OGE Energy Corp.
Q1 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 9 May 2021

[Operator:]

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to First Quarter 2021 OGE Energy Earnings conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we'll conduct a question-and-session, and instructions will follow at that time . As a reminder this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Jason Bailey.

[Jason Bailey:]

Thank you, May, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to OGE Energy Corp., first quarter 2021 earnings call. I'm Jason Bailey, Director of Investor Relations, and with me today, I have Sean Trauschke, Chairman, President and CEO of OGE Energy Corp; and Bryan Buckler, CFO of OGE Energy Corp.

[Sean Trauschke:]

Thank you, Jason, and good morning, everyone. It's great to be with you this morning. Earlier, we reported first quarter consolidated earnings of $0.26 per share, which includes utility earnings of $0.06 per share, earnings associated with our investment in Enable of $0.19 per share, and earnings at the holding company of $0.01 per share. We've accomplished a lot, and I'm pleased to report that we've made great progress in mitigating the impacts of Winter Storm Uri. We are back within the guidance range we reported last quarter, and we are not done. We are one quarter into the year, and we're focused on a great year. Our efforts to mitigate the impacts of Uri are ongoing as we work consistently to deliver shareholder value. Bryan will provide additional details when he discusses our financial results. We've had a productive and busy first quarter, starting the year off by announcing our support of the merger between Enable and Energy Transfer. And as we work to finalize that merger agreement in February, our service territory experienced Winter Storm Uri. And I'm pleased to say that our operational performance during the storm was strong. Our employees and our generation fleet performed admirably, and our customers experienced minimal disruptions. Importantly, we performed our work safely, improving our year-over-year first quarter safety results by 60%, which is a great accomplishment when you consider that 2020 was our second safest year on record. And particularly when you consider that our members worked in some of the most difficult winter conditions imaginable during the storm. Then we quickly got to work on legislative and regulatory solutions to address the financial impacts of Uri. We now have a regulatory asset for the recovery of the winter storm cost in Oklahoma and in Arkansas. We now have securitization legislation in Oklahoma and in Arkansas. We have filed for securitization in Oklahoma and in Arkansas.

[Bryan Buckler:]

Thank you, Sean, and good morning, everyone. Starting on slide 9. For the first quarter of 2021, we achieved net income of $53 million or $0.26 per share as compared to a loss of $492 million or $2.46 per share in 2020. The loss in 2020 was driven by the impairment charge recorded on our Enable midstream investment. At the utility, OG&E's first quarter results were $0.04 lower than 2020, primarily driven by the previously disclosed losses that occurred during the extreme winter weather from the Guaranteed Flat Bill program. As I discussed during our fourth quarter call, the GFB program represents approximately 3% of our load, whereby variabilities in fuel and purchase power costs are not trued up. The financial impacts of the weather event are consistent with the estimates we provided you on the fourth quarter call. Excluding the impact of the extraordinary fuel costs and our GFB program, OG&E's core operations performed very well during the first quarter, including strong cost management. I'll speak to our updated full year 2021 projection in a moment. Our natural gas midstream operations had income of $0.19 per share in the first quarter compared to a loss of $2.84 in 2020. The increase in earnings was primarily due to the 2020 impairment of our investment in Enable. The current quarter was also marked by higher net income from Enable's transportation and storage business resulting from higher natural gas prices. Turning to our economic update on slide 10. As Sean mentioned, we are seeing strong employment figures in our service territory, and we are especially pleased with the customer growth of 1.4% year-over-year, illustrating the attractiveness of living and working in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Furthermore, our commercial segment is showing encouraging strength, with year-over-year load growth of approximately 6% in the month of March alone, leading to the 1.8% quarterly load increase figure you see on the slide. For the full year, we continue to expect total weather normal load results to be approximately 2.4% higher than 2020 levels. Let's move to slide 11. We've made outstanding progress in the quarter toward mitigating the aforementioned GFB program impacts, and currently project OG&E full year 2021 results within the lower half of our original guidance range of $1.76 and to $1.86 per share. On the fourth quarter call, we outlined our initial estimate of approximately $0.10 of headwinds associated with the weather event. As I mentioned earlier, our estimates continue to come in at approximately this level.

[Operator:]

First question is from the line of Shar Pourreza from Guggenheim Partners your line is now open.

[Constantine Lednev:]

Hi good morning, actually Constantine here for Shar. Thanks for taking our questions.

[Sean Trauschke:]

Hi good morning Constantine and tell Shar hello as well.

[Constantine Lednev:]

I will absolutely do that. We're just spread a little bit tight. But I just had a quick question on Enable. It's not directly related to the transaction, but maybe just a little bit more on the strategic side curious to kind of how you envision the options to - that you would utilize kind of for the exit that you talked about? And is it just as straightforward as a market sell down so if you don't really have equity financing needs? Is there a business mix that you're targeting for '21, '22? And is the timing of the exit dictated by the ability to reinvest effectively?

[Sean Trauschke:]

Yes. Good question, Constantine. And I think the - we don't have a targeted business mix per se in '21 or '22. But we've been clear. We are going to exit the midstream business and our ownership and I think you hit on the key point. We've got the balance sheet to do it prudently and to really optimize that. Bryan and his team are looking at a lot of different things and have been very thoughtful. But I think a lot can happen between now and closing in that space for sure. And so we certainly have the growth opportunities at the utility but line of sight to the recovery of those are very important to us. So we'll continue to be good allocators of capital. But I think you should expect us as we've said many times just to really be prudent about this. And we would own roughly 3% of the Energy Transfer units. So we're not burdened by a big move. We'll be able to do this on our own terms, and without creating any kind of unnecessary overhang on the energy transfer units. Bryan, do you have anything to add to that or --?

[Bryan Buckler:]

I think that's exactly how we're thinking through it, of course. And the reinvestment opportunities in the utility are shown through the strong customer growth that we're seeing in our jurisdiction. And so that business mix over time is important to us to become more of a pure electric utility, and we would expect that to provide us an even stronger balance sheet capacity with the credit rating agencies as well.

[Constantine Lednev:]

That's great color. It actually also takes us to my second question, which was just in line of the upcoming IRPs as the resource costs start shifting and we have seen this more and more with solar and wind displacing fossil resources through cost savings. Do you feel your jurisdictions are well-positioned for that transition? And is anything currently being reflected in the 5% long-term growth rate that you're envisioning?

[Sean Trauschke:]

Yes. So what we've laid out in our five-year capital forecast does not include any generation needs as a result of the integrated resource plan. So that would all be incremental. As far as what you're seeing - what you're pointing to in terms of trends and where things are going. I would say that we've been on that trend for a while. We built the first wind farm and first solar farm, and we've been very active in the transmission front. And I think you should expect us to be engaged in all those fronts going forward. As we look at our IRP, yes, I don't think there's any new information there that we do see prices come down. The economics are certainly changing. And our view is we're going to be focused on affordability, reliability and resiliency. And that's how we think about a lot of our investments, and I don't see any reason generation would be any different.

[Constantine Lednev:]

Perfect, I think that sums it up pretty well. Thanks for taking the questions.

[Sean Trauschke:]

Thanks Constantine

[Bryan Buckler:]

Thank you

[Operator:]

Next question is from the line of Insoo Kim from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

[Insoo Kim:]

Hi good morning guys. How are you?

[Sean Trauschke:]

Hey, good morning, Insoo.

[Insoo Kim:]

Good morning. My first question is just from a - coming out of Winter Storm Uri and thinking about resiliency and reliability in the state going forward to mitigate this from happening, whether it's from OGE's perspective or just your conversations with various stakeholders in the state. What are some of the conversations that are taking place now on, whether it's on the T&D side, generation side, what potential investments may be needed?

[Sean Trauschke:]

Yeah. Insoo, great question. And I'm actually really pleased you asked this question because it gives me the opportunity to maybe brag a little bit. I think what's important here, well, every single one of our plants generated megawatts every day during this event. So we had put the winterization packages on the Mustang Energy Center when we built that. We put - we winterized our two big combined cycle plants. And our customers had minimal disruptions. And so coming out of this, you always have lessons learned. I do think that we're certainly going to take a hard look at our supply chain, specifically, if you think about gas, to make sure that we understand where the gas is coming from. And as that facility is winterized such that it can be ready in events like this. But we certainly saw some things with that extreme weather, how we - in the event that we were going to receive a notice from the SPP to shed load, how we would do that. And we've - there's always learnings there. But I would tell you that the fleet performed just great. And we were prepared. We had made those investments. And I think when you live, work and play in the community, you kind of have a higher calling to make sure that you're accountable and ready to go. And I'm really proud of the team here because they work.

[Insoo Kim:]

Got it. Thanks for that color. My other question is just with guidance for this year. What are some puts and takes or opportunities that could help you improve within the range for 2021?

[Sean Trauschke:]

Insoo, it's Bryan good morning and you know two points on the - going back to your question on investments, too, Sean was speaking to the February weather event and was right on. We're also looking at T&D investment needs around the October 2020 ice storm. We really had 100-year storms in October and again in February, it's pretty amazing. So we're always looking for ways to invest to improve our system for our customers and communities. And going to your point on your - your question on the guidance range for 2021, we're really proud of the progress we've made to-date. When we discussed this with you back in February, we were looking at $1.81. I've built a very strong financial plan to achieve that and immediately had the February weather event that put $0.10 of headwind on us. So we're pointing to $1.71, but we also indicated that we were not done, that we were going to work hard to operationally and with the regulatory teams to get earnings back inside the guidance range of $1.76 to $1.86. So we're proud of the progress we've made to-date. You can see on the slide that we've made about $0.06 to $0.08 of progress that gets you in range of about $1.78 in 2021. We have three quarters ahead of us. Cost management is an area that this company has excelled at for years. We continue to explore O&M agility to help mitigate earnings impacts year-to-year. But we have a lot in front of us with nine months and our - I believe it's 75% of our earnings come from June through September. So that's a lot of time for us to work through and operate the plants and the grid as well as we can and continue to explore opportunities to get us all the way back to $1.81. But right now, we're at $1.78. We're proud of our progress, and we'll keep working it.

[Insoo Kim:]

Understood. That's all I have. Thank you and I hope you enjoy some of the warm weather.

[Sean Trauschke:]

Thanks Insoo.

[Operator:]

Next is Brandon Lee from Mizuho. Your line is now open.

[Brandon Lee:]

Hey Sean, hey Bryan, thanks taking my question.

[Sean Trauschke:]

Hey, good morning Brandon.

[Brandon Lee:]

Good morning, how are you?

[Sean Trauschke:]

We're doing well, doing well. Things are good, really good.

[Brandon Lee:]

I just had a quick question. So the 5% EPS growth rate at the utility, how do you guys view that? I guess some utilities defer O&M cost, if they have a really good weather year and then maybe pull forward - or sorry, pull forward some to keep it within that 5% range or whatever their range is, or they defer if they're having a tougher year. Do you view that as like your target, your goal for that 5%? Or are there going to be ups and downs?

[Sean Trauschke:]

Well, I think we're going to deliver 5%. And I think we're hopeful that we have more ups than downs. And that's certain what you referenced there, that's certainly a lever as a company that we will pull. But more importantly, I want to hear - I want you to hear from us that we've got a robust capital plan. We're not - for many, many years, and we're very confident in the 5%.

[Brandon Lee:]

Okay great. That's all I had. Thanks.

[Sean Trauschke:]

Thanks Brandon.

[Operator:]

No further question. I'll turn the call back over to Mr. Sean Trauschke.

[Sean Trauschke:]

Okay, thank you. Thank you all for your time this morning and your interest in OGE Energy Corp. And I wish you all the very best. Please take care of yourselves and those around you, and I look forward to seeing you all very soon. Take care.

[Operator:]

This concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.