Earnings Call: Q2 2018

May 3, 2018

Greetings, and welcome to the Atmos Energy 2018 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Jennifer Hills, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you, Ms. Hills. You may begin. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. This call is being webcast live on the Internet. Our earnings release and conference call slide presentation are available on our Web site at atmosenergy.com. As we review these financial results and discuss future expectations, please keep in mind that some of our discussion might contain forward looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act and the Securities Exchange Act. Our forward looking statements and projections could differ materially from actual results. The factors that could cause some material differences are outlined on Slide 29 and are more fully described in our SEC filings. Our President and CEO, Mike Heffner, will begin our call with some opening comments. Mike? Thank you, Jennifer, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us and your interest in Atmos Energy. During the quarter, we continued to successfully execute our investment and regulatory strategy focused on becoming the safest and most reliable natural gas utility in the country. This strategy along with the exceptional dedication and effort on the part of our 4,600 employees continues to benefit our customers in the form of improved reliability and service. We remain very well for the future as we move through the 7th consecutive year of our journey to become the safest natural gas utility. Nothing is more important to our employees than the safety of our customers and communities. In late February, there were 3 gas related incidents in Northwest Dallas, one of which resulted in the tragic death of a 12 year old child. We're in direct contact with the National Transportation Safety Board and the Railroad Commission of Texas and are supporting a coordinated investigation into the incident. Soon after that and in the days leading up to March 1, we experienced a sudden and unexplained increase in leaks in a 1.5 square mile area of our system in Northwest Dallas. To understand why a system that had been performing normally was suddenly performing in this way, we hired a geotechnical engineering and forensics firm to assess the system. The preliminary assessment indicated an extraordinary combination of unique conditions, including geology, hydrology, soil conditions and record rainfall in this concentrated area caused differential ground movement to damage our pipeline system. Their report further stated that this could not have been readily modeled, predicted, anticipated or foreseen. On March 1, we acted with the utmost of caution, made the decision to undertake a planned outage to accelerate the replacement of all mains, service lines and meters for approximately 2,400 customers in this area. We moved approximately 700 contractors temporarily from other pipe replacement projects and replaced all service lines in 124,000 feet of maintenance. This project, which would normally take a year, was completed in just over 3 weeks. While the system was being replaced, we provided financial assistance to the affected customers and incurred other project related expenses totaling approximately $23,000,000 We are very grateful for the more than 500 of our employees representing every department and division in our company who worked selflessly around the clock on the accelerated replacement and customer assistance efforts and for all of our other employees who provided backup and support to the effort while continuing to serve our other customers. The organization's rapid response and mobilization demonstrates the dedication of our employees and our commitment to safety and to our customers. We are also grateful for the tremendous support we have received from the City of Dallas, Dallas Fire and Rescue, Dallas Police, the Office of Emergency Management and many other city services as well as the affected customers who were patient during this difficult time and who were very welcoming to our employees and contractors working in their streets, alleys and homes. We remain committed to our pipeline integrity investment strategy across all jurisdictions in which we operate. Since 2011, we have invested approximately $6,000,000,000 on replacing aging infrastructure and modernizing our system. Our current capital investment plans are for an additional $8,000,000,000 to be invested over the next 5 years across our company. We have been growing our capital investment in a 10.5 percent compound annual growth rate, which is approximately 3.5 times our depreciation rate and we have plans to continue investing at that rate. Based on work completed in the 1st two quarters as well as the planned projects for the remainder of the year, we now expect our fiscal 2018 capital spending to be approximately $1,400,000,000 I will now turn the call over to Chris Forsyth, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, who will now provide a financial update. Chris? Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everybody. Yesterday, we reported fiscal 2018 2nd quarter earnings from continuing operations of $179,000,000 or $1.60 per diluted share compared to $162,000,000 or $1.52 per diluted share in the prior year Q2. Results from continuing operations include a $4,000,000 or $0.03 per diluted share non cash income tax benefit related to tax reform. Earnings from continuing operations for the 6 months ended March 31st were $493,000,000 or $4.47 per diluted share compared to $276,000,000 or $2.61 per diluted share of the prior year period. Results for the current 6 month period include a $166,000,000 or $1.50 per diluted share non recurring income tax benefit from tax reform. Our 2nd quarter results are driven by the contribution from recent freight activity due to continued increase in pipe replacement and other system modernization spending, strong consumption trends and higher operating expenses. Operating income in our Distribution segment increased 7.5 percent to $210,000,000 in the current quarter due to a number of drivers. Recovery from recent regulatory actions provided incremental $28,000,000 in contribution margin. Additionally, we experienced a more normal winter heating season this year compared with last year's unseasonably warm weather. As a result, we experienced a $9,000,000 quarter over quarter increase in residential and commercial consumption and a $15,000,000 increase year to date. Additionally, weather driven demand drove a $2,000,000 increase in transportation revenues in our Texas divisions. Finally, we continue to experience solid customer growth. Over the last 12 months, our distribution segment added a net 36,000 customers, which represents 1.1% net customer growth. Additionally, we continue to add transportation customers to the system, primarily in our Kentucky Midstates division. Combined, this growth added over $4,000,000,000 in contribution margin for the quarter and about $7,000,000 year to date. This growth in our contribution margin was partially offset by $26,000,000 decrease as we reflected the 21% statutory tax rate in our revenues beginning January 1, 2018. Additionally, we experienced an 18% increase in operating expenses due to the planned outage in Northwest Dallas, a planned increase in pipeline integrity activities and higher depreciation and property tax expense resulting from our capital spending. Moving to the pipeline and storage segment, operating income increased about $1,000,000 contribution margin increased about $9,000,000 due to $17,000,000 of incremental margin from APT's recent rate case and the approval of a GRIP filing in December, partially offset by an $8,000,000 reduction in revenues due to the implementation of tax reform. Additionally, during the quarter, ADT continued to benefit from wider spreads between Acadia and Waha hubs. As a result, contribution margin increased $2,000,000 for the quarter and approximately $3,000,000 year to date net of the rider RAS adjustment. Given the supply and demand dynamics affecting the Permian Basin, combined with stronger demand in the Barnett, Katy and Houston Ship Channel areas, we expect these trends to continue for the remainder of the fiscal year. Offsetting this growth in contribution margin was an $8,000,000 increase in operating expenses as a result of higher depreciation related to capital expenditures and a planned increase in pipeline integrity work. Consolidated capital spending increased almost 25% period over period to $694,000,000 and was in line with our expectations. Over 80% of the spending was focused on improving the safety and reliability of our system. At this time, I'd like to highlight progress we've made to implement tax reform. As a reminder, because of fiscal year starting October 1, 2017, our blended federal statutory income tax rate for fiscal 2018 will be 24.5%. It will decline to 21% beginning in fiscal 2019. As a result, our effective tax rate for the 6 months ended March 31 was 27.1% excluding the one time benefit and is expected to be in the range of 26% to 28% for the fiscal year. During the Q2, we continue to refine the impact of tax reform in our balance sheet and we recorded an additional $4,000,000 income tax benefit. This brings the total non recurring income tax benefit from implementing tax form to $166,000,000 or $1.50 per diluted share. Additionally, we reduced the amount of excess deferred taxes that would return to customers by about $8,000,000 Our total excess deferred tax liability is now $738,000,000 During the quarter, we worked with our regulators to ensure that our utility customers receive the full benefit of tax reform and their gas bills. We have reached agreement with our regulators in Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky and Texas to reduce customer goals going forward, reflect the lower statutory federal rate. In Colorado and Kansas, new rates were implemented effective April 15th April 1 and in Kentucky customer bills were adjusted effective March 20. In Texas, we began phasing in the impact of lower taxes and customer bills in February and all customer bills reduced by April 1. Through the end of March, we returned $5,000,000 to customers and we anticipate customers realize annual savings of over $100,000,000 from the lower federal tax rates. In our other 4 jurisdictions, tax reform is being addressed in connection with regulatory proceedings are currently in progress. Slide 2223 provide additional details on our progress towards implementing tax reform. Additionally, regulators in all of our jurisdictions have ordered us to record liabilities for the difference in our rates based on the form of 35 percent statutory federal income tax rate and the new 21% rate beginning January 1, 2018 until customer bills are adjusted. At the end of March, these liabilities approximated $29,000,000 Finally, with respect to the refund of excess deferred taxes, we have reached an agreement in Colorado to begin returning those liabilities on a provisional basis beginning June 1, 2018. In our other jurisdictions, we expect to address the treatment of this liability in our next annual or other future regulatory proceeding. As we discussed last quarter, we expect that the reduction in operating cash flow and fully implementing tax reform will increase our estimated financing needs in fiscal 2022 by $500,000,000 to $600,000,000 Our balance sheet as of March 31 is strong and can support this incremental financing need. For equity, the total capitalization was 60% and we had approximately $1,500,000,000 of borrowing capacity available under our credit facility. In closing, yesterday we reaffirmed our fiscal 2018 earnings guidance of $3.85 to $4.05 per diluted share, excluding the non recurring benefit recognized from the implementation of tax reform. Stronger than planned customer consumption or distribution segment and transportation revenue trends in both the distribution and pipeline storage segments have increased our outlook for our contribution margins. And the associated cash flow has reduced our anticipated short term borrowing needs in addition to in anticipated interest expense for the year. However, we're anticipating higher levels of O and M as a result of the plant outage in Northwest Dallas and an anticipated increase in system monitoring and maintenance activities. Slide 25 provides additional detail related to our fiscal 2018 EPS guidance. Thank you for your time this morning and I'll turn the call back over to Mike for his closing remarks. Thank you, Chris, for that update on the quarter. As you can see from our Q2 results, we remain focused and on track to meet our fiscal 2018 targets, driven by our proactive pipe replacement and system modernization investments. In the Q2, we continued to benefit from recent regulatory outcomes, colder weather compared to the prior year and customer growth. We continue to invest in our infrastructure and are on track to spend approximately $1,400,000,000 this year. Our spending will continue to accelerate annually over the next 4 years with approximately 80% of that spending focused on safety and reliability. On the regulatory front, we have completed 11 filings, which should add approximately $47,000,000 in annualized operating income over fiscal 2018 fiscal 2019 and we have 11 filings pending seeking over $91,000,000 in annualized operating income inclusive of the impact of tax reform. We remain well on our way to meet our targets for annual increases from implemented rate activity in fiscal 2018, including the impact of tax reform. The impact of tax changes due to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will lower the annual rate making results, but that impact will not affect the overall results of rate making on Atmos Energy's earnings. Slides 8 through 20 provide details about the progress we've made during fiscal 2018 and pursuing our regulatory strategy. A key regulatory accomplishment during the Q2 was the renewal of several annual rate review mechanisms in Texas with constructive terms. These mechanisms cover approximately 80% of our distribution customers in Texas. In February, we successfully settled the outstanding statement of intent with the City of Dallas. As part of the settlement, we are able to begin reflecting the benefits of tax reform and customers' rate. We are also able to update the Dallas annual rate review or DAR. Additionally, we refreshed the terms of the annual rate review mechanism or RRM for the largest coalition of cities in Midtex and for the RRM cities in West Texas. The renewal of these annual rate review mechanisms underscores our regulators' support for us to continue to replace pipe at an increasing pace And these mechanisms provide transparency for regulators to annually review the progress we're making to modernize our system while also providing the opportunity to earn the reasonable returns that our investors require to provide the financial resources we need to sustain our efforts. We have a long time horizon of infrastructure investment needs ahead. The low natural gas price environment and now lower tax environment supports our continued investment in the safety and reliability of our system while keeping customers' bills very affordable. We remain confident that our pipe replacement programs will continue to provide a reasonable return to our investors through earnings per share and dividend growth in the 6% to 8% range each year. We appreciate your time this morning and look forward to meeting with those of you who will be joining us later this month at the AGA Financial Forum in Phoenix. And now we'll take any questions you may have. Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. Our first question comes from the line of Chris Turnure with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question. Good morning, Mike and Chris. I wanted to get a understanding of the NTSB investigation, the potential timing of a outcome now that we have the preliminary reports and any other open investigations that might be out there or your knowledge of any of those that might be forthcoming? Yeah. Good morning, Chris. As you know, the NTSB issued a preliminary report on March 23, confirming that they've done site inspections, collected records materials. They also interviewed our personnel and other first responders. And we understand it could be months before a factual report is issued and we expect a final report from them in the 2019 calendar year timeframe. There are no other investigations underway from the NTSB at this time. Okay. And from the NTSB report that would be upcoming here in months and then I guess the final one at some point next year, would you expect a determination of cause and any determination of fault within that? No, that's a good question, Chris. First of all, just to remind everyone that the NTSB is an independent agency and the Board has no regulatory authority. Its whole focus is on improving safety of the industry and so their focus is on identifying probable cause and then they'll make safety recommendations aimed at preventing any similar future accident. Okay, got it. That's helpful context. And then can you maybe give us a little bit of color on your dialogue, if any, with the railroad commission since the incidents and kind of maybe some color on how that's going, if they intend to look into the incident further? Yes. Absolutely. We've been communicating openly and regularly with them. They're conducting their own investigation, which is standard practice. And the focus there is on whether we complied with regulations in our own procedures. So we've been in continuing contact with them as well as City of Dallas and Dallas County. And so far, I mean the regulators have been supportive of the planned outage that we undertook and all of our response efforts to date. And you may have seen in the paper Railroad Commission Commissioner Ryan Sitton confirmed in an interview that their view is that we are doing everything that we can and did everything that we could to keep the area safe. Got it. And just one last question on that topic. Do you have a sense as to when the RRC would complete that investigation and make the findings public? No, I don't have a timeline on that. And I also want to remind you that the Railroad Commission, we fall under the very strict guidelines both federally and at the state level and the Railroad Commission has auditors in working with our employees and auditing our practices and our system almost on a daily basis, I think almost every week of the year. So it's very standard practice. It's not unusual for them to be involved because we all share the same objective, which is safety. So it's there's nothing out of the ordinary, unusual here. It's just an extremely unfortunate and tragic event that there was an explosion in a child's death. I mean there's nothing we can say or do that's going to diminish that tragedy. Got it. Thank you, Mike. I appreciate the color. Thanks, Chris. Our next question comes from the line of Charles Fishman from Morningstar. Please proceed with your question. I'm comparing Slide 7 to past Slide 7s. And the percentage of the mix of capital spending has gone up materially like since last year, 87% for safety and reliability, 80% last year. Is that just a timing thing as you accelerate? I mean, your planned acceleration of CapEx which is more focused on the safety and reliability, I mean, I wouldn't think it has anything to do with these incidents, because just haven't enough time to react to it? No, Charles. Good question. It really is timing and where our projects are falling out. For example, over the last 3 to 4 years 2 to 4 years, we've invested very significantly in kind of our storage and compression capabilities as well as other system fortification projects. So it's I think it just varies, but our target is to be 80% or greater in safety and reliability. You also have timing of public works projects and you've got varying demand in terms of system extension spending for customer growth. So in terms of your annual CapEx, I think at your Analyst Day, you were talking $1,300,000,000 to $1,900,000,000 per year, accelerating over the next through 2022. Is that you're confirming that and reaffirming that and I mean, you still see yourself in that range. In other words, you're going to be $1,400,000,000 this year and then accelerating to $1,900,000,000 over the next 5? Correct. Yes, $1,400,000,000 approximately $1,400,000,000 this year, dollars 1,400,000,000 to $1,900,000,000 each year going forward, accelerating gradually and we put out there the expectation of about approximately $8,000,000,000 through 2022. Okay. Thank you very much. That's all I had. Thanks, Charles. There are no further questions in the queue. I'd like to hand the call back over to management for closing comments. Thank you, Doug, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Just as a reminder, a recording of this call is available for replay on our website through August 8, 2018. We appreciate your interest in Atmos Energy, and thank you for joining us. Goodbye.