Noncontrolling Interests. Noncontrolling interest represents the portion of assets and liabilities in a consolidated subsidiary that is owned by a third party. FASB guidance requires all entities to report noncontrolling interests in subsidiaries as a component of equity in the consolidated financial statements. See Note 12 for additional discussion regarding our noncontrolling interests. FASB guidance establishes accounting requirements for retirement obligations associated with tangible long-lived assets, including estimates related to (i) the time of the liability recognition, (ii) initial measurement of the liability, (iii) allocation of asset retirement cost to expense, (iv) subsequent measurement of the liability and (v) financial statement disclosures. FASB guidance also requires that the cost for asset retirement should be capitalized as part of the cost of the related long-lived asset and subsequently allocated to expense using a systematic and rational method. Some of our assets, primarily related to our Transportation and Facilities segments, have contractual or regulatory obligations to perform remediation and, in some instances, dismantlement and removal activities when the assets are abandoned. These obligations include varying levels of activity including disconnecting inactive assets from active assets, cleaning and purging assets, and in some cases, completely removing the assets and returning the land to its original state. These assets have been in existence for many years and with regular maintenance will continue to be in service for many years to come. It is not possible to predict when demand for these transportation or storage services will cease, and we do not believe that such demand will cease for the foreseeable future. Accordingly, we believe the date when these assets will be abandoned is indeterminate. With no reasonably determinable abandonment date, we cannot reasonably estimate the fair value of the associated asset retirement obligations. We will record asset retirement obligations for these assets in the period in which sufficient information becomes available for us to reasonably determine the settlement dates. A small portion of our contractual or regulatory obligations is related to assets that are inactive or that we plan to take out of service and, although the ultimate timing and costs to settle these obligations are not known with certainty, we have recorded a reasonable estimate of these obligations. The following table presents the change in the liability for asset retirement obligations, of which $135 million, $107 million and $99 million were reflected in “Other long-term liabilities and deferred credits” with the remaining portion reflected in “Other current liabilities” on our Consolidated Balance Sheets as of December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively (in millions): Beginning balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $109 $103 $ 44 Liabilities incurred . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3 33 Liabilities settled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (3) (3) (4) Accretion expense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 4 3 Revisions in estimated cash flows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 2 27 Ending balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $137 $109 $103 Financial assets and liabilities are classified in their entirety based on the lowest level of input that is significant to the fair value measurement. Our assessment of the significance of a particular input to the fair value measurement requires judgment, which affects the placement of assets and liabilities within the fair value hierarchy levels. The determination of the fair values includes not only the credit standing of the counterparties involved and the impact of credit enhancements (such as cash deposits and letters of credit) but also the impact of our nonperformance risk on our liabilities. The fair value of our commodity derivatives, interest rate derivatives and foreign currency derivatives includes adjustments for credit risk. Our credit adjustment methodology uses market observable inputs and requires judgment. There were no changes to any of our valuation techniques during the period. See Note 13 for further discussion.
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