Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and welcome to the Dominion Energy 4th 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 for the procedure to follow if you would like to ask a question. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr.
Stephen Ridge, Director of Investor Relations for the Safe Harbor statement.
Good morning, and welcome to the Q4 2018 earnings conference call for Dominion Energy. I encourage you to visit the Investor Relations page on our website to view the earnings press releases and accompanying materials as well as slide presentation that will follow this morning's prepared remarks. Schedules in the earnings release kit are intended to answer detailed questions pertaining to operating statistics and accounting, and the Investor Relations team will be available immediately after the call to answer additional questions. The earnings release and other matters that will be discussed on the call today may contain forward looking statements and estimates that are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Please refer to our SEC filings, including our most recent Annual Report on Form 10 ks 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 the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, which we are able to calculate and report, are contained in the earnings release kit. Joining today's call are Tom Farrell, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Chapman, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer and other members of the executive management team. I will now turn the call over to Jim.
Good morning. Dominion Energy reported operating earnings of $0.89 per share for the Q4 of 2018, which is above the midpoint of our guidance range of $0.80 to $0.95 per share. GAAP earnings for the quarter were $0.97 per share, which includes gains on the sales of non core assets. For the full year, we reported operating earnings of $4.05 per share, which is also above the midpoint of our guidance range of $3.95 to $4.10 per share. Drivers relative to our guidance include lower O and M, income tax and depreciation expense, as well as favorable weather, partially offset by a longer commissioning process for the Cove Point liquefaction projects during the Q1 and higher storm restoration expense in the 3rd 4th quarters.
We are pleased that despite a challenging year, we achieved annual operating earnings per share growth of 12.5%. Operating segment performance for the 4th quarter and the full year are shown on Slide 4. GAAP earnings for the year were $3.74 per share. Differences between operating and reported earnings include gains on sale of non core assets, unrealized losses on nuclear decommissioning trust funds and one time rate credits issued to customers under Virginia legislation passed in March. A reconciliation of operating earnings to reported earnings can be found on Schedule 2 of the earnings release kit.
Before we turn the page completely on 2018, we want to briefly highlight some of the important initiatives that we successfully executed during the year and that we believe will position us for success in 2019. As mentioned, we achieved annual operating earnings per share growth of more than 10% despite a number of headwinds including a dramatically altered financing plan. We grew the dividend per share by 10% year over year consistent with the commitment we had previously made to shareholders and slightly lower than annual operating earnings per share growth. We sold non core merchant assets at attractive valuation, improving our business risk profile and generating over $2,500,000,000 of sale proceeds, which we used to retire parent level debt. We placed both the Cove Point liquefaction project and Greenville power station into commercial service, collectively representing over $5,000,000,000 of invested capital.
I'm pleased to report that Cove Point continues to operate at or above design capacity and successfully completed the same day loading of an export cargo and unloading of import cargo during the Q4, which we believe may be a first for the domestic LNG industry. Greenville is also operating as designed. We took meaningful steps to improve our credit profile, including reducing parent level debt by about $8,000,000,000 through proceeds from equity issuance, non core asset sales and a Cove Point asset level financing. As a result of these efforts, we achieved our parent level leverage targets 2 years ahead of schedule. We also materially improved our cash flow coverage metric as measured by Moody's.
These achievements in combination with the improved business risk profile due to asset sales and the addition of SCANA's high quality regulated businesses resulted in the affirmation of our existing credit ratings and the lowering of our credit metric thresholds. In Virginia, we work with legislators, the governor, customer groups and other important stakeholders to support the Grid Transformation and Security Act, a bipartisan law that provides a path to a sustainable and reliable energy future in the Commonwealth. And finally, we obtained all required regulatory approvals and subsequently closed our merger with SCANA, which we expect to provide near term earnings of approximately $0.10 per share per year. Tom will speak more about this a little later, but we're pleased that we were able to offer significant value to Scan IT customers, protections to scan employees and preserve the transaction economics that our shareholders and credit providers expected. Moving now to 2019 earnings guidance.
Operating earnings per share for 2019 are expected to be between $4.05 $4.40 per share. This guidance range of $0.35 is narrower than in recent years, reflecting the increasingly regulated nature of our operations. The midpoint of this range represents 5.6% growth relative to 20 eighteen's weather normalized results. As usual, our guidance assumes normal weather, variations from which could cause results to be toward the top or the bottom of this narrower guidance range. Positive factors as compared to last year include an additional quarter of commercial operations of the Cove Point liquefaction project, the addition of the Southeast Energy Group operating segment, which includes all former SCANA operations and growth from regulated investment.
Negative factors as compared to last year include the loss of earnings from 2018 asset sales, a higher share count, higher pension expense and a return to normal weather. The midpoint of our 2019 guidance range assumes that ACP Construction recommences during the Q3 of this year, which Tom will address momentarily. It excludes any contribution associated with a Blu Racer earn out, which could be 0, as well as any contribution associated with the resolution of the outstanding 0 carbon energy procurement process in Connecticut, which Tom will also address. Our operating earnings guidance for the Q1 of this year is 1.05 dollars to $1.25 per share compared to $1.14 per share in the Q1 of 2018. Positive factors relative to Q1 2018 include the contribution from the Cove Point liquefaction project and the addition of the Southeast Energy Group.
Negative factors include timing of contributions for farm out, the loss of earnings from asset sales and a higher share count. While we're not providing formal 2020 operating earnings guidance on today's call, we do expect approximately 5% growth from 2019 to 2020, which aligns with achieving our most recent guidance regarding our 2017 to 2020 6% to 8% compounded annual growth rate. This 2020 expectation also excludes the impact of any Blu Racer earn out and the contribution from a resolution in Connecticut. Finally, we expect dividend per share growth in 2019 of 10%. Please note that all declarations are subject to Board approval.
Major elements of our 2019 financing plan are included on Slide 8. In addition to a fairly standard debt financing program, we intend to replace and possibly increase the size of the mandatory convertible security that was issued 3 years ago and which converts in the Q3. Despite the firm ratings and lower credit metric downgrade thresholds, we will continue to take steps to support our credit profile. Turning to Dominion Energy Midstream Partners. The merger of DM into Dominion Energy was completed earlier this week.
We issued approximately 22,000,000 shares in exchange for all outstanding Dominion
Midstream common and preferred units.
The merged assets now reside as subsidiaries of our parent company, but we intend for certain assets to migrate to Dominion Energy Gas Holdings during the year. Finally, we plan to make 2 distinct presentations for investors on March 25. The first presentation, targeting the general investor community, will include a number of informational updates such as asset profiles, asset profile updates, including for the newly added Southeast Energy Group, capital investment programs, opportunities under the Grid Transformation and Security Act in Virginia, O and M initiatives and long term dividend growth and capital structure objectives. We believe that this brief presentation will provide reference information and insights that will help investors to better understand Dominion Energy's expanded operational footprint as well as drivers behind our expectation for 5% plus growth in operating earnings per share beyond 2020. We are pleased to announce that in a second and separate presentation on that day, we will provide an update that will focus exclusively on our accomplishments and efforts on environmental, social and governance matters and how those efforts underpin our long term strategy and position us to become an industry leader in sustainability.
To our knowledge, this is the first instance of a major company from the energy infrastructure industry or otherwise to host an investor session dedicated exclusively to these matters. The target audience for the 2nd presentation is members of the financial community with special focus on ESG topics. Both of these presentations will be webcast live on our Investor Relations website with an opportunity to submit questions electronically, so that in the event of capacity constraints at our New York City venue, all investors will be able to participate. We'll be providing additional information regarding these investor updates in the near future. I will now turn the call over to Tom.
Thank you, Jim, and good morning. For the 2nd straight year, we have set a company record for the lowest OSHA reportable incident rate in our history, 0.55, which is an 8% improvement over what was a record setting performance in 2017. This achievement is equally impressive when compared to a peer average that is nearly twice as high. Safety does not just happen. These results represent years of focus on making sure that every employee returns home in the same condition in which they arrived at work that day.
We are going to continue to improve until we achieve the only acceptable safety statistic, 0 injuries. Now to our business updates. I will begin by addressing our merger with SCANA, which closed at the beginning of this year. Our new operating segment, the Southeast Energy Group, comprises all of the former SCANA operations. Rodney Blevins, one of our most experienced utility operators, now leads the segment.
He is working among the over 5,000 able and dedicated colleagues that now comprise the Southeast Energy Group. The group's high quality businesses and our colleagues who operate them enhance Dominion's best in class portfolio of state regulated utility operations. For example, customer growth at SEG's electric and gas utilities were 1.7% and 2.8% respectively during 2018. North and South Carolina, despite the challenges related to new nuclear development in the latter, are considered to be among the most constructive regulatory jurisdictions in the country. In 2020, we will file a rate case in South Carolina subject to commission approval, will reflect recovery of traditional electric utility capital investment that is not currently being recovered in rates.
Those new rates, subject to approval, will become effective on January 1, 2021. Over the coming months, we will continue to build trust with customers, employees, regulators and policymakers by keeping our commitments and being a transparent and responsible corporate citizen. We look forward to discussing the Southeast Energy Group in greater detail in our investor meeting in March. Next, I will turn to updates related to the Grid Transformation and Security Act adopted last year in Virginia. In less than a year, we have filed for and received Virginia State Corporation Commission approval for projects representing over $1,000,000,000 of capital investment.
We expect that number to grow significantly over the next several years as we continue to invest to make our system increasingly sustainable and reliable for our customers. First, we received approval from the SEC for our approximately $300,000,000 offshore wind project, which will be completed under a fixed cost construction agreement. This pilot has the support of Governor Northam and Virginia's General Assembly and will provide important early learning that we believe will lay the foundation for commercial scale offshore wind for Virginia's clean energy future. Construction of the project is expected to begin this second quarter with a commercial in service date in late 2020. 2nd, we received approval from the SEC for Phases 23 of our strategic underground program, representing a capital investment of about $240,000,000 This effort improves the reliability of our system and substantially reduces the duration of restoration times following severe weather events.
3rd, we received an order granting our certificate of public necessity and convenience for our U. S. 3 utility scale solar farms, representing 2 40 Megawatts at a capital cost of around $410,000,000 We remain committed to advancing our goal of having 3,000 megawatts of additional renewable generating capacity in service or under development by 2022 and we expect to make regular filings under the GTSA with the commission for additional projects in the future. Next, we received partial approval from the SEC for our initial grid transformation application. The commission approved nearly $100,000,000 of capital over 3 years associated with important physical and cyber security investments.
The commission asked for more information to support capital investment associated with other aspects of our grid mod strategy, including smart meters, intelligent grid devices and an enhanced customer information platform that allows a more sophisticated and convenient customer experience. We will provide that data when we will refile our application later this summer. A decision on the refiled application would be expected 6 months after. I want to offer a few remarks related to recently proposed legislation supported by Governor Northam and bipartisan legislative leadership that establishes a path for addressing our coal ash impoundments. We support the policymakers' desire to resolve this issue permanently through annual rider recovery.
The legislation would provide for full cost recovery of operating expense and capital investment associated with the recycling of coal ash for beneficial use and the construction of on-site lined landfills for disposal of the residual coal ash. We believe that that legislation provides a fair balance between Dominion Energy's customers and its shareholders and allocates the cost of this program equitably among large and small users of electricity. I will now address Millstone and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. With regard to Millstone, it is important to recognize the extent of the progress that has been made to date on ensuring the long term viability of this critically important resource to Connecticut. We began engaging in the legislative process 3 years ago.
We have diligently followed the law and requirements established by both DEEP and PURA and each agency has determined Millstone is an at risk resource. Former Governor Malloy made an announcement in late December awarding Millstone a 10 year agreement for 9,000,000 megawatt hours per year. The awarded price for the 1st 3 years of the contract is approximately equal to the New England wholesale power price. That is not an acceptable result for the company and our 1500 Millstone colleagues who work safely every day to provide half of the power and 90% of 0 carbon power to the State of Connecticut. In order to ensure the plant's viability, we must have pricing that recognizes its energy security, environmental and economic benefits.
We have and will continue to engage constructively with Governor Lamont's team in seeking a solution that works for the state, the region, our company and our employees. We are confident that these issues will be resolved in a manner that provides long term financial assurance required for Millstone's continued operation. As to the Atlantic Coast pipeline and supply header projects, we remain highly confident in the successful and timely resolution of all outstanding permit issues as well as the ultimate completion of the entire project for the following reasons. First, our customers critically need this project to heat and electrify homes, businesses and industries, assist in the transition away from coal fired power generation, support economic and renewable energy development and reduce reliance on a single source of gas delivery. Our customers, state regulatory commissions and FERC have all attested independently to the need for this project.
2nd, we have followed the established rules regard to permitting environmental protections. Years of painstaking surveying, data collection and scientific analysis stand behind all of our permit application. In fact, most of our permits are setting new national standards in minimizing environmental impact. Without speaking for the permitting agencies, these professionals have followed the letter in the spirit of the rules, regulations, and established precedents that guide their action on our permit application. 3rd, we are actively pursuing multiple paths to resolve all outstanding permit issues including judicial, legislative and administrative evidence.
We are not alone in these positions. We have the support of the agencies, our customers and varied industry interests. Our current expectation is that full construction could restart in the Q3. This reflects our belief that the biological opinion issue and any impediments of the crossing the Appalachian Trail should be resolved no later than this fall. Based on this schedule, key segments of the project, including from Buckingham County, located in Central Virginia, to the presently planned terminus in Hampton Roads in Eastern Virginia and in Lumberton in Southeastern North Carolina would enter commercial service by the end of 2020 with the balance of the project being delivered in early 2021.
The cost of the project based on this schedule is expected to be $7,000,000,000 to 7 $500,000,000 excluding financing costs, an increase of approximately $500,000,000 since the update we provided in November. Similarly, we expect that the supply header project would enter commercial service in late 2020 with a project cost of 650 dollars to $700,000,000 While we believe that the Appalachian Trail crossing issue should be resolved in time to recommence construction along the entire route during the Q3, we intended to continue to build key segments that will deliver partial service to our customers by the end of 2020. The completion of the remaining section, which could involve an appeal to Supreme Court, would complement the first phase of service by the end of 2021. Under this alternative, total project costs would increase an additional $250,000,000 resulting in total project costs of 7.25 dollars to $7,750,000,000 excluding financing costs. In either case, we are currently working with customers to set rates that balance customer needs with preserving a fair project return.
It's important to understand that the average basis differential over the last 5 years has been $1.79 per dekatherm, which significantly exceeds the rate of this project. And of course cost is not the only factor driving our customers' demand. Additional and diversified supply is critical given that they are forced to turn away new customers due to the lack of infrastructure. When extreme weather occurs, such as the existing polar vortex in the Midwest or the bitter cold that affected the mid Atlantic in both 2016 2018. The concept of reliable and redundant energy supply assumes a new and much more serious meaning.
Policy makers understand the gravity of the situation. Disruptions to the region's limited supply of existing gas delivery infrastructure and weather driven demand spikes have and will continue to result in higher prices, forced curtailments and lower reliability for customers until the project is complete. To be clear, we believe that there are multiple paths that will allow us to complete the entire 600 mile project. As was the case regarding the challenges we faced in the development of the Cove Point liquefaction project and the closing of our merger with SCANA, Large projects require transparency and determination. We have an abundance of both.
We will continue to accrue AFUDC equity earnings and expect ACP to contribute to our operating earnings in 2019, 2020 and for decades to come. In summary, during 2018, we set a new company record for safety performance for the 2nd consecutive year. We delivered 2018 operating earnings per share that exceeded the midpoint of our guidance range and initiated 2019 guidance that implies over 5% annual growth to 2018 weather normalized results. Our 2019 dividends per share are expected to grow 10%, subject to Board approval. We successfully executed several major initiatives, including merchant asset sales, dollars 8,000,000,000 of parent level debt reduction, the buy in of Dominion Energy Midstream Partners and the commercial in service of the Cove Point liquefaction project and Greensville Power Station that support our earnings and credit objectives and position the business to continue to deliver visible, diversified and regulated growth in the future.
We completed the SCANA merger, adding exciting new businesses to our best in class regulated portfolio. We continued progress towards successful resolution for both Millstone and ACP. And we advanced capital programs that will help to support 5% plus earnings growth into the next decade. With that, we are happy to take your questions.
Thank you. At this time, we will open the floor for questions. Our first question comes from Shar Pourreza with Guggenheim Partners.
So a
couple of questions here. First on sort of Millstone, obviously you're excluding the 0 carbon procurement in your outlook. Is this a pricing issue given what's currently proposed, I. E. It's not very accretive to your growth?
Or are you kind of implying that a closure is still in the mix if you get the pricing as currently proposed? So just trying to figure out why it's been excluded.
Hey, Shahriar, it's Jim. Good question. So the way we think about that is that what's on the table right now, as you know, within this 10 year contract for the 1st 3 years, basically roughly equivalent to market pricing. So no need for us to have a contract for that. So we're hopeful that there will be a contract for that period that value these other attributes we've talked about for Millstone.
So if that comes into place, the contribution from such a contract for the relevant period would be an adder to our guidance earnings guidance. It doesn't necessarily mean it would change our growth rate, but it would be an adder to the existing guidance. So that's what we mean by there that it's excluded. There will be a potential for an adder for the time period in which a acceptable contract comes into place.
Okay. Is it palatable for you as currently proposed? Or is there or is sort of a shutdown still something that's in the potential given what you're doing?
Sure. We have a new administration in place. We have been working very constructively with them. So, I am not going to we are not here to do any saber rattling today. Our position hasn't changed.
We have to have a clear financial path for Millstone. That proposal from Governor Malloy's outgoing proposal does not meet that standard.
Got it. Okay, good. Then Tom, let
me just ask you, and you touched on it very you touched on in your prepared remarks around the economics of sort of the pipe Atlantic Coast, especially with the sort of second delay in cost increase. Can you just be a little bit more specific on how the conversations are going? But more importantly, what's sort of the impact of this sort of legislation? I think it's Bill number 17, 18 that's advancing through the General Assembly. Is there a viability to this thing?
And so just what are your thoughts there?
Well, so I think that's 2 different questions in that. So as I understand, the first one is about, are you talking about conversation with customers?
Correct. Correct.
Okay. I'll let Diane answer that question in just a second. Diane Leopold. With respect to the legislation, I would just say, I think the simplest answer is to say that legislation has a long way to go in the General Assembly.
And good morning. This is Diane Leopold. With respect to the contract, there are provisions in the contract to discuss both rates and terms. And as Tom discussed, given the latest schedule and costs that we talked about today, We're already working with customers to set these rates and terms, partial in service options, the actual rates for the service, etcetera. And we're confident we're going to be able to balance the customer needs and provide them with their critical need for this project in both cost and non cost items, while preserving a fair return for the project, but we really don't want to go into any more detail than that.
Let me add just one thought also on the legislation. It's also fair to say that in its present it's not likely to come through the general assembly process in its present form.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Steve Fleishman with Wolfe Research.
Yes. Hi, good morning. Thanks. So just to follow-up on the ACP contracts. Tom, you mentioned the $1.79 Decatherm last 5 year.
Just could you give us a sense of where the contract pricing of ACP is now versus that?
No, Steve, we can. That's all through confidential agreements with the customers.
Okay. But it's
a lot better. It's significantly lower than 179.
Yes. Okay. And then what is pricing now like more like now as opposed to the last 5 years? Is it in that ballpark too?
Yes. I mean the last few days when it was cold, it wasn't as cold on the East Coast obviously as it was on the Midwest, but I believe it was somewhere $5 $6 versus the Henry Hub. It certainly has value there, but that 5 year average actually is summer and winter time. It is average through the entire year, not just the price spikes of the winter. Okay.
So it continues to show value and increase that you see in these cold times.
Okay. And then just in terms
of going back to there was a question I just want to clarify the comments on the convert, so that your intention is to issue a new convert when that one is done or just remarket the debt?
Yes, good question.
We are required based on the terms of existing
units to remarket
the debt. That doesn't represent the
But this is our last outstanding mandatory convertible securities. So the equity converts into common equity, the equity component in August. And we view that as an attractive security to us and we think there is demand for it in the capital markets, our perception. So we do plan to replace it. Will it be exactly the same as the securities we've issued in the past?
It could be slightly different. But some form of that hybrid capital, mandatory convertible or otherwise, we plan to use to replace the 1,400,000,000 dollars that effectively goes away in the middle of this year in August.
And then one last question just back to ACP. So I think there's been some concern that it's often hard to get an en banc hearing. So but obviously this is a pretty important case. So just maybe you could give some color on why it might be different this time and your ability to get that hearing?
Steve, this is Tom. You're quite right. En banc proceedings are they don't happen every day of the week, they don't happen every month. This case, I don't know if you've had a chance to read the brief that was filed on behalf of ACP last week. But I think it sets the story out pretty well.
There is 50 pipelines that go underneath the Appalachian Trail today, about 50 that are now all in question. We have significant support from a variety of folks. I think you will see 10 or more friends of the court file a brief or briefs sometime late next week. The Department of Justice will weigh in before February 11 on the importance of this. But that's we will see what happens.
There is other avenues, as I mentioned. There you can always appeal to Supreme Court, obviously. And there is legislative efforts underway and there are other potential administrative avenues we're looking at that we haven't been able to pursue very thoroughly because of the government shutdown. So, the en banc is important milestone, but it's not, by any stretch the only avenue to make sure we finish this pipe, which we are highly confident.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Roselyn Armstrong with UBS. Ms. Armstrong, if your line is muted, you'll need to unmute to ask your question.
Hello. You talked about discussing long term dividend growth.
Yes.
I'm sorry. Was that a question? I'm sorry, I didn't hear the whole thing.
I'm sorry, it looks like she accidentally disconnected her line. We'll go to our next questioner, Greg Gordon with Evercore ISI.
Good morning, guys. So thanks for the updated guidance range. I know that you had given sort of an interim guidance update in early January. And the illustrative guidance range at the time for 20 20 was $4.35 to $4.47 Now if I did take the current guidance for 2019 and I just extrapolate 5% growth around should I be extrapolating 5% growth from the low and the high end to come up with what you guys believe your current 2020 implied guidance range should be to get the low end and the high end? I just want to be clear on that.
Yes, Greg, thanks, Jim. We're not really talking about a guidance range for 2020 yet. We've given this indicative 5%. So we think about it more in terms of midpoint. So midpoint 2019 to 2020, that's where our minds are right now.
We'll get more granular over the guidance range as we go through time.
Okay. I just wanted to make sure that I was translating that 2020 statement properly. So thank you. I appreciate it. In terms of other questions, I think most of mine have been answered.
So I'll give you back the time. Thank you.
Thanks, Craig.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Christopher Turnure with JPMorgan.
Good morning, guys. Tom, you mentioned the alternative plan for ACP and the slightly higher cost estimate and longer timeframe for that. Could you just expand upon the exact permit scenario that would underpin that plan?
It all has we have all of our permits. So, let's we didn't mention in the script, for example, we did get our last real permit, significant permit, which is the air permit for the Buckingham compressor station. So what now is in front of us is core challenges on variety of pieces. For example, there's no challenge for what's between Buckingham County and Lumberton, North Carolina. It has to do with these issues in the mountains and the national parks, etcetera.
So, all those different timeframes and the different amounts are based on different scenarios on when we finish the court challenges.
Okay. So there is not one particular path there. So the alternative is not if you fail at the en banc, then you do that?
Correct.
There are other there are multiple paths here. And I know people are focused understandably and justifiably on the en banc. But that's not the only path here. There is if we don't get the en banc or we lose the en banc, there's the you have the judicial path to the Supreme Court. There is legislative paths that we are working on quite vigorously.
And there are, as I mentioned, administrative paths that we have identified but haven't been able to fully pursue because of the government shutdown. But the primary focus right now for us is our en banc proceeding. We think the decision is erroneous and upends almost 50 years of agency precedent.
Okay. And then just following up on the strategy here with ACP, the biological opinion is, I guess, technically what's caused the temporary stop in construction right now. But I'm wondering, given the gravity of the Forest Service opinion in the en banc process, were you to not succeed on the Forest Service side, call it, in the Q2 or mid year, does it make sense to continue construction at that time or hold off on construction until you get more clarity there? I think last time I checked, you had drawn around $1,000,000,000 of the project level debt. So far, you spent a good amount, but you're not maybe fully committed at this point in terms of spending in my opinion?
Well, I'll let Jim give you the numbers on what has been spent. I just there's so many variables in that question. I just I think it's hard for us to really to answer it. We have to see I think we are going to win on the biological opinion issue. I have high confidence in that.
This is the 2nd time around. They followed the dictates of the court and what the court was interested in and reissued it. So, we would have to see we assume it's going to get affirmed. And if it's not, we'll have to see what the court said and then we'll have to make a decision around that. But we think all of that is taken into account in these different timeframes we've given you.
Because we can proceed from Buckingham, which is sort of almost middle of the pipeline, all the way down to Lumberton and up into Hampton Roads.
Hey, Chris, let me just add. You mentioned correctly that back in October when we published our Q3 Q, we noted that the amount of capital drawn on that project level construction facility was a little over $1,000,000,000 $1,150,000,000 I think it was $1,000,000,000 on a 100% basis. So that number as of twelvethirty one is about 1.4, not drastically different. That's on a 100% basis. So that would imply total spend.
That's of course 50% of the cash capital is represented in draws on the project level facility. So double it to get on 100% basis the total amount spent, which would be about approaching 2.8 as of twelvethirty one. And those numbers will be worsened in the K.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Rosalyn Armstrong with UBS.
Here you are Rosalyn.
Hi, I'll try again.
I think I got cut off in the middle of the question. I'm sorry.
I did. I apologize. So getting to the indication earlier that you would discuss long term dividend growth at the analyst meeting, you just give us a little preview of that today? I believe, previous comments regarding 2020 were that the policy was predicated on the MLP market and now of course with the rollout, how are you thinking about dividend policy going forward?
Thanks, Rosalind. So let me just refresh everybody on the background here. So we announced that expected dividend policy. Of course, they are all subject, as you all know, each quarter to Board approval. But we said in 2017, that looking forward, we had a very robust MLP market.
We had Cove Point expectations coming online, etcetera. Because of the unique nature of the take or pay contracts at Cove Point, the very significant cash flows flowing out of that, the recapture of the capital cost that we would see through drops into the MLP, that we would grow the dividend 10% a year in 2018, 2019 2020. And then when we got to 2021, we'd have to see what the landscape looked like at that time. After the FERC ruling in March of last year that destroyed the viability of the MLP market, Over time, we said not too long after that data, I don't remember the exact date, Ross, and we said something along the lines of we're going to keep 10% in 2018, we expect to keep 10% in 2019. And depending upon what happened, people are going to ask FERC to reconsider.
We didn't know what exactly was going to happen that it could go from 6% to 10% depending upon what happened with MLPs.
I think
we have since said that the expectation obviously, MLP market is no longer there, so you start already at the bottom of that. But we recognize that it's not going to be 10% in 'twenty, highly unlikely, And that over time, we will bring the dividend growth rate, not going to be a cut in our dividend, that's not even in contemplation. The notion is we will bring our growth rate of our dividends more in line with our peers after this year. So starting in 2020, some and we will talk more about that in March, but there will be some effort to bring them more in line with our peer group. I don't know if that answers your question.
I hope it does.
Okay. And you think, what's your I guess if we look at it from a payout ratio perspective, can you talk about where you'd hope to see the payout ratio over time?
Hey, Roselyn, this is Jim. We will talk about that at the end of March. But we'll be setting the dividend growth rate to reach a target payout ratio that's more in line with peers, as Tom said.
Okay. Thank
you. Thank you. Our last question will come from Jonathan Arnold with Deutsche Bank.
Okay. I think you just answered one of our questions, which, Jim, it's the payout that you'd bring in line with peers, not the growth rate. I just want to be clear that that's we're understanding you correctly
on that.
That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
Okay. And peers, you'll share with us what you view the right peer group to be in the March meeting presumably?
Exactly.
Okay. And then just on ACP, when you guys are talking about customers, are you does that include the anchor utility customers, your affiliate customers? And does whatever you're going to negotiate with them need to be approved by the state regulatory bodies? I'm just curious on that.
The discussions are with sorry, this is Diane Leopold. The discussions are with all of the customers and every customer has something different with respect to what they will need to finalize the deal, but we are in active discussions with all the customers now.
And to the question of is it subject to SEC approval Outside of normal?
You're talking about when you say SEC, you're referring to in Virginia? Yes. In Virginia, it's just a matter of it's like any other part of our fuel clause. So that will be part of the fuel clause case in whenever 2021 or 2022, along with all the other ins and outs of our fuel clause.