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Dominion Energy, Inc. (D)

Q4 2010 Earnings Call· Fri, Jan 28, 2011

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Dominion's Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. On the call today, we have Tom Farrell, CEO, and other members of senior management. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Tom Hamlin, Vice President of Investor Relations, for Safe Harbor’s statement.

Thomas Hamlin

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Dominion's 2010 year-end earnings conference call. During this call, we will refer to certain schedules included in this morning's earnings release and pages from our earnings release kit. The 2011 guidance kit will be posted on our website later today. Schedules in the earnings release and earnings guidance kit are intended to answer the more detailed questions pertaining to operating statistics and accounting. Investor Relations will be available after the call for any clarification of these schedules. If you have not done so, I encourage you to visit our website, register for email alerts and view our fourth quarter and full year 2010 earnings documents. Our website address is www.dom. com/investors. In addition to the earnings’ release kit, we have included a slide presentation on our website that will guide this morning's discussion. And now for the usual cautionary language. The earnings release and other matters that will be discussed on the call today may contain forward-looking statements and estimates that are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Please refer to our SEC filings, including our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for a discussion of factors that may cause results to differ from management's projections, forecasts, estimates and expectations. Also on this call, we will discuss some measures of our company's performance that differ from those recognized by GAAP. Those measures include our fourth quarter and full year operating earnings and our operating earnings guidance for the first quarter and full year 2011, as well as operating earnings before interest and tax, commonly referred to as EBIT. Reconciliation of such measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, we are able to calculate and report our contained in our earnings release kit. Joining us on the call this morning are our CEO, Tom Farrell; our CFO, Mark McGettrick; and other members of our management team. Tom will begin with the review of our operating and regulatory activities in 2010, and the outlook for 2011 and beyond. Mark will discuss the earnings results for the fourth quarter and full year 2010, as well as our outlook for the first quarter of the full year 2011 and earnings growth beyond 2011. We will also discuss our financing plans, and we will then take your questions. I will now turn the call over to our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Tom Farrell.

Thomas Farrell

Analyst

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. While we typically do not discuss issues related to M&A, I want to make a couple of comments, given market rumors regarding Dominion's interest in merging with or acquiring other utilities. As anyone familiar with our company knows, Dominion has a very strong organic growth plan. We are investing over $2 billion a year in growth projects across all of our regulated lines of business. Achieving our 5% to 6% earnings growth targets does not depend on our ability to make acquisitions. If we were to consider an M&A transaction, it would have to be a unique opportunity that would not weaken our financial condition and would be accretive to earnings per share and shareholder value. Now turning to 2010.2010 was an extraordinary year for Dominion. We made significant progress on our strategic plan and demonstrated how our infrastructure growth plan will continue for at least the next five years. Our board of directors adopted a new dividend policy that raises our targeted payout ratios to be more in line with our more regulated peers. Last month, the board authorized a 7.7% increase in the dividend to an annual rate of $1.97 per share. Also, our total shareholder return for the year was strong. We began the year with a comprehensive settlement agreement for Virginia Power that maintains current base rates through at least 2013, and enables the company to earn competitive rates of return that support our infrastructure growth program. This was the first base rate case for the company under Virginia's new regulatory structure. We have since joined other parties in submitting a proposal to the Commission, which calls for the terms of the settlement to be extended for an additional year through a deferral of the first biennial…

Mark McGettrick

Analyst

Thank you, Tom. Let me begin with consolidated 2010 results. Earnings in 2010 were very strong. Operating earnings were $3.34 per share, in the upper half of our original guidance range of $3.20 to $3.40 per share, and 2% above operating earnings for 2009. Favorable weather and higher rate adjustment clause revenues were the principal positive factors influencing the earnings. Our interest expense were also lower than expected as strong cash flow reduced our need for external debt financing. Partially offsetting these factors were lower margins from our merchant generation fleet and the absence of earnings from our previously owned Appalachian E&P business. We produced operating earnings in the fourth quarter of $0.63 per share, level with last year's fourth quarter and near the midpoint of our guidance range. GAAP earnings were $0.43 per share for the fourth quarter and $4.68 per share for the year. The principal differences between GAAP and operating earnings for the year were the gain on the sale of our Appalachian E&P operations, the cost of the workforce reduction program, a charge related to the discontinued operations at Peoples Gas and impairment charges on certain merchant generation assets. A summary and a reconciliation of GAAP to operating earnings can be found on Schedules 2 and 3 of our earnings release kit. Now moving to results by operating segment. At Dominion Virginia Power, EBIT for 2010 was $891 million, near the midpoint of our original guidance range of $866 million to $930 million. The benefits of favorable weather in a regulated electric service territory were largely offset by major storm and service restoration costs and other investments to improve reliability. EBIT for Dominion Energy was $862 million compared to our original guidance range of $852 million to $894 million. Lower fuel costs for Dominion gas transmission…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the Daniel Eggers, Crédit Suisse. Dan Eggers - Crédit Suisse AG: Just on the bonus depreciation number, it's an awfully wide range. I know there's still some uncertainty on the rules, but could you just help us think about the impact of some of the rate base growth numbers that you guys would’ve projected, as far as through the bucket out where you see the bunch depreciation, which projects or which businesses are going to be most impacted? Benefited, I guess is probably a better way of saying that.

Mark McGettrick

Analyst

This is Mark. When we get the final clarification on this, we’re going to go ahead and buy business segment showed by the exact impact. But as a general ruling and the reason for the wide range for us is that, as you know, we have several very large projects, and the biggest of which is the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center, which is next year, that’s $1.8 billion. Bear Garden, our gas facility, closes this year over $600 million. Brayton Point cooling towers will commend this year and next. So depending if they get 50% or 100% bonus depreciation, that's the reason for the wide range. I would say that the main drivers in terms of the businesses that I would see a rate base growth are really based on the riders in Virginia for Beechach and for Bear Garden, as well as for the two large transmission projects. We are very comfortable with the bottom of the range at the 1.6 level. I think the question will be based on the final rules, which should be available in the next several months. Will that number approach to the top of the range part, or will stay at the 1.6 billion?

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Paul Patterson, Glenrock Associates.

Paul Patterson - Glenrock Associates

Analyst

I just wanted to touch base with you on the impairment for the Generation assets. What specifically caused that to $32 million? I'm sorry if I missed it in the release, I went through it.

Mark McGettrick

Analyst

No problem, Paul. There were two issues there. Earlier this year, we impaired State Line based on the one-hour SO2 rule, and we had a small true up to that impairment of about $15 million. The other impairment or it's a small impairment we made to Salem based on analysis we did on future cash flows, and so that plant was impaired by about $19 million.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Paul Fremont, Jefferies. Paul Fremont - Jefferies & Company, Inc.: It looks like the processing levels for midstream are going to be 180 to 190 in 2012. Given the sizable expansion that's taking place, when would we begin to see sort of material increases in that number? And what would be the level of processing capacity that you would ultimately go to in '13 and '14?

Thomas Farrell

Analyst

Paul, we'll let Gary Sypolt to answer that question, who runs our Energy business.

Gary Sypolt

Analyst

Really, it's driven by how quickly wells having high BTU are drilled. And we are seeing drilling occurring and success occurring. With that, the expectation of additional liquids are coming. Now we've announced the project that the Marcellus 404, which would be able to handle about 300 million a day and fractionation of about 32,000 barrels a day. And we think that timeframe's probably 2014 to 2015 to get that, more like 2014, I think, to get that in the service. So with that, we’ll hopefully see the increase in volume that you see. The numbers that you mentioned for 2012's pretty much on target with where we would expect that to be.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Jonathan Arnold, Deutsche Bank.

Jonathan Arnold - Deutsche Bank AG

Analyst

Can you give us any color in the hedging you did at Millstone? Was that sort of a round-the-clock type product? Or was it more peak, more off-peak, can you give us any insight there?

Mark McGettrick

Analyst

Jonathan, that was a round-the-clock.

Jonathan Arnold - Deutsche Bank AG

Analyst

Mark, any color on sort of how you're approaching your open coal position, given what's going on in the market? I remember last time coal prices ran, you were pretty confident you'd be able to transact that prices lower than what we see on the screen. So interested in any color you have at this time?

Mark McGettrick

Analyst

Well, yes, as you can see from the hedge schedules, we haven't made any progress on our coal facilities in Northeast for 2012, are still unhedged. I know Jonathan, you follow the coal markets closely. We honestly had a at least a temporary run up based on summer challenges in Australia and in the South America on international coal, which is also driven up Central Ap prices higher than what we believe are sustainable. So we're going to be cautious on hedging our New England coal plant until we see some collection on coal. It's no surprise that these Dutch spreads are very small. And those units right now based on elevated coal prices and depressed power prices, so we're going to be very careful going in. We did hedge a significant amount at Millstone, over the last quarter were really liked the prices there on the power, that ran up. There was some pressure based on basis that helped the power spreads. But on coal, we want to be cautious, and we still believe that coal prices as we move to this year and Central Ap will be a normalized down to a lower level.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Hugh Wynne, Sanford Bernstein.

Hugh Wynne - Bernstein Research

Analyst

My questions are around the Merchant business. I see that in the fourth quarter for the first time of many quarters, the merchant generation margin was stable. And you're mentioning, however, that it's likely to be a drag on earnings in '11. So I was hoping you might give some color about the extent of that drag? And perhaps most importantly, when do you think the earnings of that segment will bottom out?

Mark McGettrick

Analyst

We think, Hugh, as we've said, that '11, '12 is the bottoming period of that. If you look at an EBIT basis from 2010 to 2011, we expect our Merchant Generation businesses to still drag year-over-year based on the open positions and previous hedged positions. You'll see in the guidance kit that should come out later today, that it's a fairly significant drag in '11, that's in our guidance. EBIT, around the range of $500 million or so. But again, you'll see that as the bottom. And in one of the charts that we showed as we went through the script, we think that based on current forwards, that's the bottom for us, and we should start to see progress from there.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Michael Lapides, Goldman Sachs.

Michael Lapides - Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Analyst

Date on your capital spending outlook at the subsidiary level or at the business unit level.

Thomas Hamlin

Analyst

We missed the beginning of that question, sorry.

Michael Lapides - Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Analyst

Can you just give an update on you capital spending and capital growth plans? Have there been any changes since, I think, you last discussed the E&I at the segment level or the consolidated level?

Mark McGettrick

Analyst

Michael, if you look at '11, you're looking at total capital of about $3.9 billion, consistent with what we've showed before. And in 2012, about $4.6 billion. The growth component of that is $2.1 billion in 2011 and $2.6 billion at 2012. Again, I think these numbers are very consistent with what we've shown previously.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Steve Fleishman, Bank of America.

Steven Fleishman - BofA Merrill Lynch

Analyst

You mentioned, I know, you, going back to your analyst meeting, mentioned having a lot of outages scheduled for 2011 on the merchant. I think at the meeting you actually gave a number for the impact of that.

Thomas Farrell

Analyst

There are five major outages. Three of them are -- we have all three of the merchants. Vehicular units have refueling outages. Brayton Point, the cooling towers that Mark mentioned, part of it is done late this year, a little bit of it’s in '12. So Brayton will be out for much longer period than would be normal. And last is because they've been running Fairless Works above plan, we have to do a maintenance outage on Fairless Works in '11, which earlier than was anticipated originally.

Steven Fleishman - BofA Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Is there a number, a cost of all these?

Mark McGettrick

Analyst

We said in May, and I think it's consistent, Steve, that you should expect overhead expenses to be up $70 million to $80 million year-over-year based on these outages.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Paul Fremont, Jefferies. Paul Fremont - Jefferies & Company, Inc.: I just wanted to go back to I guess your opening statement on mergers and acquisitions. What would it have been with respect to either Progress or Duke that would've made, in your view, a good fit potentially for Dominion? And how should we sort of think about the types of candidates that you think would be a good fit, absent these two companies?

Thomas Farrell

Analyst

I'm going to revert to -- I've said all we're going to say about M&A. Since I became a CEO over five years ago, I've never talked about it. I'm not going to talk about it in the future, but there was lots of rumors running around. I appreciate folks' interest in it, but I think it's just better not to talk about it one way or another. But I understand your question.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Nathan Judge, Atlantic Equities.

Nathan Judge - Atlantic Equities

Analyst

I wanted to ask if you could expand on your Cove Point comments, specifically what kind of CapEx opportunity are you talking about. And perhaps over what time period, and what are your milestones there?

Thomas Farrell

Analyst

Nathan, you're referring, I assume to the comment about potential liquefaction facility. We've done work around what it' cost would be. We're not far enough along to announce what that would be. We have discussed the potential for liquefaction facilities at Cove Point with the number of various major companies. If you think about Cove Point where it sit there at mid-Atlantic, a couple hundred miles in Marcellus region, it's got all the facilities it needs other than the liquefaction itself. The pipe is there, the terminals are there, the logistics span appear. If the Marcellus is going to build out the way it is expected, to reach its full potential people are going to have to explore exportation of the gas. Like the import facility, we won't enter into a speculative capital investment there. If we go ahead with the liquefaction facility, it will be because it's tied to a firm supply for a long period of time and a firm customer on the other side for a long period of time. We plan on, if we do it, it’ll be acting like we do now as the middleman, in between the suppliers and the customers.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Randolph Wrighton, Barrow, Hanley.

Randolph Wrighton

Analyst

My question is on Cove Point as well. You answered part of it, Tom. I'm just curious, shortening the contract length from 18 years to 10 years, seems like a pretty substantial concession with nothing else in hand. Can you give, I guess, any additional insight on I guess the criteria you're looking at? And specifically, I mean, if you were to fund a multibillion-dollar project like this, how would it change anything the financing front?

Thomas Farrell

Analyst

We're going to work with our partner at the Cove Point expansion in development of infrastructure out of the Marcellus region in other ways, in addition to a potential liquefaction facilities. About the period of time, the length of time -- we're talking about for 10 years is what we need, we believe, to make sure that this is going to pan out, if it is, and we will have the flexibility to do that. We're not far enough along on the financing issues, in the cost, and how it would be financed, and who would be partners to talk about potential financing that would come out of it.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Paul Patterson, Glenrock Associates.

Paul Patterson - Glenrock Associates

Analyst

The electric sales growth that you guys are planning, could you give us a little bit more flavor for that?

Thomas Farrell

Analyst

Could you repeat that?

Paul Patterson - Glenrock Associates

Analyst

The electric sales growth that you guys see.

Mark McGettrick

Analyst

Yes, Paul. We look on that next year on a sales growth over weather normalized 10 of about 2.7%. Now it may sound like a large number, so I want to break it down for you. 2.7%, about half of that growth is for specific data centers and base consolidation that we know will come online next year. So the real sales growth for commercial and residential customers that we're looking at is about 1.3% year-over-year. If you like to think about the last two years for us, we've been fairly flat in growth. And so we think at 1.3%, that's a fairly modest number that growth would be this year versus last.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Michael Worms, BMO.

Michael Worms - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst

Can you guys just kind of give us an idea of the timing of the Warren County plant, that construction?

Mark McGettrick

Analyst

Warren County, as Tom mentioned, got its air permit in December of 2010. It's out for EPC bid, and we expect to get those bids in this quarter or early next quarter and evaluate those. The commercial operations date would be probably early '15, late '14 timeframe.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached the conclusion of our call. Mr. McGettrick, do you have any closing remarks?

Mark McGettrick

Analyst

Yes. So thank you very much. I wanted to take this opportunity to let everybody know that a key member of our Investor Relations team is going to move on to a new and challenging job in the company running our business planning department. That would be Greg Snyder, who is the Director of Investor Relations for us. He’s been involved interfacing with everybody on this call and many others for the past seven years. He's done a fantastic job for us. And we really appreciate the contributions he's made. We wish him well in his new endeavors. He's actually just going down one floor. So we have a place to find him if we need help, but really appreciate everything he's done. And then finally, just to remind everybody, our first quarter earnings call is tentatively scheduled for April 28. We appreciate the time and attention today on this call. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This does concludes this morning's teleconference. You may now disconnect your lines. And enjoy your day.