Good morning, welcome to the New Jersey Resources third quarter fiscal 2020 earnings teleconference. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Dennis Puma. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Brandon. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to New Jersey Resources third quarter fiscal 2020 conference call and webcast. I'm joined here today by Steve Westhoven, our President and CEO, Pat Migliaccio, our Chief Financial Officer, as well as other members of our senior management team. As you know, certain statements in today's call contain estimates and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of the securities laws. We wish to caution listeners of this call that the current expectations, assumptions, and beliefs forming the basis for our forward-looking statements include many factors that are beyond our ability to control or estimate precisely. This could cause results to materially differ from our expectations, as found on slide 1.
These items can be found in the forward-looking statements in today's section of our earnings release, furnished on Form 8-K, and in our most recent Form 10-K and Q, as filed with the SEC. We do not, by including this statement, assume any obligation to review or revise any particular forward-looking statement referenced herein in light of future events. We will also be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures such as net financial earnings or NFE. We believe that NFE, net financial loss, and utility gross margin provide a more complete understanding of our financial performance. However, they are not intended to be a substitute for GAAP. Our non-GAAP financial measures are discussed more fully in item 7 of our Form 10-K. Turning to slide 2, we have our agenda for today.
Steve will begin today's call with highlights from the quarter, followed by Pat, who will give our financial results. We'll then open the call up to your questions. The slides accompanying today's presentation are available on our website and were furnished on our Form 8-K filed this morning. With that said, I'd like to turn the call over to our President and CEO, Steve Westhoven. Steve?
Thanks, Dennis. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Before we review the third quarter results, I want to provide a status update on COVID-19 impacts on NJR. In June, New Jersey Natural Gas resumed in-home inspection work for SAVEGREEN, our energy efficiency program. Over the last month, we started to resume other services that had been scaled back at the peak of the pandemic. We are now performing non-emergency service-related utility work at customers' requests. Our team has done a terrific job of navigating pandemic-related restrictions. Despite a COVID-related delay in certain home construction activities during the quarter, the utility continued to add customers. We've added nearly 5,900 new customers so far this fiscal year. We have over 2,500 pending installations as of today.
We are likely to lag our original goal of adding 9,800 new customers in fiscal 2020, but we view this as a near-term delay and remain confident in reaching our three-year target of 28,000 to 30,000 new customers by the end of 2022. As always, the safety and well-being of our employees, customers, and the communities we serve take priority. We continue to voluntarily suspend customer disconnects and late fees and provide assistance to those in need through various federal and state programs and through our Gift of Warmth, an NJR charity designed to assist customers in paying their bills. Moving to slide 4. Despite the challenging environment, we are reaffirming our fiscal 2020 NFE guidance range of $2.05-$2.15 per share, with the expectation of NFE falling towards the lower end of the range.
We now expect New Jersey Natural Gas to contribute 64%-67% of total NFE, compared to our previous range of 61%-65%, due to decreased O&M expenses. We've lowered the contribution range in our midstream segment to 8%-10%, from 10%-15%, due to lower AFUDC earnings on our Adelphia Gateway project. The permits for Adelphia are under final review by the Pennsylvania DEP. Once the agency's review is complete, we will file for our FERC notice to proceed. Despite the longer than anticipated permit review period, Adelphia remains on track for a 2021 in-service date. At Energy Services, we now expect a loss of -3% to -5% of total NFE. Moving to slide 5.
As mentioned before, despite some unavoidable delays related to the pandemic, we continue to add customers and remain confident in reaching our three-year target of 28,000-30,000 new customers by the end of 2022. New Jersey Natural Gas' capital program has not been materially affected by the pandemic, and we see minimal downside risk to our previously disclosed CAGR of 10.3% for the three-year period between 2019 and 2022. Also during the quarter, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities released an order establishing rules for future energy efficiency filings. New Jersey Natural Gas has a strong track record of working constructively with our regulators to design energy efficiency programs aligned with the state's goals. As such, we view this change as positive for the utility, the state, and our customers.
The Southern Reliability Link continues to make progress with over 75% of construction complete, leaving approximately 6.8 miles to go. However, in the third quarter, during a routine drilling operation, New Jersey Natural Gas experienced an inadvertent return, which caused damage to a structure near the drilling site. New Jersey Natural Gas takes the issue of safety seriously, and we responded accordingly. We took immediate action, stopped drilling, activated our mitigation plan, and in New Jersey, the Department of Environmental Protection was notified. No permanent environmental impacts are expected as a result of this release. Following the inadvertent return on July 8th, the DEP suspended New Jersey Natural Gas's permits for certain sections of SRL. After several productive consultations with DEP, a risk mitigation strategy required to lift the permit suspension was submitted, and we are now awaiting the DEP's review.
Construction activities continue to progress on the remaining portions of the project as we resolve the DEP permitting matter. We do not expect the completion timeline of SRL to be affected. Turning to slide 6, CEV had another productive quarter. We are on track to meet our goal of adding nine commercial solar projects to our portfolio this fiscal year. The growth of our clean energy segment is an important part of the sustainability agenda we outlined earlier this year. Another example of our commitment to help achieve a clean energy future. In the third quarter, we added three commercial projects totaling 32 megawatts of incremental capacity, including the New Jersey Oaks Solar facility, our first acquisition of an operating solar asset.
Given our team's expertise and successful track record of asset management, we believe there's an opportunity related to the New Jersey Oaks Solar project that can be realized through minor upgrades and O&M efficiencies. As pandemic-related restrictions ease, we are beginning to see signs of improvement in the residential lease and small commercial solar markets. During the quarter, The Sunlight Advantage program added 90 customers and now serves over 8,400 customers in total. Through the third quarter, the team at CEV has satisfied the majority of their investment targets and is on pace for another very successful year. We expect to recognize approximately $68 million of SREC revenue and approximately $20 million from ITCs in the fourth quarter. Moving to slide 7, I'll cover some highlights from NJR Midstream and Energy Services.
At NJR Midstream, the Leaf River Energy Center continues to be a positive addition to our portfolio of managed storage and transmission assets, performing well and in line with our expectations. The northern portion of our Adelphia Gateway project is flowing gas. We're working through final permitting for construction on the southern portion of the project. Our in-service date of 2021 remains unchanged. For PennEast, on August 3rd, FERC issued a positive environmental assessment for phase 1 of the project, finding no significant environmental impact. As you may recall, on June 29th, the U.S. Supreme Court requested the view of the U.S. Solicitor General regarding the New Jersey portion of the PennEast project. We await the opinion of the Solicitor General and the decision by the Supreme Court on whether to hear the case. We will provide updates when they become available.
Energy Services continues to pursue steps that will reduce the risk profile of its business and increase the stability and predictability of its cash flows. We've made progress on one of our objectives and reduced O&M expenses over the first nine months of this year. In summary, despite a difficult environment, the strength of our diversified businesses has allowed us to reaffirm guidance, maintain our capital programs, and continue to provide uninterrupted service to our customers. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Pat for some details on the financials.
Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everyone. Slide 9 shows the main drivers of our quarterly NFE and net financial loss changes. During the third fiscal quarter of 2020, NJR reported a net financial loss of $5.8 million, or $0.06 per share, compared to a net financial loss of $17.5 million, or $0.20 per share in 2019. New Jersey Natural Gas saw an NFE improvement quarter-on-quarter of $15.8 million due to higher base rates and lower O&M expenses. Midstream saw modest improvement during the quarter, with increased operating income from Leaf River and Adelphia, mostly offset by income taxes and interest expense. Clean Energy Ventures was down $6.8 million, primarily due to the timing of SREC sales and investment tax credit recognition, which, as Steve mentioned, will mostly occur in the fourth quarter.
Energy Services improved $7.1 million due to higher financial margin this quarter when compared to the same period in 2019. Home Services decreased $5 million, mainly due to the timing of some expenses related to our IT system replacement project. Slide 10 outlines our capital spending for the first nine months of fiscal 2020 and the next two years. As Steve mentioned earlier, the delay in Adelphia Gateway's permitting process has resulted in a portion of our fiscal 2020 capital spend getting pushed to fiscal 2021. We now expect capital expenditures for Adelphia Gateway to be in the range of $140 million-$160 million for 2021 and 2022, compared to our previous estimate of $100 million-$120 million. As you can see on slide 11, NJR remains well-positioned in terms of liquidity. As of June 30th, we had almost $600 million in liquidity available to us.
In addition, in July, NJR received a total of $335 million for the issuance of unsecured NJR notes and NJNG mortgage bonds. We used those funds to pay off our outstanding Leaf River bridge loan and to reduce short-term debt balances. Moving to slide 12, you can see an update on our cash flows and financing projections. As previously communicated, we have no equity needs for this fiscal year or fiscal 2021 due to the offering we completed last December. I also want to take a moment to discuss the stability of our dividend in light of the pandemic. On July 14th, we declared our regular quarterly dividend of $31.25 per share and currently do not expect changes in our long-term dividend growth rate of 6% to 8%.
On slide 13, we've highlighted the details of our SREC hedging program. We continue to actively hedge to ensure SREC revenues are largely unaffected by future changes in SREC prices. Energy year 2021, we are 94% hedged, and for 2022, we have 92% of our volumes hedged. For energy year 2023, we've increased our hedge position to 55% from 22% when we last reported this data. For energy year 2024, market fundamentals are strong. With our current energy year 2024 SRECs trading at $185 or 85% of the SACP. We've begun hedging energy year 2024 and now have 21% of our volumes hedged at an average price of $184. I'll now turn the call back over to Steve.
Thanks, Pat. Before I open the call to questions, I want to thank our employees for their hard work and dedication, especially considering the circumstances that we're all dealing with. Back in March, we had to pivot quickly to this new working environment, and all of our associates embraced the challenge, and our performance through this period has been largely unaffected. Whether in the field or working remotely, we've excelled at serving our customers' needs and respecting their wishes for how that service should take place. Our focus on customer service is why we were recognized in June for the seventh straight year as the most trusted utility in the nation, according to Cogent Syndicated by Escalent. I appreciate you taking the time to join us today, and I'll now open the call for questions.
We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Gabe Moreen with Mizuho. Please go ahead.
Morning, everybody. Couple questions. One, if maybe I could start with the energy efficiency programs and the solicitation on the BPU. Can you just talk about maybe the magnitude of what you're looking to do there over and above your SAVEGREEN programs and what you've done in the past?
Hey, Gabe, this is Steve. I'm going to pass this question over to Mark Carra, who's the head of our regulatory, to give you some details on those programs.
Just to give you a quick background, as you know, our SAVEGREEN program, call it SAVEGREEN 5, was a vast improvement over our prior program. We'd been investing about $15 million a year in the prior programs, and we got approval in the last one to do $135 million over a 3-year period. When we take a look at the upcoming filing, we're still working through that. That is due on September 25th. We'll know better what that program will look like when it gets approved, and the target date right now is May of 2021. We expect it to be somewhat similarly sized. There'll be some ins and outs in the programs, but for right now, we're really uncertain and can't discuss what the final details will be.
The positive aspect is that there are many programs that were run previously by the clean energy program of the BPU. Those programs, specifically on our residential and commercial customers, will be coming over to the utilities and to New Jersey Natural Gas. We look forward to that and working with the BPU on creating good collaborative. Those programs, once they get approved, and we're hopeful by May 1st, there'll be implementation required by July 1st of 2021. Right now, there's still a lot of uncertainties of what those programs look like, the size. We know they'll be about a three-year program, so expect these similar to what SAVEGREEN 5 is or could even be a little bit bigger.
Appreciate that. Thank you. Maybe if I can turn to COVID costs or potential COVID costs. It doesn't sound like there's been much of an impact directly. Do you anticipate at all calling out some of the potential COVID impacts? I know the BPU has allowed for that. One of your peers, I think, noted that they were doing so yesterday when they reported. Is that something you anticipate going forward?
Gabe, this is Patrick Migliaccio. Certainly, we are aware of the order. To date, COVID-19 costs for us have been largely immaterial. We continue to monitor that. We've not seen a material increase in net write-offs related to bad debt expense. To put some ranges around that, in a typical year, we'll see the $2 million-$3 million. Going all the way back to the great recession of 2008, 2009, that got as high as $7 million, just to give you some sense of the magnitude. As I mentioned earlier, to date, those costs, both COVID-19 specific as well as bad debt, are largely immaterial.
This is Mark again. We have been having productive conversations with the Board of Public Utilities about the whole aspect of uncollectibles. They're acutely aware of that. We'll work through that over the next period as we work through in getting some of these customers the assistance that they need to be able to help pay their bills.
Thanks, Pat. Thanks, Mark. Maybe my final question is just on SRL. Can you just talk about whether the total cost there has changed for the project? Looking at the SRL specific slide this quarter versus last, I think costs have gone up, but the capital plan slide seems unchanged for SRL. I'm just looking for clarification on that. If costs have gone up, your confidence that you'll be able to recover during the rate case, even if costs are higher.
Gabe, this is Patrick Migliaccio. Our estimates of cost for SRL are largely unchanged from what we reported the last quarter, and do not see any issues with recovering the costs associated with the project. Thanks.
Our next question comes from Michael Gaugler with Janney Montgomery Scott. Please go ahead.
Morning, everyone.
Morning, Mike.
Hey, Mike.
Steve, got one for you. Given the cancellation of Atlantic Coast, just wondering what you're thinking in terms of your existing midstream assets and energy marketing. Does it create any opportunities for you in the future?
A few thoughts on that, Mike. One, certainly, infrastructure is becoming harder to build, which is making the infrastructure that's in place, I think, more valuable as we move forward. Natural gas, very important energy source. We've even seen that recently with the tropical storm that's come through here, knocked out a lot of electric service, and there's been a lot of gas-fired generators have been running that have been helping provide electric service. Not only important in the winter, but important in the summer, and it's critical infrastructure. When we look at the projects that we have on the board, Adelphia Gateway, already in the ground. We've got some permitting still left in Pennsylvania. Minimal construction, minimal environmental impact, and serving a constrained market. We're excited about moving forward with that project once we get the approvals.
Leaf River Energy Center, the storage facility down in Mississippi, performing well. Certainly, volatile gas prices have helped there as well. Gulf Coast LNG liquefaction has been tough, but that's been helping spreads and such down in that area, and really shows the balancing needs down in Louisiana as well. PennEast, still an important project. We've got capacity constraints in the Northeast. I think as we push forward, receive the EA, we are marching forward with that project. Certainly very needed. Right now, I think the opportunities that we have are to get the projects that we have on our slate developed and get them completed and running, which is what we're working pretty hard at right now.
Okay. You brought up PennEast. I'm just wondering, what's the target to begin construction there on phase one?
Phase 1, I think we'll have a completion in 2022. We, right now, are going through the process. We received the EA. We need to receive the FERC certificate this fall, and then some other approvals. I think we're working through the process, and as you know, that's been an unpredictable process. Current schedule, having that in service, I believe the end of 2021, 2022, currently.
Thank you, sir.
Our next question comes from Richard Cicciarelli with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question.
Morning, Richard.
Hey, Richard.
Hey. Just curious if you guys could provide a little bit more color on what's driving your expectations for the remainder of the year. Just looking at what you've done year-to-date, it seems like it would imply 100% growth year-over-year for Q4. I realize that there's some timing considerations with ITC recognition and the SREC revenues out of your CEV segment. Just curious if you can provide a little bit more color there.
Hey, Richard, on our end, you cut out a little bit on the initial side of the question. Initial color on what specifically?
Sorry, yeah. For your expectations for the remainder of the year, given that you've kept your guidance intact playing to the low end of the range. Just given what you've done year-to-date, it seems like it would imply 100% growth for Q4 year-over-year. I realize the timing with the ITC recognition, but what else is driving your expectations for the remainder of the year?
No, Richard, you're spot on. It really is timing. As Steve alluded to in his remarks, we've got roughly $60-plus million of SREC sales that we will deliver in the fourth quarter of this fiscal year, which you could effectively tax-affect those and drop them to the bottom line because there's no incremental additional operating expenses. The balance is income taxes, or rather investment tax credits associated with Clean Energy Ventures. It really is strictly a timing issue, not much more than that.
Okay, got it. That's very helpful. Just curious, I know you touched on the energy efficiency program, but also on the IIP program, what are your expectations for rider treatment there, and when's the timing for approval?
Hi, this is Mark Carra again, Vice President Regulatory Affairs. We filed back in February of 2019 on that. We answered all the discovery and submitted the cost-benefit analysis that was required earlier this year. We've begun the settlement process now. We're hopeful that during the course of this quarter or into the early first quarter of FY 2021, we'll have some resolution on that and close the issue out and get some investment underway.
Richie, just as a reminder of that over $500 million program, approximately $280 million was related to what I described as traditional pipe infrastructure. $220 million is related to our what we've dubbed Project NEXT, which is the replacement of our customer billing system, ERP, and work and asset management. That work is underway for our ERP. It actually went into service on July the 8th. Just as an FYI, those are the two different types of spend under that program.
Okay, got it. That's very helpful. Just last one for me here. You alluded to some of the permitting challenges at Adelphia, and you shifted the spending there. I also noticed some minor spending was shifted out at CEV. What's driving that?
I think with Adelphia Gateway, getting the permits through the Pennsylvania DEP, we've been working with them extremely well. COVID related impacts and just slowing things down a little bit could be a reason for that. That's just slowing the project down. We still expect that to have in commercial operation in 2021. You see in the numbers, we've shifted out the spending to reflect that.
Richie, on the Clean Energy Ventures side, we lowered our expectation for The Sunlight Advantage last quarter from $26 million to $20 million. We're still targeted there. Again, that's also principally COVID-19 related, referenced on last call. First, with our channel partners not being able to get into homes to market to our customers. Second, at the local municipality level, permits have been a little bit slower to achieve.
All right, guys, thanks a lot for the color. That's all I had.
Thanks, Richard.
Thanks. Have a good day.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star, then one. Our next question comes from Travis Miller with Morningstar. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys.
Hey, Travis.
Good morning, Travis.
On SRL, I was wondering if the BPU was involved in anything in terms of investigation or looking into what happened, and whether there was any kind of process of dealing with issues, like what would happened through the BPU rather than the DEP? I just wonder if there was any involvement there?
Travis, we notified the BPU that this incident took place. That's been about it. It's really been the DEP and local permitting that have been involved, and we're working with them right now. Like we said, we've submitted a risk mitigation plan with them, and we're awaiting review so we can start up the sections. Construction's still continuing. The only other thing that I would add is, remember the BPU has approved this project to start. This is a resiliency project that was really born out of Superstorm Sandy and necessary to get another supply point to our system. Extremely important for us to complete this project going forward. That was the BPU's, I guess, involvement in the situation so far.
Okay. Has there been any kind of pushback from interveners or possible interveners about rate recovery given what happened?
No, we haven't. This would go into our next rate case. We haven't had the opportunity to put it in a rate case at this point. We've got to get commercial operation in place first. No, there hasn't been any reaction from an intervener.
Okay, sure. Thanks. Wondering high level, your thoughts on the Berkshire Dominion deal, and any chance that if the right price came along, that you might look at a similar divestiture on the midstream side?
We don't comment on those types of situations. I will say, we're excited to get Adelphia Gateway up and running and get some of these assets in the market. It's a constrained market. There's definitely a big need for natural gas deliveries in these markets that we're in. I think they'll provide value for our company for a very long time.
Okay. I appreciate the very elaborate non-answer. Thank you much, guys.
Thanks, Travis.
This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Dennis Puma for any closing remarks.
All right. Thank you, Brandon. We want to thank everybody for joining us this morning. As a reminder, a recording of this call is available on our website for replay. As always, we thank you for your interest and investment in New Jersey Resources. Goodbye.
The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.