Oneok (OKE) Risk Analysis

Our long-term debt has been assigned an investment-grade credit rating of "Baa2" by Moody's and "BBB" by both S&P and Fitch. Our commercial paper program has been assigned an investment-grade credit rating of Prime-2, A-2 and F2 by Moody's, S&P and Fitch, respectively. We cannot provide assurance that any of our current ratings will remain in effect for any given period of time or that a rating will not be lowered or withdrawn entirely by these credit rating agencies. If these agencies were to downgrade our long-term debt or our commercial paper rating, particularly below investment grade, our borrowing costs could increase, which would affect adversely our financial results, and our potential pool of investors and funding sources could decrease. Ratings from these agencies are not recommendations to buy, sell or hold our securities. Each rating should be evaluated independently of any other rating.

As of Dec. 31, 2024, we had total indebtedness of $33.2 billion. Our indebtedness and guarantee obligations could have significant consequences. For example, they could: - make it more difficult for us to satisfy our obligations with respect to senior notes and other indebtedness due to the increased debt-service obligations, which could, in turn, result in an event of default on such other indebtedness or the senior notes;- impair our ability to obtain additional financing in the future for working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions or general business purposes;- diminish our ability to withstand a downturn in our business or the economy;- require us to dedicate a substantial portion of our cash flows from operations to debt-service payments, reducing the availability of cash for working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions, dividends or general corporate purposes;- limit our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our business and the industry in which we operate; and - place us at a competitive disadvantage compared with our competitors that have proportionately less debt and fewer guarantee obligations. We are not prohibited under the indentures governing the senior notes from incurring additional indebtedness, but our debt agreements do subject us to certain operational limitations that could restrict our ability to finance future operations or expand or pursue business activities, as summarized in the next paragraph. If we incur significant additional indebtedness, it could worsen the negative consequences mentioned above and could affect adversely our ability to repay our other indebtedness. Our $3.5 Billion Credit Agreement contains provisions that, among other things, limit our ability to make material changes to the nature of our business, merge, consolidate or dispose of all or substantially all of our assets, grant liens and security interests on our assets, engage in transactions with affiliates or make restricted payments, including dividends. It also requires us to maintain certain financial ratios, which limit the amount of additional indebtedness we can incur, as described in the "Liquidity and Capital Resources" section of Part II, Item 7, Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, in this Annual Report. These restrictions could result in higher costs of borrowing and impair our ability to generate additional cash. Future financing agreements we may enter into may contain similar or more restrictive covenants. If we are unable to meet our debt-service obligations or comply with financial covenants, we could be forced to restructure or refinance our indebtedness, seek additional equity capital or sell assets. We may be unable to obtain financing or sell assets on satisfactory terms, or at all.

The indentures governing certain of our and ONEOK Partners' senior notes include an event of default upon the acceleration of other indebtedness of $15 million or more for certain of our senior notes or $100 million or more for certain of our and ONEOK Partners' senior notes. Such events of default would entitle the trustee or the holders of 25% in aggregate principal amount of our and ONEOK Partners' outstanding senior notes to declare those senior notes immediately due and payable in full. We may not have sufficient cash on hand to repurchase and repay any accelerated senior notes, which may cause us to borrow funds under our credit facility or seek alternative financing sources to finance the repurchases and repayment. We could also face difficulties accessing capital or our borrowing costs could increase, impacting our ability to obtain financing for acquisitions or capital expenditures, to refinance indebtedness and to fulfill our debt obligations.

Although ONEOK Partners, the Intermediate Partnership, Magellan, EnLink and EnLink Partners have guaranteed our debt securities, the guarantees are subject to release under certain circumstances, and we have subsidiaries that are not guarantors. In those cases, the debt securities effectively are subordinated to the claims of all creditors, including trade creditors and tort claimants, of our subsidiaries that are not guarantors. In the event of the insolvency, bankruptcy, liquidation, reorganization, dissolution or winding up of the business of a subsidiary that is not a guarantor, creditors of that subsidiary would generally have the right to be paid in full before any distribution is made to us or the holders of the debt securities.

The success of the Recent Acquisitions will depend, in part, on our ability to realize the anticipated benefits from combining the businesses of ONEOK, EnLink and Medallion. If the businesses are not successfully combined, the anticipated benefits of the Recent Acquisitions may not be realized fully or at all or may take longer to realize than expected. In addition, the integration may result in additional and unforeseen expenses and potential unknown liabilities, which could reduce the anticipated benefits of the Recent Acquisitions. It is possible that the integration process could result in the loss of key employees, as well as the disruption of our ongoing businesses or inconsistencies in our standards, controls, procedures and policies. Any or all of those occurrences could affect adversely the combined company's ability to maintain relationships with customers and employees after the Recent Acquisitions or to achieve the anticipated benefits of the Recent Acquisitions. Integration efforts between the three companies will also divert management attention and resources. These integration matters could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial position and cash flows. Following the EnLink Controlling Interest Acquisition, we began to integrate certain aspects of EnLink's business and operations with ours, but EnLink has continued to operate as a separate public company. In connection with the completion of the EnLink Acquisition, EnLink ceased to operate as a separate public company, and we began full integration with our business. This integration process is expected to be subject to some or all of the aforementioned challenges many of which may be more complex as a result of having to fully integrate the EnLink business. Further, this integration process may pose additional difficulties inherent with fully integrating the EnLink business and the discontinuation of its operation as a separate public company. If we are unable to successfully execute our integration strategy, we may be unable to realize some or all of the anticipated benefits of the EnLink Acquisition which could materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial position and cash flows.