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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.

Great Plains Energy’s (GXP) CEO Terry Bassham on Q3 2015 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

Great Plains Energy Inc. (NYSE: GXP ) Q3 2013 Earnings Conference Call November 06, 2015 09:00 AM ET Executives Lori Wright – VP of IR and Treasurer Terry Bassham – Chairman, President and CEO Kevin E. Bryant – SVP, Finance and Strategy and CFO Analysts Ali Agha – SunTrust Shar Pourreza – Guggenheim Partners Brian Chin – Bank of America Christopher Turnure – JP Morgan Charles Fishman – Morningstar Michael Lapides – Goldman Sachs Paul Ridzon – KeyBanc Brian Russo – Ladenburg Thalmann Steve Fleishman – Wolfe Research Paul Patterson – Glenrock Operator Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Great Plains Energy Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference may be recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today’s conference, Ms. Lori Wright, Vice President, Investor Relation and Treasurer. Ma’am, please go ahead. Lori Wright Thank you, operator, and good morning. Welcome to Great Plains Energy’s third quarter 2015 earnings conference call. On our call today will be, Terry Bassham, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Kevin Bryant, Senior Vice President, Finance and Strategy and Chief Financial Officer; Scott Heidtbrink, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of KCP&L; and Darrin Ives, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs are also with us this morning, as our other members of our management team who will be available during the question-and-answer portion of today’s call. I must remind you of the inherent uncertainties in any forward-looking statements in our discussion this morning. Slide two and the disclosure in our SEC filings contain a list of some of the factors that could cause future results to differ materially from our expectations. I also want to remind everyone that we issued our earnings release and third quarter 2015 10-Q after the market close yesterday. These items are available, along with today’s webcast slides, and supplemental financial information regarding the quarter on the main page of our website at greatplainsenergy.com. Summarized on slide three are the topics that will be covered in today’s presentation. Terry will begin with a business update and will highlight KCP&L’s recent rate case outcome followed by a discussion of our strategic initiatives. Kevin will provide an overview of our third quarter financial results as well as updated considerations for 2016 and 2017. With that I’ll now hand the call to Terry. Terry Bassham Thanks, Lori and good morning, everybody. I’d also like to welcome everyone to the Great Plains Energy call and we are proud to say the home of the world champion Kansas City Royals we’re very excited here in Kansas City. Yesterday we announced third quarter earnings of $0.82 per share compared to $0.95 per share in 2014. Year-to-date earnings per share were $1.22 compared to $1.44 a year ago. In addition we announced the narrowing of our 2015 EPS guidance range from $1.35 to $1.60 to $1.35 to $1.45 driven by mild weather, soft wholesale market conditions from lower natural gas prices and the impact of regulatory outcomes in our recent rate cases in Missouri and Kansas. Kevin will discuss quarter and year-to-date drivers in his remarks. Third quarter marked the milestone as we completed our rate cases in our KCP&L Missouri and Kansas jurisdictions. We received more than 75% of our ask in both cases, resulting in a total revenue increase of approximately $138 million. We were also granted approval to implement several new riders and trackers, including a fuel recovery mechanism in Missouri, which will reduce the risk around wholesale margin moving forward. And in Kansas a transmission delivery charge rider a SIP Cyber Security Tracker. We’re pleased that our Missouri and Kansas commissioners continue to recognize the strong project management discipline we regularly demonstrate in the value of the investments that we make on behalf of our customers. Consistent with the treatment received on prior major projects, there were no disallowances on seen environmental upgrade and we achieved full recovery of our project cost. While we view the traditional elements of the orders as constructive, we are disappointed by the allowed ROEs. We recognize that the 9.5% ROE allowed in Missouri and the 9.3% allowed in Kansas are consistent with recent ROEs awarded in those states. However those ROEs are in the low end of what is being awarded nationally. We’re also disappointed by the Missouri commission’s continue denial and even removal of what we view as pragmatic regulatory mechanisms to deal with lag that is increasingly impacting our industry. Absent broader policy change in Missouri, the commission indicated a preference to use general rate cases to address the issues driving lag for the gas and electric utilities it the state. In response, we plan to file much more frequent rate cases. However, we believe this is not the optimal long-term solution for our customers and we are actively working with the other utilities toward more progressive policy change. Our hope is that we can work with others in our region to advance progressive reforms that are more responsive to the dynamic environment we operate in today. As we look forward to 2016 and beyond, our earnings growth will be driven by targeted investments and a regulated utility infrastructure and continued disciplined cost in capital management. In addition, investment in national transmission and a growing regional economy support a solid earnings growth profile. Consistent with our annual planning timeline, we’ll provide EPS guidance for 2016 on our year-end call. In addition, we planned to provide longer-term earnings growth targets and cash distribution plans. With the completion of our La Cygne environmental project, slide six highlights our simple and clear strategic approach as we move forward. As a leading provider of electricity in the Midwest we focus on closely managing our existing business promoting economic growth and improving our customer experience. We remain focused on operational excellence and meeting the changing needs of our customers. Our recently completed information technology projects that include an automated meter infrastructure upgrade, meter data management installation and an outage management system replacement are part of our broader strategic focus of providing top-tier customer satisfaction and operational excellence. The installation operation of our Clean Charge Network, which includes over 1,000 electric vehicle charging stations is helping to build Kansas city’s reputation as an innovative and sustainable place to live and work, a reputation that helps attract companies and talent. A key element of our strategy is the advancement of regulatory policy reform. To continue making investments that strengthen our infrastructure and meet the changing needs of our customers we must have a regulatory framework that allows us a reasonable opportunity to earn our allowed return. In the coming year we plan to be active in multiple venues to evocate for specific energy policy advancements that improve the regulatory frameworks in both Missouri and Kansas. We know that effectuating the top of change we think is necessary will not happen overnight. It will require hard work, significant stakeholder education and rigorous collision building. However, we believe that now is the time to work together toward longer-term solutions that benefit both customers and shareholders. In late October the EPA published the Clean Power Plan in the Federal Registry, where we have previously worked to improve the emission profile of our generation, with nearly 72% of our cold fleet scrub we continue to evaluate the implications of the recently finalized rules. Although the state targets for carbon reduction both in Missouri and Kansas increased significantly we will likely utilize the combination of strategies, including optimization of the operation of our existing generation fleet, investments in new renewable resources and shut down of our older less sufficient units to comply with the rule and to mitigate the cost impact to our customers. The investments we have made over last several years have afforded us flexibility in this regard. Ultimately we will continue to evaluate rules impact, but we’ll balance the need to transition to a cleaner energy profile with mitigating the cost impact to our customers. Now on slide seven, earlier this week our Board approved a 7.1% annualized dividend increase from $0.98 to $1.05 per share. This action represents an annualized increase of approximately 7% from 2013 to 2015, exceeding our target of 4% to 6% growth. In addition this marks the fifth consecutive year we have rate the dividend and reflects continued confidence in our long-term plans. We remain committed to narrowing our target dividend payout ratio to 60% to 70% and as I mentioned earlier we’ll lay out our long-term cash distribution strategy in February. With a decade long strategic investment cycle behind us and increasing focus on improving our regulatory environment, investment flexibility and improving cash flows to support dividend growth we are in a much stronger position moving forward. We’re excited to deliver the opportunities in front of us and have a clear focus for strengthening our utility infrastructure to promote the regional growth, innovate and adapt to customer expectations, while delivering dependable shareholder returns. With that I’ll now turn the call over to Kevin Bryant. Kevin E. Bryant Thank you, Terry and good morning, everyone. I will begin with an overview of our financial performance for the quarter and year-to-date. As you can see on slide nine earnings for the third quarter were $0.82 per share compared with $0.95 a year ago. Year-to-date earnings were $1.22 per share compared to a $1.44 per share last year. As detailed on the slide the $0.13 decline for the quarter was driven by increased O&M, depreciation and amortization expense and lower AFUDC. The increased O&M was consistent with our plan driven by higher Wolf Creek nuclear unit expenses and an increase in distribution expense. Additionally the third quarter of 2014 included a tax benefit that did not recur this year. These impacts were partially offset by favorable weather resulting from 18% more cooling degree days in the third quarter of last year. The $0.22 decrease for the year-to-date period was driven by several of the same factors impacting the quarter, including the impact from a decline in wholesale margin due to lower natural gas prices for KCP&L Missouri. However, as Terry indicated a few recovery mechanisms improved in the recent Missouri rate case will minimize risk around wholesale margin moving forward. Year-to-date weather normalized demand was flat through September in line with our full year projection of flat to 0.5% net of the estimated impact of our energy efficiency programs. I’ll also highlight that this past September was the warmest since 1980. While traditional weather normalization estimates incorporate the typical response to whether variations versus normal. We believe customer behavior contributed to our estimated third quarter decline in demand of 1.1% given the distribution of cooling degree days during the month. More globally we continue to be encouraged by the economic growth in the Kansas City region. And improving residential real estate and jobs market is leading to continued customer growth. Year-to-date through September single family residential real estate permits were the highest in eight years and the unemployment rate declined to 4.4% compared to 5.4% a year ago and the national average of 4.9%. In fact, the third quarter of 2015 marked the 18 consecutive quarters of customer growth on our system and 51 months in a row where the region has experienced job growth. While we recognize that the impact of our energy efficiency program, new energy efficiency standards and population shifts have smaller homes and multi-family housing are driving lower average use per customer. We continue to actively work with our local economic development partners to [indiscernible] of our region and to support continued economic growth moving forward. Turning to slide 10, for review of the fourth quarter and full year 2015. In terms of what’s in store for the rest of the year when compared to 2014, we will have new retail rate and cost recovery mechanism in KCP&L’s Missouri and Kansas jurisdictions. We project full year weather normalized demand growth of flat to 0.5% again net of the estimated impact of our energy efficiency programs. Our team continues to diligently manage our business. Through disciplined cross management, we now expect a full year O&M increase of only 2% to 3% including regulatory amortizations and items with direct revenue offsets. This compares to our initial projection for the year of 3% to 4% growth. Exclusive of those items and demonstrative of our focus on cost discipline, we expect O&M for the full year 2015 to be flat versus our previously disclosed 1% to 2%. Once again effective cost control remains a key focus. And as the last word on slide 10 highlights, we’ll see an uptick in interest expense resulting from KCP&L $350 million senior unsecured notes issuance that was successfully completed in mid-August. Turning to slide 11, Terry has already mentioned that we will provide EPS guidance for 2016 along with longer-term earnings growth target and cash distribution plans on our year-end call in February. However, I would like to comment briefly on key drivers for 2016 and 2017. For 2016 the primary earnings drivers include new retail rates that reflect true ups the KCP&L’s cost of service. In addition, we are assuming weather normalized demand growth of flat to 0.5% net of the estimated impact of our energy efficiency programs. The results of the recent rate cases including the allowed ROEs and our lack of ability to implement many of the trackers that were soft in Missouri to address future expense lag will pin to drivers to the lower end of our previously communicated EPS growth target of 4% to 6% through 2016. However, when combined with the above target dividend increase we declared earlier this week and flexibility for continued dividend growth moving forward. We believe we are well-positioned to deliver solid total shareholder returns in 2016 and beyond. We are committed to earning closure to our allowed return and will exercise discipline in where and how we spend our dollars to best meet the increasing expectations of both our customers and shareholders. And as Terry mentioned, we will respond accordingly in the short-term to address regulatory lag by more actively filing rate cases. But we’ll aggressively work with our regulators, policy makers and other utilities across the state towards more comprehensive policy changes. We expect to file a GMO rate case in the first quarter of 2016, with an abbreviated rate case for KCP&L Kansas by November 2016 to true up our cost for listing. Recall, we received authorization by the KCC to include budget cost in our current rates. We are in the planning stages for the next series of rate cases at KCP&L Missouri and KCP&L Kansas. As a reminder the rate case process in Missouri is 11 months while Kansas’s is approximately 8 month. Finally, our future income tax benefits from NLOs and tax credits will allow us to avoid paying significant cash taxes through approximately 2023, which mitigates the need for additional equity in the foreseeable future. Details of the NLOs and tax credits can be found in the appendix. And on the capital markets fronts, we have no plans to issue equity. Turning to slide 12, in summary our strategy for delivering long-term consistent shareholder returns is straight forward. We are well positioned to execute on our plans to deliver solid total shareholder returns from a combination of both dependable earnings and increasing dividend growth. And on a personal note, I have had a chance to visit with a number of you this fall, but I do want to emphasize just how I excited I am in my new role and look forward to having a constructive and transparent dialog with you at EEI [ph] and to delivering dependable results for many quarters to come. Thanks for your time this morning. We would now be happy to answer any questions you may have. Question-and-Answer Session Operator Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Ali Agha with SunTrust. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Ali Agha Thank you, good morning. Terry Bassham Good morning. Ali Agha Terry, in the past you’ve talked about when you come out from a rate case and get the full first year impact that your target has been get within 50 to 100 basis points of regulatory lag or authorized ROE I should say, is that still sort of the way we should look at calendar ‘16 with the full first full year of these rate cases coming in? Kevin E. Bryant Ali, I’ll take that I think that’s generally been our plan in the past. So you should remember though this year we still have not filed cases for GMO. So with our plan to file GMO in the first quarter of next year we likely will have continued lag in the GMO’s jurisdiction. But as a generic target we do plan for kind of that level of lag coming out of rate cases. But last time we saw that was coming out of our 2012 rate cases of which we had all three jurisdictions rate cases timed at the same time. So we’ll see continued lag in 2015 from GMO. Ali Agha Got it. And then related to that also given that a lot of these riders that you had asked for did not come through, again past practice has been that in the second year following the rate case that lag actually goes up. I know you’ll GMO rates coming in but not for the bigger utility. So is that still a trend we should think about for ‘17 but the lag probably goes up somewhat from ‘16? Kevin E. Bryant Yeah, the areas where we saw riders and trackers that we didn’t have successes in the cases primarily property tax and transmission will continue to see lag in those area, where transmission potentially flattening out is the build out in SVP starts to level out. But certainly property tax lag will continue to grow with our earnings. So yes, we’ll continue to see that lag grow the second year out of rate cases. Ali Agha Okay. And my last question again related to that, you alluded to the fact that you are going to be filing rate cases more frequently, at this stage when should we expect the next filings coming from the bigger utilities? Kevin E. Bryant So certainly in GMO we’ll file some time likely in the first quarter. We are in active as Terry mentioned an active planning stages for KCP&L Missouri. We have an abbreviated case in Kansas, we’ll file by the end of the year next year. But for KCP&L Missouri we are in the planning stage, but as Terry mentioned we’ll try to file that as quickly as possible. Ali Agha Not in Calendar ‘16 though? Kevin E. Bryant I am not ruling out calendar ‘16. Ali Agha Okay, thank you. Operator Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Shar Pourreza with Guggenheim Partners. Your line is open, please go ahead. Shar Pourreza Good morning, Terry and Kevin. How are you? Kevin E. Bryant Good morning. Terry Bassham Good morning. Shar Pourreza So, Terry, in your kind of prepared remarks you highlighted that you’re sort of networking with other utilities in the region to sort of review the construct down there. It’s certainly been a little bit challenging, I mean sort of can you elaborate on what you are looking at changing it? Terry Bassham Yeah, I mean I think we’ve always worked together. But I think given the timing of all our rate cases both Ameren empower we have now all had rate cases in the same year, which got several similar rulings on issues. We also have worked with our gas and water utilities in that regard as well. And so I think we all are going to work together to look at the issues that are similar to us, on a very simple basis some things that we’ve talked about or like property taxes and in this now after these cases transmission, which has been removed from the fuel factor we have very aligned interest in that regard and that at a minimum would be something we’d talking about. I think we’ve been talking about this for two or three years now though and sometimes that’s what it takes. So we’ll also be talking about potentially broader changes. We’ll see how those conversations go, but certainly will be moving on several fronts to see what the opportunity is in this session and potentially sessions to come. Shar Pourreza Got it. And just a touch on that, I think on the second quarter call you highlighted that, you could be interested in pursuing that ROE adjustment mechanism and sort of a more general proceeding. Is that an option still? Terry Bassham Yeah, I mean obviously if the commission looks at new opportunities or different ways to manage those things we’ll participate in those as well. We believe that this commission has authority to do several things that they have been less or more conservative on. So if they are willing to consider those we will work with them to the extent they don’t believe they have as much flexibility, we’ll be talking the legislature about opportunities to give them that flexibility. Shar Pourreza Got it. And then just lastly on overall sort of strategy and sort of the trends we’re seeing here, obviously there has been a bit of a M&A move companies your size valuation levels have been a target for a multitude of buyers. We really got to get sort of your refresh feel and how you think about M&A if you’re sort of willing seller or a buyer. And then as your board kind of aware of some of these premiums that are being paid for utilities your size. Terry Bassham Yeah so on a generic basis I’d say what we’ve said before and that is that we are confident on our plan we like our strategic plan we really like our territory and our opportunity for investment given our generation profile and the things we have in front of us. Having said that certainly our duty as a Board is to be aware of what’s happening in the marketplace, we talk about it at every meeting obviously. And so we’re very self-aware of what’s happening and I think what we said before remains true, which is we’re — we’ll maintain our knowledge of the market and we’ll be opportunistic for things that are good for shareholders. We’ve shown in the past we’ve been willing to do and I think we’ll continue to do that as we move forward certainly a lot of activity in the market right now. Shar Pourreza Thanks, Terry and Kevin great to you on Board. Thank you so much. Terry Bassham Thank you. Kevin E. Bryant Thanks Shar. Operator Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Brian Chin with Bank of America. Your line is open, please go ahead. Brian Chin Hi, good morning. Terry Bassham Good morning, Brian. Brian Chin Going over to the dividend. So if we think about I understand the comments on the payout ratio, but if we think about the compound annual growth rate, clearly the 7% was a little bit higher than the band that we saw for ‘14 through ‘16. If we’re thinking about the 4 to 6 band CAGR rate going forward. Should we think about that as being based off of the newer dividend per share level that was just established or should we continue to base off of the original ‘14 dividend per share trajectory going forward? Kevin E. Bryant I’d base it off the level just established Brian. Brian Chin Okay great. And then… Kevin E. Bryant And just to remind you I mean we plan to come out in February on our year-end call with updated thoughts around both earnings and dividends as we move forward. Brian Chin No that makes sense. It sounds like you’re shifting the strategy a little bit more towards the dividend component of the total shareholder returns, so I think that message was pretty clear to everybody. I guess the second question is you made some comments about the weather impact and in the prepared remarks you talked about how customer behavior may have exacerbated the weather impact above and beyond sort of the normal heat and cooling degree days calculation. In the press release it says that the unfavorable weather for the third quarter relative to normal was negative a penny year-over-year. was that customer behavior something above and beyond that penny? And if so can we quantify that or can you give a little bit more clarity there? Kevin E. Bryant So that penny was related to normal weather. We also described in the press release how we had 18% more cooling degree days year-over-year, but I think the comment in the prepared remarks really related to the weather pattern we have this year where we had a bit of a cool August and then it warmed up for a couple of weeks intermediately in September. And so what we’re trying to see is when you look at the 1.1% decline in demand just based on the traditional weather normalization calculations it attribute big piece of that to demand. Although if you think about how our customers respond when it was cool, they kept their air conditioners off and didn’t turn them back on those couple of days when it warmed up. And so that feels a lot like customer behavior, but based on the normal calls it would attribute that to demand. And so that was the point we were trying to make with respect that 1.1% decline. We think some of that’s demand, but a big piece of that could have been driven by the weather pattern for the quarter. Brian Chin So then stated in other way, if we’re looking at modeling to normal weather for next year, should we basically be adding back a penny for unfavorable weather or should we be adding back more to get back to normal customer behavior sales growth? Kevin E. Bryant For the quarter you could add back that penny to get back to normal. Brian Chin Okay alright . Thanks for clearing that up, I appreciate it. Kevin E. Bryant Sure no problem. Operator Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Chris Turnure with JP Morgan. Your line is open, please go ahead. Christopher Turnure Good morning, Terry and Kevin. Could you give us a little bit of an updated series of thoughts on your capital plan for the next five years, it’s still in a pretty high level especially in ‘16 and ‘17 I just wanted to hear your thoughts kind of post the regulatory outcomes there? And then also I wanted to hear your plans there, but then also your plans in light of the Clean Power Plan and any changes that that might drive especially in the near-term? Kevin E. Bryant Sure on the CapEx plan I mean we still have our disclosure that in our 10-K and in our investment materials where we’re projecting CapEx that kind of peak in 2015 what was seen. It falls off a bit in 2016 $180 million or so. We’ll update that CapEx disclosure as we file our 10-Okay, but I think the broad takeaway is and as we’ve talked about with our dividend flexibility we expect our CapEx to moderate as we move forward, which creates flexibility for those cash distribution topics that we discussed in our prepared remarks. And then in the context of Clean Power Plan we continue to evaluate the impacts of the Clean Power Plan our states have filed stays and we’ll be working on filing our state implementation plan, but that said I think a combination of optimizing our plant performance renewables and shut down of older units really is the path towards CPP compliance longer-term, we’re working to figure out what all that means. We’ll give you an update in February, but there’s a number of moving part as we plan for CPP compliance. Christopher Turnure Okay. And then your kind of initial conversations there do you feel like early next year will be a time where you’re going to have enough to be able to make significant announcements on the Clean Power Plan front or is it going to take longer than that? Kevin E. Bryant It will likely be past our year-end update I mean we’ll be working on planning throughout the summer, we’ll give you the best we got in February, but I suspect that we’ll have a lot better clarity in terms of our CPP compliance path later on in the year. Terry Bassham Yeah remember the way the process have worked, we work hopefully this first year to make progress and get the extension for the addition of couple of years in that progress. And so we won’t have final kind of ideas around it till that continued work happens, but I would say that the work we’ve done over the last several years and the opportunity for renewables locally gives us a lot of flexibility on that when the plans are finalized. Christopher Turnure Okay, great thank you very much. Terry Bassham Thank you. Kevin E. Bryant Thanks Chris. Operator Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Charles Fishman with Morningstar. Your line is open, please go ahead. Charles Fishman Thank you. Congratulations on the royals and question is on Kansas the 9.3% you say you’re disappointed yet it was a settlement why didn’t you run it out? Kevin E. Bryant No so you may have mixed us with Westar we did not settled ROE, we settled almost the entire case, but for a couple of issues and the primary issue that we ended up litigated was ROE. So we ended up litigating that actually. Charles Fishman Okay, I misunderstood that. May be a misunderstanding, now you were the one that had commissioner Apple saying the 9.3% was extremely generous am I correct on that? Kevin E. Bryant Yeah his issue really was ROE his issue really wasn’t with ROE, his issue was with a small group of customers that had a rate adjustment about four years ago, three cases ago and because ultimately there was not a resolution to his satisfaction on that issue. He thought ROE was a way to address it, he did really address ROE in a traditional rate base manner, it was almost single issue related. Charles Fishman Okay. So there was something going on there besides what typically the order in his comments it sound like there were some left over baggage? Kevin E. Bryant No it was very specific to a unique situation and had nothing really to do with the marketplace the appropriate ROE for utility in a rate case left there. Charles Fishman Terry it seems like with the CPP and the fact that you stray around Missouri and Kansas that you have an opportunity here to maybe use compliance to work on some of these regulatory lag issues as well as ROE in Kansas well for that matter both states, is that on the agenda? Terry Bassham Yeah I would agree with that I mean I think we’re going to be spending time with our commissioners, with our legislators and with our environmental departments of both states to work on these kind of plans. It’s going to — one thing is clear is that CPP is going to require investment, the time frame as it is will require potentially significant investment. And our ability to work with those parties to manage that investment in a way which has the least or best impact on customers, I think is in front of us and we’ll have the ability to talk about ways to do that because regardless of the outcome unless the rules are rolled back we’re going to have to invest in potentially a lot of renewables. Charles Fishman Okay. I have a few others. But I’ll wait for EEI. Thank you. Terry Bassham Sounds good, look forward to seeing you there. Operator Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Michael Lapides with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open, please go ahead. Michael Lapides Hey, Terry. First of all congrats Kevin on your new role. Kevin E. Bryant Thanks, Michael. Michael Lapides One question for you, I want to make sure what trackers outside of fuel, what trackers do you have that will impact revenues and offset some cost in 2016 and like how material are these kind of thinking pension property tax, kind of the works everything, but kind of the fuel side of it? Terry Bassham Okay, we’ll tag team these, bit of a test. Most obviously the one we’re pleased with most with this last case is getting the final fuel factor if you want to call it that far KCP&L Missouri. So that was really important. We already have obviously a pension tracker in both states which we have had for quite a while. We have a property tax rider in Kansas, but Missouri did not agree to that. So we don’t have a property tax rider in Missouri, but we do Kansas. We have an energy efficiency cost rider in Kansas. Missouri energy efficiency investment at EMEA is what we have in Missouri on kind of that front and it’s a larger program if you will. We have the [indiscernible] rate case, which is not really the tracker rider, but it will kind of true up things on our same project in Kansas. We still have transmission in fuel in Kansas, but obviously with the latest rulings that will not be in Missouri and then the additional pickup this year in Kansas was also a SIPS cyber security tracker in Kansas and again Missouri the climate. I think that’s the list. Kevin? Kevin E. Bryant Did you mention the renewable energy track? Terry Bassham I missed that, I guess. Kevin E. Bryant So, we also have renewable energy standard rate adjustment, we affectionally call [indiscernible] in Missouri or for GMO. Michael Lapides How? Terry Bassham I think that’s the list. Michael Lapides Help us just… when we think about what the revenue benefit you could use nine months or this year or you could use expectations 2016, how big of a revenue uptick has that been or more importantly when I think about the track items that are in O&M, how much of that has being offset with incremental revenue? The year-over-year growth. Terry Bassham A lot of that drives this discussion around 50 to 100 basis points in the very first year. So the extent we have lag at GMO related to any of those things that would continue next year. Obviously the riders and trackers really are helpful as the year goes on, years go on and as we come out of a case those cost August reset. And so the level of increase for each one of those things we’ve had sharp increases in property tax in certain years. So I would say that there is a lower impact on everything but GMO in the very first year, next year that’s what will drive that lesser lag there, GMO would continue to have that and then ‘17 without acquiring a rider or tracker ‘17 you would start to see that percolate backup. Depending on increases in cyber security, property tax and transmission in particular. Kevin E. Bryant Michael, another way to think about it on the O&M inside we’ve talked about kind of flat O&M this year versus 1% to 2% flat assuming items that exclude the items that have regulatory offset with 1% to 2% in terms of total O&M. So that 1% to 2% could give you a proxy for the items that have regulatory offset on the O&M side. Michael Lapides Hey, guys you all faded out there for like the last couple of minutes. The last thing I think folks heard on the call was likely around the renewable. So had a little bit of a telecom issue there. I just want to make sure — let me simplify the question, year-over-year what was the or what do you think the revenue uptick is or the margin uptick is that is related to trackers that help offset cost? Kevin E. Bryant Yeah so can you hear me now Michael? Michael Lapides Yes sir. Kevin E. Bryant Okay. We describe kind of our O&M expectations for the year of 1% to 2% revised O&M expectations of 1% to 2% increase including the items that have regulatory offset, but being flat if you exclude those items. So you could kind of do the math and that 1% to 2% difference would be the items for which we have regulatory offsets on the O&M side of the equation. Michael Lapides Got it okay. So up 1% to 2% with trackers flat without? Kevin E. Bryant Correct. Michael Lapides Got it. Last question, the ARC what are the big drivers of the ARC that you file at the end of next year? And when would those rates go into effect? Kevin E. Bryant You’re talking about the abbreviated case in Kansas right? Michael Lapides Yes. Kevin E. Bryant Yeah so the big driver there is the fact that the way we file that case we were filing on budget. Because of where were in the process with the project. And so it will be truing up actual cost. In this instance we actually came in under budget on time and under budget. And so that true up actually may involve some flow back from that perspective. But it will be true up of actual cost as we completed the project. Michael Lapides Got it, okay thanks guys. Much appreciated. Terry Bassham Thank you and sorry for the telephone issue. Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Paul Ridzon with KeyBanc. Your line is open, please go ahead. Paul Ridzon I think she is talking about me? Kevin E. Bryant Yes. Paul Ridzon What is the year-to-date weather impact versus normal? Kevin E. Bryant For the quarter it was $0.01 year-to-date let me find that, I don’t have that in my fingertips Paul let me track that down. Paul Ridzon So the weather adjusted 3Q load was a negative 1.1% is that I got up right. Terry Bassham That’s correct for the quarter. Paul Ridzon But that catch you because there were some weird weather? Kevin E. Bryant That’s correct. That whole that August to September weather effect with it being cool in August and warmer in September. And I think the year-to-date effect — the year-to-date effect from weather was about $0.03. Paul Ridzon Below normal? Kevin E. Bryant Below normal. Paul Ridzon And then just on your last question you probably had some O&M commentary about being flat with the trackers, that’s for ‘16 correct? Kevin E. Bryant That’s for ‘15. Paul Ridzon ‘15? Kevin E. Bryant Correct. Paul Ridzon And where do you expect the O&M to be in ‘16? Kevin E. Bryant We’ll provide ‘16 guidance on our February call. Paul Ridzon Okay, thank you very much. Kevin E. Bryant Sure. Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Russo with Ladenburg Thalmann. your line is open. Please go ahead. Brian Russo Hi, good morning. Terry Bassham Good morning. Terry Bassham The $0.08 decrease in the midpoint of your 2015 guidance, you attributed to weather and wholesale market conditions and rig outcomes. Can you break that down I guess weather is $0.03 out of the $0.08 and then at least $0.05 for wholesale and rig outcomes. Just curious the EPS — the decline in EPS associated the rig outcome that probably is structural whereas the wholesale market conditions will be mitigated through the fuel adjustment cost I am just trying to get more accurate picture of the EPS sensitivity. Kevin E. Bryant Yeah so certainly the move from ROEs from where we were previously in Missouri from 9.7% to 9.5% and from 9.5% to 9.3% in Kansas. If I’m doing the math right it’s a couple cents. And then obviously to the extent we didn’t get the riders and trackers there is a quarter impact on the year from that perspective as well, the fourth quarter not getting the impact of those property tax and transmission tracker. So I think those are the pieces that kind of guide us to the bottom end of that range. You mentioned wholesale? Brian Russo Okay. So wholesale probably couple of pennies also? Kevin E. Bryant Yeah, wholesale being a big piece of it that got fix with the fuel adjustment costs in Missouri. Terry Bassham That would be a driver for our lower O&M to help offset some of those impacts. Brian Russo Got it. And then on slide 11, the 4% to 6% EPS growth ‘14 to ‘16 based off of the initial ‘14 EPS guidance range of $1.60 to $1.75, should I be using the midpoint of that initial ‘14 guidance or should I be using your actual ‘14 earnings just want to get a better picture of the base? Kevin E. Bryant So the base was that $1.60 to $1.75 which was our initial guidance range way back in 2014. So we were growing 4% to 6% through ‘16 off of the top and bottom side of that original ‘14 guidance range. Does that make sense? Brian Russo Okay. I guess it does, should we just take the midpoint of that guidance and grow it by 4% to 6% or grow the low end of 4% and the high end of 6%? Kevin E. Bryant Grow the low end at 4% and the high end at 6% would give you the bands of the range through 2016 not the midpoint? Brian Russo Okay, got it. And if I heard you correctly you’re kind of forecasting the low end to that quarter 4% to 6% CAGR through ‘16? Kevin E. Bryant Yeah based on the outcomes from these rate cases who drives us to the lower end of that implied range or we’ll come out and give you the full mill deal in February. Brian Russo Okay, got it thank you. Operator Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Steve Fleishman with Wolfe Research. Your line is open, please go ahead. Steve Fleishman Yeah that was my question, but I just wanted to kind of re-clarify the low end the growth rate of 4% to 6% and then you have the initial range of about $1.60, $1.75 so the commentary of tracking at the low end is that the low end of both growth rate and the beginning range? Terry Bassham We’ve always talked about taking that range and growing the 4% of the bottom end and the 6% of the top. So we’ll be updating and what we’re talking about here is we’re trending into the low end of that implied range that amount is out from that. Steve Fleishman Okay, thank you. Terry Bassham Yeah thank you. Operator Thank you [Operator Instructions]. Steve Fleishman The low end of the line was like a $1.73. Terry Bassham Steve is that you? Steve Fleishman Yeah. Terry Bassham You’re still live. Steve Fleishman Okay. Well I’m just calculating with you guys then. Terry Bassham Yeah we can do that math and you’re correct. Steve Fleishman Okay. Operator And our next question comes from the line of Paul Patterson with Glenrock. Your line is open, please go ahead. Paul Patterson I think you guys clarified that question, but I was wondering though in general was how should we think about the longer term outlook if you don’t get these fixes legislatively to what you see the regulatory problems was being? As you mentioned earlier we’ve seen seems like every year we hear about these initiatives and it’s difficult to predict legislation, but it hasn’t happened in the past, so I’m sure you guys have thought about this what is the contingency if we don’t get a legislative fix? Terry Bassham Yeah so obviously what you’ve seen from us in the past several years is that we had very large projects that had to be added into rate base, based upon our conference of energy plan, EPA regulations et cetera. And so our earnings were very stair step and obviously we don’t like that, shareholders don’t like that we want to smooth that out. Two things I would say is number one, is we don’t have the huge single project kinds of additions that would make that stair step as dramatic. But secondly we want to eliminate it as much as possible altogether. And so we will number one, continue to work on legislature in other ways to manage the flow through if you will. But in addition we’ll continue to watch our O&M, we’ll continue to look at our investment, if we are unable to get help from some of that investment timing wise we’ll have to watch when we make it and we’ll be working hard to make that stair stepish type earnings profile less pronounced moving forward and that would be the plan. I hope combination of some of the things we are looking for and good management gives us a great opportunity there for steady growth. But with the cash flow we now have and the fewer large projects we also have the ability to provide more dividend flexibility to manage that total shareholder return number. Paul Patterson Do you think without legislation, how should we think about regulatory lag? You mentioned obviously that will vary from year-to-year, but just in general if you are unable to get it, but of course you got a different CapEx profile going forward and you have got cost initiatives et cetera, how should we think about the regulatory lag potential post 2016? Terry Bassham So I think we’ve talked about in the very first year out of the gate from a rate case where everything is trued up. We still think on each of those cases in jurisdiction of 50 to 100 basis, makes a lot of sense. I think what you’ll see from us in the future lesser lag, less dramatic lag than you’ve seen in the past because of the lower CapEx profile. And so it will grow, but it will be depended on our ability to manage some cost and what kind of the demand growth we have on the kind of projects we hopefully have invest in from a CPP perspective. But the notion would be although it will grow until we can file another case, we should be able to manage it to some degree better than we have in the past when you are putting $1 billion project it’s very time sensitive to the case that allowed within rate. Paul Patterson The Missouri commission in last rate case during the deliberative process, the commissioner talked about a management audit and they also discussed among other than a merger between subs as potentially something that could be beneficial to the company it may appears. Could you elaborate maybe the potential or the thoughts or issues associated with a merger between subs and what have you? Terry Bassham Yeah. So when we first acquired Aquila they had purchased St. Joe Light and Power a few years before we acquired them and there was a pretty large disparity between the St. Joe rates and the – what’s known as MPS Missouri Public Service. Primarily because no generation had been added to St. Joe for many years and a couple of our cases since then they have acquired a piece if you will or allocated a piece of [indiscernible] and as a result the rates are much closer than they were. And so we think there is an opportunity to consolidate those jurisdictions the main benefit is processing multiple cases, dealing with multiple communications and being able from an accounting perspective to streamline our work with the commission, which is rate case expenses those kinds of things. We had seen synergies available through the merger. But we’ve been able to effectuate all those this is really just the process of filing the cases operations and other financial synergies we’ve actually achieved since then. Paul Patterson Okay. So should we think about any potential there as being rather modest in terms of what the earning savings or the cost savings could be? Terry Bassham Yes, I would say from an earnings perspective that’s not dramatic. It would just streamline our process of filing cases and give us some internal and customer benefit earnings wise. I don’t know that we… we don’t believe we have a lot of synergies that would be gained in addition to that, right now. Paul Patterson Okay, thanks a lot. Terry Bassham Thank you. Operator Thank you. I’m showing a follow up question from the line of Michael Lapides with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Michael Lapides One of these earnings call should get the last name, right? It is more fun. Question for you, when you are thinking about cash flow in capital allocation and cash use and you mentioned you’ll update this on the fourth quarter call. If I use the payout range the drive to a truck of $1.73 to $1.97 and use your current dividend level. You’re still at a reasonably low kind of payout ratio level even on the low end of that. Are there — with you not being a cash tax payer, are there opportunities for either debt reduction at the holding company level or debt refinancing and just paying any make holes with some of the extra cash flow? Or even other forms of capital allocation that might be viewed as shareholder friendly? Kevin E. Bryant Yeah so Michael I mean I’ll give you the universe of things that you will consider in that regards. So you’re right, we can look at debt pay down. Dividend is up obviously and we’ll come out with our thoughts in February. What’s in the mix of share repurchases, but you have to balance that in the context of our current regulatory filing structure. If you remember the equity ratio on our most recent rate cases has been impacted by our CapEx profile. And so when we have opportunities to kind of sure that up a little bit as we go into this active rate case filing profile. So all those things are the things we would balance in terms of what the trade-off is in terms of either earnings potential or value to distribute to shareholders. Michael Lapides Got it. And are there things — if I think about the cash flow statement. So kind of net income we can take the implied guidance, depreciation, CapEx assume the dividend growth level, no income taxes. What cash drags or headwinds are there outside of some of the items that have embedded in what I just mentioned? Kevin E. Bryant I think it’s CapEx is the big mover, I mean you mentioned the big piece is cash from ops you can adjust based on demand and new retail rates, you mentioned D&A, but real big mover would be CapEx. And that’s where we expect our CapEx profile to moderate versus where we’ve been for candidly 10 years. Other than that… go ahead. Michael Lapides Yeah how should we think about cash pension requirements, how should we think about cash in the key requirements is working cap a source, a user or nothing I mean you’re about to become less of an earning story and more of a cash flow story, I am just trying to get my arms around some of the other puts and takes on cash flow. Kevin E. Bryant Yeah well in terms of pension, I mean our expense is really close to our contribution level, so I wouldn’t expect that move around a whole lot our NDT contributions are pretty consistent. So you can certainly use history to model that cash impact, but I don’t necessarily — I wouldn’t disagree with your takeaway in terms of the profile. Obviously with potential to invest in rate base moving forward, but balancing the customer impact. And so that’s where as we’ve talked about this cash flexibility it gives us the ability to either invest where it makes the right sense or to find ways to better deploy that to shareholders. Kevin Bryant Got it, thanks Kevin much appreciated. Kevin Bryant You got it, Michael. Operator Thank you. And I am showing no further questions at this time, and I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Terry Bassham for any closing remarks. Terry Bassham Yeah thanks for all the questions. Appreciate you being on the call I know you got other calls to get to. And I know we’ll see many of you here starting on Monday. So appreciated and look forward to talking to you soon. Thanks. Operator Ladies and gentlemen thank you for participating in today’s conference. This does conclude the program and you may all disconnect. Everyone have a great day.

Duke Energy’s (DUK) Lynn Good on Q3 2015 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

Duke Energy Corporation (NYSE: DUK ) Q3 2015 Earnings Conference Call November 05, 2015 10:00 AM ET Executives Bill Currens – VP, IR Lynn Good – President and CEO Steve Young – EVP and CFO Analysts Shar Pourreza – Guggenheim Partners Dan Eggers – Credit Suisse Jonathan Arnold – Deutsche Bank Steve Fleishman – Wolfe Research Michael Lapides – Goldman Sachs Brian Chin – Bank of America/Merrill Lynch Jim Von Riesemann – Mizuho Securities Ali Agha – SunTrust Robinson Humphrey Paul Ridzon – KeyBanc Capital Markets Operator Good day, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Duke Energy Third Quarter Earnings Review and Business Update. At this time, all lines have been placed on a listen-only mode and the floor will be open for questions following the presentation. [Operator Instructions] It is now pleasure to introduce your host Bill Currens, Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir you may begin. Bill Currens Thank you, Jeff. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Duke Energy’s third quarter 2015 earnings review and business update. Leading our call is Lynn Good, President and CEO, along with Steve Young, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Today’s discussion will include forward-looking information and the use of non-GAAP financial measures. Slide 2 presents the Safe Harbor statement, which accompanies our presentation materials. A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures can be found on our Web site at duke-energy.com and in today’s materials. Please note that the appendix to today’s presentation includes supplemental information and additional disclosures to help you analyze the Company’s performance. As summarized on Slide 3, Lynn will cover our third quarter highlights and provide summary of our recent strategic and growth initiatives. Then Steve will provide an overview of our third quarter financial results and an update on our economic activities within our service territories, as well as an overview of our earnings growth prospects as we move into 2016 in the future. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Lynn. Lynn Good Good morning, and thanks for joining us. This morning reported third quarter 2015 adjusted EPS of $1.47 per share above the $1.40 per share in 2014, as favorable weather and growth in the regulating utilities supported our results. Our regulated businesses have performed well throughout 2015 delivering solid financial results. As we look to the fourth quarter, we are narrowing our guidance range to $4.55 to $4.65 per share. This range reflects mild October weather, as well as storm expenses, unfavorable foreign currency trends and the potential for extending bonus depreciation. The extension of bonus will modestly increase our effective tax for the year. Earlier this year, we increase the growth rate of the dividend to approximately 4%, reflecting our confidence in the strength of our core businesses. The growing dividend supports our commitment to deliver attractive long-term returns for shareholders. Our financial results are made possible by the efforts of our people who work every day to keep our plant safe, efficient and reliable, providing our customers with valuable services. Our regulated generation fleet continued to deliver for customers during the critical summer months. Our nuclear fleet achieved a 97% capacity factor during the quarter and our growing regulated gas fleet continued to deliver value for our customers, taking advantage of the low natural gas prices. In fact our utilities have burned more natural gas in the first nine months of 2015 than they did in either of the two prior full years. The Edwardsport IGCC plant continues to operate well, achieving a third quarter gasifier availability factor of around 80%, massing the first quarter’s record. Additionally in July, the facility achieved a record month of net generation. In early October, we experienced heavy rains and flooding in the Carolinas and 500,000 customer outages. We were well prepared and mobilized our crudes in advance, speeding the restoration of service. Like others in the industry we are making progress towards a safe, cost effective closure of our Ash Basins in the Carolinas. Basin closure is underway at six sites and we are working through the approval of closure plans at our remaining basins. I’m proud of the way the Duke team has responded to this important industry issue with excellence and leadership. We are systematically and strategically increasing our regulated business mix through a series of acquisitions and divestitures as highlighted on Slide 5. As well as the portfolio of investments I will discuss in a moment. Last week, we were very excited to announce the plan to acquire Piedmont Natural Gas, which will add a well established natural gas business and platforms in the Duke portfolio. From a strategic perspective, we see this acquisition as the foundation for establishing a broader gas infrastructure platform within Duke, building upon our recent gas pipeline investments and complementing our existing gas LBT business in the Midwest. We plan to leverage the scale Duke with Piedmont’s well regarded management team and excellent operational capabilities. Piedmont has long been recognized as a premier operator of low risk regulated gas infrastructure. We have partnered with them over many years, as they have built and operated the critical gas infrastructure that serves natural gas generation in this region. Piedmont is experiencing robust customer growth and is investing in projects that have constructive regulatory mechanisms providing a strong base to organic growth. These investments are expected to grow their rate base, by an average of around 9% over the coming years. This acquisition is expected to close by the end of 2016 and be accretive to our earnings in the first full year after close. This will increase our total regulated business mix to over 90%, firmly supporting our earnings and dividend growth objectives. We will keep you updated, as we progress through the approval process. Turning to Slide 6. We are also focused on creating long-term growth and value for our customers and shareholders, with investments that will modernize our system, both our generation and our growth for the benefit of our customers. We continue to introduce more diversity to our fleet through low cost natural gas. Construction has begun on a combined cycle natural gas plant at the lease site in South Carolina, while preconstruction activities will commence on the Citrus County combined-cycle plant later this year. Both projects represent a total of over 2 billion in investments and remain on-time and on-budget. Our Western Carolina modernization project also remains on track. You may recall that we decided to retire our coal unit in Asheville and replaced it with a combined-cycle gas plant and a new transmission line, to improve reliability and support growth in the Asheville area. After working through a comprehensive stakeholder engagement process over the course for the summer, we announced yesterday a modified set of resources to support this project, eliminating the need for a new transmission line. Rather than the 650 megawatt gas plant, we will build two 280 megawatt combined-cycle natural gas units with the option for 190 megawatt simple cycle unit by 2023. A total estimated investment of just over $1 billion. This modification allows us to maintain our 2024 retirement schedule, while reflecting important input from our customers and communities. Further, earlier this year we acquired the NCEMPA asset, a project that is a win-win for our customers in the Eastern region of North Carolina. Our two gas pipeline infrastructure project Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Sabal Trail will provide critical access to additional low cost natural gas in the Southeast, helping to meet growing demand for the fuel from our generation portfolio, as well as to serve our customers’ needs. These projects continue to move through the regulatory approval and siting processes. The formal FERC application for ACT was filed in September and we expect FERC approval in 2016. Once FERC approval is obtained, the project can begin construction activities with an expected COD in late 2018. At Sabal Trial FERC approval is expected in early 2015 with the pipeline operational in 2017. In Indiana, we are revising our grid modernization plan under state legislation and we plan to re-file our plan by the end of this year. We’re also making meaningful progress growing our renewable investments both in our regulated footprint and in the commercial business. On the regulated side, we’re on track to complete construction of 128 megawatts of utility scaled solar in North Carolina by the end of this year and our moving forward with investments in both South Carolina and Florida. Our commercial renewables portfolio also continues to grow with demand for wind and solar projects throughout the U.S. is supported by renewable portfolio standards and growing customer demand. We have a number of commercial wind and solar projects slated to come online later this year, which will increase this portfolio to over 2,700 megawatts of capacity. Overall, these growth investments total $20 billion through 2019 and provide the foundation for growth in the coming years. Steve will provide additional perspective on 2016 and beyond in his remarks. In conclusion, we continue to execute very well, providing safe, reliable and affordable power to our customers. Our growth prospects remain strong as we deploy significant capital and critical energy infrastructure investments. This establishes the foundation to provide clean modern energy to our customers and our communities for decades to come. Let me turn it over to Steve. Steve Young Thanks Lynn. Today, I’ll review our third quarter financial results and provide a brief look into 2016. I would also discuss the economic drivers in our regulated service territories and the low growth experienced in the third quarter. I’ll ramp up with the discussion of our financial objectives. Let’s start with the quarterly results as highlighted on Slide 7. For more detailed information on segment variances versus last year, please refer to the supporting materials that accompanied today’s press release. We achieved third quarter adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1.47, compared to $1.40 in last year’s third quarter. On a reported basis, 2015 third quarter earnings per share were $1.35, compared to $1.80 last year. As a reminder last year’s third quarter results included a $0.43 favorable adjustment for a change in the estimated value of the Mid-West generation business. A reconciliation of reported results to adjusted results is included in the supplemental materials to today’s presentation. Regulated utilities quarterly adjusted results increased by $0.07 per share, driven largely by warmer weather and strong margins in our wholesale business, including the new NCEMPA contract. As we expected, these positive drivers were partially offset by higher O&M related to the timing of outages, increased cost related to NCEMPA and higher storm costs. International’s quarterly earnings declined $0.02 over last year. Continued weakness in foreign exchange rates in Brazil and lower margins at National Methanol were partially offset by lower purchase power costs in Brazil. Additionally, we recognized an asset impairment in Ecuador during the quarter. Our commercial portfolio incurred $0.08 of lower adjusted earnings as a result of the absence of prior year Mid-West generation results due to lower wind resources this year earnings from our commercial renewable business are expected to be around 75 million for the full year versus our original expectation of 100 million. Commercial’s results will be favorable impacted in the fourth quarter by tax credits related to over 300 megawatts of wind in solar generation scheduled to come online. And finally other was up $0.06 due to favorable tax adjustments in the timing of tax levelization as a reminder due to income tax levelization other reflects projected benefits related to renewable tax credits ratably during the year. Once the projects become operational these benefits are reallocated to the commercial portfolio. Lastly our quarterly results benefited $0.04 from the accelerated stock repurchase completed earlier in the year. Moving on to Slide 8, I’ll now discuss our retail customer volume trends. Across our jurisdictions weather-normalized retail load growth has increased by 0.3%, over the rolling 12 months. Within the residential sector we are seeing some positive trends. We continue to add new customers at an annual rate of approximately 1.3%. And we’ve now experienced two consecutive quarters of relatively flat usage per customer. We also continue to see favorable key indicators for the residential sector including employment, personal incomes and spending, as well as household formations. The commercial sector continues to grow modestly benefiting from declining office vacancy rates and expansion in the restaurant and real estate sub-sectors. This growth was partially offset by lower governmental and retail store sales during the quarter. The industrial sector while strong for most of the year has recently slowed, we are continuing to see transportation and building materials gain momentum. In particular, residential construction activities remain strong in the Southeast. During the quarter, we began to experience some weakness in the metals and chemicals subsectors. This slowdown is due to a pause in industrial activity, driven by a deceleration of consumer, business and government spending, a reduction in inventories and the strong dollar which has reduced global demand for U.S. products. Our economic development teams remain active successfully helping to track new business investments into our service territories. So far this year these activities have led to the announcement of $2.4 billion in capital investments, which is expected to result in nearly 7,200 new jobs across our six states. With rolling 12 month weather-normalized load growth of 0.3% we expect to thin towards the low-end of our original 2015 expectation of 0.5% to 1%. Moving to Slide 9, let me layout our key earnings drivers, as we begin thinking about 2016. As has been our normal practice we will provide our 2016 guidance range and updated financial plans in February. For our regulated businesses, we plan for normal weather. We expect growth from rider recovery and AFUDC on major capital investments, along with a full year impact of the NCEMPA transaction and modest growth in retail load. With respect to our cost structure, we continue to build upon the success of our recent merger integration activities. Cost management is an ongoing effort. And we are finding ways to reduce O&M below current levels to match modest sales growth. We expect growth in the commercial portfolio, as we continue to add contracted renewable generation and expect the return of normal wind patterns. The loss of Midwest generation’s earnings contribution is a headwind but it is partially offset by the accelerated soft repurchase. We expect internationals’ earnings have stabilized in 2015 and have the opportunity for modest growth in 2016, largely driven by an expectation for improved high growth dispatch, over the past several months we begun to see higher water inflows and lower market power crises. Further, meteorologists are forecasting a strong Alminio weather pattern through early 2016, which could lead to increased rainfall in Southeastern Brazil. Currency exchange rates are expected to remain volatile but the inflationary provisions in our contracts in Brazil can help to mitigate some of the currency devaluation. We also expect Brent crude oil prices will stabilize in 2016. Now moving to Slide 10, I want to step back and discuss our overall earnings growth objectives. Since 2013, our regulated and commercial segments representing 90% of Duke Energy have delivered 5% earnings growth. As we look at 2016 and beyond. These segments are expected to continue to grow within our 4% to 6% growth objective as we deploy significant capital and critical gas and electric infrastructure investments, including the acquisition of Piedmont, as well as renewable investments in our commercial business. We will also see the potential for rate cases in the Carolinas in the coming years to provide timely cash recovery of these important investments. The remaining portion of the company, the international business has experienced a decline, contributing earnings of $0.67 per share in 2013 and 2014 to about half that in 2015. About half of this decline is due to the three year drought in Brazil while unfavorable exchange rates and lower crude oil prices comprise the remaining half. From this point forward we will believe that internationals’ earnings have stabilized and are positioned for modest growth, consistent with our past practice, we will provide more specific financial guidance in February. We plan to reset our base to 4% to 6% long-term earnings growth off of 2016. This reflects continued strong growth in our core businesses, as well as a more realistic based year for growth in our international business from 2016 forward. Moving on Slide 11 outlines our financial objectives for 2015 and beyond. For the reasons Lynn mentioned earlier, we are narrowing our guidance range for 2015, from $4.55 to $4.75 per share to $4.55 to $4.65 per share. We have made significant progress in advancing our strategic growth initiatives, both in our regulated and commercial businesses providing strong support for our long-term earnings growth objective. Our objective is to grow the dividend annually at a rate consistent with our long-term’s earnings growth objectives. In near-term, our payout ratio will trend slightly above 70%. We are comfortable with that higher range based on the strong growth in our core regulated and commercial businesses. And the cash flows we are repatriating from international. Our strong investment grade credit ratings are important to us, as they help us finance our growth in an efficient manner. I am pleased with our results for 2015. We have successfully executed on a number of key strategic initiatives and delivered strong financial and operating results. Helping to offset the weakness in international, we remain focused on finishing the year well. With that, let’s open the line for your questions. Question-and-Answer Session Operator Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. The floor is now open for questions. [Operator Instructions] Our first question is coming from Shar Pourreza of Guggenheim Partners. Shar Pourreza So this morning, you reiterated your 4% to 6% growth, but also higher yet to be determined 2016 base year and you did drop that footnote you had in the second quarter around DEI potentially being a swing factor in your outlook. Steve is this sort of like what you meant when you mentioned that Piedmont deal would enhance growth trajectory is it less concerns around DEI or sort of what’s driving this increased confidence? Steve Young Well, I think what I would refer you to Shar is the slide we discussed 10. Where we looked at our core businesses, when you isolate international with our core businesses they have grown consistently at 5% from 2013 through ’15 and we would expect that to continue. The international business has involved which moved from a $0.60 per year business to $0.30. And that’s been the challenge we’ve had to deal with in 2015, that’s difficult to overcome. So we billion rebasing in ’16 makes sense in light of what international has done. Shar Pourreza And it included Piedmont right? Lynn Good We expect to close Piedmont Shar towards the end of ’16 into ’17, you may recall from our announcement a week ago that we laid out a calendar. We will work as aggressively as we can to close it but I think a year is a good planning assumption. Shar Pourreza Okay, got it. And then just one last question on international, it’s good to see the currencies becoming a little bit less of an issue the hydrology is improving. We haven’t heard much on this lately. Is there any sort of incremental datapoints around the Brazilian government potentially looking at providing some sort of a retrieve to the hydro generators or is this sort of a kind of a dead movement? Steve Young There has been a lot of activity in this area Shar, recently there was a technical note that was issued by an arm of the government and that’s really just a document that summarizes discussions to-date, a number of discussions are occurring. The government is targeting issuing effectively an executive order this calendar it remains uncertain exactly when, but that’s their target. And what that order might say is not certain at this point either. So there is more work to be done here. I would say that in general the views of people and the government and the regulators have been constructive with regard to generators in our position. So there is more to come there in the meantime, the injunctions are still in effect and that has provided some relief to us. Operator Thank you. Our next question is coming from Dan Eggers of Credit Suisse. Dan Eggers Hi just taking up on the Slide 11, when you guys, you made the comment about the dividend trending higher than target payout ratio, but also you are wanting to keep with the long-term EPS growth rate. Can you just maybe translate what you’re trying to signal in those comments which seem to be a little bit in conflict? Lynn Good Dan, I would go back to the Steve’s comments on Slide 10 with the intent to rebase off of 2016 and move to 4% to 6% from that point forward. We see the dividend trending slightly above 70% in the very near-term. And so if I look at the strength of the dividend, the dividend is really driven by the underlying core business, which is growing quite well and given the investments we have put in place, we believe that it will continue. And so we have confidence in growing it at that rate and allowing payout ratio trend out modestly in the short-term we think it’s a smart decision. Dan Eggers Okay. And then on O&Ms you guys have done a good job as far as bringing down costs since the Progress acquisition. What kind of reductions do you see from here as you are a part of that ’16 drivers the idea of bringing cost out, is it a substantial reduction ’16 versus ’15 or is more just absorbing inflation at this point? Lynn Good We are still at work Dan on our plans and we’re targeting to absorb inflation plus and we think that’s going to be a combination of a number of things that we build a strong foundation on but we are going after productivity and efficiency and the company as you said has demonstrated a great ability to control cost and we see even more potential in to ’16. Dan Eggers Okay. And then I guess maybe the last one just on you kind of just calibrated the commercial business and not to get too far ahead on ’16 but commercial is now coming in below where you guys thought the normal baseline would be, do you still feel comfortable with $100 million as your run rate from residual commercial? Lynn Good This year we’ve been impacted by wind resources Dan and I think that’s a theme that you have seen with others that have significant renewable exposure. So we expect our restoration of that to more normal levels as part of our planning for ’16 and then we do intend to continue to deploy capital in a way that meets our return expectations, so we would expect to see some growth. I think over the long-term the cash spreads and other things will have to be evaluated, but we see ongoing momentum around renewables. Steve Young And we have committed projects for 2016 lined up as well to keep the growth going there and also in our commercial portfolio as you move forward we will start to see earnings from our pipeline investments kick in as well. Dan Eggers Okay. So just one last one on the load growth trends, you may have had a — you are below, at the bottom end or a little bit below where you thought you’d be even the customer growth seemed pretty good this year, are you having to reconsider kind of what that long-term growth rate is, is it 0% to 0.5% or do you think there is some discrete usage trends maybe around multi-family housing or something like that that is explaining why usage has been that much of a drag relative to customer growth? Lynn Good Dan, I think we’ve been working with a 0.5% to 1% for some time and I think a 0.5% seems to be the range that we’re in. And I think it’s all the things you talked about it is synergy efficiency, it is housing patterns and even volatility in industrial. We had strong industrial growth when you dial back in this quarter. So what we are focused on as we kind of link this discussion to our cost structure, is planning to cost structure that can absorb that variability and also be positioned for modest very low load growth if that’s the direction things continue to head. Operator Thank you. Our next question is from Jonathan Arnold of Deutsche Bank. Jonathan Arnold I just would like to understand a little better when you are talking about this rebase on 2016 and Steve, I’m not quite sure whether I have you right, are you saying you anticipate growing at the 4% to 6% through 2016 and then also off of 2016 or implicit within this concept to the rebase seems to be the idea that maybe you weren’t or you want to reposition the range a little bit, I just want to understand what you are saying on ’16, when you made that statement? Steve Young What we are looking at Jonathan is we will set a base year or anchor year off of 2016 and then you would see 4% to 6% growth from there. And we think we’ve got to do that given the changes in international we think it’s stabilized and it’s moved from again a $0.60 business to a $0.30ish business going forward. So where we base with ’16 as the anchor we see a 4% to 6% growth there, underlined by the strong core business growth in the track history that it shows and some potential modest growth in international from that new lower level. Lynn Good And so what I would add to that Jonathan, if you could look at the Slide 10, you see the regulated and commercial portfolio, the blue bar that’s the bar that’s growing at 4% to 6% and then you have an international business, which is about $0.30 in ’15 so it would add to that and grow modestly. So that’s the direction that we are trying to provide here with expectations for ’16 and then we think from that base, we are in a position to grow at 4% to 6% going forward. Jonathan Arnold Okay. Understood. Thank you. Could you maybe just — do you have an expectation currently on what — how pension will look as a driver for next year just specifically or is it a little early to tell? Steve Young It’s a little early to tell on pension you got to take a look at the discount rate right at year-end, and who knows where that will go, if the Fed raises rates or something that could have an impact on it, I don’t think it would be any huge change that we’re looking at in pension expense, at this point but again with it being so sensitive to the discount rate, we would — it’s a little early to say precisely. Operator Thank you. Our next question is coming from Steve Fleishman of Wolfe Research. Steve Fleishman So a couple of questions, I just, these international pressures are not new and in the past you talked about trying to work on a plan and things to offset the international pressures. It just sounds to me like, it just not — you just kind of changed to, they just are what they are, we’re just resetting the base and then growing off there, because these are just — became too much. Is that fair to say what happened? Lynn Good Steve I would say slightly differently. And in 2015, I think the team has done an extraordinary job of offsetting. What is happened in international, we started the year with an expectation, they would deliver 345 and they’re delivering just north of 200 million. And that’s an execution on strategic initiatives more timely and that’s been running the business slow and taking advantage of good weather and other things that have developed. As we look forward, we did not have an expectation earlier in the year of weather international with rebound, the depth of the currency issues, were difficult to forecast at that time, the economic implications. And so as we sit here, closing the year we see a rebound on water conditions in hydrology, but we continue to see headwinds on currency and economic growth. And so we think it’s appropriate in light of what we see today to establish a baseline of about $0.30 for ’15 on international. And then we do believe it’s stabilized and we see an opportunity for modest growth from there. I think what is important is that the 90% of the business regulated in core has demonstrated strong growth over the period of ’13 to ’15 and we think that will keep going. As a result of all the investments we have put in place and our ability to execute. Steve Fleishman And the updated guidance for the international you are now — are you using kind of current forwards for currency in oil and the like or? Lynn Good Yes. Steve Young Yes. Steve Fleishman And essentially are you — okay, great. And then just thinking about Piedmont and the context for the 4% to 6% of this 2016 base now just would that — you talked on the deal announcement of that enhancing the 4% to 6% so if there was no Piedmont, would you still be 4% to 6% or not. Could you just kind of clarify now that you have this new base? Lynn Good Yes. So the growth rate is not dependent on Piedmont. We believe the base business itself, the investments that we’ve outlined, the way the business is executing is capable of growing 4 to 6. So we see Piedmont as incremental to the growth rate. And… Steve Fleishman But still in the 4 to 6? Lynn Good Yes. Steve Fleishman Okay. And then just on the dividend growth and earnings growth comment. Because you’re saying, we’re going to grow the dividend in line with earnings but then we’re above the payout ratio. So kind of by definition you just switch to end up saying about the payout ratio. If that is what you actually do? So could you just kind of clarify your communication there? Steve Young Our dividend is growing about 4% now. I believe that we’ll move above the 70% target level for a while. But as we grow we believe we’ll return back to our target level. Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Lapides of Goldman Sachs & Company. Michael Lapides Real quick question, just when you think about the renewable business. You have had the earnings benefit in the last year or so. Can you quantify and Steve you touched on it, I want to make sure I understand it. Can you quantify the total EPS benefit of the tax credits? And then how you think about replacing that if solar development slows post 2016 and tax credit roll off or PTCs don’t actually get extended? Steve Young Michael right now, a lot of the net income bottom-line benefit from the renewables, the commercial renewables business comes from the tax benefits. There is some profitability on the non-tax side in the ongoing margin, but the bulk of the earnings comes from the tax benefits. So your question is when these tax benefits when and if they expire what happens there. I think based on what we have seen and heard now there will still be a market for renewable power as no states are backing off RPF standards and that’s a basis for a lot of the growth here is responding to RFPs to meet these requirements. The PPAs in the contracts may have to change with the absence of the tax benefits. And the pricing may have to change, but we will still structure this business to provide profitability here. I would also add that the cost for the renewables is going down and will help offset some of the tax benefits that exists. Michael Lapides Got it. And just how much were for those tax benefits as part of your 2015 guidance. Is that the full piece of commercial that $75 million or just some portion of it? Steve Young It’s the majority of the 75 million. Michael Lapides Got it, okay. The other thing can the O&M cost savings offset the $0.17 impact of positive weather this year? Lynn Good Michael, we are not getting that specific on how each of these drivers impact, so what I would direct you to is think about our O&M spend and we are at work to not only offset inflationary impact to drive those costs lower in ’16. So I think about weather and we always start by planning normal weather and then we’re building up with investment earnings as well as cost control. Operator Thank you. Our next question is from Bryan Chen of Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. Bryan Chen Hi my questions have been answered guys. Operator Our next question is coming from Jim Von Riesemann of Mizuho Securities. Jim Von Riesemann I got to put my dead head on for a second here. Can you just a talk little bit about how much cash flow is upstream from the regulated utilities to the parent level every year on an annualized basis? Lynn Good I think we will probably take that question offline. Jim, I’m not sure we’ve got a cash flow statement sitting in front of us here. Steve Young Right, I don’t have that with me, we’ll have to work on that a bit Jim. Operator Thank you. Our next question is coming from Ali Agha. Ali Agha Lynn and Steve just listening to your comments, just so that I’m clear, with normalized weather next year international being modest, some cost savings and then the rebasing, just directionally it appears that ’16 it is pretty much flat to maybe modestly down from ’15 and then so is that fair? Lynn Good I think we’ve given you the drivers, if you look at the slide, on Slide 10 to grow the base business at 4% to 6% add to it international with modest growth and so I think we’ve given you a pretty good sense of where we think it will be and of course we’ll give you more detail in February, as we finalize our business plans so that you can understand more specifically how much of it is coming from O&M and how much is coming from each of the business segments. Ali Agha Okay. And more near-term in 2015, when you locked of $0.10 from the higher end of the range, is that all because of commercial, is it international being worse, can you just kind of elaborate the change in ’15 guidance? Lynn Good So Ali, we have really been working throughout ’15 to offset weakness in international and have been successful in doing that through a variety of things including favorable weather, as well as early closings on the Eastern Power Agency and the stock buyback. As we look to the fourth quarter though we always plan for normal weather, we started out with October being mild, we have storm expense sitting in October, we have a slighter, weaker currency as a result of some of the movements that occurred in September and then we also talked about the extension of bonus depreciation. We don’t know for sure, but it feels to us like that will likely get extended and if it does, because of our cash position, it results in a modestly higher effective tax rate for the company. So all of those things considered, we think $4.55 to $4.65 is an appropriate range at this point. Ali Agha Steve and on the bonus depreciation front Lynn, I mean the talk is that if it gets extended, it’s a two year extension, I’m just curious of that’s how you guys are seeing it and if so can you just quantify, just a bonus depreciation and extension impact for Duke? Steve Young We’ve heard various guesses that how long it will be extended, we think there is a good likelihood of at least one year, two years is possible as well, and the impacts for 2015, for one year extension is in the range of $0.04 for us if you go beyond into a two year extension, it could be a similar number just depends on our overall tax positioning the issue for us is we’re toggling in and out of an NOL position and which makes us perhaps unique in the industry, if you are deeply within an NOL or outside of an NOL position. This extension doesn’t have an impact and it depends a bit on when we come out of that NOL position, which depends on other factors. So it’s a little hard to predict beyond ’15. Lynn Good And of course all the cash flow. Cash flow is positively impacted, if it is extended, so let see if this is giving you as earnings for certain. Ali Agha Absolutely. Last question Lynn, so on the international operations is the mind set now look, sort of hunker down and sort of work with the portfolio flat to modest growth, is that sort of the planning now and not really being more proactive and saying, hey does this really fit in the portfolio? Lynn Good Our focus has certainly been this year, Ali trying to run the business as efficiently as we can, we focused on cost, I think the international team has done an extraordinary job in a difficult market, we think it stabilized and hopefully, we’ll see a slightly better picture in ’16. I think the portfolio is always under review. The fact that we added Piedmont is consistent with our view that we wanted more natural gas in the portfolio. So that’s an ongoing review, in the meantime we’re also taking advantage of the international cash as you know. Operator [Operator Instructions] Our next question is comes from Paul Ridzon of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Paul Ridzon In your release you indicate that for the quarter weather was a $0.09 pick-up at the utility and then when I look at Slide 19 in the deck. I see that last year it was $0.06 below norm, but this year is basically short of normal. Just trying to reconcile that? Steve Young Yes. I think that your statements are correct there is some rounding in some of these schedules I believe is the difference in your sense. But we’ve returned to normal weather this quarter last year, it was mild weather. Lynn Good And Paul the other thing I would know the share count is going to have a difference between ’14 and ’15, because of the share buyback. Paul Ridzon Okay. And then kind of given the pending Piedmont acquisition, what’s going to happen to proceeds from securitization, should that just sit on the balance sheet when you use that cash when you close the deal? Lynn Good Yes. So we would expect securitization to move through the process in ’16 Paul. So we don’t come into the cash flow as a company and be used for investments or 4 billion debt in the short-term. But we do see at as the cash flow item that over a long-term basis could be used for long-term investments Piedmont being one of them. Paul Ridzon When do you expect that cash? Steve Young We would expect to be able to close the securitization in the first to second quarter of 2016. Paul Ridzon And then just lastly your latest thoughts around filing rate cases in your regulatory jurisdictions? Steve Young We’re looking at filing in I would say in the late teens it depends upon investment plans and other factors there that we’d look at jurisdiction by jurisdiction. But generally we’re looking at rate cases in the Carolinas in the late teens. Paul Ridzon And then lastly just a clarification on the payout ratio discussion, if you were to look at your ’15 payout ratio what would you use as the numerator and denominator. I guess 460 would be denominator? Steve Young I’m sorry, ask that again, I’m sorry I am not. [Multiple Speakers] Paul Ridzon I just want to make sure, how are you thinking about the payout ratio? What — is it the indicated dividend at year-end or is it the dividend paid during the year? Steve Young It’s the dividend paid during the year as it grows over the annual earnings. Paul Ridzon So it’s kind of a mix a blend of two years of dividends, because change at mid-year? Lynn Good So there is nothing fancy about this Paul. Whether you use an annualized number or whether you use what is paid out I think it’s all a matter of small rounding. I would calculate the payout ratio the way you typically do for every other utility. Operator Thank you. There appear to be no further questions in the queue at this time. I’d like to turn the call back to Lynn Good for any closing or final remarks. Lynn Good So thank you everyone for joining us today for your interest and investment in Duke Energy. Our fourth quarter earnings call which will also include our updated financial forecast will be held in February and we look forward to seeing many of you in the coming months and at the EEI Conference next week. Thank you. Operator Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Duke Energy we’d like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.