020.
Distributable cash flow was more than $660 million in the first quarter, a 27% increase year over year and a 28% increase compared with the fourth-quarter 2020.
First-quarter dividend coverage was nearly 1.6 times, and we generated more than $245 million of distributable cash flow in excess of dividends paid during the quarter.
Our March 31 net debt to EBITDA on an annualized run rate basis was 3.98 times compared with 4.6 times at the end of 2020.
We ended the quarter -- the first quarter with no borrowings on our $2.5 billion credit facility and more than $400 million of cash.
Earlier this month, the board of directors declared a dividend of $0.935 or $3.74 per share on an annualized basis, unchanged from the previous quarter.
Healthy earnings in the first quarter provided momentum for 2021 and helped to accelerate our deleveraging efforts.
As Terry mentioned, increasing producer activity, ample capacity on our systems, and the continued opportunity for flared gas capture and strong gas to oil ratios in the Williston Basin and increasing ethane demand continue to support our base business and increase financial expectations this year.
Winter Storm Uri impacted operations across all three of our business segments in February.
Reduced volumes due to well freeze-offs, especially in the Mid-Continent and Gulf Coast Permian regions, increased electricity cost and customer facility outages presented challenges during the quarter.
However, our ability to meet increased demand for natural gas and NGLs during the period helped to more than offset the volume impacts.
Volumes across our operations returned quickly following the extreme weather with NGL raw feed throughput and natural gas processing volumes in the Rocky Mountain region in March exceeding our first-quarter 2021 averages.
Let's take a closer look at each of our businesses.
Starting with the natural gas pipeline segment.
The safe and reliable operations of our pipeline and storage assets through the storm provided critical transportation services and storage withdrawals for our customers.
In addition, we sold 5.2 Bcf of natural gas, which we previously held in inventory, into the market in the first-quarter 2021 to help meet the increased demand.
This compares with 1.2 Bcf that we sold in the first quarter of 2020.
Our ability to provide reliable service throughout the extreme weather conditions highlights the importance of market-connected pipelines and storage assets and the value of these vital services.
Since the storm, we've received increased interest from customers seeking additional long-term transportation and storage capacity on our system.
In our natural gas liquids segment, first-quarter 2021 earnings increased compared with the fourth quarter of 2020 despite the volume impact from Winter Storm Uri.
Systemwide volumes were reduced by an average of approximately 64,000 barrels per day during the quarter, with the largest impacts in the Mid-Continent and Gulf Coast Permian regions.
During the first quarter, increased optimization and marketing activities in the segment related primarily to higher commodity prices and wider spreads between Conway and Mont Belvieu prices, presented opportunities to utilize our integrated NGL pipeline and storage assets to meet market needs, helping to partially offset volume and cost-related impacts.
First-quarter raw feed throughput from the Rocky Mountain region increased 4% compared with the fourth quarter of 2020 and 20% year over year despite an 11,000 barrel per day impact from Winter Storm Uri.
As we sit today, volumes from the region have reached more than 300,000 barrels per day.
During the quarter, ethane volumes on our system in the Rocky Mountain region increased compared with the fourth-quarter 2020 as we incented some ethane recovery, which we have talked about in the past.
On a short-term basis, we were able to incent recovery by purchasing ethane at several gas plants at a premium value to natural gas, selling it into the Mont Belvieu ethane market and collecting the difference while increasing producer netbacks and NGL volumes on our system.
Continued ethane recovery from the region will depend on regional natural gas and ethane pricing and is not included in our updated guidance.
Economics in the Mid-Continent region also provided the opportunity to incentivize ethane recovery and we continue to expect partial recovery in the region throughout the remainder of the year, which is included in our guidance.
In the Permian Basin, we saw increased ethane rejection in the first quarter.
Overall, petrochemical facility outages related to Winter Storm Uri reduced demand for ethane during the quarter.
We expect ethane recovery in the Permian Basin to continue ramping back up as petrochemical demand returns following February storm impacts with a return to near full recovery in the second half of 2021.
Discretionary ethane that can be recovered on our system in both the Mid-Continent and Rocky Mountain regions remains approximately 100,000 barrels per day.
In the Rockies region, full recovery would provide an opportunity for $400 million in an annual adjusted EBITDA at full rates.
Our opportunity for recovery in either region at any given time will fluctuate based on regional natural gas pricing, ethane economics and potential incentivized recovery.
Moving on to the natural gas gathering and processing segment.
In the Rocky Mountain region, first-quarter processed volumes increased 5% year over year despite colder-than-normal weather in February.
In March, volumes exceeded 1.2 billion cubic feet per day, a level we can maintain even without increased producer activity.
Our ability to capture additional flared gas, rising gas to oil ratios and a large inventory of drilled but uncompleted wells on our acreage are the key drivers of our 2021 volume expectations.
Recent producer M&A activity in the Williston Basin has highlighted new drilling plans on acreage that, in some cases, may not have been developed in the near term, but now likely will be.
And indications from several of our producers in the basin point to increasing activity in the second half of 2021, particularly in Dunn County.
In response to this, we've resumed construction on our Bear Creek processing plant expansion and expect it to be complete in the fourth quarter of this year.
Once complete, we will have approximately 1.7 Bcf per day of processing capacity in the basin, and we'll be able to grow our volumes with minimal capital as producer activity levels increase.
In the first quarter, we connected 38 wells in the Rocky Mountain region and expect to connect more than 300 this year.
Based on very recent producers completion schedules, we expect a significant increase in well connects in the second and third quarter as completion activity picks up with improved weather.
There are currently 16 rigs operating in the basin with eight on our dedicated acreage, and there continues to be a large inventory of drilled but uncompleted wells with more than 650 basinwide and approximately 350 on our dedicated acreage.
With eight completion crews currently operating in the basin, no additional activity or crews are needed to hold natural gas production flat on our acreage or reach our well connect guidance for the year.
Any additional completion crews would present upside to our guidance.
As the current DUC inventory gets worked down, we expect producers to bring rigs back to the basin to replenish the inventory levels, providing tailwinds as we move into 2022.
Additionally, as of February, approximately 100 million cubic feet per day of natural gas flaring remained on our dedicated acreage, presenting a continued opportunity for us to bring this volume onto our system and help further reduce flaring in the basin.
The gathering and processing segment's average fee rate remained $1.04 per MMBtu during the quarter, unchanged from the fourth-quarter 2020.
Winter Storm Uri reduced Mid-Continent volumes by approximately 30 million cubic feet per day for the quarter, causing the average fee rate mix to shift more toward the Rocky Mountain volumes, driving the higher average rate.
We now expect the fee rate for 2021 to average close to the high end of our $0.95 to $1 per MMBtu guidance range.
The segment's 2021 guidance does not assume increasing producer activity levels in the Mid-Continent region or the Powder River Basin.
However, both areas have received attention as commodity prices have strengthened.
Any increasing activity in those areas would be an added tailwind to our 2021 expectations and provide volume momentum into 2022.
Terry, that concludes my remarks.
Good overview of a challenging but encouraging quarter that has positioned us well for the rest of 2021.
With volumes trending upward and strength in our base business, our outlook continues to improve.
But we remain disciplined in our approach and focus on what matters most for the long-term sustainability of our business.
Enhancing our financial stability, participating in the innovation necessary for a transition to a low-carbon economy and serving our customers' needs safely and responsibly continue to be our focus.
The first quarter showcased many of these focus areas, and we have many more great things to look forward to in the remainder of this year and beyond.

user
sees diluted earnings per common share midpoint increase to $3.02 for 2021.
sees adjusted ebitda midpoint increase to $3.2 billion for 2021.

assistant