We also increased our dividend to an annualized rate of $1.08 per share as we promised when we released our original outlook for 2021 back in December.
To put this in perspective, this is the fourth consecutive annual increase in our dividend since 2017, when we were paying an annual dividend of $0.50 per share.
And we have accomplished that while maintaining a real focus on our balance sheet, having reduced our debt from its peak of almost $43 billion in 2015 to $30.7 billion today, a decrease of over $12 billion, quite an improvement.
We do that in Texas, too, but we also have a purchase and sale business.
And we view our Texas intrastates as roughly 80% or so take-or-pay.
It also reveals the value of preparation in such circumstances in which supply and demand conditions causing prices to go up by more than 100 times, we were able to perform well financially, as well as operationally.
which during that week at the Houston Ship Channel, range from $180 MMBtu to $400 versus $3 earlier in the same month.
The contract work, as designed and particularly with prices as high as $9,000 a megawatt hour, we earned a substantial financial benefit, while letting those megawatts be made available to serve human needs.
This is great flexibility that we've now built into a part of our business that consumes about 340 megawatts in the state of Texas.
Transport volumes were down about 3% or approximately 1.1 million dekatherms per day versus the first quarter of '20.
Physical deliveries to LNG facilities off of our pipeline averaged approximately 4.7 million dekatherms per day.
That's greater than a 25% increase versus the first quarter of 2020.
LNG volumes were down from the approximately 5 million dekatherms per day in the fourth quarter of '20.
During the storm, total LNG exports dropped to under 2 million dekatherms per day.
In the first quarter, Kinder Morgan pipes moved approximately 47% of the volume going to LNG export facilities.
Exports to Mexico on our pipes were up about 3% when compared to the first quarter of '20.
Our share of Mexico deliveries in the first quarter ran about 55%.
One, on our natural gas gathering volumes, they were down about 25% in the quarter compared to the first quarter of '20.
So compared to the fourth-quarter volumes, first-quarter volumes were down about 11%.
Approximately two-thirds of that 11% reduction are related to KinderHawk, which is our gathering asset in the Haynesville.
But given that there are 45 rigs deployed in that basin, we expect that our volumes will increase sequentially each quarter for the balance of the year, although it will be a little bit slower than what we've budgeted.
In our products pipeline segment, refined products volumes were down about 10% for the quarter versus the first quarter of 2020.
Gasoline volumes were up 6% versus the first quarter of '20.
That's an improvement from the fourth quarter when they were off about 10% versus the fourth quarter of 2019.
Jet volumes remain weak off about 29%, but that's a big improvement from the fourth quarter when they were off 47% versus the fourth quarter of '20.
And diesel volumes were up 6%, and that's relatively flat to the percentage in the fourth quarter.
March volumes were up slightly versus 2020, and they were down about 6% versus 2019.
Crude and condensate volumes were down about 28% in the quarter versus the first quarter of 2020.
Sequentially, they were up 2%.
Our liquids utilization percentage, which reflects the tanks that we have under contract remains high at 95%.
If you exclude tanks out of service for required inspection, utilization is about 98%.
Excluding the storm impact, oil production was down approximately 15%.
CO2 sales volumes were down 26%.
Our net realized oil price was down about $3.50 per barrel.
As we said in the release, we're currently projecting full-year DCF of $5.1 billion to $5.3 billion versus our budget of $4.45 billion.
We estimate that the Uri impact, and this is across all of our segments, was roughly worst-season hand grenades $1 billion, leaving a variance, again, very roughly, of $200 million to $350 million versus our budget.
I know $200 million doesn't add up perfectly, but that's because these are very large rounded numbers.
Let me start with the $200 million variance.
We estimate that sustaining capex will be approximately $75 million higher than our budget due to the decision to replace some pipe in rural South Texas as opposed to continuing to spend money running inspection tools and repairing the pipe.
What I'll classify as pandemic-related impacts is roughly $80 million, and that includes weaker petroleum products volumes and lower renewal rates on Jones Act tankers.
Those two items explain about 75% of the variance, but there are a lot of other moving parts.
Those two items are roughly offset by positive performance in the CO2 segment, from higher CO2 and oil volumes and price.
Finally, the sale of our 12.5% interest on NGPL creates a negative variance versus our budget.
For example, The high end of the guidance range assumes petroleum products volume 3% below plan for the balance of the year versus the low end of the guidance assumes they're about 5% below plan for the balance of the year.
So for the first quarter of 2021, as Rich mentioned, we are declaring a dividend of $0.27 per share, which is 3% up from last quarter.
Now looking at the financial performance for the first quarter of this year versus the first quarter of last year, we generated revenues of $5.2 billion, up $2.1 billion.
We had partial offsets in our -- a partial offset in our cost of sales with an increase of $1.3 billion there.
So our gross margin was up $759 million, mostly driven by our strong performance during the winter storm.
And that's the main item in the $106 million favorable O&M amount.
In the first quarter of 2020, we also took impairments in our CO2 segment of $950 million, which explains most of the $975 million favorable in the item -- the line item called gain and loss on divestitures and impairments.
This past quarter, we wrote off the value of our Ruby subordinated note, which was a reduction of $117 million in the earnings from equity investments.
We also reflected a $206 million gain on the sale of a partial interest in NGPL, and that appears in the other net line item.
So overall, we generated net income of $0.62 per share, which is very favorable versus the $0.14 loss in the first quarter of 2020.
On an adjusted earnings per share basis, and then that's where we show earnings per share before certain items, we generated $0.60 per share versus $0.24 per share a year ago.
Our natural gas segment was up $915 million for the quarter, mostly explained by favorable intrastate margins as well as increased revenue on our Tennessee Gas Pipeline, both as a result of the February winter storm performance.
Product segment was down $10 million, driven by lower refined product volumes on SFPP, lower crude oil volumes on KMCC, and lower recontracting rates at HH, partially offset by greater contributions from our transmix business.
Our terminal segment was down $30 million.
Our CO2 segment was up $116 million this quarter versus a year ago.
Our G&A at corporate and corporate charges were higher by $8 million.
That brings us to adjusted EBITDA, which was $966 million, or 52% higher than Q1 2020.
Interest expense was favorable by $52 million.
For the quarter, sustaining capital was favorable by $34 million, and that was driven by lower terminals and natural gas segment capex.
But all of that is timing, and we expect to spend more sustaining capital for the full year versus 2020.
So our total DCF was $2.329 billion and was up $1.068 billion, or 85%.
And our DCF per share was $1.02, up $0.47 from last year's $0.55 per share.
We ended the quarter with net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 3.9 times, down nicely from the 4.6 times at year-end.
And we currently project to end 2021 at 3.9 times to 4.0 times, and that's consistent with the ranges that Kim walked through.
Our longer-term leverage target of 4.5 times has not changed.
We ended the quarter with almost $1.4 billion of cash on hand and only have $500 million of consolidated debt maturing for the rest of the year.
So our net debt, which includes our cash on hand, ended the quarter at $30.7 billion, down $1.348 billion for the year -- from the year.
And now, our net debt has declined by $12.1 billion or almost 30% since Q1 of 2015, as Rich mentioned, but is worth reiterating.
So our quarter change to reconcile the change in debt of $1.35 billion for the quarter.
We generated $2.329 billion in DCF.
We paid dividends of $600 million.
We made $200 million of contributions to our growth projects as well as to JVs.
We received $413 million from the NGPL sale, and we had $600 million of -- approximately $600 million of working capital uses, primarily interest expense payments, AR increases, and a rate case settlement on SFPP.

Summary:
We do that in Texas, too, but we also have a purchase and sale business.
which during that week at the Houston Ship Channel, range from $180 MMBtu to $400 versus $3 earlier in the same month.
Transport volumes were down about 3% or approximately 1.1 million dekatherms per day versus the first quarter of '20.
Exports to Mexico on our pipes were up about 3% when compared to the first quarter of '20.
Those two items are roughly offset by positive performance in the CO2 segment, from higher CO2 and oil volumes and price.
For example, The high end of the guidance range assumes petroleum products volume 3% below plan for the balance of the year versus the low end of the guidance assumes they're about 5% below plan for the balance of the year.
So for the first quarter of 2021, as Rich mentioned, we are declaring a dividend of $0.27 per share, which is 3% up from last quarter.
We had partial offsets in our -- a partial offset in our cost of sales with an increase of $1.3 billion there.
So overall, we generated net income of $0.62 per share, which is very favorable versus the $0.14 loss in the first quarter of 2020.
On an adjusted earnings per share basis, and then that's where we show earnings per share before certain items, we generated $0.60 per share versus $0.24 per share a year ago.
But all of that is timing, and we expect to spend more sustaining capital for the full year versus 2020.
And we currently project to end 2021 at 3.9 times to 4.0 times, and that's consistent with the ranges that Kim walked through.