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Dominion Energy, Inc. (D)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Wed, Aug 3, 2016

$62.89

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Dominion Resources and Dominion Midstream Partners Second 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. Instructions will be given after the procedure to follow if you would like to ask a question. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Tom Hamlin, Vice President of Investor Relations and Financial Planning, for the Safe Harbor Statement.

Thomas E. Hamlin - Vice President, Financial Planning and Investor Relations

Management

Good morning and welcome to the second quarter 2016 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've not done so, I encourage you to visit the Investor Relations page on our website, register for email alerts and view our second 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 releases 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 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. Reconciliation of our non-GAAP measures to 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 second quarter and Dominion's earnings guidance for the third quarter and…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operators Instructions] We will take our first question from Julien Dumoulin-Smith with UBS.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Hey. Good morning. Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: Good morning, Julien.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

So, perhaps just to follow up here on 2017, can you elaborate a little bit on where you stand? Obviously, a little bit preempting guidance here later this year, but where do you stand relative to Millstone and hedging? And provide a little bit more thought on timing for hedging, given where the commodity markets has been this year? Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: Hey, Julien, this is Mark. As you can see from our hedge schedules, we didn't hedge anything in the second quarter of this year and we actually don't expect to hedge much in the third quarter of this year either. Our view is that the oversupply that occur because of a very mild winter and a very high production cycle over the last year or so is normalizing. And we think with a warm summer this year, going into the fall, that storage will be full early, and we will see more bullish price signals in the Northeast, as we go into the winter period. That being said, we've referenced a number of times that as we go into a calendar year, and certainly by the call at the end of January or early February, we would expect Millstone to be hedged between 80% and 90%, which it always has been. But our hedge view is that we are going to wait till later this year to place more hedges on that facility.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Got it. And therefore holding off on providing anymore formal commentary on 2017, right? Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: That's right. I mean, we always give guidance for the calendar year typically in January, and that's still our view for 2017. But there's no question that the Millstone revenue stream is driven by power prices, are a big driver to 2017, one way or the other, and we want to get a very clear view on that before we give our annual guidance for 2017.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

And also to clarify, I know you're trying to time things for hedges on 2017. Just, and going forward, what are your expectations for your hedging policy? Anything beyond kind of year-one hedge in January? Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: Well, we typically over the years have averaged hedges over a three-year period pretty routinely. But we changed that about a year or so ago when we saw this very steep, very quick decline in power prices, which we do not think is sustainable. Obviously too, Julien, and you watch this closely that there's a lot of legislative activity occurring in the Northeast that could well impact nuclear and power prices in general. We want to see, if we can get a little more clarity on some of those activities. So, we will be market-sensitive to this. But unless the forward curves move, we're not going to be in a hurry to hedge right away beyond 2017.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Got it. And then just following up on a separate subject here, on ITCs, can you clarify a little bit, where do you stand on 2017 relative to plan? I know you guys talked about $0.10 to $0.15. You've announced a few projects thus far I think for next year in VEPCO. And can you also clarify which projects qualify for the ITCs and which ones don't under VEPCO? And then maybe just a further detail what's the total for 2016, just to get it out there, between VEPCO and (22:38)? Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: Okay, there's like eight questions here, Julien, I think, but I'll be glad to answer all of them. Let's start with this year's ITCs, based on projects that have been announced. And we talked about this on previous calls, the projects in Utah, which are very large projects, will produce between $0.30 and $0.35 of earnings from ITCs. And that range is really based on whatever the actual capital cost might be at the end, so that's a good planning range. In addition, we have one other project that we anticipate ITCs on this year in Virginia. It's an Eastern Shore project contracted with Amazon, and we would expect ITCs in a range of probably $0.06 to $0.08 from that project. So that makes up 2016. 2017, I mentioned, if I recall on the January call, that for planning purposes, we had anticipated between $0.10 and $0.15 of ITCs in 2017 based on the activity that we knew of at that time. Since the first of the year, we've seen a tremendous amount of interest from a number of parties in Virginia, state government, military facilities, data centers and others, to step up the generation solar build in Virginia. And I would expect that that number for 2017 could easily double from that $0.10 to $0.15, and be in the $0.30 range, based on the activity we know of today. Now, we have not announced all the projects for 2017. But again, based on the pipeline of interest and the folks that we are discussing projects with, I would expect, again, ITCs in 2017 probably now to range in the $0.30 range.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Great. Thanks for taking all the questions.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Stephen Byrd with Morgan Stanley. Stephen Calder Byrd - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hi. Good morning. Thomas F. Farrell - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning. Stephen Calder Byrd - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: I wanted to discuss the power demand growth outlook in Virginia. Just wondered if you could give us your latest thinking. We've heard from you before in terms of your overall take. Just curious what you're seeing lately in terms of the outlook for power demand growth? Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: Stephen, this is Mark. Our view, as we've stated in the past, currently is about a 1% power demand growth rate to stay. If you look at the first half of this year, it's been less than that. It's actually slightly down to the previous period. But the mix is pretty interesting. For example, in the second quarter, although sales were down about 1% over a similar period last year, revenues were actually right at budget at about 1% higher. And that's because residential sales were very strong in the quarter. So, we still believe that 1% sales growth over the next couple of years is certainly in the realm of possibility and that's in our planning data. We would like to see stronger commercial sales growth outside of data centers. And we think that will again be driven by spending from the government, where it was curtailed during the sequestration and is starting to come back, but it's been slow. So we, again, believe that 1% growth is achievable and a realistic goal as we go forward. Stephen Calder Byrd - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Understood. And weather adjusted for the quarter. How did it turn out in terms of maybe for residential and commercial in particular? Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: For the second quarter, weather normalized, residential sales were up 1.5%. Data centers were up almost 21%. Commercial customers, excluding the data centers, were down about 3%, and industrial customers were down about 9%. And that's a very large percentage of industrials, as you know, industrials make up a very small portion of our revenue streams. But they were down pretty strongly for the quarter. Stephen Calder Byrd - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Understood. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Greg Gordon with Evercore ISI.

Greg Gordon - Evercore ISI

Analyst · Evercore ISI.

Good morning, fellas. Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: Good morning, Greg.

Greg Gordon - Evercore ISI

Analyst · Evercore ISI.

So, when you talk about the demand for solar in Virginia, I mean, as I am thinking about the different business units, VEPCO gas operations, merchant power, should we assume that that – where will those projects reside? Will they reside at VEPCO or would they reside at another operating company? Thomas F. Farrell - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Greg, it's likely to be a mix of both, depending upon who the customer is and what their interest is. If you – rather, we can get into a discussion of tax normalization if you'd like, but I think it might mind-numb everybody.

Greg Gordon - Evercore ISI

Analyst · Evercore ISI.

Yes, please, let's not do that. Thomas F. Farrell - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, so we're not going to do anything that sort of affect our tax normalization at Virginia Power in a regulated business, it's a regulated part of the business unit. So if you do want to regulate an entity, you cannot take advantage of the tax credit, unless you do it through a market-based rate. Two of the projects that were approved earlier this year, the Commission preferred a regulated rate of return. So those will not get – we will not take advantage of the tax credits in that situation. The military, one that we announced this week at Oceana Naval Air Station and the Amazon projects underway on the Eastern Shore, are both going to be done through unregulated arms of the company. And we will be able to take advantage of the tax credits. So, we'll move through time. Mark mentioned, there has been a tremendous up-tick in interest in our customers in Virginia and elsewhere for us to participate in solar projects and customers that we deal within Virginia, but those same customers have been looking for us to deal with it elsewhere, because we have a reputation of getting projects done on time and on budget. So we have a lot in the pipeline right now. But it will be a mix, depending upon what the customers' needs are and where we are in the process.

Greg Gordon - Evercore ISI

Analyst · Evercore ISI.

Well, that's fortuitous, because obviously with uncertainty around where the Millstone revenues are going to be, that could be a good substitute if power prices don't recover. Is that fair? Thomas F. Farrell - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I'll just say there's a lot of solar opportunity for us. So a lot of tax credit availability, to the extent we have an appetite for, next year.

Greg Gordon - Evercore ISI

Analyst · Evercore ISI.

Great. And when do you think we'll have some clarity around the timing of the financing plan for Questar? It doesn't sound like you're looking at any significant roadblocks to closing by year-end. Should we presume that the timing of the converts come around the time of close? Or will you be more opportunistic, like, for instance, NextEra, which is pre-funding the Oncor deal even though they're in a (30:20)? Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: Greg, this is Mark. We will be opportunistic on this. We have some Dominion debt to issue still and we have some converts issue still. And we will be utilizing the market for that here over the next several months. But there's a lot of interest in both, from what we hear from bondholders and investors, and we'll go to the market when we think the timing is right. We won't wait till it's much closer to Questar, if we think we can go earlier.

Greg Gordon - Evercore ISI

Analyst · Evercore ISI.

Great. And my last question is, as of sort of your last investor presentation, the May deck, you're still pointing to a consistent earnings and dividend growth profile as outlined in your Analyst Day from a year-ago February. At what point, once we get through the rest of the year, see the Millstone hedges, get more visibility on solar, close Questar, are you going to be in a position to give us a fulsome update on the outlook? Thomas F. Farrell - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I think, Greg, it will come after we give 2017 guidance in January. We probably look to do that sometime early in 2017. We have two (31:48) make sure we're very comfortable with in. The first one is Cove Point, which is scheduled for late 2017. And obviously, that is a huge driver for us, 2018 and beyond. Project is going very well, but we'd like to get a little more construction done there. And then we also want to see that the forward curves move much based on, as we go into this winter, is 2017 going to move or is the whole curve going to move. So, again, timing wise, I'd look for first half of 2017 for a more detailed outlook.

Greg Gordon - Evercore ISI

Analyst · Evercore ISI.

Thank you, guys. Take care. Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: Thank you, Greg.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Angie Storozynski with Macquarie. Angie Storozynski - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.: Thank you. I actually wanted to follow up on that question. So, does it mean that when you guys provide your 2017 guidance, you're not going to give us an outlook for 2018 and beyond at the same time? Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: Angie, it's Mark. I don't right now anticipate unless the forward curves move significantly and we have hedged Millstone, that we will give any new update on 2018 and beyond when we give 2017 guidance in January. Angie Storozynski - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.: Okay. And now, given what just happened in New York with the support for the upstate New York nuclear plant, do you feel like there's going to be a similar move potentially impacting Millstone? Thomas F. Farrell - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: The Connecticut legislature, Angie, as you know, the Senate unanimously passed piece of legislation that is supported by, Governor Malloy, and it came very late in the session, so the house didn't get to it. It's expected to come back in the session when they reconvene in the early part of 2017. It's a little bit different. New York is, as I understand, the New York (33:51) straight subsidy to the upstate New York nuclear facilities. Connecticut has taken a different approach which is to allow carbon-free production to bid into what has been set aside just for renewables for the local utilities. So, I think a very innovative approach and one that Millstone would participate in. And I think the last version of the legislation had up to half of Millstone would be eligible to participate, which would be a good anchor for…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Steve Fleishman with Wolfe Research.

Steve Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research.

Yeah. Hi, good morning. Just one other clarity... Thomas F. Farrell - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning.

Steve Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research.

Good morning, Tom. One other clarity on the financing of Questar. So, the remaining financing was going to be converts and still DM dropdown. So, do you still plan to do some drops into DM later this year related to that? Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: Hey, Steve, this is Mark. Yeah, the remaining – there's just a debt piece remaining as well. But what we said was we had about $2.4 billion of financing, which we plan to split between mandatory convertibles at Dominion and equity and other sources at DM. But as part of our bridge financing, we've taken out a term loan or will, I should say, take out a term loan, effective for 12 months at very attractive rates to us at close. So, it gives us a lot of flexibility at DM on when we drop those assets into DM, we don't need to drop the assets to support our distribution growth rate until latter part of 2017. So, we will be very opportunistic on DM and when we do that and we may well utilize the term loan for a period of time to bridge the financing.

Steve Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research.

Okay. I guess my other question, just too kind of fill in the discussion more on new solar, what would be – because obviously it'd be helpful to get the ITCs, and the other part of it is though you do have – you would have a lot more capital need, I assume. So could you give a sense to get to the $0.30 or double this, like how much more capital spend might that require? Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: I don't have that number readily available, Steve. I will follow up with you on it though.

Steve Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research.

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Brian Chin with Bank of America.

Brian J. Chin - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America.

Hi, good morning. Thomas F. Farrell - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning.

Brian J. Chin - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America.

Just going back to Millstone, you've made it very clear that you have a particular point of view on where the forward curves could go. If we wanted to simply assume where the forward curves are at right now, then relative to the assumptions that are embedded in guidance, can you give us a sense of how different the guidance might be, just help us calibrate where things stand at the moment? Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: Well, we haven't given, Brian, specific guidance for 2017 yet. The only thing we've done is we gave directional opportunities in February or March of 2015, where we showed a potential growth rate long-term. What I would do if I was modeling this, I would go back to the end of 2014, see what the NEPOOL market price was then for 2017 and 2018 and 2019 and reference that to what the current strip is, if you wanted to see a range of potential impacts for that one asset alone. So, now again, that doesn't take into consideration other opportunities that have developed since our last Analyst Day. For example, capacity performance improvement that wasn't there before, and other solar opportunities that we've talked a lot about today. But for that one specific asset, I would look at the prices at the end of 2014 and reference that to whatever the market has today or whatever you believe the strip is going to be in January of next year.

Brian J. Chin - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America.

Got it. That's all I got. Thank you very much. Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jonathan Arnold with Deutsche Bank.

Jonathan Philip Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

Hi, good morning, guys. Thomas F. Farrell - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Jonathan.

Jonathan Philip Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

So, couple of questions. When I look at your fourth quarter earnings build out – I apologize I wasn't on the whole of the call, so tell me if this was covered, but it looks like you have $0.08 coming out of O&M/Other. And when I look at the past second-half bridge you gave us last quarter, it was presented a little differently, but there were like $0.02 coming from restructuring-type efforts. So, is this just kind of a presentational thing or are you doing more on costs and just how to bridge those two numbers? Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: There is a couple things here. I would say it's probably format, more than anything, Jonathan. But to give you little more color on that $0.08, there will be incremental cost control beyond the $0.02 of staffing savings that we referenced on the last call. We also would expect that Questar will close by the fourth quarter and we would see some potentially slight help from that. And we think we will have some financing savings as well as we move through the year, based on our current plans versus our previous ones.

Jonathan Philip Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

So the plan has – you have got a little more aggressive on the plan, but there's also some presentation. Is that a fair summary? Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: I think that's probably right. We're very focused on O&M. If you look at the first six months of this year, we were – versus the similar period last year, I think we were down about $0.06 on O&M. We're going to be down on O&M between now and the end of the year. And we're anticipating a recovery in weather, but we're a little weather short in the first six months versus norm. So we're very focused on that. And O&M is one of the levers that we're working on to try to offset some of these unforeseens.

Jonathan Philip Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

Okay, great. And then just on Cove Point, you're obviously staying on time, on budget, et cetera. I notice that the percentage completion went up 3% this quarter, would seem to be just kind of a quite a lot less than it has done in several recent quarters. So, can you give us a sense of what the trajectory from 67% to completion over the next however many quarters it is? Thomas F. Farrell - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Jonathan, I'm not sure – you have to go back and check your reference. I don't (43:02).

Jonathan Philip Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

You were 64% in the first quarter, now you are 67%. Thomas F. Farrell - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah.

Jonathan Philip Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

That's plus 3%. The last three quarters has been like plus 11%, plus 9%, plus 8%. So it just seems as probably the nature of how it works, and I am curious how we get from – what's the timing from getting from 67% to 100%? Thomas F. Farrell - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: The plant, well, we're going to start commissioning middle of next year. So, you'll see that percentage continue to grow. You're in a part now Jonathan where you're doing this – you're laying the pipe racks and you're laying the conduits for the wiring and put the wiring in the big chunks of progress, the rapid chunks of progress, putting in the big pieces of equipment. That's all largely complete. So the concrete is all poured, for example. And the sound wall is finished. We don't have any hesitation that we're on time and on budget and we will be ready to come online late next year.

Jonathan Philip Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

Great. Thank you, Tom.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Neel Mitra with Tudor, Pickering. Neel Mitra - Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc.: Hi, Good morning. Thomas F. Farrell - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning. Neel Mitra - Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc.: Just wanted to go over maybe the revised outlook for Blue Racer, given the fact that NGL prices have moved in, propane and ethane are a little bit stronger. Has your CapEx timing changed in terms of bringing on processing plants and just your overall view of the wet gas Utica and opportunities there? Mark F. McGettrick - Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP: Neel, this is Mark. As we've said over the last 6 months to 9 months, Blue Racer, we should have had five processing plants online based on forecasts that we put out at our Analyst Day 18 months ago. We only have four online and they are almost all at full capacity. We have not seen a big step up based on current NGLs or oil in the basin. And we're being very cautious on Blue Racer to only invest capital when we have firm commitments from drillers. We have had some reach-out from producers and drillers here in the last several months inquiring about their interest in moving ahead in the last half of this year and first part of next year. But right now, I would say, we're in a cautious mode on Blue Racer. And I don't expect new processing to be put in this year and maybe not for the first half of next year. Neel Mitra - Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc.: Got it. And then my second question on the farm-out agreements, are those typically lumpy or should we expect…

Operator

Operator

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