During the company’s investors day last week, Kinder Morgan executives said at the company plans to spend more than two-thirds of the $3.1 billion it has set aside for new projects on infrastructure to ship natural gas to customers both in the United States and aboard.

The projects are being developed at a time of record natural gas production in the Permian Basin of West Texas and other U.S. shale plays. Domestic and international demand for U.S. natural gas is expected to grow from 8 billion cubic feet per day in 2018 to more than 29 billion cubic feet per day in 2030, figures from global energy analysis firm Wood Mackenzie show.

Kinder Morgan Board Chairman Rich Kinder told investors that the two trends are creating a business opportunity for the Houston company.

“All of this expanded demand has to be connected with our growing supply basins and that’s where midstream companies like Kinder Morgan are key,” Kinder told investors. “Our network of 70,000 miles of natural gas pipeline, which moves about 40 percent of throughput in this country, is uniquely positioned to maximize our current capacity. That’s important. It’s also important that, that infrastructure advantages us for new expansion and extension opportunities off of the base system that we have.”

Kinder Morgan plans to spend $715 million to maintain its current assets in 2019 but the company has also set aside nearly $3.1 billion for its 2019 discretionary budget, which the company uses for building and developing new pipelines, storage terminals, processing plants and other infrastructure.

Nearly $2.3 billion of that discretionary budget has been set aside for natural gas projects in 2019. The two biggest projects are a pair of pipelines that will move natural gas from the Permian Basin of West Texas to the Gulf Coast.

Kinder Morgan is leading a joint venture with three other companies to bring the Gulf Coast Express Pipeline into service by October. With a cost of $1.75 billion, the 42-inch pipeline will move 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Waha Hub in the Permian Basin to the Agua Dulce hub near Corpus Christi.

The Houston company is also the lead developer in the $2.1 billion Permian Highway Pipeline. Expected to come into service in Oct. 2020, the 42-inch pipeline will move 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Waha Hub to the Katy Hub near Houston.

In addition to the pipelines, Kinder Morgan is also planning to invest in projects to boost its natural gas exports to Mexico and develop other pipelines to support the growing liquefied natural gas industry along the Gulf Coast. The company plans to put its own Elba Island LNG export terminal near Savannah, Georgia into service by then end of the first quarter.

Global demand for LNG expected to grow from 40 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day in 2018 to nearly 75 billion cubic feet per day in 2030. With Kinder Morgan’s pipelines supplying natural gas to LNG export terminals along the Gulf Coast and an export terminal of its own, the company views liquefied natural gas as a strong growth market.

“Natural gas and petroleum demand is expected to grow for decades to come,” Kinder said. “This growth is driven by demand from developing economies with India’s demand expected to double and more while China is expected to be the largest importer of oil and natural gas. There’s a combination of population growth, urbanization and economic development, which created a tremendous need for affordable and reliable energy sources.”

Founded in 1997, Kinder Morgan employs nearly 11,000 people. The company closed 2018 with a $1.48 billion profit on $14.1 of revenue.

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