The move to a cash dividend is evidence of the board's confidence in the growth and sustainability of the company's future earnings and cash flows.

With the addition of the Sid Richardson business, we will now have more than 22,000 miles of gathering and transportation pipelines stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Southwest, Midwest and Canada.

We've probably seen the peak in confidence. The most optimistic growth forecasts are for about 2 percent this year, but that's not really a boom. We've seen some euphoria, but now we're returning to more realistic levels.

Our mission remains to balance long-term growth ambitions with ongoing return to shareholders, fully justifying their confidence in the group.

As rebuilding efforts take hold and job growth gains momentum, consumers' confidence should rebound and return to more positive levels by year-end or early 2006.

Confidence is a plant of slow growth; especially in an aged bosom