Mike McMasters
Analyst · RBC Capital Markets
Thanks, Beth. I guess when you look at the slide, you can now see five different points of focus that we have. First, promoting growth and development of our team. Obviously our team is critically important to our growth. This includes strategic thinking and creative energy. If you think about our strategy plan, we work on a plan, you shut it down, you start initiating that plan, invariably something's going to change. So the creative thinking part was about reacting to that change in a manner that's constructive and then creative energy just raised the stakes of our employees again, how they approach the project. Expanding our energy delivery services both organically and new graphic markets last longer expertise and certainly natural natural gas transmission and distribution customers. So we're looking both what, where we currently serve, and what opportunities do we have there but also to adjacent territories, how can we expand our footprint through this organic growth mechanism? Next bullet, expand our footprint into new growth markets through strategic initiatives. So if you look at a couple years ago we were looking for opportunities, that we were looking to Ohio actually. We were able to identify a pipeline gathering at that time and figure out how to make that project work for us, and that’s an example of getting out beyond the current footprint or even current territory. Fourth bullet, develop new and unregulated energy services and products that complement our existing businesses and growth strategy. We think about Eight Flags -- Eight Flags is a Combined Heat and Power plant, this is our first power plant that we’ve ever constructed in the company wherever they operator the company. And what was happening there is the customer, the host company, if you will, came to us and expressed a desire to get off of the grid if you will, we have the electric system there. And so, who is in Florida -- look for ways to solve what they believe was their concerns and identified it was really steam and so by doing a combined heat and power plants, we’re able to the solve the customer's concern, save the money and also generate earns for us. And so that's just an example of of the new products and services, or OPT-90 I think as mentioned a moment ago, was also a good example. We remain focused and determined to grow our company with unwavering commitment to service, safety, the environment, and financial discipline fostering our success throughout our 70 year history. Capital expenditures -- the key thing for us, as a primarily utility of 80% to 90% of our investments on utilities – what it does is it effectively requires – so for regulators requires that we invest capital effectively to grow the company. So when you're looking at the Slide 13, and that net cumulative expenditures of acquisitions, $910 million, you can see the magnitude of changes occurred as likely as 2012 and 2017 we’re looking at $241 billion, those are very big numbers. Over to capital expenditures to average capitalization, you can see the target range if you will is basically the amount that we need to grow at let’s say a typical utility rate. And you can see the level of capital expenditures that we're getting every year, the numbers are in the 20s and 30s, which simply means we should get higher growth. Attaining the build for the future, you can see $141 million, we're breaking it down each of the businesses. You see 50% of that is going to be in natural gas transmission at Eastern Shore, 33%, until our public utilities natural gas operations so to a large degree there's going to be the interstate pipeline and then also the Florida natural gas operations, so more of the natural gas is lot a big contributor – propane distribution. This Performance Quadrant is pretty forward for life in the US. It’s really a key indicator if you will. So what our growth rate will be and so you can see we have I guess across there, if you look at vertical axis weighted average ROE, and you can see the median running slightly below 10%. If you look at the capital expenditures/total capitalization, how much capital we deploy as a percentage of our current size. The median is somewhere around 13.5% and you can see where Chesapeake is right around 12%, slightly lower 12%, on the ROE. At the same on the capital expenditures of over 25. So what that means is we can deploy a lot of capital and we can earn returns on that capital higher than our peers, then you would expect our growth rate to be higher than our peers. We see your averages for this to take out some of the bumpiness. Current growth initiatives. In 2017 right now we've got a filing because FERC, so you get the authority to construct a pipeline on the Delmarva Peninsula, it’s a pipeline business, it's almost $100 million to significantly increase the capacity of our system, 61,000 or wanted 60s gate [ph] for a specific, but if you are a residential customer, that being the equivalent of 60,000 residential customers. We also have a project the Northwest Florida expansion project, that project is soon to be serving the Pensacola area. This is a new project, we're connecting with for gas transmission in the Western Panhandle. So that project, again 31 miles very very great opportunity for us. Continued investment in the Florida Gas Reliability Infrastructure System, and the completion of the Eastern Shore natural gas system reliability project. We're constantly looking at service reliability and periodically you need to do something to improve that. And in the Eastern Shore case, you may remember the polar vortex a few years ago with the extreme weather that we saw -- we saw the need to increase our capacity. The acreage – ability to serve difficult situation. Ocean City, Maryland – we have a bay crossing, we’ve just completed on natural gas in the Ocean City, Maryland, it’s a pretty accomplishment and we’re working on to continuing conversion of Sandpiper customers. The new ocean pipe – and also, the limited filing to be completed – well, technical terms here. Basically what we have is a way of life assessment Florida and we're also improving the life quality of that and we're putting together -- we put together a filing to make it in Florida to get approval to recover those costs or timely basis. Expansion of PESCO, natural gas marketing operation in three primary markets, also PESCO has assumed the asset manager role for Delmarva natural gas operations. This is a lot of us facing natural gas marketing and helping with the scheduling of gas et cetera. Turning to Slide 17, when you look at gross margin for the period, this is basically we're isolating key PP large projects and so we're getting a feel for what this growth on these key projects are. So you will see 2016 we've got about 31.3 million of order being generated by four different areas: natural gas transmission, Florida GRIP, Eight Flags CHP, and Delaware Division Rate Case. If you look in 17, you'll see that that $31.3 million, the same things plus new things that we're doing, generates $39.5 million and then in 18, climbing to 54.42% million, and in 19, 16 million – 19, sometimes you get or but the numbers might be a little bit lower than what we end up with as we keep working on all these projects. Slide 18, this is the Eastern Shore Expansion project we just mentioned, 23 miles of living in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware; 17 miles of new mainline extension, so that’s pretty significant project, actually, it’s the largest project, single project we've ever had sensed the initial construction over pipeline. So it is substantial. Expected to be of service the second quarter of 2018, right now we've got filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and we're waiting for them to approve the project. It could be, maybe the spring is always already hopefully we can get this thing. You have pipeline capacity, you can see all the way back in 1988, because their increase and you could see what’s happening in 2018 once that project is concrete. For that project, you'll see this project really starts just about the western most point in the Florida. Again running down to Pensacola, 33 mile pipeline, we're looking at capital investment for close to $36 million and $5.1 million is the estimate for margin on the first full year of operation. So again we've ordered to pay, we're going to be initiating that construction here. Regulatory updates, this is – always something going on with the regulatory side, we're heavily regulated. Natural gas distribution is regulated by the states, interstate pipeline is regulated by the federal energy regulatory commission. So you go through here at the start with the FERC, the federal stuff. White Oak Expansion placed into service in March of 2017. We got approval for that last year, now constructed that. System reliability project largely complete, that project is, I am going to say, within weeks of being complete. The 2017 system expansion project is that Oak project we just discussed, so we're looking to get approval in August of 2017 which is not too far away. And the new rates to become effective August 2017, but it will be subject to refund. Now that's a pretty big rate case, that picks up the costs associated with the system expansion project and several other things. Delaware rate case settlement, the increase of base rates effective January 1 of 2017. You will also have approximately $1.5 million of the $2.25 million rate increase recognized in 2016. So we've got things put on a Delaware as well. Maryland, we had a little regulatory issue there with $136,000 we’ve gotten, they've got to reverse their decision there or -- so we're pleased with that. And in Florida, as we mentioned they were working on a I guess, ESTAR which is so much as the GRIP, and they've withdrawn that file, and maybe another file, restructuring some of that and so we're pleased with that. Anyway I think that’s all for the regulatory side. Shareholder return, Slide 22, you look at though on the left side, it shows our ranking I guess OICD companies for the present review – more of 31 to 17 and you can see their percentile performance over one year starting 9%, we look at 3 year -- over longer term three year at 91%, 5-year 90%, 95% and 86%. So what that simply means is that means that we have outperformed 90, 89, 95, 86% of the companies on the NYSE. And last, shareholder returns for period ending March 31, it’s got an interesting dynamic. We’ve had about a 20% return – shareholder returns in the last several years and you can see how that has changed, I say, when you look at the peer groups at Lincoln and improves our performance significantly. Appear the median has changed. Moving on to Slide 23. I guess with that, we’ll open it up to question.