Empire District Electric Earnings Call NUGGETS: Rate Base Numbers, Weather

On Friday, Empire District Electric reported its second quarter earnings and discussed the following topics in its earnings conference call. Take a look.

Rate Base Numbers

Jim Von Riesemann – UBS Securities : Can you – at the end, Brad, you were mentioning a lot of stuff about the Riverton and the Unit 9 and retiring those units, could you start us out with what the latest rate base numbers are, and then maybe what do you expect that rate base number to be by the time Riverton 9 is retired? Do you have those handy?

Kelly Walters – VP and COO : Jim, this is Kelly Walters, I’m Vice President and COO with the company, from a rate base perspective for Riverton 7, 8, and 9 we would be looking at plant in service less accumulated depreciation. There will be some impact there as far as it’s not completely depreciated, but there won’t be a large impact to rate base, as the result of using the math for that. Does that help?

Jim Von Riesemann – UBS Securities : So, do you have any actual numbers of terms of what say call it June 30, 2012 rate base figures were, maybe where you expect that rate base number to be just for the company as a whole call it 2016, 2014?

Kelly Walters – VP and COO : I don’t have that level of detail through 2016. Laurie, would you have any information on that?

Laurie A. Delano – VP, Finance and CFO : Jim, you’re trying to get at what the rate base values are for those…

Jim Von Riesemann – UBS Securities : I’m actually asking what’s your current rate base, and what do you expect your rate base to be call it by 2014 or out to 2016, when you know number 9 is retired for the consolidated company?

Kelly Walters – VP and COO : For this year, Jim, I can tell you that the rate base number is not significantly different than it was in the last case that we filed. What we did was we projected rate through the end of the year for our rate case filing, and the plant additions was mainly offset by bonus depreciation, that is then accumulated deferred income tax. For 2012, I can help you with that number.

Jim Von Riesemann – UBS Securities : So, what’s that number going to be?

Kelly Walters – VP and COO : Just give me one second.

Jim Von Riesemann – UBS Securities : Okay.

Laurie A. Delano – VP, Finance and CFO : Jim, while Kelly is getting that together then to get to the 2016 level would be our total projected capital expenditures are annual depreciation of course.

Jim Von Riesemann – UBS Securities : In terms of percentage growth, how do you think about rate base growing between now and then?

Laurie A. Delano – VP, Finance and CFO : (indiscernible) less our deferred taxes. Again, we don’t really have that projected number in front of us, but I think, if you add up all of our projected capital expenditures, you’re going to get about 500 to 600…

Bradley P. Beecher – President and CEO : 5% to 6%.

Laurie A. Delano – VP, Finance and CFO : 5% to 6% increase.

Weather

Jim Von Riesemann – UBS Securities : Second question, while Kelly is still looking some of that up is weather had a $15 million hit for the trailing 12 months can you tell me. Well, that’s $0.23 a share, so can you tell you what it was for just the first 6 months of this year?

Laurie A. Delano – VP, Finance and CFO : For the first 6 months of this year?

Jim Von Riesemann – UBS Securities : Correct.

Laurie A. Delano – VP, Finance and CFO : Where we are behind normal weather?

Jim Von Riesemann – UBS Securities : Exactly.

Laurie A. Delano – VP, Finance and CFO : Okay. We estimate that number to be about $0.11.

Jim Von Riesemann – UBS Securities : $0.11.

Laurie A. Delano – VP, Finance and CFO : On a year-to-date basis.

Jim Von Riesemann – UBS Securities : Okay. And then just I guess the last question is going to be on financing from the dividend and the dividend reinvestment program, can you just refresh our memories as to what your plans are now that you’ve had a dividend reinstated for 3 quarters, you’re going to turn on the drip again?

Laurie A. Delano – VP, Finance and CFO : Yes. It’s already – it never was off. It’s already on. We didn’t mention to you that. So, that’s in place again.