RGC Resources, Inc.
Q1 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 12 Feb 2021

[Paul Nester:]

Good morning. I'm Paul Nester, President and CEO of RGC Resources, Inc. With me today are Randy Burton, our Chief Financial Officer; and David Garcia, our Director of Financial Reporting and Analysis. Welcome, and thank you for joining us as we discuss RGC Resources' Fiscal 2021 First Quarter Results. First, a few administrative items. We have muted all lines and ask that all participants remain muted. After the presentation is completed, we will take questions. The link to today's presentation is available on the Investor & Financial Information page of our website at www.rgcresources.com. Let's begin. Slide 1 contains our forward-looking statements disclaimer this presentation contains forecasts and projections. As outlined on Slide 2, we will review first quarter operational and financial results. Followed by our thoughts on the remainder of the fiscal year, and we will wrap up with an opportunity for you to ask questions.

[Randy Burton:]

Thanks, Paul, and good morning. I would like to take this opportunity to encourage everyone to visit our website using the link provided at the bottom of this slide to learn more about our ESG activities. We recently added this page to highlight the many things we have been doing surrounding the ESG initiatives. As indicated here on Slide 6, resources completed its first quarter of fiscal 2021, with earnings of $0.58 per diluted share, increasing approximately 18% over the same quarter of the prior year. This increase reflects continued improvements in Roanoke Gas' utility margins, driven by our infrastructure improvement programs, customer growth and overall lower operating expenses. Additionally, noncash equity and earnings for RGC Midstream's investment in the Mountain Valley pipeline contributed to the increased earnings. At this time, I would like to preface the additional review with a few comments regarding the pandemic. First, these results mark the final comparison to a completely COVID-free historical period as the effects of COVID-19 and the state of emergency was declared in our service territory in March of 2020. This is worthy of highlighting as our company has been extremely fortunate to have had minimal impacts on operations, including our ability to safely and own an uninterrupted basis deliver service to our customers. I am very proud of all our team, as they have done an exceptional job of remaining diligent in their activities to ensure safety for our customers and themselves while providing essential services.

[Paul Nester:]

Thank you, Randy. We did have an outstanding first quarter. Let's discuss the remainder of fiscal 2021. We want to take that in 3 steps, as shown on Slide 8. We like the picture here on Slide 8, if you can see it. If you're joining us online, it's a beautiful gas light here in the Raleigh Court neighborhood of Roanoke. Moving to Slide 9. We are still on target to spend $21.1 million this fiscal year. As we continue to renew, strengthen and expand Roanoke Gas distribution system for some main extension and new customer additions have spilled over from the first quarter into the second quarter, and we expect that trend to continue into the warmer construction season. I would like to highlight a couple of projects that we will start this coming spring. First, we will renew another of our older gate stations at approximately $0.75 million of investment. And this, in fact, will be our fifth such gate station renewal through the SAVE plan. As you recall, the SAVE plans, our infrastructure rider program. Second, if you joined us in 2020 on these calls or at our annual meeting last year, we discussed our Blue Ridge expansion project, which was approximately an 8,000-foot main extension into a previously unserved area, the largest by dollar value main extension project in the company's history. We're moving into Phase II in Blue Ridge at approximately $1 million this year, planning to run about 6,800 feet more main, and that's going to give us a significant residential conversion opportunity.

[Q - Michael Gaugler:]

Yes. The listen, I wanted to circle on my always favorite topic, MVP and the strategy change from the partners. So I'm wondering, has the stream crossing -- like you mentioned in your comments, 430 crossings remain. So by -- does the change in strategy bifurcate the process so that x amount of the streams fall under FERC and x amount fall under the Army core? Or do you still kind of need FERC for all of it?

[Paul Nester:]

Yes. That's a great question. So the Army Corp. and FERC, in addition to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality will all be involved in the permitting process. And that's also the same as it was with the Nationwide 12, instead of, of course, approving a blanket permit, which is what the Nationwide 12 performed as. They'll just be reviewing and approving individual permits.

[Michael Gaugler:]

So in essence, they're taking this attack stream by stream.

[Paul Nester:]

They really are taking it stream by stream. And they feel really good that from a construction standpoint, nothing's changed. In other words, the project still going to complete those stream by stream crossings in an environmentally responsible and protective manner. And in fact, by moving to this individual permit process, it really does respond to the fourth circuit opinion on the Nationwide 12, and really a lot -- frankly, a lot of the opposition's thoughts and comments on the stream crossings.

[Michael Gaugler:]

Okay. And then just wondering, is there any update on the disposition of the ConEd stake?

[Paul Nester:]

No. We've not heard anything on that at this time. Do we have any other questions?

[Michael Gaugler:]

Paul, I've got one more, if there's -- if there are none others. You had mentioned on the AFUDC that, that could start back up at some point in the future. So since we're taking this stream by stream. I would guess that once that process of crossing the stream starts, it might be minor in terms of the accounting policy to go back to AFUDC, would there be a potential for like one big catch-up AFUDC that encompassed all the stream work at the end of the construction of the project instead of the kind of the regular cadence that we've had of every quarter?

[Paul Nester:]

Yes. So our understanding, Mike, how the accounting for the AFUDC will occur is going to be very specific to the construction activities in the field. And so at the point in time when the project feels like it's at a place with its individual permit approvals and other regulatory processes that they will, in fact, mobilize meaningful crew count to the field. At that point in time, it would, I think, follow the proper practice there that the AFUDC would reinitiate. Said slightly differently, there'll be meaningful construction activity, of course, from both the labor and material and productivity standpoint that would justify the AFUDC attaching to that activity.

[Randy Burton:]

And Mike, the mechanism there allows for the capitalization of those financing or carrying costs during the period of time in which there are those substantial construction activities that Paul mentioned. So that would result in a calculation of those only at that time.

[Michael Gaugler:]

Okay. All right. I think I got it. A lot of -- this is an educational process with MVP, for sure.

[Paul Nester:]

It is. And the AFUDC is a -- it's a fairly unique accounting process specific to FERC projects and utility in nature of projects. Anyone else have any other questions? Okay. Well, if there are no more questions, this does conclude our first quarter earnings call. Thank you for joining us, and we look forward to speaking with you again, in May, to review our second quarter results. We hope you all have a safe and happy weekend. Thank you.

[Randy Burton:]

Thank you.