Earnings Labs

Dominion Energy, Inc. (D)

Q1 2011 Earnings Call· Fri, Apr 29, 2011

$62.75

-0.24%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Dominion's First 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 statement.

Thomas Hamlin

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Dominion's first quarter 2011 earnings conference call. During this call, we will refer to certain schedules, including in this morning's earnings release and pages from our earnings release kit. Schedules in the earnings release 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 first quarter 2011 earnings document. 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 discussions. 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 first quarter operating earnings and our operating earnings guidance for the second 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, are 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. Mark will begin with a discussion of the earnings results for the first quarter, as well as our guidance for the second quarter. He will also discuss our financing activity and provide an update on our hedge positions. Tom will discuss our operating and regulatory activities, and we will then take your questions. I will now turn the call over to Mark McGettrick.

Mark McGettrick

Analyst · Glenrock Associates

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Dominion had a very strong first quarter. Operating earnings were $0.93 per share, which was in the upper half of our guidance range of $0.85 to $0.95 per share. All of our businesses performed very well. GAAP earnings were $0.82 per share for the first quarter. The principal differences between GAAP and operating earnings for the quarter was a write-off of the remaining book value of our State Line Power Station and the impact of our decision to remove the financial results of our Kewaunee Nuclear power station from operating earnings based on our plans to sell the unit. This is the same treatment we used when selling Peoples Gas last year. Tom Farrel will discuss the strategic rationale for selling Kewaunee in a few minutes. Regarding State Line, remember that last year, we wrote down the value of this asset after the 1-hour SO2 rules were finalized by the EPA, shortening its expected life to the end of 2017, because we would not be installing control equipment at the site. In light of the recently proposed Air Toxics Rule by the EPA, we have elected not to bid the capacity of State Line into the upcoming PJM Capacity Auction for the 2014 to 2015 planning period. This decision triggered an impairment test for State Line and as a result, we have written off the remaining book value of the plant. Under current market conditions, we will be retiring the plant no later than the middle of 2014. A summary and a reconciliation of GAAP to operating earnings can be found on Schedules 2 and 3 of the earnings release kit. Now moving to results by operating segment. At Dominion Virginia Power, EBIT for the first quarter was $290 million, exceeding the…

Thomas Farrell

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Good morning. I have a number of topics to cover today. As you know, Dominion is making significant demand-driven investments in all of our regulated lines of business. These investments support our goal of growing our operating earnings per share by 5% to 6% beginning next year and driving a minimum of 65% to 75% of those earnings from our regulated businesses. As we have said in the past, we do not plan to invest new growth capital into our Merchant Generation business and would look over time to optimize the value of that portfolio. The principal sources of income from our merchant generation fleet are our New England baseload plants. It is in that context that I want to discuss our decision to pursue the sale of our Kewaunee Nuclear power station. Dominion purchased Kewaunee in July 2005. Over the nearly 6 years of our ownership, we have returned the operations and safety performance at Kewaunee to among the best in the industry. Kewaunee was the first nuclear plant in the Midwest to be sold by its original owners and the beginning of a series of transactions by other single nuclear plant operators in that region. When we purchased Kewaunee, it was part of a strategic plan to acquire 1 or more of these other units and build a business around that portfolio. While we were correct in believing that other plants would become available, we were unsuccessful in winning the respective auctions for those plants. Without the other units, the strategic rationale for continuing to own Kewaunee was diminished, and we believe it is time to pursue a sale of the plant. Unlike the rest of our Midwest Generation fleet, Kewaunee is part of the MISO Interconnection, not PJM. We believe that baseload generation, especially nuclear in Wisconsin…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Paul Patterson with Glenrock Associates.

Paul Patterson - Glenrock Associates

Analyst · Glenrock Associates

I just wanted to touch base with you regarding the earnings impact from Kewaunee. I wasn't completely clear on that.

Mark McGettrick

Analyst · Glenrock Associates

Paul, this is Mark. The earnings impact in the first quarter was about $20 million after tax, because we had a rescheduled -- a refueling outage, excuse me, at Kewaunee in the quarter. And for the rest of the year, although, it's difficult to estimate specifically, we would expect any earnings impact to be immaterial for Kewaunee.

Paul Patterson - Glenrock Associates

Analyst · Glenrock Associates

Okay. So going forward, we shouldn't expect that much coming from this result [ph]?

Mark McGettrick

Analyst · Glenrock Associates

That's correct.

Paul Patterson - Glenrock Associates

Analyst · Glenrock Associates

Okay. That's all I have.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Neil Mehta with Goldman Sachs.

Neil Mehta - Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

First, on weather-normal trends for demand on the quarter, what are you seeing by customer class residential, industrial and commercial?

Mark McGettrick

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

On weather-normalized basis, we saw residential sales up 2.2%, commercial sales up 4%, which is significant. And if you recall, we said this year, our sales growth this year is going to be about 2.7% annually, driven in half of that by data centers. So we're starting to see some of those data centers come in, and so that produced 4% on commercial. Our industrial sales, which are a small piece of our business, are down 8%, and governmental is up, almost 4%. So overall, weather-normalized, we're up over 2% quarter-over-quarter, which is consistent with our projections.

Neil Mehta - Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

And second question, it sounds like you guys think there's some upside to New England dark spreads, is that a function of your view on natural gas, coal? Or just the heat rates in the region?

Thomas Farrell

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Well, the heat rates have been extraordinarily strong in the first quarter and continue to be fairly strong. So we saw some upside in the first quarter. And thus far, you would -- we would expect some. In the second quarter, we'll see how long that lasts. But thus far, it's been heat-rate driven.

Neil Mehta - Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Got it. All right.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Anthony Crowdell with Jefferies. Anthony Crowdell - Jefferies & Company, Inc.: The junior varsity squad's on another call so I'm just filling in here. With New England, you guys are talking about maybe dark spreads, and I want to know if you could give some color on rail cost for coal. I mean, the rail lines are stating that there is some price increases going through, and I wonder if you can give some color on maybe some market -- on where the market is, and also, maybe how long do you guys are hedged for your rail costs?

Thomas Farrell

Analyst · Jefferies

Well, in New England market it's not an issue for us at all, because we barge in or ship in all of our coal into the Northeast. In our other regulated contracts, we have long-term contracts on rail, some of which have fuel surcharges on them. But we don't give have any specifics out on a contract-by-contract basis. Anthony Crowdell - Jefferies & Company, Inc.: Are you seeing barge costs for shipping going down? We're hearing that there's been -- there's such a glut of available vessels to ship that it's really put downward pressure on delivery costs. Is that accurate or that's actually completely wrong?

Mark McGettrick

Analyst · Jefferies

Well, we haven't seen that yet, because most of our contracts are a little longer dated. We also have an ownership position in the ship ourselves. So we haven't seen that come to our -- or looked at that at this point.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Rudy Tolentino with Morgan Stanley.

Rudolph Tolentino - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

What I'm wondering is does the recent FERC MOPR decision impact how you approach future RPM auctions, given that now all the resources will be subject to the minimum MOPR price rule?

Mark McGettrick

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

It doesn't change our view at all.

Rudolph Tolentino - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

With Warren County project, would that be subject to the MOPR rule?

Mark McGettrick

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

No, we're not. This is not a constrained zone, so, we essentially bid in at 0. So that is not going to be impacted.

Unknown Analyst -

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Okay. Even if it's a new resource?

Mark McGettrick

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

That would not be impacted.

Rudolph Tolentino - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Okay. And then just out of curiosity, I guess, the capacity revenues, does that essentially flow through to the customer benefits?

Mark McGettrick

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

I couldn't hear the question. I'm sorry, could you repeat it?

Rudolph Tolentino - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

For the Dominion -- for the Virginia customers, the capacity revenue essentially flows through to the customers?

Mark McGettrick

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Yes, it is.

Operator

Operator

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

Mark McGettrick

Analyst · Glenrock Associates

Yes. Thank you. Just a quick reminder that we'll be filing our 10-Q tomorrow, and for the second quarter earnings release, we're currently scheduled for July 28. Thank you for your attention today.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This does conclude this morning's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines and enjoy your day.