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TECO Energy’s (TE) CEO John Ramil on Q3 2015 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

TECO Energy, Inc. (NYSE: TE ) Q3 2015 Earnings Conference Call November 5, 2015 9:00 AM ET Executives Mark Kane – Director of Investor Relations Sandra Callahan – Senior Vice President, Finance & Accounting and Chief Financial Officer John Ramil – President and Chief Executive Officer Analysts John Barter – KeyBanc Capital Markets Operator Good morning. My name is Brandi, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the TECO Energy’s Third Quarter Results and 2015 Outdoor Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Mr. Mark Kane, you may begin your conference. Mark Kane Thank you, Brandi. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the TECO Energy third quarter 2015 results conference call. Our results from continuing operations along with utilities statistical pages and the earnings release were released earlier this morning. This presentation is being webcast and our earnings release statistical summaries and slides are available on our website at tecoenergy.com. The presentation will be available for replay through the website approximately two hours after the conclusion of our presentation and will be available for 30 days. In the course of our remarks today, we will be making forward-looking statements about our expectations for 2015 results and preliminary business drivers for 2016. There are a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those that we will discuss today. For a more complete discussion of these factors, we refer you to the risk factor discussion on our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the period ended December 31, 2014, and as updated in subsequent SEC filings. In the course of today’s presentation, we will be using non-GAAP results. There is a reconciliation between these non-GAAP measures and the closest GAAP measure in the appendix to today’s presentation. The host for our call today is Sandy Callahan, TECO Energy’s Chief Financial Officer. Also with us today is John Ramil, TECO Energy’s CEO. Now, I’ll turn it over to Sandy. Sandra Callahan Thank you, Mark. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. This morning I’ll cover the status of the various filings that we have made with Emera for approval of the acquisition, provide a normal quarterly update, and confirm our 2015 outlook. The appendix to the presentation contains the usual graph from the Florida and New Mexico economies and reconciliations of non-GAAP results. Since we announced the signing of the agreement with Emera in early September, we have been busy working with Emera to make the required filings in a timely manner. We filed with the FERC on October 6, and asked for approval by March. We filed with the New Mexico Commission on October 19. The commission assigned a hearing examiner yesterday and we are waiting for a final order on that and for a schedule to be established in the proceedings. We filed an initial proxy with the SEC on October 6, and subsequently filed our final proxy on October 22, with a record date of October 21. We’ve scheduled the special shareholder meeting to vote on the approval of the merger for December 3. And over the next several weeks, we expect to make the Hart-Scott-Rodino filing and the filing with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. In the third quarter, non-GAAP results from continuing operations were $77.3 million or $0.33 per share, compared with $0.32 last year. Net income from continuing operations was $64.9 million in 2015, and that includes $12.4 million of charges, primarily associated with the pending acquisition by Emera. We closed the sale of TECO Coal this quarter, so I’m not including a report on discontinued operations in my quarterly update. There is a report on discontinued operations included in our earnings release. For the first nine months of the year, non-GAAP results from continuing operations were $203.6 million or $0.87 per share, compared with $0.84 last year. Net income from continuing operations was $190.2 million, compared with $179 million last year. In addition to the cost this year associated with the Emera transaction, both years include costs associated with the New Mexico Gas acquisition, $1.2 million integration costs in 2015, and $5.7 million of acquisition costs in 2014. Tampa Electric reported higher net income in the third quarter. Customer growth was a strong 1.8%, while energy sales were slightly lower than last year, reflecting degree days that were fairly normal, but rainfall in July and August that was 60% above normal. Base revenues in the quarter benefited from the increase that became effective November 1 of last year per the 2013 regulatory stipulation. And AFUDC increased this quarter with higher investment balances in the Polk conversion project and other qualified projects. Peoples Gas saw another quarter of 2% customer growth, again with the strongest numbers in the southwest and northeast areas of the state. Both customer and economic growth contributed to higher firm sales to retail customers, as well as transported for power generation customers and off-system sales were higher also, reflecting more coal-to-gas switching, as well as new generating facilities coming online. The local economy continues to do very well. And it was helped in the first nine months of the year by a very strong tourist industry that benefited from Chamber of Commerce weather, the hockey finals, and new international flights at Tampa International Airport. As an indicator of that, hotel bed pack collections in the Tampa area set records in the fiscal year ended September 20, 2015, with numbers 13% higher than 2014, which also was a record year. New Mexico Gas Company recorded a seasonal loss in the third quarter, always the weakest revenue quarter, because of the absence of heating load. Again this quarter, we saw the positive impact on O&Million, both from integration synergies being realized and an overall focus on cost reduction. Customer growth was 0.8% in the quarter. And to provide some perspective on that, in the first full quarter that we owned New Mexico Gas, which was the fourth quarter of last year, customer growth was half that at 0.4%. The other net segment formerly known as Parent/Other had a net cost in the third quarter that was lower compared to last year, due to some unfavorable tax items that were in 2014. Results also reflect interest expense at New Mexico Gas Intermediate, the parent of New Mexico Gas Company. And we only had one month of that interest in the 2014 period. And finally, the lower interest expense from a refinancing earlier this year more than offset the impact of no longer allocating interest expense to TECO Coal. The Florida economy continues to be a good story. Statewide unemployment at the end of the third quarter was 5.2%, down from 5.8% a year ago. And over that period, the state has added more than 236,000 new jobs. Hillsborough County, Tampa Electric’s primary service territory once again outpaced the state and U.S. levels with unemployment down to 4.8%, a full percent below where it was a year ago. Over the past year, the Tampa-St. Petersburg area added more than 28,000 jobs. A nice development in the local employment picture is an increase in the number of higher paying science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM jobs in the Tampa Bay area. According to a Bloomberg study, Tampa has more than 64,000 STEM jobs, representing more than 5% of the workforce. And that is the highest number and percentage among Florida’s major metropolitan areas. Growth in construction-related jobs in Tampa is being driven by record numbers and record values for building permits. In the 2015 fiscal year that just ended, the City of Tampa issued more than 23,000 building permits. Single family, multi-family and commercial, both new construction and modification, with a value of $2.4 billion. Those numbers represent a 20% increase from 2014, which also was a record year. Aggressive economic development efforts have brought almost 12,000 new jobs to the area over the past three years, including a number of higher paying professional and high-tech jobs. In New Mexico, the unemployment rate never came close to the levels we saw in Florida, because of the large presence of the oil and gas industry and governmental facilities in the state. Improvement though, has been slower than what we have experienced in Florida. And in September, the unemployment rate ticked up, primarily due to a slowdown in construction employment. Net job growth in New Mexico was 6,400 over the past year, a number impacted by some job losses in the oil and gas industry as a result of the recent movements in energy prices. The largest gains came in the education and health services, leisure and hospitality, and professional and business service categories. The Albuquerque area, which constitutes almost 50% of the state’s non-farm payroll, led the state in job creation, adding 6,600 jobs over the year and offsetting net job losses in some of the less populace areas. On the housing front, the good story in the Tampa area continues, with more than 5,800 new single-family building permits issued over the past 12 months, and existing homes continuing to sell at a strong pace. The October Case-Shiller report shows that selling prices in the Tampa market increased 6.1% year over year. With the strong pace of resale, the housing inventory remains at a healthy level of less than four months. In Albuquerque, New Mexico’s largest metro area, existing home resales have trended up steadily over the past year. There was a very strong acceleration in recent months, including a 33% year-over-year increase in June, and 26% in September. Selling prices have also trended up, and the inventory of homes available for resale is just under five months. You can see all of these trends on the graphs in the appendix. Our assumptions around guidance that we provided previously remain unchanged. We are maintaining our previously provided guidance for 2015 earnings per share from continuing operations in a range of $1.08 to $1.11, excluding non-GAAP charges or gains. We still expect New Mexico Gas to be accretive to our full-year earnings, but it has been a challenge to overcome the very mild winter weather that started the year. We had great results on a cost side, and that is helping to offset the impact of disappointing first quarter weather. But we do need some normal cold winter weather to close out the year. Looking forward to next year, all indications are that we should continue to see strong customer growth at all three of the utilities. We expect the Florida utilities to earn towards the upper end of the respective return on equity ranges shown on the slide. Tampa Electric AFUDC earnings will grow next year, as the investment in the Polk conversion project reaches its peak. And in addition, a $5 million base revenue increase became effective November 1 of this year as a result of the 2013 settlement agreement. All of the utilities expect to record higher depreciation expense as a result of continued investment in equipment and facilities to serve customers. And of course, across the board, we will continue to be very focused on holding the line on cost. Our upcoming investor communication schedule includes being at EEI next week, where we will participate jointly with Emera in one-on-one meetings, and also we will be a part of Emera’s presentation at 10:30 on Tuesday morning. After the Emera acquisition announcement, we’ve been asked if we would continue to have quarterly conference calls. Because of the timing of EEI next week and our activities there, we decided to have a call this quarter. But future calls will be on an as-needed basis only. And now I’ll turn it over to the operator to open the line for your questions. Thank you. Question-and-Answer Session Operator [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of John Barter with KeyBanc. John Barter Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. I guess looking in New Mexico, has the hearing examiner — do you have any expectation around when the hearing examiner will have a recommendation? Sandra Callahan The first thing that has to happen is, the hearing examiner will set a schedule for the proceeding. And we will then go through that process, and the hearing examiner recommendation really comes at the end of that process. Mark Kane One thing to remember, the New Mexico regulatory calendar, there is a PNM rate case, there is a Southwest Public Service rate case, and there is a whole PNM San Juan process also running concurrent with our process, so the commission has a very full calendar. John Barter All right, got it. And then I guess in Florida with the whole solar issue — is it Floridians for Solar Choice and then Consumers for Smart Solar — have either of those initiatives got the necessary amount of signatures to get on the 2016 ballot yet, or is that still progressing? John Ramil No. This a John Ramil. Neither one have gotten the signatures yet. They are both being acquired as we speak. John Barter Okay. Thank you. Operator [Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at this time. Mark Kane Okay. Brandi, thank you very much. Thank you all for joining us this morning. If there are no further questions, this concludes TECO Energy’s third quarter call. Thank you. Operator This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect. Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site are the copyright of Seeking Alpha. However, we view them as an important resource for bloggers and journalists, and are excited to contribute to the democratization of financial information on the Internet. (Until now investors have had to pay thousands of dollars in subscription fees for transcripts.) So our reproduction policy is as follows: You may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to Seeking Alpha and either link to the original transcript or to www.SeekingAlpha.com. All other use is prohibited. 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National Fuel Gas’ (NFG) CEO Ronald Tanski on Q4 2015 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

National Fuel Gas Co. (NYSE: NFG ) Q4 2015 Earnings Conference Call November 6, 2015 11:00 AM ET Executives Brian Welsch – Investor Relations Ronald Tanski – Chief Executive Officer David Bauer – Treasurer and Principal Financial Officer Matthew Cabell – President of Seneca Resources Corporation Carl Carlotti – Senior Vice President Analysts Kevin Smith – Raymond James & Associates, Inc. Holly Stewart – Howard Weil Inc. Chris Sighinolfi – Jefferies LLC Tim Winter – Gabelli & Company Becca Followill – US Capital Advisors Operator Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q4 2015 National Fuel Gas Company Earnings Conference call. My name is Mark, and I’ll be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I’d now like to turn the conference over to your host for Brian Welsch, Director of Investor Relations. Please proceed, sir. Brian Welsch Thank you, Mark, and good morning. We appreciate you joining us on today’s conference call for a discussion of last evening’s earnings release. With us on the call from National Fuel Gas Company are Ron Tanski, President and Chief Executive Officer; Dave Bauer, Treasurer and Principal Financial Officer; and Matt Cabell, President of Seneca Resources Corporation. At the end of the prepared remarks, we will open up the discussion to questions. The fiscal 2015 earnings release and November Inventor Presentation have been posted on our Investor Relations website. We may refer to these materials during today’s call. We would also like to remind you that today’s teleconference will contain forward-looking statements. While National Fuel’s expectations, beliefs and projections are made in good faith and are believed to have a reasonable basis, actual results may differ materially. These statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and you may refer to last evening’s earnings release for a listing of certain specific risk factors. With that, I’ll turn it over to Ron Tanski. Ronald Tanski Thanks Brian and good morning everyone and thanks for joining us today for a discussion of our fiscal 2015 results. Last year at this time, I talked about National Fuel having achieved new fiscal year records for recurring earnings and cash flow for our 2014 fiscal year. Over the last 12 months lower commodity prices decreased our GAAP earnings and cash flow for our 2015 fiscal year. However operating results across each of our reporting segments remain strong. While we focused on our growth opportunities in our upstream and midstream segments, our utility and energy marketing operations continue to be an important part of our integrated strategy. In our utility we’ve increased our investment activity to replace older pipelines that were more prone to developing leaks and were continuing to develop new customer information and billing system to assure continued service quality for our customers, earnings in the utility or just slightly lower compared to last year. Our Energy Marketing segment had another good year, while passing the benefit of lower commodity prices along to their customers this segment still accomplished a million-dollar increase in earnings for the year. In our upstream segment at the Seneca Resources it was lower commodity prices that were the earnings driver for the year. The majority of the decrease in year-over-year earnings in the segment was caused by lower crude oil prices during the year. As we look forward to our fiscal 2016 we have strong hedge book for a large portion of both our crude oil and natural gas production which should protect a large portion of Seneca earnings and cash flow. What’s more important though, is that Seneca continuing to focus on cost control and its development operations that control is evident from the $0.96 per Mcfe of finding and development costs for the last year and particularly our $0.79 per Mcf of finding and development costs in the Marcellus. Our ability to continue development across our acreage of these costs puts us in a good positioned for a long period of development in the Marcellus. And this development of our own acreage supports the integrated growth strategy of our pipeline businesses. Our focused on cost control will continue as we timed the drilling and completion of our wells to match the new pipeline capacity that Seneca is coming online over the next two years. In our pipeline and storage segment I’m happy to report that three pipeline projects that we’ve been talking about for a while are now in operation. Our West Side expansion project along our Line N corridor when into service over the past few weeks and we are now shipping an additional 175,000 dekatherms of production per day for a couple of producers one of which is Seneca Resources. This project with a combination upgrade to our existing pipeline system under our modernization program and an expansion project. The project came in on budget at $86 million and the annual revenue associated with the new contracts is $8.8 million. This project was the fifth successful expansion of our Line N system since 2011. We also put our Tuscarora Lateral project into service this week, this was a project that allowed us to connect our Empire Pipeline with our supply company storages and sell a combination of storage and firm transportation capacity. The project also came in on budget at $60 million and has associated incremental annual revenues of $10.9 million. The other project that we’re phasing into service right now is our Northern Access 2015 project. This project, which is paired with a project by Tennessee Gas Pipeline, on our jointly owned Niagara Spur Line, will allow Seneca to move an additional 140,000 dekatherms per day of production to Canada. $40,000 dekatherms began flowing this week and the remainder will be ready to flow the end of the month. At a cost of $67.5 million dollars this project was also on budget that will generate revenues of $13.3 million annually. Our Northern Access 2016 project continues to move through the permitting phase because we made some location changes for some facilities on the project, we had to amend our FERC application. The changes weren’t major; however, they will likely require additional scoping by FERC. As a result we extended our certificate request date from December 2015 to February 2016. Assuming we receive a certificate in February or March we would still expect to get the project in service late in 2016. As each one of the projects that I referred to has taken years to reach their in-service dates, we continually look for new expansion projects to continue our growth. Last month, we announced an open season for a new project that we’re calling Empire North. It’s a project that’s designed to bring gas into the Southern end of our Empire Pipeline system and move it North. New interconnects are possible at Corning New York, or in Tioga or Potter Counties, Pennsylvania. We had a number of inquiries from possible shippers in those areas, so we put together the open season to try to transform some of those inquiries into commitments. Depending on the level of commitments and delivery point preferences we could handle up to an additional 300,000 dekatherms per day of throughput, while low commodity prices can be a challenge for our upstream business we have seen increased average use per customer on our Utility business and continuing demand for more pipeline capacity from producers looking to move their gas to higher-priced market. The next year, we will begin construction of the Northern Access 2016 project, which, in addition to benefiting supply in Empire will move Seneca’s production to a higher price market in Canada, we have a great hedge book, strong balance sheet and access to ample amounts of short-term credit plus our regulated operations provide a measure of stability to our earnings and cash flows. We’ve had great plan to take advantage of our unique mix of assets along commodity prices are at their low point in the cycle, we’re confident that our integrated approach to developing our acreage and building in the infrastructure needed to deliver our production to premium price markets will create significant long-term value for our shareholders. I’ll turn the call over to Matt Cabell to cover some of the Seneca details for the year. Matthew Cabell Thanks Ron and good morning everyone. For the fiscal fourth-quarter Seneca produced 37.6 Bcfe, which is 8 Bcfe less than last year’s fourth quarter. We voluntarily curtailed approximately 12.8 Bcf of potential spot sales due to low prices. Absent those curtailment’s production would have over 50 Bcfe for the quarter. In California production for the quarter was nearly flat to last year’s fourth quarter, despite a significant reduction in capital spending for the fiscal year. Looking to the future I’m pleased to report we’re in the process of closing another farm-in deal with Chevron in the North Midway Sunset field. Under the agreement, we are committed to investing $12 million over the next three years. This acreage is very close to our existing North Midway development and we are confident that we can develop it effectively and economically even at current oil prices. We’ve also called small acquisition adjacent to our South Midway Sunset area and are negotiating a second deal in that area. All three of these deals were structured in a way that minimizes upfront spending and instead allows us to deploy capital to develop the assets over several years. With these deals, we expect our overall California production to be relatively flat or up modestly over the next five years. Moving on to the Marcellus. In the Clermont/Rich Valley development area we have now drilled a total of 111 wells and completed 62. These wells continue to deliver consistent results in line with one type curve. In fact, the P10 to P90 EUR ratio is 1.4, which means the difference between the strongest 10% of our wells and the weakest 10% is only 1.4 times. This consistency in well results gives us a lot of confidence as we pursue our integrated growth strategy. Our fiscal 2015 development well cost was $5.7 million for a 37 stage well with the 7300 foot lateral length. As we move into fiscal 2016, we have negotiated a new frack contract, and have achieved substantial efficiencies in water handling. Therefore, I expect fiscal 2016 well cost to be down another 10% to 15%. Moving now to the Utica Point Pleasant. We finished drilling our first Clermont area Utica horizontal. The lateral length is approximately 5700 feet, and the AFE total cost to drill, complete and equip is $12 million. We drilled it to TD in 18 days so the phase was well under budget. We planned to frack this pad in the third quarter of fiscal 2016 and should have a flow rate shortly thereafter. We’ve completed our year-end reserves audit and for the fiscal year we replaced 373% of production to end the year with 2.3 trillion cubic feet equivalent of proved reserves. Our fiscal 2015, finding and development costs was $0.96 per Mcfe. On the marketing front, our strategic focus on long-term firm sales and hedging served us well in fiscal 2015. Our average after hedging gas price was $3.35 for the quarter and $3.38 for the fiscal year. Looking forward to fiscal 2016, we now have a 120 Bcf of our gas production locked in both physically and financially at an average price of $3.45, so we are well-positioned should low prices persist this year. In conclusion, our Marcellus development program is delivering the results we expected at a significantly lower cost. While overall finding and development cost is less than a $1, Marcellus F&D is only $0.79 per Mcf. This has lowered our breakeven price to $2.03 at Clermont specifically and less than 250 across a broad swap of our acreage. With firm transportation building to 900 million cubic feet by the end of 2017 we can expect decent returns at futures pricing and very good returns on large production volumes when Nymex gets back above $3. With that, I will turn it over to Dave. David Bauer Thanks Matt, and good morning everyone. As you read in last night’s release National Fuel reported a net loss for the fourth quarter of $2.22 per share. There were three items of note in the quarter that impacted earnings. First, as expected, the decline in commodity prices led Seneca to record another non-cash ceiling test charge of $2.83 a share. Going in the other direction Seneca had a few adjustments to deferred income taxes that improved earnings by $0.15 a share. The most significant of these adjustments related to Seneca’s capacity on the Northern Access 2015 project which will transport its production into Canada. As its Canadian sales increase, less of Seneca’s revenues will be allocated to its Pennsylvania income tax return, which will reduce future tax liability. Lastly, as a result of the net loss we experience this year the restricted stock grants made to our executive team for the three-year cycle that ended September 30 will not vest. Therefore we reversed about $8 million or $0.6 per share of long-term incentive comp expense, which was also a benefit to earnings. Excluding these three items results on operating basis were $0.41 per share. So down from the prior year mostly due to the decline in crude oil prices in the E&P segment. Our consolidated operating results for the quarter were right in line with our expectations. At Seneca both production and per unit cash operating costs were right down the middle of our guidance ranges. Per unit DD&A expense was actually below our guidance range thanks to the continued improvement in Seneca’s finding and development costs the Ron and Matt described earlier. Earnings at our midstream businesses were relatively flat compared with last year. At the gathering business earnings were down his overall volumes and revenues track Seneca’s production. At the regulated pipeline of storage companies continue demand for transportation services on our system cause revenues to grow by about $2.4 million. Looking ahead fiscal 2016 should be a good year for our midstream businesses. Gathering revenues will track Seneca’s production in the three projects Ron described earlier we had about $25 million in incremental revenues in the pipeline and storage business in fiscal 2016. However, keep in mind that as I said on the last call a portion of that increase will likely be offset by a variety of smaller items including typical re-contracting on both pipeline systems and an assumed return to normal weather in our service territory. In addition, this past quarter Supply Corporation reached a new rate settlement with the chippers. As part of that agreement supply agreed to reduce its base rate by 2% effective November 1, 2015. An additional 2% reduction will be made effective November 1, 2016 for a cumulative reduction of 4%. The expected impact fiscal 2016 revenues as a result of the settlement is about $3 million. The agreement also contains a comeback provision whereby supply agreed to file a general rate case no sooner than September 30, 2017 and no later than December 31, 2019. Turning to guidance, we now expect fiscal 2016 consolidated earnings will be in the range of $2.85 to $3.15 per share excluding ceiling test impairment charges. At the midpoint this is a decrease of $0.15 from our previous guidance. Substantially all of the changes attributable to a decrease in the commodity price assumptions reflected in the forecast. Specifically we are now assuming NYMEX natural gas prices averaged $2.75 per MMBtu, down $0.50 from the previous forecast. We’re also lowering our NYMEX crude oil assumption to $50 a barrel down $5 in the previous forecast. Going in the other direction is an improvement in our DD&A rate. Thanks to strong reserve bookings at year-end and continued improvement in F&D costs, we now expect DD&A expense will be below the midpoint of our $1 to a $1.10 per Mcfe guidance. Seneca’s production forecast has been updated to reflect some new farm sales agreements that were executed in the last three months. The new ranges is 161 to 232 Bcfe, this is wider than normal range which reflects the uncertainty around Appalachian gas pricing and our ability to sell spot volumes and an acceptable price. Our guidance reflects the full range of potential outcomes if we saw 100% of our spot volumes will be at the high end of the range if we don’t sell any spot volumes will be at the low end. All of our remaining major assumptions for next year with respect Seneca and the rest of the businesses remain the same. As Matt indicated earlier we have a great hedge book for next year with a significant portion of our production hedged at prices well above current market levels. In total we have hedges covering 120 Bcf of gas sales at 3.45 per Mcf and 1.4 million barrels of crude oil at 88.24 per barrel. At the midpoint of our production guidance were better than 65% hedge for gas and about 50% for oil. Turning to capital spending we made some small changes to the budgets of the individual segments, but our overall consolidated capital budget is still $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion. Seneca’s updated budget of $400 million to $450 million reflects the expected benefit of the new frack contract Matt mentioned earlier. Utilities budget was updated to a range of $90 million to $210 million to reflect the timing of spending on our new customer billing system. There were no changes to the gathering our pipeline and storage businesses capital budgets. And all the details on our capital spending by segment can be found in the new IR deck on our website. Based on our updated forecast we still expect an outspend in fiscal 2016 in the range of $500 million to $600 million. As you can see from our balance sheet, we had $113 million in cash on hand at year-end, which will cover some of that outspend, but we will need to raise capital to cover the rest. As we’ve said on prior calls, we’re evaluating a number of financing alternatives including a master limited partnership and other alternatives that could take advantage of the large amount of private capital it’s waiting on the sidelines in the energy space. But we don’t have anything new to report on this call, the process is still ongoing and we will keep you up-to-date as we move through the year. In terms of the timing of the financing need most all of our outspend in fiscal 2016 is tied to the Northern Access 2016 project. Assuming we receive our certificate to construct it by the Spring, we’ll start making significant construction expenditures early next summer and continuing through late fall. Thus we do have a little bit of time to make the financing decision. Our short-term credit facilities give us the flexibility to access the capital markets when it makes the most sense. This past September we increased the size of a credit facilities by $500 million. In total we now have access to $1.45 billion of short credit substantially all of which is undrawn. As of yesterday we had about 25 million of commercial paper outstanding. So in closing our low commodity prices will make fiscal 2016 challenging for producers, but National Fuel’s integrated structure, long-term vision and pragmatic approach to hedging and capital deployment has us well-positioned to endure what may be trying times ahead in the industry. With that, I’ll close and ask the operator to open the line for questions. Question-and-Answer Session Operator [Operator Instruction] Your first question comes from Kevin Smith from Raymond James. Please proceed. Kevin Smith Hi, good morning, gentlemen. Ronald Tanski Good morning, Kevin. Kevin Smith Congrats on all of the positive efforts you’re making in a tough tape. Matt, as you’re working down your Marcellus well economics in the WDA – and clearly, you made a lot of progress there. But however, if we’re in a natural gas price – call it a $2.30 price environment, similar to where the prop month is today – do you expect to slow down drilling? Or is it a price you’re okay with? Matthew Cabell Yes, Kevin, we’re really more focused on timing our drilling and completions to fill the pipeline capacity that we’re going to have from Northern Access 2015 now and then Northern Access 2016 roughly the end of 2016. So that’s really what drives our activity level rather than current pricing, now the timing of our completions is at least somewhat dependent on current pricing because we can delay some of the completions closer to the date when the Northern Access 2016 comes on. Kevin Smith Got you. And then one last question on drilling, and I’ll jump back in the queue. You’ve increased your lateral lengths pretty substantially, over the last three years, as well as most people in the industry. But now that you’re at 7,000 feet, how much longer do you think you can go, or are you comfortable going? Matthew Cabell Yes. So as we look forward in the area around Clermont – so sort of Clermont and Hemlock and Ridgeway – we’re estimating that we’re going to average something closer to 8,800 feet. For fiscal 2016, I think around 8,000 or it’s going to be longer than that, over time. Kevin Smith Okay, thank you very much. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Holly Stewart from Howard Weil. Please proceed. Holly Stewart Good morning, gentlemen. Couple questions this morning. Just going to the slide deck, Matt, I know you talk about building productive capacity, with Northern Access 2016 coming online. Certainly not trying to pin you down on 2017, but just trying to get a sense to how we should think about that productive capacity translating into production in 2017? Matthew Cabell I guess what I think you are asking Holly is what we think we will be able to produce when we have Northern Access on in 2017. Is that right? Holly Stewart Yes, I’m not trying to pin you down on numbers, per se. But you’ve got a – that’s a big amount of pipeline capacity. And just trying to think about how we should roll some of that through? Ronald Tanski Yes, I think the way to think about it Holly is we probably won’t fully utilize all that capacity the day Northern Access 2016 comes on line, but it won’t take tribally long for us to get to the point that we fill all of it. Holly Stewart Okay. Then maybe looking, also, at the slide deck, slide 9 breaks down that Tier 1 area, and WDA, into the three different buckets. I think slide 10 is a little hard to decipher, but we’re just trying to figure out how we should think about those three areas, in terms of your development plan in 2016 and 2017? Ronald Tanski Yes, so you’re asking about 9 and the… Holly Stewart I think you’re trying to get at it in slide 10, with the wells, but it’s hard to compare the slide 9 and 10. Ronald Tanski Yes, so slide 10 is a zoom in – a great deal zoomed in from slide 9. Holly Stewart Sure. Ronald Tanski What you see in slide 9 is it’s virtually our entire Western development area and slide 10 is just focused on Clermont. Holly Stewart Okay. So as we think about those three areas, how should we think about that development plan playing out? Ronald Tanski What you say three areas, you mean the Clermont/Rich Valley, Hemlock, Ridgway going down there? Holly Stewart Yes, the three areas in the Tier 1. Ronald Tanski Yes, you should think about Clermont/Rich Valley being our focus for the next 12 to 18 months and then we’ll gradually work your way down into Hemlock some time in fiscal 2017. Holly Stewart Okay. And then maybe one, just if I could, on the financing, Dave. You mentioned some – a lot of private capital. I know you’ve put the – I think it was an additional $500 million revolver, or maybe it was $750 million revolver in place. Is there just some color you can give? I mean could you do this all kind of bridge the CapEx to cash flow deficit, all through debt, without much of a ratings movement? Or how should we think about that? David Bauer Yes, I think, well the idea behind putting the additional committed credit in place was to give us flexibility to access the markets when the time was right. I guess our feeling is when you look at the size of the Northern Access 2016 project it’s unlikely we could finance that and keep our current ratings. So that’s the emphasis for pursuing other avenues of capital. Holly Stewart Okay, great. Thanks, guys. Operator Your next question comes from Chris Sighinolfi from Jefferies. Please proceed. Chris Sighinolfi Hey, good morning. Ronald Tanski Good morning, Chris. Chris Sighinolfi Thanks for the color already provided. I do have a couple questions. I guess following up on where Holly left off, given just the current market conditions, both for gas prices, but also, if you’re watching what’s going on the Midstream MLP space, it has been pretty volatile. So I’m just wondering, Ron, if you have revised thoughts to share, with regard to the Northern Access 2016 project? The capital need, and the thought process or decision tree around how to finance it? You had previously talked about Midstream MLP, you mentioned that today, you mentioned private sources. If you could just give us a little bit more color, in terms of like how you and the executive team and the Board think about each of those? Realizing you have, to Dave’s earlier point, maybe six to nine months before you really have to make a full decision on it? Ronald Tanski Yes, Chris it’s just a matter of lining up all the various options and looking at the various costs or the attractiveness of each at the time that we are going to need to enter the market as you mentioned the MLP space is a little bit volatile right now, but what we are doing and then as Dave mentioned, first of all we’ve got that in our pocket the short-term credit facilities that really allow us to be flexible in the actual timing of any financing that we have coming up. So as Dave mentioned the private capital market, the infrastructure funds have always exhibited a strong interest in our asset. So we’ve had ongoing dialogues with a number of different sources and we will just line those up and see which one fits the bill at the time and as you mentioned the big capital need comes in the summer. So that’s we are just working at as we go along. Chris Sighinolfi Okay. And in terms of, when you talk about private, are you envisioning if – in a completely hypothetical sense, obviously, at this point in time. If we were to think about that route being selected, are – should we be interpreting that, Ron, to think about some level of sort of project financing on that basis? Where private maybe has an interest in that project individually? Or are you talking about private investment in National Fuel? Ronald Tanski It’s more on a project type basis, and I guess the other thing to throw in there is always the possibility of partners on various projects. So there’s a whole host of options. Chris Sighinolfi Right, okay. All right. I won’t beat that any further. I appreciate the color on it. I guess my next two questions are for Dave. Dave, I really always appreciate your comments. They’re very detailed, relative to the disclosure we get from so many other companies, it’s incredibly helpful. David Bauer Thank you, so much. Chris Sighinolfi So thank you for that. You had mentioned NFG supply would trim its rates, in several phases, over the next couple of years. I’m wondering – obviously, the impact there relatively small. I think you said $3 million in revenue? But I’m wondering, as you look at the rest of the system, are there any know contract roll-offs, or likely settlement reductions of a similar nature, on any other aspects of the system that we should be aware of? David Bauer Yes, we have a few re-contracting issues that we expect this year. They are not huge dollars maybe in the $5 million range total. Chris Sighinolfi Okay. And when would those – did the discussions around those re-negotiations already commence? Or is that something coming up? David Bauer They’ve actually already happened. Chris Sighinolfi They have, okay. And to your thinking, the net impact of those finished discussions, it’s $5 million? David Bauer Right. Chris Sighinolfi Okay. David Bauer I mean rough quarter magnitude. Chris Sighinolfi Yes, okay. And then also, you had mentioned this gradual shift in Seneca production or sales moving from Pennsylvania to Canada. Obviously, we’ll see more of that gradually, over time. I don’t know if you could quantify for us what the magnitude of the tax differentials would be, as you’ve thought about that shift? David Bauer Yes, I am looking at our Vice President of Tax here, as how do best answer to that question. Matthew Cabell The Canadian sales would really be not cash that all because Seneca doesn’t have a presence in Canada. In the Pennsylvania tax rate is 9.9%. So that’s the math is involved. Chris Sighinolfi Okay, and can we just look at the firm sale that you have net to, let’s say, the done price, or whatever, as effectively de facto Canadian sales? When we think about firm segments? Or how should we gauge what magnitude of sales actually sell in Canada? David Bauer I think you can look at the capacity still we hold in the Canada is the proxy for that. Chris Sighinolfi Okay. David Bauer And then whatever percentage of that is used which ultimately 100%. Chris Sighinolfi Okay, perfect. And then I don’t know if she’s there with you guys, or listening. But just wanted to congratulate Anna Marie on her pending retirement. Always been really helpful, appreciated her thoughts on all things Utility-related. So congrats to her, and best wishes to Carl. Carl Carlotti I am here Chris, thank you. And I am leaving you in good hands with Carl. Chris Sighinolfi Thanks a lot guys, appreciate the time this morning. Ronald Tanski You bet. Operator You next question is come from the line of Tim Winter from Gabelli. Please proceed. Tim Winter Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Ronald Tanski Good morning, Tim. Tim Winter I wanted to clarify, on Slide 18 that the top end of the earnings range is assuming that all 70 of that Bcf is sold at $1.75. Is that what I heard? Ronald Tanski Yes, that’s right Tim. Tim Winter Okay, and then on Slide 19, the – how should we think about the pricing of that 900,000 dekatherms a day in 2018? Is that – the bulk of that just future Dawn pricing? Or… Ronald Tanski Yes, that’s there is a big chuck of that that’s going to be future Dawn pricing. So both the Niagara Expansion piece and the Northern Access 2016 piece, now that’s not to say we might not put some firm sales agreements and have them indexed to NYMEX instead of Dawn. But as you’re looking at things in the future that we don’t already have contracted Dawn’s probably your best proxy. The orange piece on there that’s Atlantic Sunrise, we’ve got most of that sold under firm contracts that are premium to NYMEX. Tim Winter Okay, great. And then just one more follow-up question, on the financing, and the various alternatives that you’re thinking about. Might one of them be a non-core asset sale? Are there any pieces of your business that, over time, have become less, “core”? Ronald Tanski Tim as we look at pretty much all of our assets, and you look at the map where they all overlay each other, we’re in pretty good shape with all our assets now. The one issue or not issue, the one opportunity could be the remainder of the timber assets that we have in Pennsylvania hardwood timber assets. If you recall, we sold probably at least half of those assets when we or maybe a little bit more, when we sold those to do the financing for the Empire Pipeline. When we initially acquired that, we did a like-kind exchange. So there’s – probably the most likely one asset that would be sizable enough or meaningful enough in terms of an asset sale. The rest of the business I mean all of the pipelines and storages and utility work pretty well and when we continue to focus on the expansion of all the pipeline assets that we have. Tim Winter Okay, great. Thank you. Operator [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Becca Followill from U.S. Capital Advisors. Please proceed. Becca Followill Good morning. David Bauer Good morning, Becca. Becca Followill On the credit rating, would you be willing to sacrifice the credit rating? David Bauer Likely no, Becca. We have regulatory commissions that would expect us to be at investment-grade credit rating, so that would be our intent. Becca Followill Okay, thank you, that’s what I thought. I just always have to ask. And then Matt, you talked about that you could generate decent returns at the strip. What is decent? Matthew Cabell Yes, so if you – we have a slide that shows, probably the best way to answer the question is to reference slide, what slide is that Ron, with the little table of economics? Ronald Tanski 9. If you go to slide 9, you can kind of get a sense for our returns at varying realized prices. Becca Followill Okay. And then just, I know there’s been several questions on this. But again, on the firm transportation capacity. So you don’t see any scenario, assuming that the strip holds, that you would be left with a material amount of FT that you would be holding the bag for, for more than a year or so? Matthew Cabell Yes, not for more than a year or so and even in that one-year we are talking about it, probably wouldn’t be a terribly large volume that we would have to release. Becca Followill Thank you. And then last question. Any progress on removing those indentures that prohibit you guys from raising debt? Ronald Tanski Yes, we’ve had a process that’s been ongoing over the past few months to try and find a solution that works for everyone, unfortunately we haven’t had a great deal of luck with that which is why also partially why we increased our credit lines by the $500 million that we did. It’s something that we will still continue to explore and if we got to the point where we were looking to do a long-term debt issuance, we could always seek a temporary waiver, but I guess that’s where we stand on it. Becca Followill Okay, thank you. That’s all my questions. Operator I’d now like to turn the call back over to Brian Welsch for closing remarks. Please proceed. Brian Welsch Thank you, Mark. We’d like to thank everyone for taking the time to be with us today. A replay of this call will be available at approximately 3 PM Eastern Time on both our website and by telephone and will run through the close of business on Friday, November 13, 2015. To access the replay online, please visit our Investor Relations website at investor.nationalfuelgas.com. And to access by telephone, call 1-888-286-8010, and enter passcode 17759908. This concludes our conference call for today. Thank you and goodbye. Operator Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. Your conference call is concluded. You may now disconnect and have a great day.

Alliant Energy’s (LNT) CEO Pat Kampling on Q3 2015 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

Alliant Energy Corporation (NYSE: LNT ) Q3 2015 Earnings Conference Call November 06, 2015 10:00 AM ET Executives Susan Gille – Manager, IR Pat Kampling – Chairman, President & CEO Tom Hanson – SVP & CFO Robert Durian – Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer and Controller Analysts Andrew Weisel – Macquarie Capital Brian Russo – Ladenburg Development Operator Thank you for holding, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Alliant Energy’s Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. And today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Susan Gille, Manager of Investor Relations at Alliant Energy. Susan Gille Good morning. I would like to thank you of — on the call and the webcast for joining us today. We appreciate your participation. With me here today are Pat Kampling, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; Tom Hanson, Senior Vice President and CFO; and Robert Durian, Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer and Controller; as well as other members of the senior management team. Following prepared remarks by Pat and Tom, we will have time to take questions from the investment community. We issued a news release last night announcing Alliant Energy’s third quarter 2015 earnings narrowing 2015 earnings guidance. I’m providing 2015 through 2020 forward capital expenditure guidance. We also issued earnings guidance and the common stock dividend target for 2016. Press release, as well as supplemental slides that will be referenced during today’s call, are available on the Investor Page of our website at www.alliantenergy.com. Before we begin, I need to remind you the remarks we make on this call and our answers to your questions include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different. Those risks include, among others, matters discussed in Alliant Energy’s press release issued last night and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. In addition, this presentation contains non-GAAP financial measures. The reconciliation between non-GAAP and GAAP measures are provided in the supplemental slides, which are available on our website at www.alliantenergy.com. At this point, I’ll turn the call over to Pat. Pat Kampling Good morning and thank you for joining us today. The Veterans Day is just a few days away. I would like to take a moment and pay tribute to the approximately 400 proud veterans that work here at Alliant Energy and to those veterans are on the call with us today. We thank you for your service to our country and for protecting our freedoms. Enjoy your special day. Yesterday we issued press releases which included third quarter and year-to-date financial results our revised 2015 earnings guidance range. And for 2016, our earnings guidance and targeted common stock dividend. That release also provided updated detailed annual capital expenditure plans through 2019 and our capital expenditure total for 2020 to 2024. Tom will later provide details of the quarter, but I am pleased to report that we delivered another solid quarter. And since temperature was close to normal with the third quarter, at first we had no impact on our year-to-date earnings. So with the summer behind us, we are now in our 2015 earnings guidance but we are now including an adjustment to our ATC earnings to reflect the anticipated lower ROE. ATCs current authorized ROE is 12.2% we are reserving $0.03 per share for the year reflecting an anticipated ROE of 11.5%. Therefore we are changing the midpoint of this year’s earnings guidance range from $3.60 per share to $3.57 per share. Now looking at next year, the midpoint of our guidance for 2016 is $3.75 per share a 5% increase from our projected 2015 guidance as detailed on Slide number 2. This increase reflects a forecast with customer sales increase of 1% and earning on capital additions. Our long-term earnings growth objective continues to be 5% to 7% supported by our robust capital expenditure plan modest sales growth and constructive regulatory outcomes. The ability to earn our authorized returns on rate base additions of book utilities was incorporated in both retail electric base rate settlements. Those settlements have unique treatment that will allow you to reach earn on an increasing rate base while keeping customer base rates flat. The IPL settlement utilized the historic DAEC capacity payments that are included in base rates to more than offset rate-based growth and other changes in revenue requirements. This allows us to refund the difference to customers included $25 million refund in 2015 and a $10 million refund in 2016. The WPL settlement utilized previously recovered energy efficiency revenues it also increases in revenue requirements including the return on rate base additions. A balance of approximately $32 million will be amortized in 2016 and the amortization for this year is expected to be $80 million. To summarize, both creative retail rate case settlements allow us to earn on our increasing rate base or keeping retail electric base rates stable through 2016, which is last year of the settlement. Yesterday we also announced a 7% increase in a targeted 2016 common dividend level to $2.35 per share from our current annual dividend of $2.20 per share. By 2016, dividend target payout ratio is 62.5% which is consistent with our long-term targeted dividend payout ratio of 60% to 70% of consolidated earnings. We issued an updated capital expenditure plan for 2015 to 2019, totaling $5.8 billion, as shown on Slide 3. In addition, we have provided a walk from the previous 2015 to 2018 capital expenditure plan to our current plan shown on Slide number 4. As you can see the change in our forecasted 2015 to 2018 capital expenditure plan are driven primarily by additional investments on our electric and gas distribution systems and a $50 million reduction for the proposed Riverside Energy Center expansion in Wisconsin. The lower cost estimate of $680 million to $720 million excluding AFUDC and transmission was filed in supplemental test [indiscernible] with the PSCW yesterday. On Slide 5, we have provided a 10-year view of our forecasted capital expenditures. As you can see our planning additional new generation needs beyond 2019 which we anticipate will include gas, wind and other renewable resources. The additional renewables in our plan with economical for our customer energy needs as we continue to retire all the generating facilities. While reviewing Slide 5, it is also important to note that approximately 45% of the 10-year capital plan will be spent to enhance our electric and gas distribution systems to meet customers changing and growing needs. Investments in our gas distribution system are becoming more significant as evidenced by our recently completed $15 million [indiscernible] Wisconsin and we are supposed to cross $65 million [indiscernible] project in Iowa. Also for your convenience, we have already posted on our website the EEI Investor presentation that details the separated WPL and IPL updated capital expenditures through 2019 as well as updated rate-based estimates for 2014 through 2018. Now, let me brief you on our current construction activities. As year-end approaches, this has certainly been one of our busiest construction years. I must thank the employees and approximately 800 contract workers on our properties for working safely and for their assistance on these important projects. I’m extremely proud of the achievements we have made and continue to make and transitioning the environmental profile of our fossil generation fleet. We plan to reduce NOx emissions by approximately 80% and SO2 mercury emissions by approximately 90% by 2020 and we will continue to plan for a reduced carbon future. In Wisconsin, the installation of the scrubber and baghouse at Edgewater Unit 5 is approximately 75% complete and is expected to be in service in the second quarter of 2016. We are anticipating this project will come in approximately 10% below budget. We have recently a signed a contract with a joint-venture between Graycor industrial contractors and Sargent & Lundy to fund the engineering procurement and construction of the Columbia unit 2 SCR. The construction is scheduled to start in the second quarter of 2016 and WPL share the expenditure for this project of approximately $50 million. We do have an excellent track record of executing well on our these large construction projects, I am very pleased on power magazine name two of our power generating stations as our top plants for 2015. The recognition of IPLs [thermal] generating station and WPLs Columbia’s Energy Center which were excellent execution of this major investments and a dedication to a cleaner and more efficient operations. Construction of IPLs 650 megawatt combined cycle natural gas fired Marshalltown generating station is progressing well. The project is approximately 65% complete and is expected to be in service in the second quarter of 2017. KBR is the engineering, procurement, and construction contractor for this project which includes Siemens’ combustion turbine technology. In 2013, WPL announced that it would retire several older coal facilities and natural gas peakers. This retirements begin next month at Nelson Dewey and as well as in Unit 3. When WPLs prime retirements are completed the forecasted accredited capacity loss will be nearly 700 megawatts. As a consequence, WPL evaluated a wide range of alternatives to meet long-term energy and capacity needs for its customers. In 2014, WPL issued an RFP for market-based options. After evaluating all of our options, we concluded that Riverside Energy Center expansion with a new approximately 650 megawatt highly efficient natural gas generating facility was in the best long-term interest of our customers. This past April WPL applied for a certificate of public convenience and necessity or CPCN with the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin. The CPCN is progressing and in accordance with its procedure schedule on September 22 we filed that direct testimony and yesterday filed supplemental testimony through [indiscernible] updated cost projections. Intervener and Staff testimony will be filed by November 13, a public care will be conducted on November 17 in [indiscernible] and technical hearings are scheduled for December 21. We anticipate the commission issue decision on Riverside Expansion by May 2016. The proposed riverside expansion includes an approximate 2 megawatt solar installation on the property. Adjacent to riverside, on our Rock River landfill Hanwha Q Cells is currently constructing the largest solar plant at Wisconsin at 2.25 megawatts and we will purchase the power from them over the next 10 years. At our Madison general office installation of above 1000 solar panels from multiple manufacturers with 11 different types of solar modules is well underway. For this project we have partnered with the Electric Power Research Institute or EPRI to collect data and make it available to others. We also have several other solar projects under development from which we anticipate gaining valuable experience and how to best integrate solar in a cost-effective manner in our electro systems. Solar projects is in the developmental stage include owning and operating the solar panels at the Indian Creek Nature Center in Cedar Rapids Iowa and our recently issued RFP was placed in [indiscernible] solar project between 1 and 10 megawatts within our Iowa service territory. The projects resulting from the RFP will increase our system wise solar generation by 50%. Last month the EPA published its final rules through those carbon emissions from electric generating stations. We understand this is just one more step what will be a long process that includes legal challenges and the development of compliance plans. As we develop strategies, we will continue to take the approach of doing what’s best for our customers and the environment. We are fortunate that we operate in a state that has a long history of energy efficiency programs, environmental stewardship and support for renewable energy. There’s a some sort of excitement as you work to transform into the company our customers need as to be not only now, but well into the future. A major improvement to our customer experience is happening as we went live with our new customer care and billing systems for Wisconsin customers several weeks ago. And planned to go live with Iowa customers in early 2016. A $110 million investment replaces vintage mainframe systems from the 1980s. They will make communications with our customers more convenient and timely. We have already accomplished a great deal as a company as we transition to a cleaner more modern energy system. I want to thank a lot of employees for their creativity and finding cost-effective solutions in serving our customers well. Let me summarize the key message for today. We had a solid first three quarters of the year and are well positioned to deliver on this year financial and operating objectives. Our plan continues to provide for [audio gap] 5% to 7% earnings growth and 60 to 70% common dividend payout target. Our target 2016 dividend increased by 7% over the 2015 target dividend. Successful execution on our major construction projects includes completing projects on time and at a below budget in a safe manner. Work with our regulators consumer advocates, environmental groups and customers in a collaborative manner. We shape our organization to be lean and faster while keeping our focus on serving our customers and being good partners in the community. We will continue to manage the company to strike a balance between capital investment, operational and financial discipline, and cost impacted customers. Thank you for your interest in Alliant Energy and I will now turn the call over to Tom. Tom Hanson Good morning everyone. We have released third quarter earnings last evening with our non-GAAP earnings from continuing operations of a $1.63 per share and our GAAP earnings from continuing operations to a $1.59 per share. The non-GAAP to GAAP difference is due to a $0.04 per share charge resulting from approximately of 2% employees accepting voluntary separation packages as we continue focusing on effectively managing cost for our customers. 2015 third quarter non-GAAP earnings are $0.23 higher than the third quarter 2014 primarily due lower retail electric customer billing credits at IPL, higher electric sales and lower energy efficiency cost recovery amortization to WPL. Higher quarter-over-quarter EPS was partially offset by higher electric transmission service expense at WPL and the delusion impact of shares issued in 2015. Comparisons between third quarter of 2015 and 2014 earnings per share are detailed on slides 6, 7 and 8. For the first six months of this year we experienced virtually no temperature normalized retail sales growth. We are pleased that the third quarter brought an estimated $0.06 per share increase in earnings resulting from higher temperature normalized sales. Some of the growth experience in the third quarter of 2015 for residential and commercial is due to an earlier fall grain harvest in 2015 when compared to 2014. Of the retail sectors industrial continues to be the largest sales growth driver year-over-year. Quarter-over-quarter we have recognize in earnings increased of $0.05 per share from higher sales due to temperatures since the third quarter of 2014 had approximately 20% fewer cooling degree days compared to normal. However, the first three quarters 2015 temperatures were close to normal. Year to date non-GAAP earnings are tracking in line with the 2015 earnings guidance range comparing non-GAAP earnings from continuing operations for the first nine months of 2015 versus 2014, earnings are up 8% year-over-year. Drivers of the differences between the statutory tax rates for IPL, WP&L and AEC and the actual forecasting effect the tax rates for 2015 and 2014 is profiled on slide 9. Now let’s review our 2016 guidance. Last evening we issued our consolidated 2016 guidance range of $3.60 to $3.90 earnings per share. A walk on the mid points of 2015 to 2016 estimated guidance range is shown on slide 10. The key drivers for the 5% growth in earnings relate to infrastructure investments including higher AFUDC related to the construction of the Marshalltown generating station. The 2016 guidance range assumes normal weather and modest retail sales increases of approximately 1% for IPL and WP&L when compared to 2015. Also the earnings guidance is based upon the impact of IPLs and WP&Ls previously announced retail electric base rate settlements. The IPL settlement reflected rate based growth primarily from placing the Lansing scrubber in service in 2015 and the Ottumwa baghouse scrubber and performance improvement in service in 2014. The increase in revenue requirements related to rate base editions is offset by the elimination of DAEC purchase power capacity payments. In 2016 IPL expects to credit customer bills by approximately $10 million. By comparison the billing credits in 2015 are expected to be approximately $25 million. During 2016 IPL expects to provide tax benefit billing credits to electric and gas customers with approximately $62 million when compared to $72 million in 2015. As in prior years the tax benefit riders have a quarterly timing impact, but are not anticipated to impact full year 2015 and 2016 results. The WP&L settlement reflected electric rate base growth for the Edgewater unit 5 baghouse projected to be placed in service in 2016. The increase in revenue requirements in 2016 for these and other rate base additions were completely offset by lower energy efficiency cost recovery amortizations. Also included in WP&L’s rate settlement was an increase in transmission costs primarily related to the anticipated allocation of SSR costs. As a result of a third quarter issued after the settlement the amount of the transmission cost billed to WP&L in 2016 will be lower than what was reflected in the settlement. Since the PSCW approved escrow accounting treatment for the transmission cost. The difference between the actual cost billed to WP&L and those reflected in settlement will accumulate in a regulatory liability. We estimate that this regulatory liability will have a balance of approximately $35 million by the end of 2016. We view this regulatory liability as another mechanism we can use to minimize future rate increases for Wisconsin retail electric customers. Retirement plan expense is currently expected to be approximately $0.03 per share higher in 2016 largely due to lower than expected asset returns forecasted for 2015. These amounts will be updated at year end 2015 when determining the actual 2016 plan expense. Given the changes expected in income tax expense in 2016 slide 11 has been provided to assist you in modeling the forecasted 2016 effective tax rates for IPL, WP&L and AEC. Turning to our financing plans cash flows from operation are expected to be strong given the earnings generated by the business. We also will benefit given we do not expect to make any material federal income tax payments in 2016. These strong cash flows will be partially reduced by credits to customer bills in accordance with IPL’s tax benefit riders and IPL’s customer billing credit resulting from the settlement. We believe that with our strong cash flows and financing plans we will maintain our target liquidity and capitalization ratios as well as high quality credit ratings. Our 2016 financing plan assumes will be issuing approximately $25 million of new common equity through our shareowner direct plan. The 2016 financing plan also anticipates issuing long-term debt including up to $300 million at IPL and up to $310 million at the [parent] and Alliant Energy Resources. The $310 million of proceeds at the parent and Alliant Energy Resources are expected to be used to refinance maturity of term loans. We may adjust our plans as deemed prudent if market conditions warrant and as our debt and equity needs continue to be reassessed. As we look beyond 2016 our equity needs will be driven by the proposed riverside expansion project. Our forecast assumes that the capital expenditures for the riverside expansion in 2017 and 2018 will be financed primary by a combination of debt and equity. Our current financing forecast assumes no extension of bonus depreciation deduction. Under this assumption Alliant energy will be making modest federal tax payments starting in 2017 it will continue to use net operating losses for the next two years as offset to federal taxable income. We have several current and planned regulatory dockets of notes for the rest of 2015, 2016 and 2017 which we have summarized on 512. Later this year we anticipate a decision from PSCW on the 2016 fuel monitoring level. Next year we anticipate a decision on the Wisconsin riverside expansion proposal and on the Iowa natural gas pipeline. Also in 2016, we plan to file a emissions planned budget in Iowa and the Wisconsin retail electric and gas base case per rates in years 2017 and 2018. The next Iowa retail electric and gas base rate cases are expected to be filed in the second quarter of 2017. We very much appreciate your continued support of our company and look forward to meeting with you at EEI. The slides to be discussed at EEI are posted on our website as we do with all of our investor relations conference slides. At this time I will turn the call back over to the operator to facilitate the question-and-answer session. Question-and-Answer Session Operator Thank you, Mr. Hanson. [Operator Instructions] And we will take our first question from Andrew Weisel with Macquarie Capital. Andrew Weisel Good morning guys. First question is on the [four set] charged for voluntary employee separation. What does that impact on? How is that going to impact OEMs going forward? Tom Hanson That will be a reduction to ONM on going forward and that’s reflected in our forecast in terms of 2016 guidance. Andrew Weisel And what is the forecast for ONM next year? Tom Hanson We are assuming that it will be about a 2% increase now recognizing that this excludes the normal energy efficiency cost as well as any of the regulatory amortization that flow through ONM as well. Andrew Weisel Got it. Next a couple of questions on riverside, first in terms of the CapEx you laid out. I see that you lowered it for next year spending by that 95 million can you give little more detail on that. Is that assuming a little bit of a delay when the construction begins? Pat Kampling No not at all. Now that we are getting bids from the contractors, this is the timing of the bids, the cash flow that they are laying out while we changed the not only did we change the total number but we changed the timing of the payments. Andrew Weisel Okay. The total number if I heard you correctly was only down about 20 million is that right? Pat Kampling No, it’s down, if it goes from mid-point to mid-point it’s down 50 million, 50. Andrew Weisel Okay. Then next question I have is with the potential for PTA instead of riverside, if riverside were to be either delayed or canceled could you talk about how you might be able to back fill some of that spending in terms of what might go in and how soon you will be able to show those results? Pat Kampling Yes, Andrew it’s a little preliminary first to give a backup for capital for riverside right now. It would be honest to tell you though for 2016 it would be tough to fill the capital that we have laid out in 2016, but we’ll discuss as we get further down the year in 2016 what the back fill could possibly be. Andrew Weisel Okay. Thank you very much. I’ll let other people ask questions. Operator And we will take our next question from Brian Russo with Ladenburg Development. Brian Russo Good morning. Pat Kampling Good morning Brian. Brian Russo Just in terms of the 2016 guidance what kind of earned ROE are you seeing at IPL and WP&L maybe at the mid-point? Tom Hanson We are assuming that we would earn our authorized returns in both jurisdiction. Brian Russo Okay. So what gets you to the high end of the range? Pat Kampling The high end sales are higher than we expect. We currently expect 1% increase in sales but if they come in higher it would definitely bring us to the high end of the range. Brian Russo Okay and then as you we looked into 2017 Marshalltown will be added base rates and I believe correct me if I am wrong but that’s the allowed ROEs of 11.4%. So I would imagine that your earned ROE in 2017 will be enhanced relative to the earned ROE assumption in 2016. Is that the way to look at it? Pat Kampling Brian so the allowed ROE for Marshalltown is 11%, 11.0. Brian Russo Okay. Pat Kampling But as we go through internal and final rates you will see our earned returns increase at Iowa. Brian Russo Okay great. Thank you very much. Operator And Ms. Gill there are no further questions at this time. Susan Gille With no more questions this concludes our call. A replay will be available through November 13, 2015 at 888-203-1112 for U.S. and Canada, or 719-457-0820 for international. Callers should reference conference ID 8244179. In addition, an archive of the conference call and a script of the prepared remarks made on the call will be available on the Investors section of the company’s website later today. We thank you for your continued support of Alliant Energy. And feel free to contact me with any follow-up question. Operator And ladies and gentlemen that does conclude today’s conference. Thank you for your participation. Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site are the copyright of Seeking Alpha. 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