RGC Resources Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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May 8, 2023

Key Takeaways

  • RNG facility completed on time and largely within budget, began billing in March, and is now operating as designed to supply renewable natural gas.
  • Second quarter natural gas volumes fell 19% year-over-year due to a 22% drop in heating degree days in the Roanoke Valley from a mild winter.
  • Q2 operating income rose to $10.3 million (up $2 million YoY) and net income was $6.34 million versus a prior-year loss, delivering a 25% increase in underlying net income.
  • Key permits for the Mountain Valley Pipeline are expected by late June, with construction forecast to resume in early July following recent federal approvals.
  • Fiscal 2023 earnings guidance remains unchanged, reflecting an anticipated $2 million midstream subsidiary loss from higher interest costs and delayed pipeline income.
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Earnings Conference Call
RGC Resources Q2 2023
00:00 / 00:00

There are 4 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, everybody. I am Tommy Oliver, Senior Vice President of Regulatory and External Affairs for RGC Resources Inc.

Speaker 1

I want

Operator

to thank you for joining us as we discuss RGC Resources 2023 Second Quarter Results. But before we get started, let's review a few administrative items. We have muted all lines and ask that all participants remain muted. At the conclusion of the presentation and our remarks, we will take questions. Lastly, the link to today's presentation is available on the Investor and Financial Information page on our website at www dotrgcresources.com.

Operator

So turning to Slide 1. This presentation contains forecasts and projections. So Slide 1 is the forward looking statement disclaimer. Slide 2 contains our agenda. We will review our quarterly operational and financial results and discuss the outlook for the remainder of fiscal 2023 With time allotted for questions at the end, I would like to introduce Paul Nestor, President and CEO of RGC Resources.

Operator

Paul? Thank you, Tommy. Good morning and thank you

Speaker 1

to everyone for joining us. And I would also like to thank Kelsey Davenport, our Director of Finance and Jason Field, our CFO for putting today's presentation together. We're on Slide 3 and we're off to a good start in the first half of fiscal 2023, particularly in our operations and customer service area. I would like to mention, our Roanoke Gas utility in particular And then secondly, customer service. We are here to serve the customer as a public service corporation in the state of Virginia.

Speaker 1

I would also like to add, I know we've talked about this on previous calls and the Shard indicates this with our 336 new services and our 2.7 miles of main extension. We continue to see Individual and commercial interest from natural gas. As you know, there are a lot of headlines, particularly recently with what's going on in New state about natural gas ban. That is contrary to our experience on a day to day basis and we are Proud to continue fulfilling that demand with affordable, reliable Natural Gas, our customer count is right in line with where we expect it to be. Of course, the chart shows a little aberration From 2022, you may recall we had the pandemic related service disconnection moratoriums in 2020 2021 and We're now returning and resuming to normal activities in terms of our collection processes, but the customer Norms, you may recall in 2021 2022, we had 2 outstanding years of main miles.

Speaker 1

This year should be tampered down a little bit from those years, but again more in line with pre pandemic norms. I will now hand it back over to Tommy he can update us on our new RNG facility. Tommy? Well, thank you, Paul.

Operator

Let's move to Slide 4. As we discussed on last quarter's earnings call, in January, we did receive commission approval of the project and cost recovery through a new Ryder RNG. We began billing the rider in March. Construction also concluded in March of this year, at which time we put the project in service. The project was completed on time and largely within budget.

Operator

While we have spent some time since commercial operation Fine tuning and syncing the RNG facility with the water authority's equipment, the RNG facility is operating as designed and we're very pleased with it. I will now introduce Jason Field, our CFO and Treasurer. Jason will review the quarterly and year to date financial results. Jason?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Tommy. You could move to Slide 5. Our 2nd quarter natural gas volumes were down reflective of the mild winter we experienced in the Mid Atlantic Heating degree days in the Roanoke Valley were 22% lower than the Q2 of 2022, which resulted in 19% lower delivery of total volumes compared to the Q2 of last year. Commercial and Industrial volumes were similarly lower than the prior year due to the warmer weather. If you transition to Slide 6, the lower natural gas volumes in the 2nd quarter offset the higher gas volumes we experienced in the Q1.

Speaker 2

Overall, our volumes for the 6 months of the fiscal year were 2% lower in line with the 2% fewer heating degree days for the same period in our region. Commercial and industrial loans were also 2% lower year to year compared to last year. If you move to Slide 7, our financial results are highlighted. For the quarter, our operating income of $10,292 was up over $2,000,000 compared to the Q2 of 2022. The increase we experienced was associated with customer growth and the implementation of new non gas rates on January 1.

Speaker 2

Our net income for the quarter was $6,342,000 compared to the net loss we experienced in the Q2 of 2022, which reflected the non cash impairment we recorded at our midstream affiliate on the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Today, in the comparison of our quarter financials and the trailing 12 month results, we've represented our financial results an underlying basis, which you'll find on Slide 8. The results of our 2nd quarter net income on an underlying basis was 1,264,000 dollars higher than the underlying income of the Q2 of 2023 2022, excuse me, and that represented a 25 percent increase from 2022. The implementation of the new non gas rates moved a portion of our customer base charge to a volume metric charge resulting in higher revenues in the Q2. The trailing 12 month underlying net income of $10,116,000 was up $843,000 or just about 9%.

Speaker 2

Let's move to Slide number 9. We experienced continued strong investment in our utility Roanoke Gas. Overall, we invested $12,900,000 in utility property for the 2 quarters of this fiscal year and that was up approximately $2,100,000 compared to the Q1 of 2022. The increase was primarily the result of the investment we made in the RNG project and other renewal projects. Paul will now discuss the outlook for the rest of the fiscal year.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Jason. We again had an outstanding 1st 6 months of the year. I'm really proud of our employees and their efforts on several of these significant projects. As Tommy mentioned, the RNG project Being on schedule and on budget is a noteworthy achievement. It's obviously a very unique project.

Speaker 1

The equipment was unique, the process is unique. And so for that project to come in on time and on budget is an outstanding result. I would like to make one other note. One of the things that's frequently discussed at the macroeconomic level is workforce and we were no different than others. Level is workforce and we were no different than others coming out of the pandemic with some retirements and other things Struggling to find workforce, but I would like to compliment our human resources and recruiting departments on Just doing a really good job in the last 12 months of hiring fantastic quality employees and retaining the great quality employees that we have and We feel like our workforce is in an excellent shape as we move towards the second half of fiscal twenty twenty three.

Speaker 1

We're going to talk about rent and gas growth and capital. We're going to also give just a brief MVP update and then talk about our earnings per share guidance. Moving on to Slide 11. Jason just reviewed the year to date capital. As you can see, we plan to hit $22,000,000 of total spending this year.

Speaker 1

As normal, we will be strong in our renewal efforts in the summer construction months as well as customer growth and some utility maintenance as we get through the remaining 6 months of the year. I'd like to talk about Mountain Valley before we discuss the earnings guidance. Mountain Valley, the permitting is in progress. And in fact, we had a good result At the end of February with the Fish and Wildlife Service reissuing the biological opinion, the U. S.

Speaker 1

Forest Service issued their sedimentation analysis in mid April. And the managing partner Equitrans announced last week on their earnings call the scheduled related to the permits and the project, which is exciting. We think the remaining Three permits, the right of way access for the Jefferson National Forest, we hope we should see by the end of this month. We think the U. S.

Speaker 1

Army Corps of Engineer permit hopefully by the end of June thereabout along with the West Virginia Water Quality Certification. Again, hoping to resume construction around the end of June, early July, give or take. So again, their Forecast on that was excellent and something we're much excited about. Running down a different track, but in the same direction is permitting reform. There's been much press about that over the last couple of weeks and there does seem to be bipartisan support in the United States Congress for permitting reform in both houses.

Speaker 1

It also seems the White House is Supportive of that, we were particularly pleased with Secretary Granholm's letter directly supporting the Mountain Valley Pipeline just issued in the last few days. So again, we're optimistic on the project and Look forward to hopefully resuming construction here in the very near future. If you're on Slide 12 with us, that contains our earnings guidance. We haven't changed our fiscal 2023 earnings guidance. And as Jason noted earlier, 2022 that is our underlying number.

Speaker 1

The effect of the impairments in 2022 has been removed. We're still expecting about a $2,000,000 loss in the midstream subsidiary, primarily due to interest costs, which are still slightly rising due to the higher interest rate environment and the lack of offsetting income from the Mountain Valley. The rate case is still in progress and We don't have any indication at this point of the result of that. We're probably about, what would you say, Tommy, about halfway through that process right now? Yes.

Speaker 1

Halfway. And you may recall, we had the large equity offering in March of 2022, which is diluting us Approximately $0.07 per share in fiscal 2023. We haven't issued any 2024 guidance at this point. We're hopeful that as things again progress through the summer with Mountain Valley that we'll be in a place maybe by the Q3 to start giving you, the investor, some indication of fiscal 2024. That concludes our prepared remarks.

Speaker 1

If

Speaker 3

Good morning, everyone.

Speaker 1

Mike, good morning. So nice to have you join us. Hope you're well.

Speaker 3

I am sorry. I hope you're well is also. Looking at the good results here you've had in the first half of the year, taking into account your comments on rising interest expenses associated with for the remainder of the year. Just wondering, I know that this is a busy your commercial industrial customers, one in particular is going to start There's probably about now. Just wondering if that could offset given it would seem logical they'll be burning a lot of gas Through the summer months given where gas prices are?

Speaker 1

Yes. Thank you for the question. And yes, maybe let's talk a minute about gas prices. There was actually a large article in the Wall Street Journal today about gas prices and how the Producers in particular are not holding back on the drilling and production because they see that there's going to be a future rise. But at the moment, gas prices are in the low to mid $2 per dekatherm range, which is approximately 1 third of where they were last year at this time.

Speaker 1

So that's Fantastic for our residential and commercial customers. But to your question, Mike, certainly some of our Commercial customers, which we have several who are in the building supplies sector and who use natural gas as a part their process should benefit greatly from those low prices and we do expect them to take advantage of these low cost energy prices this summer. So we are looking forward to that. We don't have an exact forecast on the usage at this time, but We do expect it to be pretty solid.

Speaker 3

Okay. And then you had mentioned We're about halfway through the rate process. Are you expecting to wrap that up, I would think, right at the beginning of 'twenty four then, fiscal 'twenty four?

Operator

Mike, it just depends on how that plays out. Staff follows their testimony in late August. We follow a rebuttal about 3 weeks after that. And Depending on how it plays out, it's important to note that we don't have an intervener in the case this year. So I think settlement is a good possibility if that happens, hopefully resolve it well before the beginning of next year.

Operator

Otherwise, if it goes to a full hearing, it will probably be early next year before it's resolved. Okay.

Speaker 3

All right. That's all I had. Great quarter, guys. Look great.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Michael. So nice to have you with us. Does anyone else have any questions? If so, dial to unmute your line. We'll stay on for just a few more seconds here to see if anyone else has any questions.

Speaker 1

All right. Well, Gary, no further questions. That does conclude our 2nd quarter earnings call. We're so delighted to have you with us and we hope everyone has a wonderful week and we look forward to joining you again in August to discuss our 3rd quarter results. Thank you.

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