Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Black Hills Corporation 2012 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. My name is Janeda, and I will be your coordinator for today. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the presentation over to Mr. Jerome Nichols, Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications of Black Hills Corporation. Please proceed, sir.

Thank you, Janeda. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Black Hills Corporation 2012 First Quarter Earnings Call. With me today are David Emery, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Tony Cleberg, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before I turn over the call, I need to remind you that during the course of this call, some of the comments we make may contain forward-looking statements as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and there are a number of uncertainties inherent in such comments. Although we believe that our expectations and beliefs are based on reasonable assumptions, actual results may differ materially. We direct you to our earnings release, Slide 2 of the Investor Presentation on our website and our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, for a list of some of the factors that could cause future results to differ materially from our expectations. I will now turn the call over to David Emery.

All right. Thank you, Jerome. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being on the call this morning. Our agenda for today will be very similar to previous quarters. I'll cover the highlights of the quarter, turn it over to Tony to cover the financial discussion for the quarter. And then I will get back on for the forward strategy discussion, and then we'll take questions at that time. As most of you are aware, we're always trying to improve the quality of our investor communications, really to make them more useful to you. And we've made several format changes to this webcast presentation, starting out with the first quarter here in 2012, most of those primarily intended to make things easier for you to review. The slides are more visual, higher use of graphs, things like that. So please let us know if you like the improvements. For those of you following along on the webcast presentation, I will be starting on Slide 5. We experienced a very challenging business environment in the first quarter. Literally record-breaking warm weather across all of our utility service territories, literally a collapse in the natural gas price with the lowest prices since 2001. Both of these factors negatively impacting our financial results. But despite these challenges, we really have made excellent progress on a number of key strategic goals and objectives during the quarter. On the Utilities side, we placed in service our new power plant for Colorado Electric and implemented the new rates on January 1. We commenced construction on a wind project to serve our Colorado Electric utility, and we made progress on our Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity filing for a new $237 million generation project that will be jointly owned between Black Hills Power and Cheyenne Light. On the…

Thank you, Dave. Good morning. As Dave mentioned, we had several positives in the first quarter that were offset by warm weather. And although EPS as adjusted improved slightly, we had expected stronger improvement from our Utilities and our Oil & Gas segments. Moving to Slide 9. We've got our earnings per share analysis consistent with prior periods. And here, we adjust our net income to display a non-GAAP earnings measure that we feel better communicates our relevant performance. This slide reconciles total earnings per share to an as-adjusted earnings per share from continuing operations. Special gain and loss items are excluded from the GAAP EPS to compute EPS as adjusted from continuing ops. This slide displays the last 5 quarters. And during the first quarter of 2012, we had 2 special items. The first was a subtraction of $0.18 for a non-cash unrealized mark-to-market gain on our $250 million worth of interest rate swaps. The second was an addition for a write-off of deferred finance fees related to an old revolving credit facility that was replaced February 1. The old facility had a remaining 15 months to expire, but was replaced early to capture savings and to lock in better terms. So with the adjustments, the quarter's earnings per share as adjusted was $0.65 per share compared to $0.64 in 2011. Looking at last year's first quarter, the gain -- the reconciliation included a $0.09 reduction for an unrealized mark-to-market gain on the same interest rate swaps. On Slide 10, this displays our 2012-2011 income statement for the first quarter. On later slides, I'll discuss revenue and operating income in detail. But from an overview standpoint, there are several notable items that impacted the first quarter's financial performance. The first notable item was the commencement of operations for our…

All right. Thank you, Tony. Moving on to Slide 19. From a long-term strategic growth perspective, our strategy remains essentially unchanged, primarily focused on continuing to grow organically from our core businesses and primarily driven by growing our investment and rate base vertically integrated assets. Primarily generation and transmission in our Electric Utilities. As Tony mentioned, extensive control of costs and a focus on operational excellence, continuing to improve the efficiency of what we do every day, ensuring timely recovery of our invested capital and operating expenses for our utility properties. We will continue to prove up the tremendous value on our Mancos shale assets in both the San Juan and Piceance basins, acknowledging that the pace of that development may be dependent on gas price levels. And then finally, we'll grow our IPP business as opportunities arise. We want to target a long-term debt-to-cap ratio less than 55%, which is in line with where we are currently, and we'd love to improve our investment grade credit ratings to at least a BBB. On Slide 20, we have a very clearly defined capital investment program that will drive strong earnings growth for the next several years. This particular slide, we revised our format to provide more detail on our plans, especially for our Utilities, primarily on the Electric side. It should give you a better sense for our growth-related capital as opposed to our ongoing capital needs for both the Electric and Gas Utilities. Slide 21 provides a little additional detail on our capital spending plans particularly focused on the growth capital, breaks that down a little more specifically by project and provides more detail really for the capital numbers on the previous slide. Moving on to Slide 22. This is an update on our 29-megawatt wind project in Colorado.…

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Kevin Cole with Credit Suisse.

By the way, I think Jerome and Val did a great job with the presentation. And so on the guidance revision. So I see you lowered the range by 10%, but weather was negative $0.13 and E&P looks like maybe $0.15 worse than expected, which I guess still kind of paints the challenge in your head. Can you help me better understand, I guess, where you're going to find the cost reductions and if they're more one-time in nature or permanent? And then also, kind of where else do you see help coming from?

Some of them will be permanent. Others will be just one-time from the standpoint that a fair amount of our compensation has a variable portion. So if we don't achieve our plan, in effect, we save money. So that cost will just automatically go down. But as we build the next year's plan, it'll come back into our expenses. But a number of the initiatives that we've got going, we've got both not only cost initiatives. There are other ways -- other items that we're looking at to improve recovery or improve our revenue. So it is a combination.

Okay. So I guess it's going to be a mix of like some hold co cost and then just kind of some pennies here and there, just across all the businesses?

Yes. And we're essentially looking in every business for opportunities, both for revenue and for cost, Kevin. And there are things like deferring hiring or trying to reorganize in certain circumstances so we don't have to replace departures as people leave, not filling new positions that might have been planned for the year. There's a lot of that kind of activity going on right now, as well as just really turning down the screws on expenses period. Deferring some maintenance expenditures, different things to the following year if it's feasible to do so without taking any risks, things like that.

Okay. That's helpful. And then on the conventional E&P side, can you help me understand the driver of the average hedge price, given that it looks like it almost fell one-to-one with the well-head costs which implies, I guess, a low hedge ratio? So I guess, just help me to understand like how hedge is the business for the rest of the year, and that percentage ties to the $270 price?

Part of the hedge pricing or the average hedge price includes the unhedged portion average. So as -- in effect, the price of gas just comes down. Then in effect, it impacts our average. But your question of how hedged are we for the rest of this year? We're quite a bit hedged, much more than 50% for the remainder of this year.

Okay. The next -- so I guess, is it safe to say that the reduction in production came from the natural gas side?

We were up in our sales volume in natural gas, but the price was down significantly. Yes. That's the first quarter. Was that your question?

I guess for the full year?

Yes. We still expect that production will be up for the full year. But...

Okay. So it's in line with your prior guidance then?

Pretty close, yes.

Pretty close, yes.

Okay, okay. So I must have misread that.

I think we might have adjusted the bottom end down just slightly. [indiscernible] It's pretty similar for total expectations.

Yes. Very nominal.

And then maybe this qualifies as a follow-up, so don't get the operator mad at me, but on the Mancos, did you say that you would consider delaying, I guess, your development plans if natural gas stays kind of constant where it's at? Or I guess, maybe -- or should I think about it as, I guess, spread between where natural gas trades versus your $1.30 to $1.40 well-head costs?

Yes. Well -- and you've got lease operating expenses and royalties and everything else in there. We believe that an ongoing program -- certainly not feasible at a $2 NYMEX gas price, and we're evaluating whether we want to spend the capital to even do the delineation drilling at that level. If we expect prices and we see some encouraging signs kind of in the third and fourth quarters that maybe prices will at least continue to go up to acceptable levels, we would like to spend that drilling capital because we believe it's very important for us to spend a little bit of capital in both base and to prove up the full value of our holdings. We wouldn't expect to undergo a full-blown drilling program at these price levels by any means. And prices stay at $2, I think it's questionable whether we really want to go out and spend that money late this year. We might defer some of that into next year if we just don't see any improvement there.

Do you have like, I guess, a breakeven number in mind? I think you kind of mentioned it was like $3 or $2.50?

Yes. Don't have one specifically. I mean, we've made the comment before that we think that at a $4 natural gas price, that play would be very economic, and we'd be very encouraged by that. Certainly, we would be willing to drill delineation wells at a price lower than that, because they would still generate acceptable returns. Might not be what we really want, and so we would spend as little capital as possible to do the delineation drilling. But we don't want to do it if our returns are negative or below our cost of capital. So that's really where we're sitting, and $2 is clearly south of that. Somewhere between $2 and $4 is probably a decent assumption. But it varies depending on the size of your program, how many wells you do. That affects your purchasing power for rigs and supplies and pipe and all of those things. So it's kind of hard to give you a specific number if you're only drilling a few wells at a time.

Is there an increase in, I guess, pipe development around that territory to tighten up the bases relative to NYMEX?

I wouldn't say there's any real significant ongoing projects now.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Gildersleeve with Millennium Partners.

Just wanted to ask you on some of the comments on the Oil & Gas side. It seemed like a renewed interest in some crude opportunities. Just wonder if you could expand on that, please.

Yes. I wouldn't say it's a renewed interest, Jeff. When we finished our strategic review of our Oil & Gas segment last year, we were pretty clear in stating that we wanted to define the potential of our Mancos; focus on some oil opportunities, maybe even some isolated oil exploratory opportunities; and maybe invest 10% to 15% in some of our capital budget in more oil-related exploration opportunities that had significant upside impact for us. To the extent we have some good oil development opportunities, the Bakken shale is a good opportunity to the extent we can either accelerate or increase our activity in some of those areas. We'll be focused a little more on that as gas prices are so weak. Now, of course, everyone else is doing the same thing. So you have to qualify it a little bit, that we're not anxious to run out and pay too much to get involved in an oil project. That's not our objective. So it's continuing to be very prudent in what we look at. What can we do with existing oil assets? We have our existing oil plays we're in, and maybe look at a new project or 2, particularly kind of more on the exploratory step-out development type areas.

Okay. Yes. I just -- on the slide, it said pursue new crude oil opportunities with large-scale reserve potential.

That's the exploratory nature. We really don't want to do an exploratory project unless -- if we're going to commit a couple of million dollars to an exploratory project, we'd like something that has enough reserves to significantly move the needle. So...

Your next question comes from the line of James Bellessa with D.A. Davidson & Company.

I do like the new format of the press release. It gives the information that I've been asking for, and it's well laid out. I also like the slide show, particularly that picture of the Pueblo facility, with the sun going down and every light on that plant on. And it looks like it's surreal. I don't even know how you staged that.

Pikes Peak in the background. Yes. It's a beautiful picture. Thank you.

And anyways, a couple of questions. I think Tony said that in Electric, EPS was off $0.02 due to the weather. Did you say, Tony, how much Gas EPS was off due to the weather?

I did. It's about $0.11. for Gas year-over-year. And what I said about the Electric, that's a little harder to pin down, but it's at least $0.02. We know that.

Okay. Then on the Electric Utilities side, and I learned quite a bit with your new information, and I was underestimating how much DD&A was. How much interest expense was. But I was surprised on your going to the full tax rate on the electric utility, 40.9% in the most recent quarter versus 30.4% a year ago. Can you explain the reasons why you had the full tax rate or even higher?

The tax rate for the quarter was 35.9%.

At the electric utility?

Oh, at the electric utility. Oh, I'm sorry. Some of those are state true ups and a little bit of moving taxes among the segments. So I...

You may not see this high of a rate for the rest of the year?

No, no. We will not be at that high of a rate.

There'll be a little more information in the Q as well if you would like to clarify some of that.

Yes, that lays it out.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Michael Worms with BMO.

Just a quick question for you on the Coal Mining business. You indicated that there's going to be a revised plan. You're going to relocate the mining operations to areas that are closer to, I guess, the plants and a shorter overhaul and all that, which will result in reduced costs. Can you give us some detail in terms of how much costs -- first of all, when are you beginning this new plan? And then secondly, how much of the cost savings will be captured in 2012 versus the cost related to the plant or the mine in 2011?

Well, we just received approval for our revised mining permit, which allows us to kind of change the direction in which we're mining right now, Mike. And that essentially allows us, as you said, to move closer to the plants with our current mining activity, and it reduces both the overburden, which is lower there, and it also reduces the haul distances we have for the overburden, which reduces expenses as well. When you open a new cut like that, it's a process. So we're actually going to still be mining coal at the far north end of our pit and moving overburden kind of at the south end, closest to the plant. So you won't see -- at least not immediately. I think the impact will gradually get better as the year goes on here. So we haven't put out a quantification of what we expect the 2012 numbers to be, but you should see kind of a gradual improvement quarter-to-quarter as we continue to get that new pit developed on the south end.

Okay. So the impact will probably be more impactful in 2013 than 2012?

Yes, yes, because it will be in place for the full year. We only have 1/2 year of impact this year, and it's going to take a little while to get the new cut open and getting it up to full production from that location.

[Operator Instructions] And at this time, we have no further questions. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. David Emery for any closing remarks.

All right. Thank you. Thanks, everyone, for your time and attention this morning. As always, we appreciate your attendance on our call. And for those of you who are headed to the American Gas Association Financial Forum, we look forward to seeing you there. Thanks, everyone.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Have a good day.