Earnings Labs

OGE Energy Corp. (OGE)

Q1 2008 Earnings Call· Wed, May 7, 2008

$47.43

-0.34%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Chantal, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the OGE First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you. Mr. Tidwell, you may begin your conference.

Todd Tidwell - Manager, Investor Relations

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to OGE Energy Corp's first quarter 2008 conference call. I am Todd Tidwell Manager of Investor Relations and with me today I have Pete Delaney, Chairman, President and CEO of OGE Energy Corp; Dan Harris, Senior Vice President and COO of OGE Energy Corp and President of Enogex; Jim Hatfield, Senior Vice President and CFO of OGE Energy Corp; Howard Motley, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs; and several other members of the management team to address any questions that you may have. In terms of the call today, we will first hear an explanation of first quarter results from Jim Hatfield, then an overview of regulatory issues from Howard Motley. Pete Delaney will then follow up with closing remarks. And finally, as always, we will answer your questions. I would like to remind you that this conference is being webcast and you may follow along on our website at oge.com. In addition, the conference call and accompanying slide, including required non-GAAP reconciliation information will be archive following the call on that same website. Before we begin the presentation, I would like to direct your attention to the Safe Harbor statement regarding forward-looking statements. This is an SEC requirement for financial segments and simply states that we cannot guarantee forward-looking financial results, but this is our best estimates today. I will now turn the call over Jim Hatfield to discuss first quarter results. Jim. James R. Hatfield - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services: Thank you Todd. For the first quarter, we reported net income of $13 million or $0.14 per average diluted share as compared to net income of $17.2 million or $0.17 per average diluted share in 2007. The contribution by business unit on a…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. And your first question comes from the line David Frank with Catapult [ph].

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Hello. Peter B. Delaney - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services; CEO, Enogex Inc.: Hi, David.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Hi. Guys, I noticed that you reiterated your guidance for this year. But it appears now you're including this charge related to the mis-capitalization of prior expenses related to your employees? James R. Hatfield - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services: That's correct.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

So the thought is to include... that off is offsetting higher projected Enogex results is that it? James R. Hatfield - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services: Yes, somewhat. If you look the only thing we've historically excluded from guidance has been discontinued operations, gain and loss of sale of assets, sort of one-time items has typically been in the guidance. While we see Enogex higher, utility is slightly lower, but still within a range for that the high side to mid point at this point.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Right. Well, if James R. Hatfield - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services: It's about $0.06, is the impact of that prior... adjustment for prior period.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

So would a better operating number for the quarter be $0.20? James R. Hatfield - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services: Yes, that will be correct.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And how much was the overhaul on this generating unit, what did that impact the quarter by? James R. Hatfield - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services: It was about $3 million in the first quarter of 2008.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Pre-tax? James R. Hatfield - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services: Yes.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

So, I am going to guess that's a couple of pennies? James R. Hatfield - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services: Yes.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay. And do you have any update on the frac spreads, where they are at currently versus last year? James R. Hatfield - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services: Well, we had a little over $7 for the quarter. We are about $6.66 or so for sort of a current frac spread. If you just took a snapshot in time as of earlier this week.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

$6.66... $6.81. James R. Hatfield - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services: Sorry, yes.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay. Okay. And any updates on you said you were continuing to invest in Enogex as you see multiple growth opportunities. Can you elaborate a little bit on some of those? James R. Hatfield - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services: Well, I think if you look at... it was really a comment, David, about taking CapEx from a $166 million last year to now seeing $323 million. And we're seeing obviously we have Mid-Continent, Gulf Crossings on the transportation side, and multiple gathering and processing opportunities in just the organic Woodford shale and Granite Wash place. So we're really seeing increased drilling and capacity... need for additional capacity, takeaway capacity processing really across the system.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, alright. Well, thank you very much. James R. Hatfield - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services: Sure.

Operator

Operator

And your question comes from line Chris Shelton [ph] with Millennium.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Can you hear me? Peter B. Delaney - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services; CEO, Enogex Inc.: Yes.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

I got pulled off for just a second. I think David asked about the current frac spreads, can you just... can you reiterate those for me please? James R. Hatfield - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services: Yes, if you just take a snapshot in time as of earlier this week, it's at $6.81, so still very strong just slightly behind what we averaged for the quarter.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay. And on the current guidance, your current guidance for frac spread is about where it is currently then? James R. Hatfield - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services: Yes, it's within the range of the revised guidance.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay. And the other thing I wanted to check on that you guys reiterated support for the MLP structure, and I wanted to see if you can comment on when you think that might come or what you are seeing the market have currently for MLPs? Peter B. Delaney - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services; CEO, Enogex Inc.: This is Pete Delaney. Yes, we

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Hi Pete. Peter B. Delaney - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services; CEO, Enogex Inc.: As I mentioned we continue to monitor that market as you know the conditions... everybody knows the conditions of the overall equity markets. And MLP market well, has been down, it's not as much as the overall equity market and we have seen... but the MLP market has had some technical... more technical issues in the broader market in terms of overhang of private equity transactions and institutions that seem to be a full on too many names. One thing we all are obviously watching is that we understand that western gas resources in the marketplace for IPO. That's a gathering and processing company like Enogex and we will watch and see how that goes, and how it trades in the aftermarket. So we look that closely. We're keeping our S1 up to speed, and it's hard to predict the markets, but we're... again given where we believe the value we're getting in our for Enogex in our stock and where we think it would be valued in MLP, we're very much clear to make that happen when we think it's the right time to make a move given overall market conditions. And it's hard to predict when that will be, but we do see obviously from January when we were out on the road-show before we stepped back from the market, we have seen improvement over the last couple of months and so we're encouraged by that.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Got you. And is there a certain window you guys are looking at? I mean is there kind of a drop-dead date those or are you just committed, waiting for kind of the technical issues in the MLP market to lift and fully committed? Peter B. Delaney - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services; CEO, Enogex Inc.: There is no drop-dead date other than technical either or periods of time where we will have to update our S1 for earnings.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Sure. Peter B. Delaney - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services; CEO, Enogex Inc.: But other than that those technical windows, there is no other windows that we are confined to.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay. Great, thank you guys.

Unidentified Company Representative

Analyst

Welcome.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. And your next question comes from the line of Ho Chen Talon Capital [ph].

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Good morning. Can you quantify what the impact of the hedging was for the quarter at Enogex? Howard W. Motley Jr. - Vice President, Regulatory Affairs; OG&E Electric Services: Quantifyit in terms of the

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Realized price, or however you want to give it? Howard W. Motley Jr. - Vice President, Regulatory Affairs; OG&E Electric Services: Okay. The market price for the quarter was $8.35 we realized $7.03, so I guess we're about $1.30 below market I guess.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And that's going to continue on as long as you... if plan on following through with the IPO for the MLP? Howard W. Motley Jr. - Vice President, Regulatory Affairs; OG&E Electric Services: Right.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And then just can you discuss the trend and the well connects, I mean it looks you are in a... it looks like to be declining like quarterly. And I am just curious, what's happening there, and what the competitive landscape is looking like in the different place that you are pursuing? Danny P. Harris - Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, OGE Energy Corp.; President, Enogex Inc: This is Danny Harris. As far as the fundamentals for our continued well connect activity, it looks really strong. You recall that we did adjust our outlook on volumes a little bit earlier. And in the previous conference call we described there really is lot of producers that were just redeploying rigs, other areas to keep leaseholds intact and things of that sort. But as long as the gas prices up in the area that it's projected to be, we continue to feel like we are very strong drilling activity what's relate good well connect activities as well.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And there are no further questions at this time. Peter B. Delaney - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, OGE Energy Corp., OG&E Electric Services; CEO, Enogex Inc.: No other questions. Again, I like to thank you for attending the call and for your continued interest in OG&E. Thank you very much and have a good day.

Operator

Operator

And this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.