Help for FiddyIf you are not just "taking a p*ss" as the Brits call it, this may help.
Think of ENB as a taxi company who has a contract to drive home all the employees of a company each day. The contract pays a set fee plus the cost to cover the mileage for each pick up. When an employee doesn't require a ride home, the taxi company gets the set fee.
When Covid hit, 40% of their employees under the contract began to work at home. As such, the taxi company didn't get to report 40% of the normal mileage as revenue, but they also didn't incur the cost of the mileage. The taxi company still kept the set fee so their earnings were unaffected
I copied the following graphic from the "Why Invest" icon of the Enbridge website:
As you can see in the top left corner, ENB has 98% Cost of Service Contracts (commonly known as Take or Pay). That means ENB gets paid whether they transport the oil (or pick up the pasenger in my example).
The fear for investors is that ENB's customers might not be able to pay. However, 95% of ENB's customers are Investment grade which basically means they can afford to write the cheque.
Sounds too good to be true. Right?
Wrong! It is true. If a E&P company wants ENB to carry it's oil to market, they have to have an Investment grade credit rating, and they have to sign long term Take or Pay contracts.
Soooooooooooooooooooooo....when ENB says they are going to deliver, they deliver. Last December 12th, ENB offered guidance for 2020:
1) They said they would increase their dividend to $0.81 per quarter for the year and they have and will continue to deliver for Q3 and Q4.
2) They also provided EBITDA for 2020 within a range of $4.50 to $4.80 for 2020, which they reconfirmed during their Q2 mgmt discussion despite the horrendous conditions experienced in Q2. this year, they will deliver. ENB confirmed the numbers during their mgmt discussions to accompany the Q2 report.
3) They provided guidance that their FFO would increase by 5% to 7% for 2021 to 2023. That means that shareholders can be confident that dividends will increase by at least 5% to 7% over the 3 years. If there is a catastrophic change (something far greater than the covid disaster in Q2 that didn't alter the company's FFO guidance for 2020), the company will tell us because that is what they do.
Fiddy, if you were just playing with the board, I just wasted a few minutes but perhaps the explanation might help someone else. If you were serious and don't understand what I have written, then I can't help ya mate!