Operator
Operator
Good morning, and welcome to the Dominion Resources and Dominion Midstream Partners' First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, each of your lines is in a listen-only mode. At the conclusion of today's presentation, we will open the floor for questions. At that time, instructions will be given as to the procedure to follow if you would like to ask a question. I'd now like to turn the call over to Tom Hamlin, Vice President of Investor Relations and Financial Planning for the Safe Harbor statement. Thomas E. Hamlin - VP-Financial Analysis & Investor Relations: Good morning, and welcome to the first quarter 2015 earnings conference call for Dominion Resources and Dominion Midstream Partners. During this call, we will refer to certain schedules included in this morning's earnings releases 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 the Investor Relations page on our website, register for email alerts and view our first quarter earnings documents. Our website addresses are dom.com and dommidstream.com. In addition to the earnings release kit, we have included a slide presentation on our website that will follow 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 reports on Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q for discussion of factors that may cause results to differ from management's projections, forecast, estimates and expectations. Also on this call, we will discuss the 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 2015, as well as operating earnings before depreciation and amortization, interest and taxes commonly referred to as EBITDA. Reconciliation of our non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures we are able to calculate and report are contained in the earnings release kit and Dominion Midstream's press release. 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 discuss our earnings results for the first quarter and our earnings guidance for the second quarter and full year 2015. Tom will review our operating and regulatory activities and review the progress we've made on our growth plans. I will now turn the call over to Mark McGettrick. Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Good morning. Dominion Resources reported operating earnings of $0.99 per share for the first quarter of 2015, which was at the top of our guidance range of $0.85 per share to $1 per share. Favorable weather condition in our electric service area, particularly in February, added about $0.05 per share compared to normal. Higher-than-expected earnings from our Marcellus farmout activities were $0.04 per share above guidance as we closed a new agreement on development rights for 11,000 acres and amended the terms of an existing agreement. On the negative side, margins from our merchant power business were below expectations, largely due to lower power prices in New England. GAAP earnings were $0.91 per share for the first quarter. The principal difference between GAAP and operating earnings was a charge associated with Virginia legislation enacted in February that required the write-off of Virginia Power prior period deferred fuel cost during the first quarter of 2015. A reconciliation of operating earnings to reported earnings can be found on schedule two of the earnings release kit. Now moving to results by operating segment. At Dominion Virginia Power, the EBITDA for the first quarter was $402 million, which was at the top of its guidance range. Kilowatt hour sales were above expectations due to colder-than-normal weather. Excluding weather, sales growth for the quarter was about 1.5%, slightly higher than our full year expectation of 1%. Dominion Generation produced EBITDA of $676 million in the first quarter, which was in the middle of its guidance range. Earnings from utility generation were above expectations due to colder-than-normal weather, while merchant generation was below expectations due to lower-than-expected power prices. First quarter EBITDA for Dominion Energy was $413 million, which was above the top of its guidance range. The colder weather and higher earnings from farmout activities drove the strong results. On a consolidated basis, interest expenses and income taxes were in line with our guidance. Overall, we are pleased with our first quarter operating results. For the first quarter of 2015, Dominion Midstream Partners produced adjusted EBITDA of $11.8 million and distributable cash flow of $11.9 million, all consistent with management's expectations. On April 22, Dominion Midstream's board of directors declared a distribution of $0.175 per unit payable on May 15 to unitholders of record on May 5. On April 1, Dominion Midstream acquired Dominion Carolina Gas Transmission from Dominion Resources for a combination of debt and units valued at approximately $495 million. The acquisition is supportive of management's plan to grow limited partner distributions at a 22% compound annual rate through the end of the decade. We do not expect to drop any more assets into the partnership this year to reach our projected fourth quarter annualized distribution rate of $0.85 per unit. Moving to cash flow and treasury activities at Dominion, funds from operations were $1.1 billion for the first three months of the year. Commercial paper and letters of credit outstanding at the end of the quarter were $3.25 billion. We had $4.5 billion of credit facilities at the end of the first quarter. And taking into account cash and short-term investments, we ended the quarter with liquidity of $1.4 billion. For statements of cash flow and liquidity, please see pages 14 and 25 of the earnings release kit. Finally in the financing area, we began an aftermarket program earlier this year to raise $500 million of common equity. Through the first week of April, we had raised $264 million and expect to complete our equity issuance by year-end. Now, moving to earnings guidance, our operating earnings guidance for the second quarter of 2015 is $0.65 per share to $0.75 per share, compared to operating earnings of $0.62 per share for the second quarter of 2014. Positive earning drivers for the quarter compared to last year are return to normal weather, higher revenues from rider projects, the absence of a refueling outage at Millstone. Negative earning drivers for the quarter were higher operating expenses. Our operating earnings guidance for the year remains $3.50 per share to $3.85 per share. As to hedging, you can find our hedge positions on page 27 of the earnings release kit. As of mid-April, we have hedged 88% of our expected 2015 production at Millstone and 60% of our expected 2016 production. So let me summarize my financial review. Operating earnings were $0.99 per share for the first quarter of 2015, at the top of our guidance range. Favorable weather and higher earnings from our farmout activities were the principal factors in the strong performance. Operating results for Dominion Midstream Partners were in line with management's expectations, and the Dominion Carolina Gas Transmission business was dropped into the partnership effective April 1. And finally, our operating earnings guidance for the second quarter of 2015 is $0.65 per share to $0.75 per share. Our operating earnings guidance for the full year remains $3.50 per share to $3.85 per share. I would now turn the call over to Tom Farrell. Thomas F. Farrell - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning. Our business units delivered strong operational and safety performance in the first quarter. Year-to-date, OSHA recordables for all units are consistent with their respective targets for the year. Dominion ranked first in safety in the Southeast Exchange in the fourth quarter of 2014. Our nuclear fleet continues to operate well. The net capacity factor our six units was 97.7% for the first three months of the year. Our Power Generation group also performed well during the quarter with record production from our combined cycle and large coal plates and a first ever six-month breaker-to-breaker run for the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center. Virginia Power experienced a new record peak demand of 21,651 megawatts on February 20, exceeding the previous winter peaks by 9% and the previous record summer peak by 8%. Our natural gas transportation storage and delivery businesses also operated well during the recent winter. Despite the cold, DTI had no interruption to firm service customers. The system experienced a record storage turn of 67.4 billion cubic feet for the month of February and set a record throughput of 7.24 Bcf on February 15. Our natural gas distribution companies also met the higher demand brought on by the cold weather safely and efficiently. Before I discuss the progress we are making on our growth projects, I want to update you on a number of regulatory and legislative issues affecting the company. As many of you are aware, Virginia General Assembly passed legislation in the recent session modifying the base rate review process for the next several years. The changes were advanced because of the uncertainties and potential impact to the state from the proposed Clean Power Plan being formulated by the Environmental Protection Agency. In its current form, this plan would impose some of the strictest CO2 emission standards in the Eastern U.S. on the Commonwealth of Virginia and could result in substantial cost for our customers and have a negative impact on our economy. A study by the Virginia State Corporation Commission estimated total compliance cost of $5 billion to $6 billion, excluding up to $2 billion for the cost of potentially retiring much of our existing fleet of coal-fired generating plant. The recently enacted legislation suspends the biannual review process during the early years of the compliance period for the new CO2 standards. During this time, the company will file its integrated resource plan annually with the commission to include various compliance strategies and has committed to seek a solution to the new rules, which will allow the continuing use of coal as an energy resource in our state. We will file our integrated resource plan with the commission on July 1 of this year. We filed our review of earnings for 2013 and 2014 on March 31, showing an earned return of 10.13%, which was below the top of the allowed range of 10.7%. We expect the commission order in this review by the end of November. The biannual review process will resume in 2022 covering earnings for the calendar years 2020 and 2021. Now for an update on our growth plans. Construction of the 1,358 megawatt combined cycle facility in Brunswick County was about 60% complete through the end of the first quarter. There are approximately 1,140 workers on site. The turbine building construction is in progress and all field-erected tanks were in various stages of construction or hydro testing. Construction of the air-cooled condenser is approximately 75% complete. The facility is on budget and on time for a mid-2016 commercial operation date. Dominion announced that Greensville County will be the site for the next three-on-one gas-fired combined cycle facility to be constructed in Virginia. We expect to file a request with Virginia State Corporation Commission for CPCN and Rate Rider for this project in July. If approved, this 1,600 megawatt station is scheduled for commercial operation in late 2018. During the first quarter, the company announced plans to invest $700 million to build several utility scale solar projects in Virginia, totaling up to 400 megawatts. Legislation enacted by the General Assembly states that the development of 500 megawatts of large-scale solar by utilities within the Commonwealth is in the public interest. Also during the first quarter, Dominion announced the development of a 20 megawatt solar facility at our Remington Power Station and filed for an A-6 Rider and CPCN in January. If approved, the facility would be in service by late 2016. Construction is also on schedule for five merchant solar plants totaling 132 megawatts scheduled for service this year. The largest of these projects is our 50 megawatt Pavant project in Utah, which is currently under construction. Two projects in California totaling 42 megawatts should be in service by the end of this quarter. We also recently announced the acquisitions of the Richland Solar project, the 20 megawatt facility in Georgia, and the Alamo Solar project, a 20 megawatt facility located in California. Both projects will be operational later this year and bring our merchant, solar portfolio to 384 megawatts. Our plan is to grow this portfolio to 450 megawatts by the end of this year and to 625 megawatts by the end of next year. At Dominion Virginia Power, we have a number of electric transmission projects at various stages of regulatory approval and construction. During the first quarter, $199 million of transmission assets were placed into service. Electric transmissions capital budget for growth projects, including NERC, RTEP, maintenance, as well as security-related investments will average over $700 million per year through at least the remainder of this decade. Progress on our growth plan for Dominion Energy continues as well. At our February 9 meeting for analysts and investors, we highlighted a number of producer outlet and market access projects underway at Dominion Energy. Five of the nine producer outlet projects, which are designed to relieve congestion and move Marcellus gas out of the basin, are in service, while remaining four are all on time and on budget for completion over the next two years. Similarly, all four market access projects, which are customer-driven expansions, are on time and on budget for completion in 2016 and 2017. On March 31, Dominion East Ohio filed an application with the Public Utility Commission of Ohio for expansion of the PIR program. If approved, DEO's annual capital investment would increase from $160 million to $200 million by 2018 and by 3% per year for the following three years. In West Virginia, legislation was passed authorizing the West Virginia PSC to approve expedited cost recovery of natural gas utility infrastructure projects. Dominion Hope plans to file an application later this year for this replacement and expansion program. During the first quarter, we closed on a new farm-out agreement and adjusted the terms of another. In March, DTI closed on an agreement to convey approximately 11,000 acres of Marcellus Shale development rights underneath one of its storage fields. The agreement provides for an upfront payment of $27 million plus an ongoing overriding royalty interest in gas produced from the acreage. Also in March, DTI and a natural gas producer amended the terms of a December 2013 agreement covering 79,000 acres of Marcellus Shale development rights for payments over a nine-year period. That amendment resulted in immediate conveyance of approximately 9,000 acres or 11% of the overall development rights and a two-year extension of the term of the original agreement. We are continuing to work for the commencement of construction on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the related Supply Header Project. We began the FERC filing process last November and expect to make the formal filing in September. On February 27, FERC issued a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement for both projects. During March, FERC held 10 scoping meetings at locations along the pipeline route. We have been continuing our public outreach efforts. 11 open houses for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and two open houses for the Supply Header were held in January. Three additional open houses were held in March for proposed reroutes. Surveying is about 72% complete and engineering is about 42% complete. We awarded the pipe manufacturing contract in January to Dura-Bond Industries in Pennsylvania, and expect to award the pipeline construction contract this summer. We should begin construction in the fourth quarter of next year and begin operations in November 2018. Dominion completed the acquisition of Carolina Gas Transmission from SCANA in January, and sold it to Dominion Midstream Partners in April. This transaction is illustrative of the kind of third-party acquisitions we will be seeking to supplement Dominion's already large inventory of MLP eligible assets that support our growth targets for Dominion Midstream. Now, an update on our Cove Point Liquefaction Project. Construction is continuing at the site and is on time and on budget. The first foundations have been poured and the first structural steel has been erected. Engineering is nearly 80% complete, and approximately 85% of the engineered equipment has been procured as of the end of the first quarter. So to summarize, our business has delivered strong operating and safety performance in the first quarter. Brunswick County construction project is proceeding on time and on budget. We continue to work toward a formal filing with FERC for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in September. And construction of the Cove Point Liquefaction Project is continuing on time and on budget. Thank you, and we are ready for your questions.