Tag Archives: debt

National Fuel Gas’ (NFG) CEO Ron Tanski on Q3 2015 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

National Fuel Gas Company (NYSE: NFG ) Q3 2015 Earnings Conference Call August 07, 2015 11:00 AM ET Executives Brian Welsch – IR Ron Tanski – CEO Dave Bauer – Treasurer and Principal Financial Officer Matt Cabell – President of Seneca Resources Corporation Analysts Becca Followill – U.S. Capital Advisors Holly Stewart – Howard Weil Chris Tillett – Jefferies Operator Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q3 2015 National Fuel Gas Company Earnings Conference call. My name is Halley, and I am your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. We will conduct a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call is being recorded for replay purposes. I’d now like to turn the call over to Mr. Brian Welsch, Director of Investor Relations. Please proceed, sir. Brian Welsch Thank you, Halley, 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 third quarter earnings release and August 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. Ron Tanski Thanks Brian and good morning everyone. Operating earnings are $0.55 per share for the third quarter or $0.18 per share lower than the last year’s third quarter. If you look at the drivers of that decrease that we breakout on page 11 of the earnings release it’s easy to see that three items in our exploration and production segment explain most all of the year-to-year decrease. Those items were lower commodity prices, decreased production and offsetting the first two items the reduction in our DD&A rate. The decrease in production is largely a result of our shutting in wells in Appalachian when the spot prices are too low. We continue to look for opportunities to sale our spot production at acceptable prices but there is simply too much gas and not enough pipeline infrastructures to move those supplies to attractive price points. As we pointed out in the release we curtailed approximately 12.5 Bcf of production during the quarter. Lower commodity prices have obviously been the story for most energy companies this earning season and we’ve seen some firms make major reductions in their capital expenditure budgets. We’re watching our spending too, but I’ll remind everyone that our CapEx plans have always been relatively conservative. Our current rig scheduling and drilling programs are designed to bring on enough production to fill the pipelines that we’re building to move their production to better pricing points. We continue to move forward with our plans to build the pipelines to help move production out of the basin both for owned Seneca Resources and for third party producers. Construction is underway on three of our interstate pipeline projects. Our West Side expansion project along our line and corridor, our Tuscarora Lateral project in the more central portion of our system and our Northern Access 2015 project, all of these projects are moving along on schedule and we expect that they will all be in service in the last quarter — calendar quarter of this year. The Northern Access 2015 project will allow Seneca to move140,000 dekatherms per day of gas to Canada at the Niagara interaction with TransCanada and the West Side expansion will allow Seneca to flow an additional 30,000 dekatherms per day, a portion moving to Canada and the remainder to Texas Eastern. We have shown Seneca’s transportation capacity graphically on Page 24 of our Investor Relations slide deck on our website. When combining this 170,000 dekatherms of near term capacity with the 490,000 dekatherms per day of capacity, that Seneca has in our Northern Access 2016 project you can see that we’ve got a substantial growth trajectory moving forward from our current productive capacity of 150,000 dekatherms per day in our western development area. Both Matt and Dave will give some more color on our marketing activities and hedging positions. But I am pleased to say there ongoing approach of regularly layering in hedges has put us in good shape with respect to revenue certainty for a good portion of our firms sales for the rest of this year and next fiscal year. Lower commodity prices have obviously cut into our earnings but our diversified model continues to produce healthy cash flow. Our balance sheet is in good shape but I don’t see any need to alter our strategy to build more pipelines and drilled the wells necessary to fill those pipelines. These investments help us accomplished two goals they generate significant cash flows for at least the next 15 years and they provide Seneca’s with the ability to move gas to our market with significantly better pricing. This integrated approach to developing our assets combined with the flexibility offered by our fee mineral acreage position is allowing us to deal with the current pricing challenges and puts us in a great position for continued growth. Our financing requirements for 2015 and 2016 are meaningful but our outspend is driven almost entirely by our investments and our long term midstream infrastructure. Dave will talk about the debt financing we completed in June to cover our 2015 capital program. And looking ahead in next fiscal year as we’ve said in the past the MLP structure is an option that we’re evaluating for our midstream business and given the right market condition we think it’s a very good option. The MLP market and frankly the entire energy space is under pressure right now but markets go up and down and just because there is a dislocation today doesn’t mean it will continue forever. And MLP is not only option, there are number of ways to finance our business. We’re certainly aware of our capital needs in fiscal 2016 and we’ll pick the financing option that we think is best for our shareholders. One thing is clear, there is lot of capital looking to be put to work in the midstream space. We have a great set of assets a great management team and a great plan to grow the business. In the end those are key to attracting the best sources of capital. Now I’ll turn the call over to Matt Cabell to give Seneca update. Matt Cabell Thanks Ron and good morning everyone. For the fiscal third quarter Seneca produced 36.2 Bcfe which is 11% or 4 Bcfe less than last year’s third quarter. However during this year’s third quarter we sold only our firm volumes in the Marcellus and curtailed 12.5 Bcf or approximately 140 million cubic feet per day of potential spot sales due to low prices. Absent those curtailments production would have been up 20%. In California our 2015 drilling programs have had good results and provide attractive returns even at today’s low prices. At $50 oil we earn returns of 30% to 40% on wells we drilled in the North Midway, South Midway and East Coalinga areas which represents the majority of our current and fiscal 2016 capital budget. We are also feeling good about our opportunities to grow California production over the next several years due to opportunities we see at East Coalinga and add two additional farm-in deals that are near in completion. I hope to have these two deals inked by the next call and we’ll provide some details then. Moving on to the Marcellus development in the Clermont Rich Valley areas is going well with 52 Clermont area wells drilled in the first nine months of fiscal ’15 and 24 completed. Our most recent completion in the North half of our E9E pad came on at rates ranging from 8.5 million to 10 million cubic feet per day. IP rates and EURs have been remarkably consistent in the CRB area. We also continue to drive down drilling and completion cost. Our average fiscal 2015 development well cost was $5.8 million for a 36 stages well with 7,000 foot lateral length. On the marketing front we continue to take a portfolio approach to our marketing arrangements. Optimizing the value of our firm transportation while minimizing risks through a series of firm’s sales. For example this November the Northern access 2015 project will go into service we have 140,000 dekatherms of firm transport capacity locked up under firm sales contracts with Dawn Index pricing. Dawn continues to trade a premium, so we were able to convert a portion of the Dawn sales contracts to NYMEX plus $0.35 per MMBtu for November 1 through March 31. In addition, we recently requested proposals to purchase a portion of the gas we will transport in the Northern Access 2016 project. We were pleased with the diversity and number of parties that participated and are currently negotiating a mix of Dawn Indexed and fixed price deals tied to a portion of our capacity on the project. Our active marketing and hedging program has gone long way to insulate Seneca from low natural gas prices. For the third quarter our average after hedging sales price was $3.32 per Mcf, which is over a $1 higher than the pre-hedged price. Looking forward to fiscal 2016 we now have a 114 Bcf of our gas production locked in both physically and financially at an average price of $3.50 per Mcf so we are well positioned should low prices persist in to next year. Moving now to the Utica, I am sure that many of you saw the high rate test that we announced by our peers in Westmoreland and Green Counties. We have two Utica test planned that should connect the trend between these recent wells and Tioga County where our recent Utica well tested 22.7 million cubic feet per day. As I mentioned on our last call the planned wells will be drilled in conjunction with our ongoing Marcellus development in the Clermont area. The rig is just moved to the E9-M pad where we plan to drill 10 Marcellus wells and one Utica. This will be a 5,500 foot lateral with an expected total cost of about $12 million. We expect to frac this pad in the third quarter of fiscal ‘16 and should have a test rate shortly thereafter. Given our larger contiguous fee acreage position a successful Clermont area Utica test could have a major impact on Seneca’s overall resource potential. In summary, our development program continues to show consistent predictable results. We are driving down costs and locking in margins through firm sales and hedging, although we’re dropping a rig early in ‘16 and reducing our capital spending from 2015 to 2016. We are on track to fully utilize the 700,000 dekatherms of firm transportation that we’ll have in 2017 and in addition to thousands of de-risked Marcellus well locations. We are optimistic about the potential for Utica development across a broad swap of our acreage. With that I’ll turn it over to Dave. Dave Bauer Thank you, Matt. Good morning everyone. Ron hit on the major drivers for the quarter’s earnings and other than the impairment charge there really wasn’t anything unusual on the quarter. Last night release explains the major variances in earnings, so I won’t repeat them again here. Instead I will focus on our expectations for the remainder of the fiscal year and our initial guidance for next year. With respect to 2015 our updated earnings guidance is $2.90 to $3 per share excluding ceiling test impairments. That’s up from our previous range of $2.75 to $2.90 mostly due to lower expected DD&A expense. As a result of the third quarter ceiling test charge we expect Seneca’s per unit DD&A rate for the fourth quarter will be in the $1.35 per Mcfe area. That will lower the full year DD&A rate to about $1.55 per Mcfe at the low end of our previous guidance of $1.55 to $1.65. Production for the year is now expected to be 155 to 160 Bcfe. The midpoint is the level should achieve assuming we don’t sale any spot volumes in August and September. We haven’t produced above our level of firms sales commitments for the better part of the calendar year and based on the prices we’ve seen thus far we don’t think it’s likely we’ll have meaningful spot sales in the remainder of the fourth quarter. However should prices improved, we have the ability to produce about 4 Bcf per month into the spot markets. In terms of pricing we’re assuming Henry Hub price for natural gas of $2.75 per Mcf. However because all of the 2 Bcf of our firm sales for the quarter are hedged changes in natural gas price saw minimal impact on our earnings. For crude oil we’re assuming WTI price of $50 a barrel. That’s little higher than the current IMX [ph] prices, we are better than 60% hedge for the fourth quarter. Looking to next year our preliminary earnings guidance for fiscal ‘16 is a range of $3 to $3.30 per share excluding any ceiling test impairment charges. In terms of pricing we’re assuming a Henry Hub gas price of $3.25 per Mcf and a WTI crude oil price of $55 a barrel. In addition we’re assuming we’ll receive $1.75 per Mcf for Marcellus spot buy-ins. There has been considerable volatility in commodity prices particularly with respect to crude oil and we expect to refine our pricing assumptions as we move into the fiscal year. Seneca’s production forecast of 158 to 232 Bcfe has a wider than normal range which reflects the uncertainty around Appalachian gas pricing and our ability to sell spot volumes at an acceptable price. We’re optimistic that Seneca will have spot sales, but want to manage expectations given our recent experience. Therefore, we’re presenting a full range of potential outcomes. If we saw a 100% of our expected spot volumes will be at the high end of the range, if we don’t sale any spot volumes will be at the low end. From an expense standpoint the ranges you see on page 25 of last night’s release are all based on the 195 Bcfe mid-point of our production forecast. The improvements in per unit LOE, G&A and production tax expenses compared to our third quarter rates are attributable to the expected increase in Seneca’s production volumes. As you’d expect our DD&A rate will decrease sharply as a result of the ceiling test impairments. So we excluded our future ceiling test charges themselves from our earnings guidance. We have tried to estimate with the DD&A rate will look post impairments. However given number of variable that go into that calculation it’s possible the range will change meaningfully in the coming quarters. As you can see from pages 56 to 57 of our new IR deck we’re well hedged for fiscal ’16 and as Matt said earlier, we’ve locked in 114 Bcf of natural gas production at a price of about $3.50 per Mcf. And that equates to about 80% of our firm sales volumes and at the midpoint of our production forecast about 65% of our expected natural gas production. On the oil side we have about 1.3 million barrels hedged at $93 barrel which represents about 45% of our expected oil production. Together the excitement earnings and cash flow should track the increase in Seneca’s volumes. For fiscal ’16 assuming the midpoint of Seneca’s production forecast we expect the gathering excitements revenues will be about $95 million up from the 75 million to 80 million we forecast for fiscal ’15. As we add compression to Clermont system operating and depreciation expenses will increase meaningfully relative to their current levels. But a large portion of the revenue increase should fall to the bottom line. Turning to the regulated businesses fiscal ’16 should be a good year for the pipeline and storage segment. This fall the Northern Access 15, West Side expansion and Tuscarora Lateral projects go into service adding $27 million of incremental revenues in 2016. However that increase will be likely offset in part by a variety of smaller items including some typical re-contract again both pipeline system and a decrease in short term transportation revenue is somewhat weather related and recall the last winter was significantly colder than normal. Our forecast for 2016 assumes normal weather. Considering those items we expect pipeline and storage revenue for fiscal ’16 will be in the range of $300 million to $310 million. We expect ONM expense in this segment will increase to about $85 million to $90 million part of that increase relates to higher operating cost associated with our recent expansion projects and part relates to an expected $4 million increase in the retirement benefit cost which is driven by some anticipated changes in our plans actuarial assumptions. Lastly with respect to the utility, we’re expecting a decline in that segment earnings in fiscal ’16 for two reasons. First as I just mentioned our forecast assumes normal weather. In fiscal ’15 colder than normal weather contributed about $0.05 per share at earnings. Additionally, as you recall in the second quarter of fiscal ’15 an audit in the New York division of the utility resulted in an adjustment to benefited earnings by about $0.04 of share. And we don’t expect that adjustment will recur in 2016. Turning to capital spending page 7 of our new IR deck contains our updated capital spending estimates for fiscal ’15. We narrowed our consolidated guidance to a range of 990 million to 1.045 billion at the midpoint of $55 million decrease from our previous guidance. About half of the decrease is related to the timing and spending between fiscal years in the E&P gathering and pipeline segments. The other half relates to the utility Dunkirk project at the timing of which is become less clear. The owner of the power plant that would be served by the project is facing some legal and regulatory challenges with respect to its repurchasing of the plant. We stand ready to build the project once those challenges are resolved but given the uncertainty we are removing the project form our capital budget. For fiscal ’16 our consolidated range is now 1.1 billion to 1.3 billion, up modestly from our previous guidance. There aren’t any major changes in our spending plans the variation are mostly attributable to timing. Given the changes in our earnings and capital spending guidance we now expect and outspend in fiscal ’15 that’s just under $400 million. In June we issued $450 million of long term debt to fund that outspend. Looking to next year we expect our capital expenditures and dividend, we’ll exceed cash from operations in the range of 500 million to 600 million. We have short term credit facilities to initially finance that outspend if it’s necessary and as you know we’re evaluating longer term financing alternatives. As a place older our earnings guidance for fiscal ’16 assume we use terms we used short term debt and we’ll obviously updates that guidance we refine our ultimate financing finance. With that, I’ll close and ask the operator to open the line for questions. Question-and-Answer Session Operator [Operator Instruction] Our first question comes from Becca Followill, U.S. Capital Advisors. Please go ahead. You are now live in the call. Becca Followill Couple of questions for you, one I know that you sounded you’ve taken off some of the list in the short term in the Dawn hedges in favor of a higher NYMEX price. What we’re seeing so far is what we have tried to estimate with the DD&A rate will look post impairments. However given number of variable that go into that calculation it’s possible the range will change meaningfully in the coming quarters. As you can see from pages 56 to 57 of our new IR deck we’re well hedged for fiscal ’16 and as Matt said earlier, we’ve locked in 114 Bcf of natural gas production at a price of about $3.50 per Mcf. And that equates to about 80% of our firm sales volumes and at the midpoint of our production forecast about 65% of our expected natural gas production. On the oil side we have about 1.3 million barrels hedged at $93 barrel which represents about 45% of our expected oil production. Together the excitement earnings and cash flow should track the increase in Seneca’s volumes. For fiscal ’16 assuming the midpoint of Seneca’s production forecast we expect the gathering excitements revenues will be about $95 million up from the 75 million to 80 million we forecast for fiscal ’15. As we add compression to Clermont system operating and depreciation expenses will increase meaningfully relative to their current levels. But a large portion of the revenue increase should fall to the bottom line. Turning to the regulated businesses fiscal ’16 should be a good year for the pipeline and storage segment. This fall the Northern Access 15, West Side expansion and Tuscarora Lateral projects go into service adding $27 million of incremental revenues in 2016. However that increase will be likely offset in part by a variety of smaller items including some typical re-contract again both pipeline system and a decrease in short term transportation revenue is somewhat weather related and recall the last winter was significantly colder than normal. Our forecast for 2016 assumes normal weather. Considering those items we expect pipeline and storage revenue for fiscal ’16 will be in the range of $300 million to $310 million. We expect ONM expense in this segment will increase to about $85 million to $90 million part of that increase relates to higher operating cost associated with our recent expansion projects and part relates to an expected $4 million increase in the retirement benefit cost which is driven by some anticipated changes in our plans actuarial assumptions. Lastly with respect to the utility, we’re expecting a decline in that segment earnings in fiscal ’16 for two reasons. First as I just mentioned our forecast assumes normal weather. In fiscal ’15 colder than normal weather contributed about $0.05 per share at earnings. Additionally, as you recall in the second quarter of fiscal ’15 an audit in the New York division of the utility resulted in an adjustment to benefited earnings by about $0.04 of share. And we don’t expect that adjustment will recur in 2016. Turning to capital spending page 7 of our new IR deck contains our updated capital spending estimates for fiscal ’15. We narrowed our consolidated guidance to a range of 990 million to 1.045 billion at the midpoint of $55 million decrease from our previous guidance. About half of the decrease is related to the timing and spending between fiscal years in the E&P gathering and pipeline segments. The other half relates to the utility Dunkirk project at the timing of which is become less clear. The owner of the power plant that would be served by the project is facing some legal and regulatory challenges with respect to its repurchasing of the plant. We stand ready to build the project once those challenges are resolved but given the uncertainty we are removing the project form our capital budget. For fiscal ’16 our consolidated range is now 1.1 billion to 1.3 billion, up modestly from our previous guidance. There aren’t any major changes in our spending plans the variation are mostly attributable to timing. Given the changes in our earnings and capital spending guidance we now expect and outspend in fiscal ’15 that’s just under $400 million. In June we issued $450 million of long term debt to fund that outspend. Looking to next year we expect our capital expenditures and dividend, we’ll exceed cash from operations in the range of 500 million to 600 million. We have short term credit facilities to initially finance that outspend if it’s necessary and as you know we’re evaluating longer term financing alternatives. As a place older our earnings guidance for fiscal ’16 assume we use terms we used short term debt and we’ll obviously updates that guidance we refine our ultimate financing finance. With that, I’ll close and ask the operator to open the line for questions. Question-and-Answer Session Operator [Operator Instruction] Our first question comes from Becca Followill, U.S. Capital Advisors. Please go ahead. You are now live in the call. Becca Followill Couple of questions for you, one I know that you sounded you’ve taken off some of the list in the short term in the Dawn hedges in favor of a higher NYMEX price. What we’re seeing so far is what direct reversal completion that just trying to get basis for in Chicago, can you talk little bit about your capacity going to Dawn on and how much you have hedged. In the out years thoughts which is short debt maybe 17, 18, 19? Ron Tanski You have referenced from the slide deck. Back on page 27 is our IR deck is our hedge positions going out. We don’t have a larger amount of longer term hedges in place for 2016 we have 19 Bcf at Dawn, 2017, 22 Bcf and a more modest amount financially hedged that fit on. Becca Followill Is there enough liquidity to hedge out some of this in future years? Dave Bauer We are looking at that and we haven’t looked much beyond 2018 but we haven’t had really any difficulty executing trades in the closer years. Becca Followill And what did some other spreads look like relative to historical, are they already reflecting some pressure on that basis? Dave Bauer Well, the trade that we’ve done have generally than it a premium to NYMEX, obviously you go further out the liquidity discount gets to be a bit greater so for example in the near years we may be doing at a full year NYMEX plus 10 to 20 or so but then as you’ve move towards the 18 time period that roads to more NYMEX flat type level. And as you move beyond that, we do get indicative levels but the liquidity premium tends to increase quite a bit. Becca Followill Thank you. That’s helpful. On the well cost for Utica the 12 million that you’ve talked about the new well that you’re going to drill, what’s the depth on that in some of the early wells that we’ve seen, I know you’ve drilled a couple already but some of the early ones that we’ve seen from ECTE and coming in much, much higher than that? Ron Tanski Yes, depth for our Clermont Utica well is on the order of 10,500 feet true vertical depth. So it’s a little shallower. But I would say the bigger factor is that we’re drilling this on an existing Clermont Marcellus pad. So the infrastructures there its sharing pad cost with 10 other wells. Our water handling is all in place you don’t have to truck water from the long distance. So there is a big, big benefit to developing something like this as part of an existing development rather than one-off well that’s far from everything else. Becca Followill Got you. Thank you. And then will that 12 million include some of the normal science cost that happen with early wells to drive that up a little but higher? Ron Tanski Yes, there isn’t a whole lot of additional science in this particular well and I would also say that well cost estimate is probably on the conservative side. I hope we can do cheaper than that. Becca Followill Right, thank you. And then on the financing for 2016 the short fall of $500 million to $600 million, I know maybe you said you’re going to — right now in the plan it’s short term debt, at what point or what’s the timeframe if you’re looking to make a decision on whether or not you’ll financial it differently? Ron Tanski Well, as Ron said we’ve been evaluating NPL and other structures and as we move through the year and start to spend dollars on Northern Access, we’ll be announcing our definitive financing plans. Becca Followill The changes in what happened with NLPs lately and then downturn cause you in that anyway? Ron Tanski Well, not really Becca, we had just given the previous schedule we’ve talked about with respect to receiving the first certificate and when construction activity actually begin hasn’t changed. So we’ve got some time, obviously the market is going to do something, what it’s going to do we’re not sure, but we think no one is going to try to call a bottom here anytime soon but we may have already passed that, but that’s far enough out, that to talk about it in any kind of detail, would just to be able to bit premature. Becca Followill Understand. Thank you, guys. Operator We have no further questions. [Operator Instructions] We have another question and it comes from the line of Holly Stewart of Howard Weil Please go ahead. Holly Stewart Matt, maybe just one or two for you, several of your peers I guess have been talking about deferring completions as they’re heading into 2016 just to have that baseline of production growth and you’ve got quite a bit of volume curtail. But curious how you’re thinking about different completion as you kind of exit the year into ’16. Matt Cabell Yes so as I mentioned in my prepared comments at Clermont we drilled 52 wells, only completed 24. We expect to end the year — to end ’16 was about 50 wells that are drilled, but not completed. Although I think that number may include a handful that are completed and just not online at that time. Holly Stewart Is that in ’15 or in ’16 sorry? Matt Cabell The end of fiscal ’15. At the end of fiscal ’16 or best guess is about 65 wells that are drilled but not completed. Recognizing that with Northern Access 16 coming on at the end of the year we’ll probably have a fairly big slug of completion in that time frame just right after the end of fiscal ’16. Holly Stewart Okay so that kind of what bridge is that gap if you look at slide 18, I think it where it says the firm sales to future SE capacity and going from the 220 to 660. So that’s really what’s helping get you up to that rate as you enter into fiscal ’17? I’m assuming. Matt Cabell I’m finding the reference on the slide — you mean the gap between fiscal ’16 and fiscal ’17. Yes there is a big slug of completions for us. And the other thing that happens is we go from an assumption of some curtailments of spot volumes to not really having to curtail any more spot because we’ve got the firm transportation in fiscal ’17. Holly Stewart And maybe just kind of along the same lines, just kind of curious as your macro view. You’ve obviously got a lot shut in, but you also have from a spot fill standpoint, there’s the potential to shutdown lot more in 2016. So is there anything that you’re seeing out there as you look into your crystal ball and just ended 2016 from a Northeast PA standpoint, that there could be some pricing or release? Ron Tanski As we look at the projects coming on there is two projects that come on kind of late this year. Sort of the beginning of the winter that should de-bottle neck Northeast Pennsylvania to some degree. And our view is that winter spot pricing given normal weather and it may at least be acceptable such that we’ll be selling some spot this winter. It’s difficult to predict that Holly but there is our best guess. I would expect that that would be a winter phenomenon though, not necessarily for the full year. Operator Our next question comes from the line of Chris Sighinolfi from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Chris Tillett This is Chris Tillett on for Chris Sighinolfi how are you? Just a follow up on Becca’s question obviously the MLP has been on the lot of investors mind recently and given the kind of the turn-in in outlook in the market. I’d just be curious to hear your thoughts on some of the alternatives you’re considering and how you think about approaching this process in a non-MLP world. Matt Cabell I think if you obviously it’s a rather recent phenomena with respect to the MLP market. But I was thinking and really hasn’t changed all that much. And as I said it really would be premature to be talking about us pulling the trigger on any particular type of financing. Since we’ve given our schedule and given our timing we’ve have plenty of time to see how the market sort this self out. I guess that’s about all I’m prepare to say at this point. Operator We have no further questions. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Brian Welsch for closing remarks. Thank you. Brian Welsch Thank you, Halley. 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, August 15, 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 97670814. This concludes our conference call for today. Thank you and goodbye. Operator Thank you for your participation in today’s conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Have a great day. Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site are the copyright of Seeking Alpha. However, we view them as an important resource for bloggers and journalists, and are excited to contribute to the democratization of financial information on the Internet. (Until now investors have had to pay thousands of dollars in subscription fees for transcripts.) So our reproduction policy is as follows: You may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to Seeking Alpha and either link to the original transcript or to www.SeekingAlpha.com. All other use is prohibited. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HERE IS A TEXTUAL REPRESENTATION OF THE APPLICABLE COMPANY’S CONFERENCE CALL, CONFERENCE PRESENTATION OR OTHER AUDIO PRESENTATION, AND WHILE EFFORTS ARE MADE TO PROVIDE AN ACCURATE TRANSCRIPTION, THERE MAY BE MATERIAL ERRORS, OMISSIONS, OR INACCURACIES IN THE REPORTING OF THE SUBSTANCE OF THE AUDIO PRESENTATIONS. IN NO WAY DOES SEEKING ALPHA ASSUME ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY INVESTMENT OR OTHER DECISIONS MADE BASED UPON THE INFORMATION PROVIDED ON THIS WEB SITE OR IN ANY TRANSCRIPT. USERS ARE ADVISED TO REVIEW THE APPLICABLE COMPANY’S AUDIO PRESENTATION ITSELF AND THE APPLICABLE COMPANY’S SEC FILINGS BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT OR OTHER DECISIONS. If you have any additional questions about our online transcripts, please contact us at: transcripts@seekingalpha.com . Thank you!

Korea Electric Power (KEP) Q2 2015 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

Korea Electric Power Corporation (NYSE: KEP ) Q2 2015 Earnings Conference Call August 5, 2015 3:30 AM ET Executives Weon-Gun Ko – Vice President and Treasurer Changyoung Ji – Senior IR Manager Analysts Pierre Lau – Citibank. Jiyoon Shin – KTB Securities Jae-Hyun Ryu – Daewoo Securities Heedo Yun – Korea Investment & Securities Minho Hur – Shinhan Finance Investment Joseph Jacobelli – Bloomberg Intelligence Josh Bae – UBS Kang Seongjin – KB Investment Securities Operator [Foreign Language – Korean] Good morning and good evening. First of all, thank you all for joining this conference call. And now we’ll begin the conference of the fiscal year 2015 second quarter earnings results by KEPCO. This conference will start with a presentation, followed by a detailed Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] Now we shall commence the presentation on the fiscal year 2015 second quarter earnings results by KEPCO. Weon-Gun Ko [Foreign Language – Korean] Good afternoon. This is Weon-Gun Ko, Vice President and Treasurer of KEPCO. On behalf of KEPCO, I would like to thank you all for participating in today’s conference call to announce earnings results for the first half of 2015. [Foreign Language – Korean] We will begin with a brief presentation on the earnings results, which will be followed by a Q&A session. Today’s call will be presented in both Korean and English. [Foreign Language – Korean] Please note that the financial information to be disclosed today is on a preliminary, unaudited and consolidated basis in accordance with K-IFRS. Any comparison would be on a year-on-year basis between 2014 and 2015. Business strategies, plans, financial estimates and other forward-looking statements included in today’s call will be made based on our current expectations and plans. Please be noted that such statements may involve certain risk and uncertainties. [Foreign Language – Korean] Now Senior IR Manager, Mr. Changyoung Ji, will begin with an overview of earnings results of the first half of 2015, first in Korean and repeat it in English. Changyoung Ji [Foreign Language – Korean] Now we will provide the overview in English, starting with operating income. In the first half of 2015, KEPCO recorded a net operating income of KRW 4.33 trillion. Taking a closer look, operating revenues increased 4.1% to KRW 28.79 trillion. This was attributable mainly to 2.1% increase in power sales revenue totaling KRW 25.89 trillion, and 38.2% increase in revenues from the overseas business amounting to KRW 2.11 trillion. Moving on to main operating costs, cost of goods sold. SG&A expense decreased 4.4% to KRW 24.47 trillion. Fuel costs decreased 25.9% to KRW 7.98 trillion. Power generation is affected by the low power demand, decreased 4.2%, and unit cost of fuel declined by 22.6%. Meanwhile, purchased power cost increased 3.5 % to KRW 6.19 trillion. Unit cost of purchased power decreased 20% because of the decrease of S&P, caused by the increase of new highly efficient power plants, and purchased volume increased 29.3%. Depreciation cost rose 5.3% to KRW 3.55 trillion, mainly due to the newly constructed substations and new facility addition by power plants. Now let me explain KEPCO’s non-operating segment. Net financial loss was KRW 1 trillion in the first half of 2015, which was improved by KRW 125 billion. As a result of foregoing, we recorded a consolidated net income of KRW 2.57 trillion in the first half of 2015. This concludes the overview of KEPCO’s earnings results for the first half of 2015. [Foreign Language – Korean] Now let me move on to the Q&A session. Q&A session will be hosted by Mr. Weon-Gun Ko. Weon-Gun Ko [Foreign Language – Korean] This is Weon-Gun Ko. I’m joined with our IR committee members in charge of major business areas at KEPCO. We are prepared to take any questions. [Foreign Language – Korean] Since we are presenting in both Korean and English, all the Q&As will be interpreted. Please make sure your questions and answers are brief and clear. [Foreign Language – Korean] Please begin. Question-and-Answer Session Operator [Foreign Language – Korean] [Operator Instructions] The first question will be given by Pierre Lau from Citibank. Please go ahead sir. Pierre Lau Hi. Good afternoon, KEPCO management. Congratulations to your good results. I’m Pierre Lau from Citi Bank. I have three questions. The first question is what is your generation mix from nuclear and coal respectively in 2015 for the full-year? Second question, what is your forecast of your unit coal and LNG costs, practically also in 2015 full-year? And finally for 2015 full-year, how much electricity that you expect to purchase from IPP? Thank you. Weon-Gun Ko [Foreign Language – Korean] To answer your first question on the generation mix for the 2015 full-year, we believe the LNG will be 11% and coal will be 49% and nuclear will be 37%. [Foreign Language – Korean] And as for the unit cost for the fuel for the generation, it is as follows. For coal, it is KRW 102,001 per ton and for LNG, it’s KRW 827,000 per ton and for oil it’s KRW 576,800. [Foreign Language – Korean] And to answer your third question on our electricity purchase from IPP, we plan to purchase 19% of our power from IPP, and the overall budget in 2015 will be KRW 11 trillion. Pierre Lau Okay. Thank you. For the unit coal costs, would you mind me take the number? Weon-Gun Ko [Foreign Language – Korean] It is KRW 102,001 per ton for coal. Pierre Lau Okay. It’s KRW 102,000. Weon-Gun Ko KRW 102,000 per ton. Pierre Lau But I calculate the number in the first half was only seems to be much lower than that, less than KRW 1,001. So do you expect coal cost to be higher in second half this year compared to first half? Weon-Gun Ko [Foreign Language – Korean] As of July 1, we are going to be affected by the coal tax by the government. Therefore per kilogram the impact would be KRW 24 from KRW 18 per kilogram. Pierre Lau Okay. Thank you. Operator [Foreign Language – Korean] The following question is by Jiyoon Shin from KTB Securities. Please go ahead sir. Jiyoon Shin [Foreign Language – Korean] I have two questions. My first question is rather similar to the previous question that was asked before me. For the LNG unit cost for the first half you mentioned that it’s KRW 810,000, and for the second half of the year your guidance is KRW 660,000. So throughout the year the overall guidance for LNG unit cost amounts to KRW 820,000. So do you – so it means that there will be foreseeable increase in the second quarter of the year to come up with that guidance number. Given that we are affected by the consumption tax that will increase from KRW 18 per kilogram to KRW 24, that still get us rather high level of LNG unit cost number. So I would like to hear more on that. Given that the oil price is declining, and in November and December there will be also additional downward trends for the LNG price. So how would you explain this trend? And the second question is on the overseas business, which has very high revenue generated in the term. I believe it is mostly coming from the UAE business under KEPCO, and in the first quarter it was announced that there has been about KRW 620 billion generated from the UAE business. And second quarter then gives us – it should be over KRW 1 trillion. So I just like to confirm what has driven this growth of the UAE business? Weon-Gun Ko [Foreign Language – Korean] To answer your first question, we had rather conservative assumption when it comes to LNG, which was $62 per barrel. And in the third quarter our forecast that the LNG price would drop to KRW 770,000 per unit and in the fourth quarter then it goes up again to KRW 800,000 per unit. So the price drop is not happening as fast as we have anticipated and we bought bulk of LNG in the first quarter at a price of KRW 879,000 at the highest and that’s where we had the most purchase of LNG for the year. That’s why if you annualize that, that gives us about KRW 820,000, which was an accumulated number that goes back to the first quarter. [Foreign Language – Korean] To answer your second question on the UAE business, for the first half of this year, our revenue for the UAE business is KRW 1.7329 trillion and year-on-year – in the previous year it was KRW 1.1372 trillion. So there has been increase of about KRW 600 billion year-on-year. [Foreign Language – Korean] Our annual guidance for the UAE business is KRW 3.4 trillion. [Foreign Language – Korean] And as you have mentioned for the second quarter alone, our revenue from UAE business is KRW 1.1 trillion. [Foreign Language – Korean] I hope that answered your question. Jiyoon Shin [Foreign Language – Korean] A follow-up question to my first question is you mentioned that the LNG price is $62 per barrel. Is that annual number or annual guidance for the LNG price? Weon-Gun Ko [Foreign Language – Korean] Yes, our guidance for the oil price is $62 per barrel and that’s correct. [Foreign Language – Korean] And because oil price continues to go down, our fact strategy team is revealing to adjust our assumption for the oil price and lower that to $58 per barrel rather than $62. Operator [Foreign Language – Korean] The following question is by Jae-Hyun Ryu from Daewoo Securities. Please go ahead sir. Jae-Hyun Ryu [Foreign Language – Korean] On a stand-alone P&L, it seems that your net asset is higher for the stand-alone than the consolidated basis. What has driven that change and what is the reason behind that in the second quarter? My second question is what is the utilization that you are foreseeing for the second half of the year for the nuclear, coal and LNG valuation? [Foreign Language – Korean] And also another follow-up question is that for the second half of the year, could you also share your guidance and the overall trends by comparing the consolidated financial statement as well as the stand-alone financial statements? Weon-Gun Ko [Foreign Language – Korean] To answer your first question on the stand-alone P&L. The most of the driver was coming from the sales of the electricity. Unit price for electricity went up by 0.4%, whereas the sales volume went up by 1.4% resulting in increase of KRW 300 billion on our bottom line. Also the S&P price was dropped by 25% and therefore our power purchase cost was lowered by KRW 2.4 trillion, which is the largest sector driving up the performance. As for the guidance for the 2015, for the stand-alone P&L, we believe the operating profit to be KRW 3.4 trillion and with recognition of sales of assets which was our own headquarter in September, you could see annual number for the net profit would be KRW 9.1 trillion. On consolidated basis, our operating profit is expected to be KRW 8.3 trillion, whereas our net profit is expected to be KRW 11.4 trillion. [Foreign Language – Korean] As for the generation utilization, as per the nuclear power plants, E&C overall utilizations would be 84.8% for year 2015, which is similar to the previous year which was at 85%. With the third quarter and fourth quarter this year, our expectation is that it would be 82.7% and 88.8% respectively. And as for the coal-fired power plant, we expect mid-80% in utilization. We have a confirmed number for the first half of the year for the coal-fired power plant, but there are certain uncertainties involved for the second half of the number. So that’s our projection for now. For LNG power plant, we expect it to be the early 14% utilization or the mid-30% utilization for the year. Operator [Foreign Language – Korean] The following question is by Heedo Yun from Korea Investment Securities. Please go ahead sir. Heedo Yun [Foreign Language – Korean] I have two questions. First question, if you look at your consolidated P&L for the second quarter under the line item, other operating profit, it recorded KRW 2.36 trillion and there has been increase of about KRW 670 billion. I know this may have been influenced by some of the changes coming from the provisioning required for decommissioning the nuclear power plant which took effect since the July 1. So could you elaborate on what is driving that? And also my second question is that last week you have submitted the total cost or a tariff report to the government to adjust tariff moving forward. So could you share with us the timeline moving forward? And Mr. Treasurer, would you be kind enough to share with us your perspective on whether it is possible for additional tax decrease? Weon-Gun Ko [Foreign Language – Korean] Out of the KRW 3.3 trillion, we’ve seen increase of KRW 870 billion increase year-on-year. And if you break those numbers down, it was slightly driven by increased facility or equipment purchase costs for our UAE business as the business appreciated for significant amount of period, and that number adds up to KRW 410 billion. And also we are adjusting numbers for provisioning for the decommissioning of the nuclear power plant. We are setting aside the waste disposal costs for the low and intermediate radioactive waste treatment and we are currently adjusting the discount rate and interest rate that is affected in that liability. So that number added about KRW 139.8 billion to the number. And also we are setting aside liability or provisioning for the IPS, which is another KRW 140 billion, which totals to KRW 3.3 trillion. [Foreign Language – Korean] On your question on the potential tariff discount moving forward, we have had a one-time discount already when it comes to our electricity price. So in the second half of this year, of course we’re going to adjust our tariff depending on the total cost and also the overall power sales profit. And we have submitted that based on our management accounting in fiscal year 2014. So it has been submitted to the government but nothing has been determined as of this point on the total cost. When the results come out after government reviews this, we will be adjusting the tariff looking at the overall cost, as well as the overall sales profit from electricity sales, but nothing has been determined yet. But we’ve had this one-time discount of our electricity in July already. So any additional discount or decrease in tariff will be something that will lead to discuss with the government once everything becomes more concrete. Operator [Foreign Language – Korean] [Operator Instructions] The following question is from Minho Hur from Shinhan Finance Investment. Please go ahead sir. Minho Hur [Foreign Language – Korean] So last year there was plan to fix the cost for your fuel disposal but as far as I am aware, it has been just delayed to June of this year, but it seems that that cost still has not been determined yet. When do you believe that the disposal cost would be clear or ways would be determined and when if it is determined, how much of the cost do you expect? Weon-Gun Ko [Foreign Language – Korean] So the cost requirement for the nuclear waste disposal has been amended as of June 30 and it will be taken into effect since the second half of this year but in next two years. There hasn’t been any significant changes to the amendment. However, for the low and intermediate nuclear waste disposal, the cost would be change per barrel and it used to be about KRW 11,930,000 per barrel, but the number is going to be increased by about KRW 200,000. So the overall cost therefore will be increased from current KRW 603.3 billion to KRW 643.7 billion moving forward. So we believe the cost impact would be somewhere around KRW 250 billion to KRW 300 billion per barrel, per dron [ph] that is for the unit cost for the radioactive – for the low and intermediate radioactive waste. Operator [Foreign Language – Korean] [Operator Instructions] The following question is by Joseph Jacobelli from Bloomberg Intelligence. Please go ahead sir. Joseph Jacobelli Good afternoon. And thank you very much for the time and this presentation. Couple of quick questions with regards to your debt management going forward. So we’ve seen the level coming down in last couple of quarters. Do you have any specific targets with regards to either your net debt to equity by 2015 and by 2016, or long-term debt to equity whichever number you feel comfortable with? And the other question is, could you give us a quick update on your nuclear build-out over the next few years? Any more delays or are any plants coming in a little bit more quickly than looks this year? Weon-Gun Ko [Foreign Language – Korean] On your first question on the debt ratio, our goal or target for the consolidated basis for 2015 is 164% and for 2016 is 149% and for year 2017 is 133%. On a stand-alone basis, our target for 2015 is to lower the debt ratio below 100% level. [Foreign Language – Korean] As far Shin Wolsong 2, we have gone live as of the July 24 of this year and for Shin Kori #3, our target date for operation is first half of 2016, and for Shin Kori #4 nuclear power plant is targeted to go live by first half of 2017. Operator [Foreign Language – Korean] The following question is by Josh Bae from UBS. Please go ahead sir. Josh Bae Yes. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. I have two questions. First, I think you mentioned consolidated operating profit target of KRW 8.3 trillion for this year. Could you please share with us what the FX and oil price forecasts you’re using for this target? Second question, just to follow-up on the previous question regarding the Shin Kori #4. I think you were previously expecting this nuclear plant to come online sometime in 2016. Is there a particular reason for the delay to first half of 2017? Thank you. Weon-Gun Ko [Foreign Language – Korean] As for the assumption that we were using for our financial guidance for 2015 is we assume that the electricity sales will grow by 1.8%, whereas the foreign exchange rate against dollar would be KRW 1,121 per dollar, and for oil price we expect it to be $62 per barrel in Dubai price. And for bituminous coal, our assumption is $75 per ton. [Foreign Language – Korean] As for your second question on Shin Kori #4, it is being delayed because there has been some incompliance on the technology side that some valves, so some of the components, for example the valves needs to be replaced because it failed to meet the technology qualification. Therefore the operating date for Shin Kori #4 has been delayed to the first half of 2017 instead of our initial schedule which was July of 2016. Operator [Foreign Language – Korean] [Operator Instructions] The following question is by Kang Seongjin from KB Investment Securities. Please go ahead sir. Kang Seongjin [Foreign Language – Korean] I have a question on the overall power purchase cost. It seems that the power purchase unit cost for your GENCO has gone down significantly in the second quarter. What is your expectation for the third quarter, and could you also share with us your perspective on the adjustment coefficient when you also explain the unit cost trend you will be followed? Weon-Gun Ko [Foreign Language – Korean] As far this year if you look at the adjustment coefficient for the GENCOs reflecting on the last year’s number, the S&P price was very high in the first half of the year and very low in the second half of the year. So there has been fluctuation if you look at the whole year. And I have to score at the overall profit and loss of GENCOs over the period. So what we have decided to do this year is that we are going to split the adjustment coefficient being calculated separately for the first half of the year and the second half of the year. So what we see as a result is that the S&P is high in the first quarter, therefore the GENCOs profitability appears to be very high in the first quarter, whereas in the second quarter the KEPCO’s profitability appears to be high. We have recalculated the adjustment coefficients at the end of June again. And in the second half of the year, we believe the fluctuation of the S&P will rather be stable. So in the second half of this year, the coefficients or settlement types – unit types will be high and stable. So all in all, we are going to see stabilized number with higher settlement price. Operator [Foreign Language – Korean] [Operator Instructions] The following question will be given by Joseph Jacobelli from Bloomberg Intelligence. Please go ahead sir. Joseph Jacobelli Just a quick follow-up question with regards to several coal costs. Given we’ve seen coal prices very low for quite some time and unlikely to get any – go any higher. Will this price trend of coal influence your decision in terms of future capacity planning or will you just say for example taking 1% coal-fired power plant by – to gas-fired power plant to a coal-fired power plant, or are you trying to secure longer term contracts for coal, or are you trying to diversify some of the coal costs – coal sources? Thank you. Weon-Gun Ko [Foreign Language – Korean] Last month we have announced the seventh basic plan for the electricity supply and demand by the government. And there LNG makes this so much similar. It has increased by about 0.3% and for coal, we assume that the coal price will go down and its mix would be about 32%, whereas the nuclear power plant we are adding two more nuclear power plants and that will take up about 28.5% in terms of our generation mix. As for the coal-fired power plant, we have initially planned for adding for a coal-fired power plant in our sixth basic plan for electricity supply and demand but that has been withdrawn. [Foreign Language – Korean] And as for the GENCOs, they have – when they plan for the purchase of coal, their target is to have 80% of the coal purchased under the long-term contract with their suppliers. So even if there is drop in coal price, they would not necessarily move to diversify their coal purchase sources in East [ph]. The GENCOs are looking into various method and ways to have competitive pricing, sourcing price for their coal. Joseph Jacobelli Thank you. Operator [Foreign Language – Korean] The following question is by Jae-Hyun Ryu from Daewoo Securities. Please go ahead sir. Jae-Hyun Ryu [Foreign Language – Korean] I have one short question on dividend payment. Now that we are wrapping up the first half of the year, has there been any internal discussion on the dividend payout for the end of the year? One potential idea is that because you have the sales of your headquarter assets, are you reviewing to use that fund to include that in your dividend payout? I know it’s rather early to have a view on that, but could you mention or potentially share anything with us? Weon-Gun Ko [Foreign Language – Korean] On our dividend policy with dividend forecast for 2015, I regret to say that there has not been any concrete measure that has been determined yet. Our intention is to maintain our historical dividend payout ratio which was 30%. Of course for this year, because of our after-sales we have increased special profit and that may then lead to special dividend, but nothing has been determined yet and we are in the process of discussing that with the government. When we consider the special profit into our dividend policy, then that will significantly drive up our dividend payout. So our basic stance is to maintain our historical dividend payouts, but that’s something that we are still discussing with the government. But what we are keeping in mind is that we will act on behalf of the investors’ interest and in leading that discussion with the government. Weon-Gun Ko [Foreign Language – Korean] All right. We will conclude this conference call. Once again thank you for joining us today. Thank you. Operator [Foreign Language – Korean] [Operator Instructions] This concludes the fiscal year 2015 second quarter earnings results by KEPCO. Thanks for the participation.

Exelon (EXC) Christopher M. Crane on Q2 2015 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

Exelon Corp. (NYSE: EXC ) Q2 2015 Earnings Call July 29, 2015 11:00 am ET Executives Francis Idehen – Vice President-Investor Relations Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Joseph Nigro – Executive Vice President, Exelon; Chief Executive Officer, Constellation, Exelon Corp. Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP Darryl M. Bradford – Executive Vice President & General Counsel Analysts Greg Gordon – Evercore ISI Steven Isaac Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC Dan L. Eggers – Credit Suisse Securities (NYSE: USA ) LLC (Broker) Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Christopher J. Turnure – JPMorgan Securities LLC Operator Good morning. Thank you for standing by. At this time, I’d like to welcome everyone to the Exelon Corporation Quarter Two 2015 Earnings Conference Call. Your lines have been muted to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Thank you. I’d now like to turn today’s conference over to Francis Idehen. Thank you, you may begin. Francis Idehen – Vice President-Investor Relations Thank you, Ali. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining for our second quarter 2015 earnings conference call. Leading the call today are Chris Crane, Exelon’s President and Chief Executive Officer; Joe Nigro, CEO of Constellation; and Jack Thayer, Chief Financial Officer. They are joined by other members of Exelon’s senior management team, who will be available to answer your questions following our prepared remarks. We issued our earnings release this morning along with the presentation, each of which can be found in the Investor Relations section of Exelon’s website. The earnings release and other matters which we discuss during today’s call contain forward-looking statements and estimates that are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ from our forward-looking statements based on factors and assumptions discussed in today’s material, comments made during this call, and in the risk factors section on the 10-K which we filed in February, as well as in the earnings release and the 10-Q, which we expect to file later today. Please refer to the 10-K, today’s 8-K and 10-Q, and Exelon’s other filings for a discussion of factors that may cause the results to differ from management’s projections, forecasts and expectations. Today’s presentation also includes references to adjusted operating earnings and other non-GAAP measures. Please refer to the information contained in the appendix of our presentation and our earnings release for a reconciliation between the non-GAAP measures to the nearest equivalent GAAP measures. We’ve scheduled 45 minutes for today’s call. I’ll now turn the call over to Chris Crane, Exelon’s CEO. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Thanks, Francis, and good morning, everybody. Thanks for joining. We’re pleased to report another strong quarter with our earnings coming in at $0.59 per share, surpassing our guidance of $0.45 to $0.55 per share. You’ll hear more from Jack in a minute on the specifics, and Joe Nigro will also provide some color around the performance. We’ve seen a number of positive developments that affect various business this quarter. The two primary catalysts for us this year are the PHI acquisition and the capacity market auctions. We received approval from the merger since our last call in Maryland in May, and leaving D.C., Washington, D.C. as our only outstanding jurisdiction to close the merger, which we expect to hear from soon and we’re looking forward to a positive outcome there. Upon closing the merger, our focus will shift to the integration of PHI Utilities into the Exelon Utilities to align our operations to better serve the PHI customers base. Another major catalyst is the capacity performance revisions that have been made. While we continue to believe that FERC came to the right conclusion, putting reliability at the center of its planning process to ensure that customers in the region are well served, we always were aware that DR and Energy Efficiency were in the 2018-2019 auction. The most recent change that allows DR and Energy Efficiency to provide – to participate in the transition auctions, we believe to be non-material to the outcome. We are disappointed in the delay, but we think that we’ll be on the right track into recognize the value of our highly reliable fleet going forward. And we remain confident that the capacity construct is the best way to protect the grid as we await further clarification on the timing of these transition auctions. I think we’re getting that in the last days. So, by the September timeframe, we should have clarity on the value proposition, along with the reliability measures being enacted. In Illinois, the legislative session ended without a resolution on the market redesign for the Low Carbon standard, the Low Carbon Portfolio standard. We were disappointed that we were not able to get this outcome before the session ended, but understand where the state is focused right now on its budget priorities. The nuclear plants provide significant value to the state and its economy, and it’s mostly important to its consumers. Looking ahead, we have certain regulatory and operational triggers in September that require us to make some tough choices on the specific assets this fall, particularly in light of the continued pressure on the power markets. So we are continuing on with our disciplined plan on evaluating the assets and their likelihood to stay within the stack, and we’ll bring that to closure with our decision in September. Despite these market challenges, we continue to find ways to create value in our Constellation business, which Joe is going to talk about shortly. Part of our resilience to the power market weakness is driven by our ability to capitalize on our generation to load strategy. And this quarter, we showed the benefit from the lower cost to serve load. And the – increasing our utility business has been able to reduce the overall volatility at the enterprise level and deliver growth. You can expect that even more to be true over time. Not only is it shifting our business mix with the acquisition of PHI, but it also, with our infrastructure improvement investments, we’re investing $16 billion in our existing utilities over the next five years, which provides respectable growth rates, and roughly another $7 billion with the addition of PHI. I want to remind everybody that we can perform well even with a rising interest rate environment, which is typically a headwind in our industry. This is because our EPS is positively correlated to interest rates, due to both ComEd’s formula rate and ROE being tied to the 30-year Treasury rate, as well as the discount of our pension – discounting the rates of our pension liability. Overall, we are positive the company is able to provide more stable and durable earnings streams for our shareholders with our operational expertise in driving performance across the enterprise. With that, I’ll turn it over to Joe, who will discuss the markets. He’s followed by Jack on the financial performance. Joseph Nigro – Executive Vice President, Exelon; Chief Executive Officer, Constellation, Exelon Corp. Thank you, Chris. Good morning, everyone. The Constellation business has continued to perform well in 2015 as a result of our generation to load matching strategy. My comments today will address market events during the second quarter, and what they mean for our commercial business going forward, including our hedging strategy in our updated disclosures. Starting with slide four, the spot power markets in the second quarter have been defined by mild weather and lower natural gas prices, which drove the price in power considerably lower than in 2014 across all of PJM. The impact of low spot market conditions has carried through to the forward markets, with prices down approximately $0.45 per megawatt hour in 2016 and $1 per megawatt hour in 2017, at both PJM West Hub and NiHub since the end of the first quarter. The lack of liquidity in the forward markets has exacerbated the drops in power prices and heat rates, with the forward markets exhibiting volatile price moves on very little trading volumes for calendar 2017 and beyond, especially at NiHub. During the quarter, our hedging activities for 2016 to 2018 were executed through our retail and wholesale load businesses rather than on the over-the-counter market. Our fundamental view of power prices has not changed, but given the drop in market prices, there is a greater gap between the market and our fundamental view due to current natural gas prices, expected retirements, new generation resources, and load assumptions. Moving to slide five, I will discuss the forward market and its impacts on our hedging profile. During the second quarter we maintained our behind ratable strategy and increased our cross-commodity hedge position to increase exposure to power price upside. We have successfully used this behind ratable hedging strategy in the past when our view showed upside in the market. We are 4% to 5% behind ratable in 2016 and 2017, and 7% to 8% behind ratable if you will remove our cross-commodity hedges at NiHub. We are confident in our ability to adjust our hedging strategies to capitalize on our fundamental view. Turning to slide six, I will review our updated hedge disclosure and some key changes since the end of the first quarter. In 2015 we have a net $50 million increase to total gross margin since the end of the first quarter, driven primarily by strong performance and execution. We executed on $200 million of power new business and $50 million of non-power new business during the quarter. Based on 2015 performance to date and expectations for the full year, we have increased our power new business target by $50 million. Our generation to load strategy was successful last year during the extreme polar vortex conditions, and it’s serving us well this year under weaker load and price conditions. It is further augmented by strong performance from our portfolio optimization activities and our Integrys acquisition. For 2016, we saw prices decrease across most regions, decreasing around $0.45 per megawatt-hour in both the Mid-Atlantic and the Midwest. This resulted in a decrease in our open gross margin of approximately $200 million, which was offset by our hedging activities. During the quarter we executed $100 million of power new business and $50 million of non-power new business, and are raising our power new business targets by $50 million additional due to commercial opportunities, for a gross margin increase of $50 million in 2016. For 2017, prices decreased by approximately $1 per megawatt hour in both the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest. This resulted in a decrease of $300 million in our open gross margins. Despite the drop in prices, our total gross margin is only down $50 million due to our hedged position and an increase in our power new business target of $100 million in case we have line of sight into additional commercial opportunities. Since the beginning of the year, prices have fallen due to mild weather, lower gas prices, lower load demand in the Midwest, and a lack of liquidity in the markets. Prices have fallen more in 2017 and beyond than in 2016. Although this weakness in the spot market has impacted forward markets, we are confident in our fundamental view of the gas and power markets and are positioning our portfolio to take advantage of this. Now I’ll turn it over to Jack to review the full financial information for the quarter. Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP Thank you, Joe, and good morning, everyone. We had another strong quarter. My remarks will cover our financial results for the quarter, third quarter guidance range, and our cash outlook. Starting with our second quarter results on slide seven, Exelon exceeded our guidance range and delivered earnings of $0.59 per share. This compares to $0.51 per share for the second quarter of 2014. Exelon’s Utilities delivered combined earnings of $0.25 per share and were flat to the second quarter of last year. During the quarter, we saw favorable weather at PECO and unfavorable weather at ComEd. Cooling degree days were up nearly 37% from the prior year and 47.4% above normal in Southeastern Pennsylvania, and down 34% from the prior year and 21.6% below normal in Northern Illinois. Distribution revenues at ComEd and BGE were higher quarter-over-quarter. In addition, BGE had a decrease in uncollectible accounts expense compared to the second quarter of 2014. Exelon Generation had another strong quarter, delivering earnings of $0.36 per share, $0.09 higher than the same period last year. As Joe mentioned, our generation to load matching strategy continues to prove effective. We benefited from a lower cost to serve both our retail and wholesale customers, and had strong performance from our portfolio management team. In addition, compared to the second quarter of 2014 we had fewer outage days at our nuclear plants, which had a positive contribution from the Integrys acquisition, higher realized nuclear decommissioning trust fund gains, and received additional benefits quarter-over-quarter from the cancellation of the DOE spent nuclear fee. These positive factors were partially offset by higher tax and interest expense. More detail on the quarter-over-quarter drivers for each operating company can be found on slides 18 and 19 in the appendix. For the third quarter, we are providing guidance of $0.65 to $0.75 per share. Accounting for the impact of the increased share count and the debt associated with the Pepco Holdings transaction, and assuming the transaction closes in the third quarter, we are narrowing our full-year guidance from $2.25 to $2.55 per share, to $2.35 to $2.55 per share. Our guidance does not assume that bonus depreciation is extended. Slide eight provides an update on our cash flow expectations for this year. We’ve simplified the format of our slide to provide a clearer view of our cash flow at each operating company, including explicitly showing free cash flow. We project cash from operations of $6.6 billion. We project free cash flow of $900 million at Generation in 2015. 80% of our total growth capital expenditures are being invested in our utilities over the next three years, which will provide stable earnings growth. In June we completed the debt portion of our financing for the Pepco transaction by issuing $4.2 billion in senior notes, with the majority of these proceeds being used to fund the transaction. Strong market demand allowed us to upsize the offering, enabling us to pull forward some future-planned corporate debt issuances. We issued across the tenor spectrum with an average maturity of approximately 14 years and an average weighted average coupon of 3.79%. Earlier this month we completed the settlement of the equity forward transaction. The combination of these financings allows us to close the merger quickly upon receiving approval from the D.C. Public Service Commission. Our balance sheet remains strong and gives us the ability to invest and grow our business. As a reminder, the appendix includes several schedules that will help you in your modeling efforts. Thank you, and we’ll now open the line for questions. Question-and-Answer Session Operator And our first question will come from the line of Greg Gordon with Evercore ISI. Greg Gordon – Evercore ISI Good morning. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Hi, Greg. Greg Gordon – Evercore ISI Couple of questions. First, when you talk about commercial opportunities, in the context of your comfort level raising your guidance for power new business/to go, are we talking about sort of the inherent counter-cyclicality of the margins in that business in the low wholesale environment, i.e., are we moving closer off the $2 floor in margins and closer to the $4 sort of peak of the cycle margins that you see in that business historically, or is it simply new customers, more volumes than you had projected in either the gas or the electric business? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Joe? Joseph Nigro – Executive Vice President, Exelon; Chief Executive Officer, Constellation, Exelon Corp. Yeah, Greg. In this specific instance, specifically for 2016 where we’re raising our power new business/to go by $50 million and 2017 by $100 million, it’s really – it’s not related to those load margins. It’s more specifically related to some proprietary structured commercial opportunities that we have really solid line of sight into on the wholesale side of the business, quite frankly. To your point though, I think it’s important to note we have raised our targets each – $50 million each quarter for 2015, for a total of $100 million so far year-to-date. And a lot of that has been driven by really three things. One is the monetization of loads that we sold at higher prices last year. So, we have seen increased value from that load-serving business, some of our optimization activities. And then we went in, as you saw from our disclosures last quarter, we went in with a short bias with a backstop of our own generation, and given the results of market prices in 2015 to date, that’s performed well. We would only look to raise those targets, the power/to go targets or non-power/to go targets, if we have good line of sight into specific opportunities. And in this case, we do. Greg Gordon – Evercore ISI Okay. Follow-up to that. If these are fairly chunky opportunities and you win them, will we get a sort of a discrete disclosure or would that just – would we get – would you just update it on a quarterly basis as per your usual, moving from to go to, into the hedges? Joseph Nigro – Executive Vice President, Exelon; Chief Executive Officer, Constellation, Exelon Corp. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll disclose that when the negotiations are complete. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director And Greg, it will be in the MD&A disclosure in our interview (19:24), when it occurs. Greg Gordon – Evercore ISI Okay, great. Second question. In light of economic conditions in Texas, most of your investors would probably rather see you pull the plug on this gas-fired project that you’re pursuing. What gives you the confidence that the through-the-cycle economics of that investment are still worth going forward in this environment? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director So as we said, we’ve got a very good deal on acquiring these assets on our brownfield site. Minimal infrastructure investment. They still have a double digit IRR with these market forwards. If you just projected we stay here for 10 years, and then plug the fundamentals in after, we’re still at a double-digit IRR. This is a solid investment. These are going to be dispatched first. They’re the highly efficient, air-cooled, and at the right price. Greg Gordon – Evercore ISI Concise answer. Thank you. Take care. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director All right. Operator And your next question will come from the line of Steve Fleishman, Wolfe Research. Steven Isaac Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC Yeah. Hi, good morning. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Good morning. Steven Isaac Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC First to Jack, clarification. So in the updated 2015 guidance, are you including some amount of POM, both the business and the financing costs? And if so, is it positive or negative within the year? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP So Steve, we are including – we are including the equity and the debt associated with the PHI acquisition. So for share count purposes, that incorporates a weighted average share base of 892 million shares. It does assume the third quarter close of PHI. But there is a measure of dilution this year that’s related to the increased share count, the debt, and as we pursue rate cases on PHI, improve their revenues and earnings, we’ll see the accretion that we anticipate with that transaction in future periods. Steven Isaac Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC Okay. So just to clarify, when you net for this short period into year-end, when you net POM revenue and the financing cost, it’s actually – your numbers would have been higher in this guidance if you hadn’t included that. Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP Modestly, Steve. Steven Isaac Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC Okay. But then we’ll get the… Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP It (22:02), but not materially so. Steven Isaac Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC But the future accretion guidance that you gave, I think, at the last quarter, or recent commentary, that’s still good for future years? Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP The impact on rate cases and the deferral of those rate cases modestly impacts the accretion, but we’re still at the – as we disclosed at the last quarter, we’re still at the sort of bottom end of the range in 2017 that we gave. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director And so, it’s 2018 to get to that – more to that midpoint of the run rate that we talked about. Steven Isaac Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC Right. But you said that – you clarified that, I think, the last call or so. That’s not new. Okay. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Yes. So, $0.15 in 2017, and you’ll see us head to the upper end in 2018. Steven Isaac Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC Okay. Second question is just with respect to the power views. I kind of feel like just, the last few calls you’ve been a little bit more mixed on your power views. You’re a lot more bullish right now, at least, I guess, with respect to NiHub. Is that mainly just a fact that you had to pull back as of Q2 end, and so you’re just more bullish because the starting price is lower, or are you more bullish even if the prices had stayed flat? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director It’s, the prices have gone lower. We’re more bullish, they’re non-sustainable at this level. Joseph Nigro – Executive Vice President, Exelon; Chief Executive Officer, Constellation, Exelon Corp. Yeah. And, Steve, what I would say is, our view of the absolute value of power price hasn’t changed quarter-over-quarter, and what’s changed is we saw a material drop in the back end of the power curve and I’m talking to NiHub, but it’s attributable to West Hub as well, but our upside is really baked at NiHub where we see material upside as you move out into that 2018, 2019 timeframe. We see upside as well in that 2016, 2017 period, and what’s changed is the market has fallen so much, quarter-over-quarter; our absolute view of power price hasn’t changed. So that spread has gone wider. And when we look at our fundamental models at NiHub, in particular, we see a lot of value that’s still to be derived, and that’s due to the changing dispatch stack and some of the other things that we’ve talked about previously. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Talk about the lack of liquidity. Joseph Nigro – Executive Vice President, Exelon; Chief Executive Officer, Constellation, Exelon Corp. Yeah, the liquidity piece of it is a big part of it, Steve. We had a $0.40 – approximately $0.40 a megawatt-hour drop in PJM, in West Hub and NiHub in calendar 2016. That’s the most liquid period on the forward curve. When we’ve pulled data and we have access to and look at what’s going on in the out-years, 2018, 2019, 2020 where we saw a material drop in prices, there is absolutely nothing trading at NiHub. There had been some few sporadic trades at West Hub, and you see the market set prices off of those trades. And our view is through time, that spread relationship between the West Hub and NiHub is going to collapse because of the retirements on the western side, the new builds on the eastern side, and that’s why we think there is material upside. But our fundamental absolute view on power price hasn’t changed. It’s just the way the market reacted quarter-over-quarter. Steven Isaac Fleishman – Wolfe Research LLC Okay. Thank you very much. Operator And your next question will come from the line of Daniel Eggery (sic) [Daniel Eggers] (25:35) with Credit Suisse. Dan L. Eggers – Credit Suisse Securities ( USA ) LLC (Broker) Hey, good morning, guys. On Pepco, could we just talk about the process? So assuming that the D.C. decision comes soon, what is the process for closing from this point, and what bearing does the Maryland appeal have on your ability to close right now? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director I’m going to get Darryl Bradford to cover that. Darryl M. Bradford – Executive Vice President & General Counsel Hey, Steve. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director It’s Dan. Darryl M. Bradford – Executive Vice President & General Counsel I’m sorry. Dan, we expect to – assuming a acceptable order from the D.C. Commission, we expect to close promptly after that order. Our contract would indicate that that will take place within 48 hours of approval by the D.C. commission. And we don’t think that the Maryland motion should be any bar to us closing. We don’t believe that that motion has any merit whatsoever. As you know, the alleged conflict of interest of one of the commissioners having a preliminary interviewing discussion, which she stopped, with a non-party, isn’t a basis under Maryland law to question the independence of that decision, let alone to stay the proceedings. No court in Maryland and no commission in Maryland has ever suggested there’s a conflict with the commissioner of any agency having a conversation with a non-party. Particularly where, as here, Exelon is one of some 45 board members, 140 members in an agency that includes public interest groups like Public Citizen, which was a party below and was the first one to raise this conflict issue. So we don’t think that that motion has any merit. We filed a response yesterday with the court, and we plan to go ahead and close promptly after the D.C. commission issues an order, assuming that that order has acceptable conditions. And we have faith that the D.C. commission will do the right thing. We think we’ve put in a strong case with a lot of benefits for customers and protections for customers. And we look forward to a prompt closing. Dan L. Eggers – Credit Suisse Securities ( USA ) LLC (Broker) Okay. Got it. And then I guess just on the nuclear plants in Illinois with PJM, I guess, probably moving the closure date to October. That’s still probably before Illinois can act legislatively. With the drop in the forward curves, is there a practical way where you can look at those plants and think that they stay economic without some sort of legislation in Illinois? And does that force your hand come October? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director The capacity market fixes, focused on reliability, will not be enough to keep all the units economically viable. It does give us some support for the investments that we continue to make on the assets to maintain the reliability but it’s not totally there. We need a market fix in Illinois to stop the non-competitive nature of the market. And short of the legislation to fix that, we will have to make decisions on retiring assets that are not economically viable. As we talked about previously, we have requirements around notification to PJM of our intent to retire units. It’s an 18-month notification. We also have commitments around when we have to notify of our availability for the 2018-2019 auction in participation on that. And very importantly, we have to order and design cores that – fuel cores that take a while for us to – or 2019-2020 auction instead of 2018-2019, 2019-2020 auction, our participation there. And we have to order the cores, and there’s a long lead time there. Are we going to run for an additional year or are we going to run for a longer period of time? And that’s a very expensive decision to make. So, at least on the PJM (30:34) we’ll make the decision, the final decision, if we’re going to do that, in the September timeframe. We’ve been in consultation with the Board and we’ll continue to consult with the Board, and where management’s made their decision we’ll pass that to the Board for the final approval in that timeframe, and continue with the outreach to our stakeholders. Dan L. Eggers – Credit Suisse Securities ( USA ) LLC (Broker) Chris, just given the fact that you’re not going to have legislation realistically done before September, and you kind of laid out the other challenges, doesn’t it – what would cause you to not close the plants come September, based on the fact pattern you just laid out for us? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director If the units clear the 2018-2019 auction, that would show that they’re financially viable. That is a long shot in our opinion, just because of the cost structure and how the forwards have continued to collapse at the bus at a couple of these units. We’ve got the transmission constraints, we’ve got the overproduction and importation of wind that not only drops the spot but continues to collapse the forward curve. The disconnect between NiHub and the bus at some of these units is $6, $7. And we have worked very closely with all the stakeholders involved for over a year and a half on trying to come to resolution, and it is the time that we’ll have to make the decision after we see what happens with the capacity auctions. We don’t take the decision lightly. We understand the effect that we have on the communities and potential effect on employees, but this has been a long-term issue that we’ve been evaluating and trying to come to resolution, and we’re staying within the timeline. Actually, we extended our timeline last year to give more time to come up with the proper market fixes, and to be compensated adequately for operating these units versus subsidizing a low-cost market. Dan L. Eggers – Credit Suisse Securities ( USA ) LLC (Broker) And I don’t mean to beat this to death (32:49) for this, but would closing a Quad or a Clinton show up noticeably as accretive to you guys on 2017 numbers? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director We don’t – we have not looked at that, and don’t look at it. We analyze the plants as a standalone in their own economics, so it’s about a plant losing money. We have not evaluated; others have and others have talked about the impact to consumers on those units closing. The state itself did that assessment, and there is some material impact on the consumer, but we have not evaluated anything specific to Exelon. Dan L. Eggers – Credit Suisse Securities ( USA ) LLC (Broker) Okay, very good. Thank you. Operator Your next question will come from the line of Jonathan Arnold with Deutsche Bank. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Good morning, guys. Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Hey. Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP Good morning. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. One – just – given your comments about liquidity in the forward curve, is it fair to assume that you’ve probably not done much in the way of 2018 hedging yet? Because ordinarily you would have been a couple of quarters into it. Just curious if you could give us any insight? Joseph Nigro – Executive Vice President, Exelon; Chief Executive Officer, Constellation, Exelon Corp. Yeah, Jonathan. We are behind our ratable sales plan in 2018. As you know, we have a very big load-serving book of business, so we’ve captured opportunities, both in our retail and wholesale load-serving businesses to the extent possible, in 2018. And in addition, at times, as we’ve spoken about in other years, we used the gas market as well. But to sell straight OTC power in 2018, we’ve not done much, if any, of that at all. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Okay. And then just to revisit the commercial opportunities comment. Can you give us any insight as to what kind of opportunities you’re talking about? And is it, are they the result of others pulling back from the market, or just successful discussions with potential clients I guess? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director It’s early on that one, Jonathan. We’ll do the full disclosure when we complete the negotiations. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Okay. Sorry to re-ask that. And then, Chris, at the outset, you made the comment that you saw the inclusion of DR in the transition auctions as being, I think you said, nonmaterial to the outcome? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Yes. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Could you share a bit more of your kind of logic and thought process behind that statement? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Yeah. Joe? Joseph Nigro – Executive Vice President, Exelon; Chief Executive Officer, Constellation, Exelon Corp. Jonathan, it’s Joe. First of all, we lost over $1 billion of market cap post the announcement of that, of the inclusion of DR in 2016-2017 and 2017-2018. And we really thought it was a little bit of an overreaction. As Chris mentioned, we’re disappointed in the delay, but we don’t believe there’s going to be a material impact to either of those transition auctions. As you’re aware, DR was already included in 2018-2019 and beyond. The reason why we don’t think it’s a material impact in the transition auctions is really related to how the auctions themselves cleared on the base residual, and the separation in price in 2016-2017 on one side, and then the amount of DR that clears in the 2017-2018 auction, and when we put that all into our models, it’s very similar to what we’ve read, quite frankly, from a lot of what’s been written by the equity community, that it’s going to be a limited impact. Jonathan Philip Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Okay. Thank you for that. Operator And your next question will come from the line of Julien Smith with UBS. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Hi. Good morning. Jonathan W. Thayer – Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP Hey, Julien. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Hey. So, first quick question and it does kind of rehash a little bit here, but on the fundamental upside you’re talking about, just to be clear, what does that assume in terms of retirements, just to be clear? Your own retirements, particularly as you’re thinking about the life of your portfolio here in the back half of the year? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Yeah. We have not evaluated the potential retirement of any our assets on market-forward prices. And, so this is just based off of fundamentals of what has been announced, and what we see for retirements, what we see for the economic viability of the existing fleet in what they would have to clear to stay viable going forward. So it’s not a sustainable market forward with the asset mix that’s currently in. It has nothing to do with any forward decision we would make. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Right. So just to be clear, nuclear retirements would be incremental to your fundamental upside? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director We don’t know that. We have not analyzed it and I wouldn’t want to project one way or the other. It’s, there are two different things. The nuclear asset retirement is based off of the economic viability of the asset on the stand-alone. And we have had losses and free cash flow losses in the trailing five years of some significance. And we project going forward with these market forwards, them to be even worse than they were a year ago, which is driving us to make that decision. It is not based off of any potential impact on the market forwards or the rest of the fleet’s viability. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Got it. And then two subsequent questions here. First, in terms of the FCF losses, what would you estimate those as being, both for the eastern portfolio and for the ComEd portfolio as it stands today? And then secondly, tied into that, as you evaluate the remaining life of some of these assets, would you imagine layering one announcement after another? So I suppose specifically, there’s a timing issue related to ordering new cores. I imagine certain units have to get those orders in before others. Could we see one nuclear retirement and then subsequently, depending on what happens in the legislative arena, et cetera, see further announcements later this year, in trying to reconcile the bigger issues around FCF deficit? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Yeah. We’ve discussed fairly openly the units, the affected units. PJM’s rules require us an earlier notification than MISO’s rules. And so, we would be moving forward, if we have to, on PJM units before MISO units. We don’t project a MISO decision until beginning of next year, looking at the opportunities we have with that unit either through legislation or other mechanisms, to secure the required revenues that we need there. We’ve talked about New York units. We’re still working with our partners in our stakeholders in New York to look at, is there a viable way beyond – a reliability must-run situation to maintain economic viability there? And the final asset that’s been in discussion is Oyster Creek, which we’ve already had an agreed-upon early retirement date at the end of 2019. So, short of the – short of a, some type of failure that was a costly failure on the unit, we would run into that period to allow adequate transition, utilization of the fuel, and adequate transition of our employee base to other facilities. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Got it. But just to be clear about the MISO unit there, depending on the success this year in the legislative arena, would that drive that decision? Christopher M. Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director It would have a – it would heavily weight our decision. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Great. Thank you. Operator And we have time for one final question. Your final question will come from the line of Chris Turnure with JPMorgan. Christopher J. Turnure – JPMorgan Securities LLC Good morning, guys. I wanted to get a little bit more color on the Pepco approval process here, and the court challenge, than what you’ve already talked about. Do you have any sense of the precedent, or a precedent, for actually staying a commission order? Obviously you disagree with the merit of this case. But you do you have any precedent there, and what would be the path forward if it was not stayed, and you got the decision out of D.C.? Darryl M. Bradford – Executive Vice President & General Counsel Thanks. It’s Darryl again. Yeah, the precedent on a stay is very clear in Maryland. It’s an extraordinary remedy. It is rarely granted. You have to show a likelihood of success on the merits. And the motion does not, on the merits of the underlying merger, raise any issues whatsoever. The only issue that raises is this specious purported conflict claim, which we think is very, very weak. So, we don’t think they’ve attempted to meet that. They would also have to show irreparable harm, which – they spend a paragraph trying to satisfy that. It’s really not very persuasive, in our view. They would have to show that a stay is in the public interest. And, of course, not only has the Maryland Commission, but the New Jersey Commission, the FERC, the Delaware Commission have all found that this merger is in the public interest. And they’d also have to show that the hardships favor them, and in our pleading we lay out why disrupting – the hardship of potentially disrupting a $7 billion merger outweighs any hardships that would occur from the grant of the stay. So we think it’s an extraordinary remedy. We don’t think that they’ve come close to meeting those standards in any respect. And the law is also very clear that in Maryland, it’s not a balancing. They have to satisfy each and every one of those elements, and in this case, in our view, they haven’t satisfied any of them. So, that leaves us in a position where, upon D.C. approval, and assuming that the court agrees with the pleading we filed yesterday and doesn’t grant a stay, that promptly upon the D.C. Commission joining the other commissions in finding that this is in the public interest, and assuming that any conditions it imposes are not unduly burdensome, that we would close promptly. Christopher J. Turnure – JPMorgan Securities LLC Okay. Great. That’s very helpful. And then, is there – or my understanding is that D.C. has to rule by the end of August. Is there any flexibility around that timing? Can they extend that again? Darryl M. Bradford – Executive Vice President & General Counsel Yeah. There is no clock in D.C., so they are not under any time constraint. Generally, the D.C. Commission has ruled within 90 days of something being fully briefed and submitted to them. This was fully briefed at the end of May. So that 90 days would end at the end of August. I think that’s where that date comes from. Obviously, we’re hopeful that sooner is better than later, but that will be up to the D.C. Commission, and they’ll rule when they have finished their work. They are, I think, acutely aware that a lot of people are looking for a decision from them, and they understand that. But they will take the time that they deem necessary in order to do their job right. Christopher J. Turnure – JPMorgan Securities LLC Okay. And then if I could, real quick, Joe, I just wanted to follow up, you’ve mentioned lack of liquidity in the forward markets a couple of times on the call here. Is this a lack of liquidity that exceeds just the general nature of these markets and what you’ve seen historically? Has that increased, and if that is the case, do you have an opinion as to why there might be so few trades going on out there? Joseph Nigro – Executive Vice President, Exelon; Chief Executive Officer, Constellation, Exelon Corp. Yeah, I think it’s probably worse than it has been historically. And I think some of it is, there is just no natural buyers out on, that far out on the forward curve, as I said. The back end of the forward curve was dropped much more than in like 2016, where there were more natural buyers, whether we talk about retail or speculators or other participants. So I think with some of the folks that used to participate in the markets not doing that, some on the banking side and others, I think it’s had a material impact. Christopher J. Turnure – JPMorgan Securities LLC Great. Thanks a lot. Operator Thank you. And that will conclude today’s conference call. We appreciate your participation. You may now disconnect.