ONEOK's Q2 2026 EPS rose 14% to $1.53 and adjusted EBITDA 7% to $2.12B, helped by record NGL volumes and a $77M Waha-to-Katy gas marketing gain, and 2026 EBITDA guidance was raised to $8.2-8.5B.
Revenue
$12.0B
+52.8% YoY
Net income
$966M
+14.9% YoY
Diluted EPS
$1.53
+14.2% YoY
Operating margin
13.2%
Headline: record NGL volumes and a gas-price spread in West Texas lift Q2 earnings 15%; guidance raised again
ONEOK's second quarter of 2026 (three months to June 30) produced net income attributable to ONEOK of $966 million, up 14.9%, and diluted earnings per share of $1.53 versus $1.34 a year earlier. Adjusted EBITDA, the company's preferred measure of cash earnings from its pipelines and plants (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, excluding non-cash items), rose 7.1% to $2.12 billion.
The growth came from two different places. The first was steady volume growth: more natural gas liquids (NGL) moving through the system than ever before, more gas processed, and more refined products shipped. The second was a large one-off-style trading gain in the Natural Gas Pipelines segment. There, ONEOK profited from an unusually wide price gap between natural gas at the Waha Hub in West Texas and the Katy hub near Houston. That single item accounted for more than half of the quarter's $140 million EBITDA increase.
Key figures
Metric
Q2 2026
Q2 2025
YoY Change
Total revenues
$12,049M
$7,887M
+52.8%
Operating income
$1,593M
$1,431M
+11.3%
Operating margin
13.2%
18.1%
-4.9 pts
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MBbl/d = thousand barrels per day; MMcf/d = million cubic feet per day.
Ignore the revenue line. Revenue jumped 52.8%, but almost all of that ($4.09 billion of the $4.16 billion increase) was "commodity sales." These are products ONEOK buys and resells as part of its marketing business, so their value swings with commodity prices and volumes. The filing notes that these swings are "largely offset" by cost of sales, which rose by $3.88 billion. The Refined Products and Crude segment's product sales alone went from $2.3 billion to $6.5 billion, while its cost of sales rose by almost exactly the same amount. That pass-through is also why the operating margin (the share of revenue left after running the business) fell from 18.1% to 13.2% even as operating income grew 11%. The margin fell because revenue was inflated, not because profitability weakened. For a midstream company, EBITDA and per-unit fees are the meaningful yardsticks, not revenue.
Segment results: where the extra $140 million of EBITDA came from
Segment adjusted EBITDA
Q2 2026
Q2 2025
Change
Natural Gas Liquids
$659M
$673M
-$14M (-2.1%)
Refined Products and Crude
$627M
$557M
+$70M (+12.6%)
Natural Gas Gathering and Processing
$546M
$540M
+$6M (+1.1%)
Natural Gas Pipelines
$297M
$188M
+$109M (+58.0%)
Natural Gas Pipelines (+$109M): mostly a price-spread gain. Of the $109 million increase, $77 million came from "optimization and marketing activity due primarily to favorable price differentials between the Waha Hub and Katy, Texas, markets." In plain terms, gas in the Permian Basin traded at a steep discount to Gulf Coast prices. Because ONEOK owns pipeline capacity connecting the two, it could buy low in West Texas and sell higher near Houston. This is real profit, but it depends on that discount persisting. New Permian takeaway pipelines are being built specifically to narrow it, including Eiger Express, a pipeline ONEOK itself holds a stake in. The rest of the segment's gain is steadier: $19 million from higher firm transportation revenue (capacity customers pay for whether or not they use it; contracted capacity rose 7.3% to 7,735 MDth/d, 92% of available capacity) and $17 million more from joint ventures Northern Border and Matterhorn.
Refined Products and Crude (+$70M): higher volumes and tariffs. Transportation and storage contributed $79 million more, "due primarily to higher Refined Products volumes and rates." Refined products shipped rose 8.4%, which the filing ties to more volume from marketing affiliates and to refinery disruptions shifting regional demand onto ONEOK's system. Crude marketing added $48 million. Operating costs rose $48 million (outside services, employee costs, property taxes) and absorbed a large share of the gain. Crude volumes shipped dipped 0.9% as the company dropped low-margin, short-haul movements.
Natural Gas Liquids (-$14M): record volumes, but costs grew faster. This is ONEOK's largest segment and handles NGLs: ethane, propane, butane and similar liquids separated from raw natural gas. Raw feed throughput hit a record 1,630 MBbl/d, up 6.7%, and the company says Gulf Coast/Permian volumes rose 15%. Those higher volumes were worth $28 million in exchange-services fees, but $12 million of higher transportation and fractionation costs and $11 million from "fewer product price differentials captured" offset most of that. Operating costs rose another $18 million. The segment's first-half EBITDA is still up $57 million, mainly from gains on selling NGLs held in inventory. The first half also carried a $71 million hit from "lower average fee rates and narrower product price differentials" in the Gulf Coast/Permian and Mid-Continent regions. The NGL business is moving more barrels at slightly lower fees per barrel, and that is the most important trend to watch here.
Gathering and Processing (+$6M): volumes up, costs up. Processed volumes rose 2.4% "due to increased production in all regions," adding $20 million, and higher condensate prices net of hedging added $13 million. Operating costs rose $22 million. Of that, $13 million reflects a methane-fee accrual that was reversed in Q2 2025 because of regulatory changes, which flattered last year's costs. Adjusting for that one-time prior-year reversal, segment EBITDA would have grown by about $19 million rather than $6 million.
Acquisitions: this quarter's growth is organic
ONEOK has closed several large acquisitions in recent years: Magellan (2023), Medallion and a controlling stake in EnLink (October 2024), the remaining public EnLink units (January 31, 2025), and the remaining 49.9% of the Delaware Basin joint venture (May 28, 2025). All of these businesses were already consolidated in Q2 2025, so none of them inflates the year-over-year EBITDA growth this quarter. The acquisitions do affect the comparison in two smaller ways:
Transaction costs. Q2 2025 carried $22 million of deal-related costs versus $4 million this quarter. Q2 2025 adjusted EBITDA included $21 million of them. Excluding those, underlying adjusted EBITDA growth was roughly 6%, not 7%.
Minority interest. Earnings belonging to outside partners (noncontrolling interests) fell from $12 million to $1 million after ONEOK bought out its Delaware Basin JV partner. That is why net income attributable to ONEOK grew 14.9% while total net income grew 13.4%.
Below operating income, results were mixed. Equity earnings from joint ventures rose $22 million. "Other income" fell $35 million, from $39 million to $4 million. The effective tax rate was stable at about 23.6%. Diluted share count rose only 0.6%, so EPS growth closely tracks net income growth.
Takeaway: ONEOK's 15% EPS gain leans heavily on a marketing windfall, not only on its core fee business. The $77 million Waha-to-Katy spread gain in Natural Gas Pipelines equals about two-thirds of the roughly $119 million underlying EBITDA increase (after stripping out last year's $21 million of transaction costs), while the largest segment, NGLs, earned less despite record volumes. The volume growth is real and broad-based, but per-barrel NGL fees are under pressure, and the spread that drove this quarter's growth will narrow as new Permian pipelines come online.
Guidance and outlook
Management raised 2026 guidance for the second time this year with the Q2 results on August 3:
2026 guidance
Range
Midpoint
Adjusted EBITDA
$8.2B - $8.5B
$8.35B
Net income
$3.41B - $3.79B
$3.6B
Diluted EPS
-
$5.68
Capital expenditures
$2.7B - $3.2B (unchanged)
-
The first half delivered $4.12 billion of adjusted EBITDA (+9.6%) and $2.75 of diluted EPS (+15.5%). Hitting the midpoint implies about $4.23 billion of EBITDA and $2.93 of EPS in the second half, roughly 3% and 7% above the first half. Several growth projects should help deliver that:
The Greater Denver refined products pipeline expansion (35 MBbl/d, about $480 million) was mechanically complete in early August.
Phase one of the Medford, Oklahoma NGL fractionator rebuild (100 MBbl/d) is due in Q4 2026.
The second phase (110 MBbl/d) is due in Q1 2027.
Longer-dated projects are the Bighorn Permian processing plant (mid-2027), the Texas City LPG export terminal and the MBTC pipeline (early 2028), and Eiger Express (mid-2028).
A major capital-structure change came after the quarter ended. Per 8-Ks filed August 31 and September 15:
On August 18, ONEOK (through its subsidiary ONEOK Rockies Midstream) agreed to buy 100% of Brazos Midland, LLC from Brazos Midstream Holdings III for $4.425 billion in cash, subject to adjustments and antitrust clearance.
On August 28, it agreed to take a $9 billion equity investment from an Apollo affiliate in a new ONEOK Holdings subsidiary. The proceeds are earmarked for the Brazos purchase and for retiring roughly $5 billion of debt, and tender offers for 20 series of notes started August 31.
In return, Apollo receives 15% of ONEOK's consolidated cash flow from operations each quarter the subsidiary pays a distribution (rising to 20% if leverage exceeds 4.5x). This lasts until its balance is paid down to $200 million.
A distribution is mandatory in any quarter ONEOK pays a dividend or buys back stock.
Our read: Two questions matter most for the second half. The first is whether NGL fee rates stabilize as the Medford capacity comes back. The second is how much of the Waha-Katy marketing gain repeats. The Brazos/Apollo deal makes future comparisons harder: Brazos will add acquired EBITDA once it closes, the debt paydown will cut interest expense, and a sizeable share of cash flow will go to Apollo rather than common shareholders. After closing, compare per-share cash flow and the amount left for common dividends, not just headline EBITDA. The quarterly dividend is currently $1.07 ($4.28 annualized, up 4%).
Source: ONEOK Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 (filed August 4, 2026); 2026 guidance from the Q2 2026 earnings release (Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1, August 3, 2026); Brazos and Apollo terms from Form 8-Ks filed August 31 and September 15, 2026. Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP measure; ONEOK reconciles it to net income in the filing.