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: I always mention strong and consistent cash flow and explain how we use that cash flow to pay a healthy and growing dividend, internally fund our expansion capex needs, keep our balance sheet strong and opportunistically buy back our shares I believe our shareholders understand and appreciate the strength of our cash flow even if there are varied positions on what we should do with it.
But in a broader sense, if we examine what owning a share of KMI really amounts to, I've come to believe, as the largest shareholder, that we are receiving a very good and growing yield on our investment, while at the same time, getting an amazing optionality on future developments.
Let me explain that optionality.
We have entered the energy transition field with what I consider to be solid investments that Steve and the team will discuss further, and our cash flow gives us the ability to pursue those opportunities in size if and only if the investments achieve a satisfactory return.
And I believe that if we so desire, we will be able to attract new partners at a time of our choosing, whether public or private, to participate in those opportunities with us on terms favorable to KMI.
I also firmly believe that there is still a long runway for fossil fuels around the world, particularly for natural gas.
If you read carefully the latest studies from the IEA, OPEC, and from various other energy experts, you will see projections that fossil fuels will continue to supply the majority of our energy needs for at least the next quarter century, and that natural gas will be at the forefront of fulfilling those needs.
If these projections are anywhere close to accurate, a company like Kinder Morgan with significant free cash flow will find significant opportunities to invest in this core business where we have substantial expertise and a huge network that can be expanded and extended.
So this is another option that you receive as a KMI shareholder.
I would add that the events of this fall throughout Europe, Asia, and North America demonstrate that the transition to renewables is going to be a lot longer and more difficult than many of its proponents originally thought.
In short, while the world makes the transition, the lights need to stay on, homes need to be heated, and our industrial production needs to be sustained.
Finally, we always have the option of returning dollars to our shareholders through selective stock repurchases, in addition to the healthy return we are providing through our dividend.
This is why I say that an investment in KMI provides you with a nice locked-in return with this dividend and then provides really good optionality for the future.
I'll give you an overview of our business and the current environment for our sector as we see it.
Then our president, giving will cover the outlook and segment updates.
Our financial principles remain the same.
First, maintaining a strong balance sheet.
A strong balance sheet helps us withstand setbacks and enables us to take advantage of opportunities.
Over the last two years, we've seen both sides of that coin.
Coming into 2020, we were better than our leverage target, and that helped us when we were hit with the pandemic-related downturn.
Then this year, we saw the other side where our extra capacity, created as a result of our outperformance in the first quarter, gave us the ability to take advantage of two acquisition opportunities.
We see both of those acquisitions as adding value to the firm.
Second, we are maintaining our capital discipline through our elevated return criteria, a good track record of execution, and by self-funding our investments.
We are also maintaining our cost discipline.
We have always been lean, but last year at this time, we were completing an evaluation of how we were organized and how we could work even more efficiently.
We implemented changes resulting in an estimated full-year run rate efficiencies of about $100 million a year.
In that effort, we were aiming for something beyond efficiency, greater effectiveness.
And we can see that coming through in the functions we centralized under the leadership of our chief operating officer, James Holland.
We are already seeing the benefits in project management and other functions.
Finally, we are returning value to shareholders with the year-over-year dividend increase to $1.08 annualized, providing an increased but well-covered dividend, strong balance sheet, capital and cost discipline, returning value to shareholders.
Those are the principles we operate by, and we have done so regardless of what is in fashion at the moment.
We have accomplished some important work so far in 2021, which I believe will lead to long-term distinction.
First, we're having a record year financially, attributable to our outperformance in the first quarter.
And we have continued to find new opportunities with a small net increase in our backlog this quarter.
Second, we completed the two important acquisitions, the larger one, Stagecoach, showing our confidence in the long-term value of our natural gas business and taking our total operated storage capacity to 700 Bcf.
We believe in the long-term value of flexibility and deliverability in the gas business.
That was demonstrated last winter, and we are seeing it with the recent tightening in the natural gas markets here and abroad and in our rates on storage renewals.
Third, we've continued to advance the ball on the ongoing evolution in energy markets and in our ESG performance.
As things stand today, 69% of our backlog is in support of low-carbon infrastructure.
That includes natural gas, of course, but it also includes $250 million of organic projects supporting renewable diesel in our products and terminals business units and our renewable natural gas projects.
Repurposing and building assets at our current terminal locations to support the energy sources of the future.
Importantly, too, that 69% is projected to come in at a weighted average 3.6 times EBITDA multiple of the expansion capital spend.
So we're getting attractive returns on these investments.
Further, our DAS team has now concluded three responsibly sourced gas transactions.
Those are low emissions along the chain from the producer through our transmission and storage business.
We'll soon be publishing our ESG report, including both Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, we have incorporated ESG reporting and risk management into our existing management processes, and the report will explain how.
In the meantime, Sustainalytics has us ranked No.
1 in our sector for how we manage ESG risk, and two other rating services have us in the top 10.
This is increasingly a point of distinction with our investors, our regulators, and our customers.
With all of this, our projects, these commercial transactions, and our ESG reporting and risk management, we continue to advance the ball on ESG and the evolution in energy markets without sacrificing returns.
We continue to focus on the G governance in ESG as well.
These things are all important to our long-term success, and we have advanced it all significantly on all three in 2021.
We believe the winners in our sector will have strong balance sheets, low-cost operations that are safe and environmentally sound and the ability to get things done in difficult circumstances.
As always, we will evolve to meet the challenges and opportunities.
And so I'm going to start with the natural gas business unit for the quarter.
Transport volumes were up about 3% or approximately 1.1 million dekatherms per day versus the third quarter of '20.
And that was driven primarily by increased LNG deliveries and the PHP in service.
And then some -- those increases were somewhat offset by declines on our West pipes due to the declining Rockies production, pipeline outages, and contract expirations.
Physical deliveries to LNG facilities off of our pipeline averaged 5.1 million dekatherms per day.
That's a 3.3 million dekatherm per day increase versus the third quarter of '20 when there were a lot of canceled cargoes.
Our market share of deliveries to LNG facilities is approximately 50%.
Exports to Mexico were down in the quarter when compared to the second quarter of '20 as a result of a new third-party pipeline capacity added during the quarter.
Overall, deliveries to power plants were down, as you might expect with the higher natural gas prices.
Our natural gas gathering volumes were down about 4% in the quarter compared to the third quarter of '20.
But for gathering volumes, I think the more informative comparison is the sequential quarter.
So compared to the second quarter of this year, volumes were up 5%, with nice increases in the Eagle Ford and the Haynesville volumes, which were up 12% and 8%, respectively.
In our products pipeline segment, refined product volumes were up 12% for the quarter versus the third quarter of 2020.
And compared to the pre-pandemic levels, which we used the third quarter of 2019 as a reference point, road fuels were down about 3% and jet fuel was down about 21%.
You might remember that in the second quarter, road fuels were basically flat versus the pre-pandemic number.
So we did see some impact of the Delta variant during the quarter.
Crude and condensate volumes were down about 7% in the quarter versus the third quarter of 2020.
And sequentially, they were down about 4%.
In our terminals business segment, our liquids utilization percentage remains high at 94%.
If you exclude tanks out of service for required inspection, utilization is approximately 97%.
Our rack business, which serves consumer domestic demand, are up nicely versus the third quarter of '20, but they're down about 5% versus pre-pandemic levels.
Now if you exclude some lost business and a rack closure, so trying to get volumes on an apples-to-apples basis, volumes on our rack terminals slightly exceeded pre-pandemic levels.
Our hub facilities in Houston and New York, which are more driven by refinery runs, international trade, and blending dynamics, have shown less recovery than our rack terminals versus the pre-pandemic levels.
In our marine tanker business, we continue to experience weakness.
However, we've recently seen increased customer interest.
On the bulk side, volumes were up 19%, so very nicely, driven by coal, steel, and petcoke.
Bulk volumes overall are still down about 3% versus 2019 on an apples-to-apples comparison.
But if you just look at coal, steel, and petcoke on a combined basis, they're essentially flat to pre-pandemic levels.
In our CO2 segment, crude volumes were down about 6%.
CO2 volumes were down about 5%.
But NGL volumes were up 7%.
On price, we didn't see a benefit from the increase in crude price due to the hedges we've put in place in prior periods when crude prices were lower.
We do, however, expect to benefit from higher crude prices in future periods on our unhedged barrels and as we layer on additional hedges in the current price environment.
We did see NGL price benefit in the quarter as we tend to hedge less of these volumes.
Compared to our budget, we're currently anticipating that both oil volumes and CO2 volumes will exceed budget, as well as oil, NGL, and CO2 prices.
Better oil production is primarily driven by reduced decline in the base production and better project performance at SACROC.
So overall, we're seeing increased natural gas transport volumes primarily from LNG exports.
Seeing increased gas gathering volumes in the Eagle Ford and the Haynesville on a sequential basis.
Product volumes are recovering versus 2020.
However, road fuels were down about 3% versus pre-pandemic levels versus flat with pre-pandemic levels last quarter as we likely saw an impact from the Delta variant.
Versus our budget CO2, crude oil production is outperforming and we're getting some nice help on price.
We're still experiencing weakness in our Jones Act tankers and the Bakken has been a little slower than we anticipated in bringing on new wells.
But our producer customers have indicated that they'll continue bringing on new production with some wells being pushed into 2020.
So for the third quarter of 2021, we're declaring a dividend of $0.27 per share, which is $1.08 annualized and 3% up from the third quarter of last year.
This quarter, we generated revenues of $3.8 billion, up $905 million from the third quarter of 2020.
We had an associated increase in cost of sales with an increase of $904 million, both of those increases driven by higher commodity prices versus last year.
Our net income for the quarter was $495 million, up 9% from the third quarter of '20.
And our adjusted earnings per share was $0.22, up $0.01 from last year.
Moving on to our segment and distributable cash flow performance.
Our natural gas segment was up $8 million for the quarter.
Incremental contributions from Stagecoach and PHP were partially offset by lower contributions from FEP where we've had contract expirations and lower usage and parking loan activity on our EPNG system.
The product segment was up $11 million, driven by continued refined product volume recovery, partially offset by some lower crude volumes in the Bakken.
Terminal segment was down $13 million, driven by weakness in our Jones Act tanker business, partially offset by the continued refined product recovery volume -- or excuse me, volume recovery we've seen there.
Our G&A and corporate charges were higher by $28 million due to lower capital spend, resulting in less capitalized G&A this quarter versus a year ago, as well as cost savings we experienced in 2020 as a result of the pandemic.
Those are partially offset by cost savings we experienced this year due to our organizational efficiency efforts, as well as lower noncash pension expenses this year versus last.
Our JV DD&A was lower by $30 million, primarily due to lower contributions from Ruby Pipeline.
Interest expense was favorable $15 million, driven mostly by lower debt balance this year versus last.
Our cash taxes were favorable $37 million, and that was due -- mostly due to 2020 payments of taxes that were deferred into -- in the second quarter into the third quarter.
For the full year, cash taxes are expected to be just slightly unfavorable to 2020 and slightly favorable to our budget.
Sustaining capital was unfavorable this quarter, $64 million, driven by spending in our natural gas segment.
And that's only slightly more than we budgeted for the quarter, though for the full year, we expect to be about $65 million higher than in budget with most of that variance coming in the fourth quarter.
Total DCF of $1.013 billion or $0.44 per share is down $0.04 from last year.
Our full-year guidance is consistent with what we provided last quarter, with DCF at $5.4 billion and EBITDA at $7.9 billion.
Moving on to the balance sheet.
We ended the quarter at 4.0 times net debt to adjusted EBITDA, and we expect to end the year at 4.0 times as well.
This level benefits from the largely nonrecurring EBITDA generated during the first quarter during the winter storm Yuri event.
And our long-term leverage target of around 4.5 times has not changed.
Our net debt ended the quarter at $31.6 billion, down $424 million from year-end and up $1.423 billion from the end of the second quarter.
To reconcile that change in net debt for the quarter, we generated $1.013 billion of Bcf.
We paid out dividends of $600 million.
We closed the Stagecoach and Kinetrex acquisitions which collectively were $1.5 billion.
We spent $150 million on growth capex and JV contributions.
And we had a working capital use of $175 million, mostly interest expense payments in the quarter.
And that explains the majority of the change for the quarter.
For the change from year-end, we've generated $4.367 billion of DCF.
We paid out $1.8 billion of dividends.
We spent $450 million in growth capex and JV contributions.
We had the $1.5 billion Stagecoach and Kinetrex acquisitions.
We have $413 million come in on the NGPL sale.
And we've had a working capital use of $600 million, mostly interest expense payments.
And that explains the majority of the change year to date.
And that completes the financial review.
So back to you, Steve.
And then if you have more, get back into queue and we will get around to you.

user
kinder morgan q3 earnings per share $0.22.
q3 earnings per share $0.22.
consistent with guidance in q2 currently anticipate generating 2021 dcf of $5.4 billion and adjusted ebitda of $7.9 billion.
qtrly terminals segment earnings were down compared to the third quarter of 2020.
kinder morgan - contributions from the products pipelines segment in quarter were up compared to the third quarter of 2020 as demand recovery continued.

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