Earnings Labs

Entergy Corporation (ETR)

Q4 2021 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 23, 2022

$112.95

-0.43%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

0:06 Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Entergy Fourth Quarter 2021 Earnings Release Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]. 0:37 I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Bill Abler, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Abler, the floor is yours.

William Abler

Analyst

0:47 Good morning, and thank you for joining us. We will begin today with comments from Entergy's Chairman and CEO, Leo Denault; and then Drew Marsh, our CFO, will review results. An effort to accommodate everyone who ask questions, we request that each person has no more than two questions. In today's call, management will make certain forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, which are set forth in our earnings release our slide presentation and our SEC filings Entergy does not assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Management will also discuss non-GAAP financial information. Reconciliations to the applicable GAAP measures are included in today's press release and slide presentation, both of which can be found on the Investor Relations section of our website. 1:34 And now I will turn the call over to Leo.

Leo Denault

Analyst

1:36 Thank you, Bill, and good morning, everyone. Today, we are reporting strong results for another successful year. Our adjusted earnings per share is $6.02, which is in the top half of our guidance range. This is the 6th year in a row that our results have come in above our guidance midpoint. Underlying our steady predictable results is Entergy's dedicated, robust and resilient organization working day in and day out to create sustainable value for all our stakeholders. Because of the solid foundation that we have built and our proven track record, we are confident that we will continue to achieve success into the future by delivering meaningful outcomes. 2:22 As such, we are initiating 2022 guidance and affirming our longer-term outlooks in line with our discussions at EEI. This continued success is important to all our stakeholders, including our customers. Being able to navigate through headwinds is possible only through financial discipline that allows us to continue to raise the capital needed to serve our customers. Without financial health, we could not have raised the over $4 billion needed to fund the restoration from recent storms, including Ida and Laura, two of the worst storms ever to hit Louisiana. Newark, we have managed through the revenues lost as a result of these storms and COVID-19. 3:05 Without financial health, we could not consider accelerating resilience investment to better withstand future storms nor could we make the investments in clean energy that our customers, large and small, are seeking. In 2021, like 2020, we were presented with headwinds caused by the pandemic and weather events. And as in 2020, we proved we could navigate those headwinds and continue to deliver strategically, operationally and financially. Strategically, we stood up our customer organization and appointed our first-ever Chief Customer Officer, David…

Andrew Marsh

Analyst

15:55 Thank you, Leo. Good morning, everyone. As Leo said, today, we are reporting strong 2021 results in the top half of our guidance range. We executed on key deliverables throughout the year and our results are a validation of the resilience we've built into our business. We are confident that we will continue to deliver on our commitments, and we are initiating our 2022 guidance and confirming our longer-term 2023 and 2024 outlooks. I'll begin by discussing results for 2021 and then provide an overview of the key business drivers for 2022. 16:30 Starting on Slide 6. Entergy adjusted EPS for 2021 was $6.02 and $0.36 higher than 2020. Turning to Slide 7. Our earnings growth was driven by investments across our operating companies that benefit customers through improved resilience, reliability and operational efficiency. Weather adjusted billed retail sales growth was 2% for the year as sales rebounded from COVID-19 impacts. Industrial sales were strong at around 6% higher than 2020. We saw continued growth from new and expansion customers, which helps keep rates low as well as higher-than-expected demand from cogeneration customers. Weather effect on billed sales reduced our earnings by $0.03 per share for the year. Our December temperatures were at record highs and much of those sales were not yet billed before the year-end. When you take into account the negative weather impact for the year was more significant at $0.11. 17:33 Starting with first quarter 2022 results, we will use our AMI infrastructure to update our weather estimates to be based on the calendar view versus the billing cycle. To help you, the appendix of our webcast presentation has updated 2021 estimated weather effect by quarter which reflects the new methodology. Coming back to drivers for 2021, our utility O&M returned to more normal levels…

Constantine Lednev

Analyst

24:55 Hi, good mooring Leo and team. It's actually Constantine here for Shar. Congrats on a great quarter and the closeout to the year. I appreciate the comments on potential upsides from resiliency spending in the prepared remarks. And I believe Mississippi has received an independent consultant recommendation on resiliency. Do you have any early indications on what the governing factors are and including some of the spending? Is it bills, regulatory constructs, financing needs? Any color on the early discussions that you may have?

RodWest

Analyst

25:24 Yes. This is Rod. Good morning. I think the early discussions are going to be focused on the state-by-state cost benefit analysis. If you think about our desire to accelerate resiliency, Leo alluded to it. You got four dimensions that we talked about, one of them being storm intensity, the frequency, the duration and the location. We're in the early stages right now of doing the statistical analysis around various scenarios. Each of those scenarios are going to play out differently in each of our jurisdictions. We think the lion's share of the work, as you might expect, is going to show up in Louisiana. That's the subject of the technical conference when we kind of 0 in on the scenarios and the planning assumptions where the regulator, along with the customers we'd be in a better position to make a decision on what direction they want to go in. But as Leo alluded to, that the technical conference is the prelude to the filings later in the year when we start to actually show the public kind of what we have to believe in order to put a specific acceleration plan in place. The nuances being a state-by-state play if that's helpful, but it's early in the process, which is why you're –you're hearing us framing it up in general terms.

Constantin Lednev

Analyst

26:49 Okay. That's helpful color. And just with the FEMA applications for resiliency funding of the $450 million, does that kind of play a factor? And how those plans get developed? And are those projects included in the CapEx plan? Or would you kind of fund those projects yourself if the FEMA applications don't go through?

RodWest

Analyst

27:09 As we stated before, anything that comes from the Feds helps to offset what would otherwise be borne by customers. And so we're going to remain actively involved ensuring we could maximize whatever input the Feds might be able to provide. That said, we still have to go forward with our regulators assuming that the Feds don't – don't contribute, whether it's offsetting existing storm costs or putting forth federal funds toward future resiliency spend. But our plans are assuming from a scenario planning perspective, both dynamics, but it's not dependent upon federal funds.

Constantin Lednev

Analyst

27:55 Okay. That's great color. And just a quick follow-up on the equity needs and kudos to the whole team for materially kind of mitigating the needs from the Analyst Day. Curious on your thoughts on the timing for the remaining $700 million in plan. Is there a threshold or event that could accelerate? Or do you have some cushion to defer given the progress made in '21, maybe a continuation of the ATM at a modest level.

Andrew Marsh

Analyst

28:19 Yes. This is Drew. We are still mindful that we'd like to get this done. And so we are continuing to work through with the ATM that we that we put in place before. I think you'll continue to see us use that, and we could knock this out fairly quickly with that framework. We'll be mindful of any other opportunities that if the right market conditions come along that allow us to go ahead and finish it off through a block. So we're paying close attention to that. But as you can tell, the number’s gotten much smaller. And so the end is sort of in-sight for us overall.

Constantin Lednev

Analyst

29:04 Thanks. That’s very helpful and thank you for taking the questions and congrats on the FY21.

Andrew Marsh

Analyst

29:11 Thanks Constantin.

Operator

Operator

29:16 Thank you. Next up, we have on the line, Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst

29:23 Hi, good morning.

Leo Denault

Analyst

29:25 Good morning, Jeremy.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst

29:27 Good morning. Just wanted to start on load growth, if I could. Just if you could provide a little bit more detail on the significant growth on the industrial side. You provided some commentary there in the slides. But just wondering how you see that trending, I guess, relative to pre-pandemic levels and I guess, expectations to kind of exceed that? And then you talked a bit about green demand. Just wondering if you could update us a little bit more on where does the green tariff demand stand now across this customer base versus where it was 12 months ago? And how you see that kind of evolving over time?

Andrew Marsh

Analyst

30:02 So this is Drew. I'll take the first piece on the load growth, and I'll let Rod talk about the green tariff. So I mean, overall, our load growth for the industrial side continues to be robust. I went through some of the drivers for our main industries in my prepared remarks, those are in really good places than we do with the announcements that we talked about with U.S. Steel and Sempra, and we are continuing to see demand it. But the nature of it is evolving. And you see that in and what's happening there. I mean, those customers are looking for clean, green options at a low cost, and we are well situated for that. And as a result, that's sort of our opportunity from a generation perspective. A lot of the other fundamentals that we've had all along are still there, proximity to the Gulf Coast, proximity to the Mississippi River, an available workforce, supportive communities, all of that is still there. it continues to attract investment from our customers and for others from outside the area today. So relative to the pre-pandemic, I would say that's pretty good. But post-pandemic, we're seeing that shift to wanting that clean electrification opportunity. And that is what we are seeing this year, as you go into '22, it's a little bit lower. But as you look out to '24 and beyond, we certainly expect it to continue to ramp up on that clean electrification opportunity.

RodWest

Analyst

31:45 And I'll simply add. Leo alluded to the 30 terawatt hours of an addressable market through 2030. And – and the efforts that we've taken internally to engage differently with those customers to kind of identify how this demand might play out. What we saw with U.S. Steel and Sempra we think, underscores the thesis that the opportunity for growth is there. We'll share far more details about how we see the next five years playing out at Analyst Day. But the early indicators are that we're pretty confident that our industrial customers, in particular, and we're seeing it kind of flow down into the smaller commercial sector. There -- they've already made public their plans to reduce their carbon emissions, and we think we have a unique opportunity to play a role in helping them get there. And that does foreshadow for us, a great demand for our green products, also underscoring, as Leo alluded to in his comments, the significance of our low emitting and efficient gas generation as well as our nuclear fleet, not to mention the up to 11 gigs through 2030 for solar. But more to come at Analyst Day, but so far, early indications are looking really good for our ability to help our customers meet their sustainability objectives.

Andrew Marsh

Analyst

33:20 That’s helpful. Thanks for that. And kind of…

Rod West

Analyst

33:22 On the green tariff, okay.

Andrew Marsh

Analyst

33:27 That’s helpful. Thanks for that and maybe picking up on the point there, without front-running the Analyst Day, are there any broad strokes that you could provide for us as far as themes or other topics that we might expect at the Analyst Day update wise?

Leo Denault

Analyst

33:44 Well, I think as I mentioned, Jeremy, we're going to go a couple of extra years as we always do at Analyst Day and those opportunities that Rod talked about, even if you think about U.S. Steel and Sempra, for example, 24 and 27 in service desk. So this acceleration really picks up as you get out kind of the '24 and beyond time frame. So I think that will be the -- as far as the major theme, we'll talk a little bit about what we what we may be seeing in that regard. So more detail [Technical Difficulty].

Operator

Operator

34:25 Hello. One moment, please. We ask that you may on the line, the conference will resume shortly. [Technical Difficulty]. We apologize. The speakers have returned.

RodWest

Analyst

35:22 All right. So I don't know, Leo, if you want to respond to [Indiscernible]…

Leo Denault

Analyst

35:25 I don't know if you got the last answer. I know Jeremy, you had asked about the Analyst Day. And I was mentioning that we'll go a couple of years out farther than the 2024 current outlook. And that will be interesting because what we're starting to see from these electrification opportunities and these growth opportunities, if that's about the time things can start to show up is 2024 and beyond. You can think about U.S. Steel and Sempra, those two announcements, those are 2024 and 2027 and in-service dates for those facilities. So the opportunity that we're talking about does start to show up really outside the balance of the current capital plan. So that will be probably the biggest pieces that we'll be talking about.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst

36:17 Got it. That's helpful. And just one more, if I could. With regards to Grand Gulf, given stronger operations in 2021. Just wondering if you could update us, I guess, how things are looking right now operations-wise in '22 expectations. And has this kind of improved performance and really kind of coming through when needed, improved stakeholder conversations? Just wondering if you could provide any update there.

Leo Denault

Analyst

36:45 Well, Grand Gulf has improved operations, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, had is highest generation output ever in 2021. And it's our expectation to continue to have that performance going into the future all be better as we continue to through outages, upgrade the equipment associated with facility our nuclear plants are going to be very, very important to the economic development of our jurisdictions. And as we talk about electrification, I think one thing that goes unnoticed is the already clean nature of our fleet. As one of the cleanest generating fleets in the country with some of the lowest rates in the country, some of these decarbonization objectives can be met by electrifying processes just using the grid power that we have today even before we build out the renewables because it already meets Scope 2 needs that some of our customers have. 37:49 The objectives of the majority of our customers are decarbonization. So we have a lot of dialogue with them about the nuclear fleet being an important part of the decarbonization. So I think it's -- the dialogue around nuclear has changed significantly in terms of its importance in the future of the economy of the states in which we operate. So it's a holistic approach. It's an important part of not on the reliability of the system, but the sustainability of the system. And as more and more customers demand carbon-free energy that follows their load, we're going to be an advantage in the jurisdictions that have nuclear power.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst

38:37 Got it. Actually, one last one, if I could. Just any updated thoughts that you have on advanced nuclear small modular reactors and if you think that this could start to enter the Entergy plans towards the end of the decade here.

Leo Denault

Analyst

38:53 Well, certainly, we have folks who are following the development of all different kinds of technologies in the nuclear space. And should we get to a point where some form of SMR is economically viable, we'd certainly make it part of the mix because as I mentioned, the nuclear the decarbonization is what everybody is after. And today, the most reliable way to make a lot of energy without emitting carbon through nuclear power. So we're following those developments across the board. To the extent they become economically viable, we would certainly pursue it. And as history has proven, our jurisdictions are typically open to the development of new assets create jobs, high energy intensity and to really benefit economic development. So too early to say how quickly those will become part of the resource mix. Certainly, there's a lot of development left to be done. But given the focus on carbon reduction, people are spending a lot of time and effort as the federal government on making sure that we're supporting that sort of R&D.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst

40:05 Got it. That’s very helpful. I leave it there. Thank you.

Leo Denault

Analyst

40:08 Thank you, Jeremy

Operator

Operator

40:11 Thank you. And next, we have on the line Michael of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Michael Lapides

Analyst

40:18 Hey, guys, Thank you for taking my question. I actually have a couple and they're kind of unrelated to each other. First of all, on the Orange County project, seems like it's a long construction time frame, four years, right, if you get approval in May, June time frame, but in service not till May of '26? Is that due to the hydrogen capability being added? Or is there some other driver? Normally, combined cycle is a little bit quicker than that?

Leo Denault

Analyst

40:47 No, there's nothing really. I mean, by the time we get the regulatory approval, get into the process, there's a little bit more work done at this stage on the hydrogen side, but it's not a significant cost driver or anything like that at these early stages to get to the 30% blended capability. So nothing out of the ordinary. It's a big plant.

Andrew Marsh

Analyst

41:09 And I would say that, Michael, that given our history of construction around CCGTs would come in underneath the expected time line in pretty much every instance. So I wouldn't expect that we would end up in June of ‘26 unless there was some other kind of weather-related issue or something else going on.

Michael Lapides

Analyst

41:28 Got it. Okay. And then an unrelated topic, the FERC put out its policy statement about gas infrastructure projects and GHG emissions. And it obviously matters to you, you're not building pipelines of material size at all or anything, but lots of companies in your service territory who are major customers who either are trying to build new pipelines or trying to build new LNG facilities or other petchem-related energy-related infrastructure. Just curious how you see this process changing the permitting for new gas infrastructure? And what that means for your Louisiana and Texas service territories longer-term?

RodWest

Analyst

42:17 Yes, Michael, it's Rod. As you might imagine, we're closely aligned with our – our industrial customer base, as you have alluded to, in terms of what it might portend for the future. It fits into our point of view that perhaps this might be a catalyst for the acceleration of decarbonization efforts, all of which fuels our point of view around our ability to help them achieve few of their objectives, whether it's through the Scope 2 resources from our electrical supply or any opportunity we have to electrify sort of their scope processes. But just extrapolating from that FERC ruling for us, we're viewing it through the lens of what's the implication for the customers, them moving faster as a condition of permitting to take advantage of the other market advantages of locating, expanding in our service territory. So it is unclear how it will ultimately play out. But as you might imagine, we are giving thought to how that applies to other potential customers like Sempra most recently as they're working through their permitting process. And we are stakeholders in those proceedings for that very reason.

Michael Lapides

Analyst

43:54 Got it. Thank you, Rod. Much appreciated guys.

Andrew Marsh

Analyst

43:58 Thanks, Michael.

Operator

Operator

44:01 Thank you. And next on the line, we have Jonathan Arnold of Vertical Research. Your line is open.

Jonathan Arnold

Analyst

44:09 Hi, good morning, guys. Just a quick one on longer-term financing. Drew, I think you sort of talked about being done once you've done the '22 to '24 reduced equity raise. Is -- how do you think about that sort of post '24 period is something sort of similar to the run rate you've effectively been doing here, a sensible assumption? Or could you be sort of out of the capital raise business for a few years like you've been in the past?

Andrew Marsh

Analyst

44:50 That's a good question. Jonathan, obviously, we've talked a lot about the types of financings that are available to us and what would be good in certain situations And the financing with the equity capital markets is useful because it gives you a firm idea of what you're going to get and it's a liquid market and you can close quickly. And so that's what we've been doing here recently because we have a very near-term need. And if you're talking about needs out beyond 2024 there are different options that become available because it is such a long-term thinking. And so it's not just capital markets, some of the other things that are out there that we've talked about before, might be available to you from a strategic perspective rather than a capital markets perspective. But that's longer term, that's not anything that we would be thinking about necessarily right this minute. But as you look out beyond our horizon period, there are other options available too.

Jonathan Arnold

Analyst

46:04 Okay. And just one -- just to make sure I've got this straight, the $300 million or so that you did under the ATM, that's not yet settled. Those shares are not yet in the share count, correct?

Andrew Marsh

Analyst

46:18 That's correct.

Jonathan Arnold

Analyst

46:19 Okay. Thank you. And then just on one other thing. Can you remind us or maybe tell us what went on with the Liberty County solar project and were there any lessons learned around that for a better outcome next time around? Or just use some reflections there?

RodWest

Analyst

46:38 Yes. This is Rod. The Liberty County project was pulled not because the commission didn't recognize the benefits of the actual project. That particular one, and again, it was unique to Liberty County, had more to do with where the Texas Commission was in terms of how they viewed the Liberty County project and its implication inside of ERCOT. And so I don't want to send a signal that there was anything necessarily untoward with the project. We pulled it because we wanted to come back to the commission, one, when they actually had a full commission -- and I will share with you the lack of a full commission was also influential in their reticence to approve the deal. And so it's a -- it was a short time timing play for us. We had greater needs for capital, and we were also recognizing that there was a robust response to additional RFPs and decided to pull it. But it does not in any way thwart our belief, or in our view the Texas staff's belief, in the viability of those projects. So we expect to come back with more, but I didn't -- don't want you to overread anything into it.

Jonathan Arnold

Analyst

48:05 No. Do you expect to come back with that particular project, or it was just with other things [Indiscernible]?

RodWest

Analyst

48:12 Well, the timing of that particular one, there's going to be -- there might be more to come there, but there's more than a robust opportunity for us to fill our needs with the other projects. So I won't give any signal into that specific one, but the pipeline is quite robust.

Jonathan Arnold

Analyst

48:33 Great. Thank you, Rod.

Operator

Operator

48:38 Thank you. And next on the line, we have Paul Zimbardo of Bank of America. Your line open.

Paul Zimbardo

Analyst

48:52 I want to follow up on some of the potential storm hardening acceleration where you talked about some of those data points leading up to the Analyst Day. Should we think of that as purely incremental capital? Or could that kind of mitigate some of the capital already in the plan as you don't need to do some other work around storm hardening?

Leo Denault

Analyst

49:14 It's really an acceleration of things that we've identified could be done. So -- for example, in our current 3-year outlook, there's around $2.7 billion of T&D investments that you could considering – could consider resilience investments. About $1.7 billion of that to the T Space, about $1 billion of it in the D space. We've been doing resilience spending in a combination of new projects that we do and then we do storm hardening after the fact when we're repairing after a storm as well build to the new standards. What we'd be looking at with the resilience spend that we would put out is are there things we could do faster than they would have otherwise been on the schedule. So it would be incremental in the time frames that it would be proposed if that makes sense as opposed to being done five years later or something like that, if that makes sense, Paul.

Paul Zimbardo

Analyst

50:22 Yes, it does. Now that's clear. And then the other question I had was just given some of the broad inflationary pressures, how are you thinking and comfort level about ability to execute in Arkansas relative to the 4% rate cap?

Andrew Marsh

Analyst

50:39 Yes, this is Drew. I'll start and maybe Rod can add to it. Obviously, we're not immune from whatever inflation issues that are out there. And so we're monitoring it closely. There's different pieces to it. There's the fuel piece, which gets collected through a separate fuel rider in Arkansas. And that might move the 4% cap up a little bit, but that's not going to hinder our investment there. 51:15 On the O&M side, we haven't seen the kind of pressures that we've been hearing about setting in other sectors. That doesn't mean that we have had some been dealing with it on more of a spot basis. And ramping up our continuous improvement to help manage against the potential for acceleration of inflation more broadly in our business. And then on the capital side, we are seeing some pressure on the capital side, particularly when talking about some of the solar projects. 51:52 But in the RFPs that we've been conducting recently and that we expect to conduct, we're still in the very early innings of our renewable investments. And while we've seen some pressure on some of the projects that we've already have sort of underway. The bulk of it is to come and all those expectations already have built in understanding of the inflation environment have and the supply chain that we're dealing with and everything else. And those projects are still very robust. They have strong NPVs for the customer. And so we'd expect them to get support from the retail regulators as well. And that kind of offset with fuel costs and other things, we think will fit into the caps in Arkansas, in particular. So right now, we don't see any real challenges. I mean we're obviously monitoring inflation very closely and adjusting our business and ramping up continuous improvement in order to manage it, but we don't see anything immediately in our way.

Paul Zimbardo

Analyst

53:08 Okay. Thank you very much for that.

Operator

Operator

53:13 Thank you. And next on the line, we have Stephen Byrd of Morgan Stanley.

Stephen Byrd

Analyst

53:21 Hi, good morning.

Leo Denault

Analyst

53:23 Good morning.

Andrew Marsh

Analyst

53:24 Good morning.

Stephen Byrd

Analyst

53:25 I wanted to follow up on Jeremy's questions just on nuclear operations, and it looks like there's been good improvement there. And just wondered if you could speak to just dialogue with the NRC. You're not on Column four and looks like operations are improving. But is there any additional color you can give in terms of the dialogue with the NRC on nuclear operations?

Leo Denault

Analyst

53:47 We continue to have a lot of dialogue at all levels from the resident inspector to the regions, to the headquarters in Washington, certainly around not only operations, but license transfers, et cetera. So I'd say our relationship with the NRC is strong, and it's open. I meet with resident inspectors when I'm on site. I meet with the region on a regular basis, and I mean all the commissioners when I can. We had to do a lot of it virtually over the course of the last couple of years, but we continue to have a very robust and open dialogue with the NRC, and it's a very constructive relationship.

Stephen Byrd

Analyst

54:34 Understood. And has there been sort of recognition of the improvements in operational performance of your nuclear fleet?

Leo Denault

Analyst

54:42 Yes. Absolutely.

Stephen Byrd

Analyst

54:43 Okay. Great. And then just one last one for me. This is a common question kind of across many utilities. But just given the commodity cost outlook, could you just speak a bit to the outlook for customer billing? Because you especially residential customer bill increases across your footprint? I know residential is a smaller percentage for you all than some utilities, but I'm just curious, given the commodity outlook, what the sort of bill increase outlook is for you.

Andrew Marsh

Analyst

55:09 Yes, Stephen, it's Drew. So there's a couple of things going on in our bills, and it depends on the jurisdiction in particular. I already talked about inflation and what that means. Going back to the fuel piece of that, when you talked about Louisiana and Texas, Winter Storm Uri in 2021, raised the fuel costs quite a bit in those two jurisdictions for 2021. So now as the fuel curve has come up a bit, it's not as much of an impact, frankly, on customers in those jurisdictions because we already had some high fuel prices because of Winter Storm Uri. And then as you look forward, the fuel curve is, of course, a bit backward dated. And our expectations are typically above the forward curve once you get out a few years, and that's still the case. Obviously, there's a lot of other things besides inflation going on in the price of natural gas today. 56:13 But we think we're pretty well situated from a customer perspective there. And then also in Louisiana and Texas, you have the securitization thesis coming on in the next probably 18 months or – well, hopefully, by the end of the year, frankly, to get all the securitizations done in the Louisiana. So that would probably be by the beginning of next year, you'd see the full effects of those. That's a pretty big step up. particularly in Louisiana. But once we get past that, I think the growth rate in the bills should be fairly reasonable. And we've historically said at or below inflation. Obviously, that means something different today. But our at or below inflation is probably going to still be true based on historical expectation for inflation less than 3%. So that's what we'd expect to see once we got past sort of the securitization and the current higher costs associated with fuel.

Stephen Byrd

Analyst

57:17 Very good. Thank you very much.

Andrew Marsh

Analyst

57:20 Thanks, Stephen.

Operator

Operator

57:21 Thank you. And our last question comes from the line of [Indiscernible] of UBS. Your line is open.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

57:34 Assuming all goes well at the Louisiana Public Service Commission, what are the steps for getting storm recovery that you'll have? There's the securitization that you touched on just a minute ago. Can you walk through the steps in the amounts that you expect to be coming in?

Leo Denault

Analyst

57:57 Sure. So in Texas, we've already got the orders. And so we're in the process of setting up the actual sourcing of securitization funds, which should take place in March or April, that's I think in the neighborhood of $290 million is the expectation for that and assuming we get the outcome in Liana today, there's approval by the LPSC in the next few months, we would set up the transaction for that. That would be around $3.2-ish billion, including the $1 billion of Ida funds. That's going to be a little bit different than the Texas transaction, that's going through the state effective we have already approval from the State Bond Commission to get that done. On the first piece, we'll be setting that up here, hopefully, very soon. And then, of course, the remainder of the Ida costs would be hopefully by the end of the year in a similar process.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

59:10 Okay. Thanks.

Leo Denault

Analyst

59:14 Thank you.

Operator

Operator

59:17 Thank you. And now I will hand the conference back over to Bill Abler for closing comments.

William Abler

Analyst

59:27 Thank you, Chris, and thanks to everyone for participating this morning. Our annual report on Form 10-K is due to the SEC on February 25 and provides more details and disclosures about our financial statements. Events that occurred prior to the date of the 10-K filing that provide additional evidence of conditions that existed at the date of the balance sheet would be reflected in our financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Also, as a reminder, we maintain a web page as part of Entergy's Investor Relations website on regulatory and other information, which provides key updates of regulatory proceedings and important milestones on our strategic execution. While some of this information may be considered material information, you should not rely exclusively on this page for all relevant company information. And this concludes our call. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

60:19 Then this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect and have a good day.