Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) And our first question comes from the line of Nick O'Grady of Highbridge.
Nick O'Grady - Highbridge
Hi. Good morning.
Fred Fowler
Good morning.
Greg Ebel
Good morning.
Nick O'Grady - Highbridge
A couple question on NGLs. I don't know exactly what the percent of proceeds versus keep/hold balances, but I am curious about your thoughts on the ethane market. It seems like ethane pricing, which makes up about 50% of the NGLs, is collapsing relative to crude, and maybe just another comment on the Canadian business on volumes going forward given that [dayco] pricing has continued to collapse and how that affects the percent of proceeds are?
Fred Fowler
Yes, I think from the standpoint of today in our joint venture with ConocoPhillips on the lower 48 gathering and processing, we're at about 90% of our processing is on percent of proceeds.
The kind of the big exposure that we continue to have in our Western Canadian business is the Empress plan, which is on a keep/hold basis. I think from the standpoint of NGLs, yes, there's no doubt that ethane's under pressure, but if you really look at kind of the crude relationship over the year, when crude went -- kind of took off on its jag, we saw for, I guess, the second quarter the overall composite barrel get down to about a 50% correlation versus crude oil. And actually, even with the pressure that ethane is under today, with the pullback in crude oil, we're seeing that relationship improve back, I think, to around the mid-50s at this point.
So, yes, while it's about as good as it would have been had you not seen the pressure on ethane, it's not to the point that I think it's dramatically hurting us at this point. But always a concern because, no doubt, where ethane goes, it goes into the petrochemicals as a base feedstock for ethylene, and ethylene is very driven by the economy and particularly the housing market. So, yeah, it's a worry.
Nick O'Grady - Highbridge
And just as a follow-up to that, in Canada, in general, on a volumetric basis, have you seen, just it goes now roughly below or close to below marginal costs for Canadian production, so have you seen any falloff in volumes at this point that's a concern?
Fred Fowler
No noticeable falloff at this point.
Nick O'Grady - Highbridge
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