DTE Energy Company (DTE) — Q2 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Before we get started, I would like to remind everyone to read the safe harbor statement on Page 2 of the presentation, including the reference to forward-looking statements. Our presentation also includes references to operating earnings, which is a non-GAAP financial measure. Please refer to the reconciliation of GAAP earnings to operating earnings provided in the appendix. With us this morning are Gerry Norcia, President and CEO; and Dave Ruud, Senior Vice President and CFO. And now I'll turn it over to Gerry to start the call this morning.

Thanks, Barb, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe. This morning, I'll recap our performance for the second quarter, then Dave will provide a financial review of the quarter and wrap things up before we take your questions. So let's start on Slide 4. We are making great progress this year at DTE for our team, our customers and our communities, positioning us to deliver for our investors. This progress has produced a strong second quarter and positions us well for continued growth. Our distinctive team of over 10,000 employees continues to be recognized for our engagement by Gallup with our ninth consecutive Great Workplace Award. We continue to build on this strength with our focus on diversity, equity and inclusion to create an even better workplace for all our employees where everyone feels valued, welcome and able to contribute their best energy. Our company celebrated Juneteenth together last month with a series of virtual meetings, paying tribute to this important day with local community partners. A number of employees offered reflections on what the day means to them personally. Overall, it was a great way to come together and honor a significant holiday. We understand that all people thrive and succeed when they feel included and welcome. We continue to focus on service excellence for our customers and delivering clean, safe and reliable energy as we continue our clean energy transformation. DTE Electric received approval from the Michigan Public Service Commission to further expand the voluntary renewable program MIGreenPower, while also making it even more affordable, including increased access for low-income customers. Additionally, we partnered with Ford Motor Company to install new rooftop solar and battery storage technology at the Ford Research and Engineering Center. The array includes an integrated battery storage system and will be used to power newly installed electric vehicle chargers. This can generate over 1,100 megawatt hours of clean energy. We also continue to support the communities where we live and serve. We were recognized by Points of Light for the fourth consecutive year as one of the Civic 50. This award highlights DTE as one of the top 50 community-minded companies nationwide in corporate citizenship. We launched a Tree Trim Academy to create 200 high-paying jobs in Detroit. DTE has a need for tree trimmers and the community has a need for good quality jobs. It will also help us continue to improve electric reliability as trees account for over 70% of our customer outages. On the investor front, we completed the spin of the midstream business. Now DTE Midstream is a stand-alone company and DTE Energy is predominantly a pure-play utility with 90% of operating earnings coming from our utilities. The transaction went very smoothly and was well received by all stakeholders. We didn't miss a beat on a very strategic transaction and many said we made it look easy. Many thanks to the DTE team and our advisers that made this effort a great success for our employees and our investors. We delivered a strong second quarter with earnings of $1.70 per share, and we are raising our 2021 operating earnings guidance and continue to pay a strong dividend. Let's turn to Slide 5. DTE is continuing to deliver successful operating results. At DTE Electric, we made another significant step toward our goal of reducing carbon emissions as we retired the River Rouge Power Plant in the second quarter. For over 60 years, the River Rouge Power Plant delivered safe, reliable and affordable energy for communities throughout Southeast Michigan. River Rouge is one of the three coal-fired power plants DTE is retiring by the end of 2022, which is an integral part of our company's clean energy transformation. We continue to look at ways to accelerate our coal fleet retirements and potentially file our updated Integrated Resource Plan before September of 2023. We continue to expand on our voluntary renewable program, which is exceeding our high expectations. In the first quarter, we announced the commitment of new customers to MIGreenPower, including the State of Michigan, Bedrock and Trinity Health. During the second quarter, we signed up a number of new large customers, including Detroit Diesel, which is now one of our largest voluntary renewable customers. The program continues to grow at an impressive rate. So far, we've reached 950 megawatts of voluntary renewable commitments with large business customers and approximately 35,000 residential customers. We have an additional 400 megawatts in very advanced stages of discussion for future customers. MIGreenPower is one of the largest voluntary renewable programs in the nation and helps advance our work towards our net zero carbon emission goal, while helping our customers meet their decarbonization goals. We have made progress with our expedited tree trimming program, which is greatly improving reliability for our customers and have received Michigan Public Service Commission approval to securitize the tree trimming costs along with costs associated with the River Rouge Power Plant retirement. At DTE Gas, we are on track to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. We began the second phase of construction on our major transmission renewal project in Northern Michigan in June. The project includes the installation of a new pipeline, as well as facility modification work, which will reduce the risk of significant customer outages. The project is on track to be in service by the first quarter of next year. Last quarter, we announced our New CleanVision Natural Gas Balance program. This program provides the opportunity for customers to purchase both carbon offsets and renewable natural gas to enable them to reduce their carbon footprint. We are proud of how fast the program is growing. So far, we have over 3,000 customers subscribed, and we are looking forward to seeing it become as successful as our voluntary renewable program at DTE Electric. On our Power and Industrial business, we continue to add new projects as we began construction on a new RNG facility on a large dairy farm in South Dakota. This will be P&I's largest dairy R&D project to date. The project will directly inject RNG into the Northern Natural Gas system for sale into the California transportation fuels market. The facility is expected to be in service in the third quarter of 2022. We are also in advanced discussions on several new industrial energy and R&D projects, and we will provide updates on these as they progress. P&I was recognized by the Association of Union Contractors with the 2020 Project of the Year Award for the Ford Dearborn cogeneration project. Overall, I am extremely proud of the team's accomplishments year-to-date and I'm looking forward to more successes in 2021 and beyond. Now moving on to Slide 6. As I said, we've had a very strong start to 2021. We are raising our operating earnings guidance midpoint from $5.51 per share to $5.77 per share, moving our year-over-year growth and operating EPS guidance from 7.4% to a robust 12.5%. We are able to use some of this favorability to position the company to continue to deliver in future years. We have mentioned in Q1 that we were deep into planning for 2022 in a great level of detail. With all of this work, we feel great about achieving a smooth 5% to 7% growth trajectory into 2022 and through the five-year plan. You're not going to see any surprises from us in our growth rate in 2022 despite the operational rollup and the convertibles coming due. 90% of our future operating earnings will be from our two regulated utilities where we have a large investment agenda with $17 billion of capital investment in our five-year plan, focused on clean energy and customer reliability. Overall, we feel very confident about our performance in 2021 and our future operational and financial performance. Now I'll turn it over to Dave to discuss DTE's financial performance. Dave, over to you.

Thanks, Gerry, and good morning, everyone. Let me start on Slide 7 to review our second quarter financial results. Total operating earnings for the quarter were $329 million. This translates into $1.70 per share. You can find a detailed breakdown of EPS by segment, including our reconciliation to GAAP reported earnings in the appendix. I'll start the review at the top of the page with our utilities. The second quarter was really warm for us here in Michigan. In fact, it was the seventh warmest on record. DTE Electric earnings were $238 million for the quarter, which was $19 million higher than the second quarter of 2020, primarily due to higher commercial sales, rate implementation and warmer weather, offset by nonqualified benefit plan gains that we had in 2020. As we mentioned in the first quarter call, we've taken steps to reduce the variability of these investments going forward. Moving on to DTE Gas. Operating earnings were $7 million, $4 million lower than the second quarter of last year. The earnings decrease was driven primarily by the warmer weather in 2021, offset by new rates. Let's keep moving to the Gas Storage and Pipelines business on the third row. Operating earnings for GSP were $86 million, which was $16 million higher than the second quarter of 2020, driven primarily by the LEAP pipeline going into service and strong earnings across the pipeline segment. On the next row, you can see our Power and Industrial segment operating earnings were $34 million. This is a $9 million increase from the second quarter last year due to new RNG projects beginning operation. On the next one, you can see our operating earnings at our Energy Trading business were $21 million, which is $16 million higher than second quarter earnings last year due primarily to strong performance in the gas portfolio. Year-to-date through the second quarter, this positions us positively against our expectation and our original guidance for the year. Finally, Corporate and Other was unfavorable $22 million quarter-over-quarter, primarily due to the timing of taxes and higher interest expense. Overall, DTE earned $1.70 per share in the second quarter of 2021, which is $0.17 per share higher than 2020. Moving on to Slide 8. Given the strong start to the year, we were able to use this favorability to position ourselves to continue to deliver for our customers and investors in future years. And we are also increasing our 2021 operating EPS guidance midpoint from $5.51 per share to $5.77 per share. The increase in guidance is due primarily to warmer than normal weather, sustained continuous improvement and uncollectible expense variability at DTE Electric, higher REF volumes at P&I and stronger performance of energy trading due to the realization of gains from a small long physical storage position during the extreme cold weather event in Texas in the first quarter. In the third quarter, we are seeing additional sales upside for Electric compared to our plan and higher than planned REF volumes at P&I. We are continuing to explore opportunities to support future years through our investment strategy and to support future customer affordability. As you can see on the slide, there is no Gas Storage and Pipeline segment in our operating guidance for this year. The GSP segment will be classified as discontinued operations starting in the third quarter. Let's turn to Slide 9 to briefly discuss our balance sheet and equity issuance plan. We continue to focus on maintaining solid balance sheet metrics. Due to our continued strong cash flows, DTE is targeting no equity issuances in 2021 and has minimal equity needs in our plan beyond the convertible equity units in 2022. We have a strong investment-grade rating and are targeting an FFO to debt ratio of 16%. With the proceeds from the spin-off of DTM, we are retiring long-term parent debt of approximately $2.6 billion after debt breakage costs. These were NPV positive transactions and immediately accretive to EPS as we were able to retire higher interest rate debt to support our current plan and to deliver our 5% to 7% operating EPS growth rate. Now I'll wrap up on Slide 10, and we will open the line for questions. We feel great about our second quarter accomplishments and we are confident in achieving our increased 2021 guidance and continuing to deliver on our long-term 5% to 7% operating EPS growth rate. Our utilities continue to focus on our infrastructure investment agenda, specifically investments in clean generation and investments to improve reliability and the customer experience. We continue to focus on maintaining solid balance sheet metrics and are targeting no equity issuances in 2021. In closing, after executing a successful spin of our midstream business, DTE continues to be well positioned to deliver the premium total shareholder returns that our investors have come to expect over the past decade with strong utility growth and a growing dividend. With that, I thank you for joining us today, and we can open the line for questions.

So just on the IRP that, Gerry, you referenced in your prepared remarks, your peer obviously has an aggressive decarbonization plan out there, probably one of the more aggressive plans. Can we maybe just get a sense on how you're thinking about your upcoming IRP and sort of not to front-run the process. But can you get out of all your coal prior to the 2030s?

We are currently exploring ways to speed up our coal retirements. We have initiated a larger position in both our coal fleet and self-generation fleet, and we are carefully examining how to accelerate these retirements before 2040. In our previous Integrated Resource Plan, we planned to retire all of our coal by 2040, but we are now considering scenarios to move that timeline forward. As I mentioned in earlier discussions, we will provide an update on these plans, likely at the end of this year or early next year. We are also engaging with various stakeholders throughout the summer, including our Board, to discuss these matters while balancing the need for acceleration with affordability and reliability.

And Gerry, can EEI be the right podium to disclose the updated plan?

It will either be there, Shar, or early in the new year. That's the range of timing that we're looking at right now. We'll get a little tighter on that as we go forward.

And then just as a follow-up, between already strong rate base growth at DTE Electric and Gas, which obviously exceeds your earnings guidance growth rate, and you have the potential to accelerate decarbonization with the updated IRP coming. How does all this kind of play into your 5% to 7% growth rate? Obviously, I understand you've taken a conservative bend here. But could we see some incremental upside here in time, especially if you decarbonize faster than what's in your current internal planning assumptions?

We are currently in the process of analyzing this situation. As you pointed out, we typically update our capital forecast at EEI for our five-year outlook. With the addition of earlier retirements, there may be effects on the latter part of that plan. As you may remember, the latter part of our plan tends to align more closely with the average rate base and earnings growth for the two utilities. Therefore, it is likely that there will be an impact in that timeframe. We will share more information as we work through these details.

I know that GSP is now discontinued. So obviously not a focus going forward in the same way. But just wanted to better understand, I guess, what was happening here. If I look at the results so far, it seems like GSP had put up 56% of the high end of the guidance already. I was just wondering if you could expand a bit more on what specifically GSP did to kind of exceed expectations in the first half? Or if there was something baked into later in the year that was going to weigh down? Just trying to understand a bit better what was happening there.

We can comment on the first half, and I know the pipeline company will have their earnings call here later, I think early next month. So I'm sure they'll comment on that. But what we can talk about is the first half of the year, and we just saw favorability in all the platforms across the board, our southern platforms and our northern platforms.

I mean were those sustained or is there anything kind of one-time in nature that was a positive benefit?

Again, it was a pickup in activity and value across all our platforms, both in the Appalachia platforms and the Haynesville platform. I think in terms of future outlook, that will be more appropriate for DTM to describe.

And maybe just kind of pivoting over to the electric utility, some really strong results there. Just wondering if you could provide a bit more color with regard to load trends recovery there. It seems like commercial sales were coming better. But just wondering if you could provide a little bit more detail on how things materialized versus your expectations versus your guidance for the segment and how you see that kind of trending?

Dave, do you want to take that?

First, if you look at the quarter-over-quarter results, you could see that was way up, and that was especially commercial and industrial. That was really because we were comparing back to the worst period of the pandemic. So quarter-over-quarter, we saw commercial and industrial load significantly increase. Interestingly, we saw residential load remain fairly flat quarter-over-quarter. That's noteworthy because last year, with people working from home, we saw our residential load running at an average of about 8% higher than we would have expected pre-pandemic. This year, so far, we're seeing that continue even though there has been some return to work. We're seeing this favorability at residential, and that's what's driving some of the positive performance. We expected it to reduce more, but at this point, it's pretty sticky. We'll be watching this closely to see how it unfolds and how it can impact customer affordability if it remains sticky. I would say on commercial load, that has returned to what we would have expected pre-pandemic. At the height of the pandemic, we thought we would see more bankruptcies and closures in commercial, and we really haven't seen that. So we've seen our commercial load come back as expected. Industrial load was bouncing back and has mostly returned, but that has shown some variability due to challenges at the auto plants right now with the chip shortages, which are causing sporadic operations. Overall, it's been a great return to load, with residential being particularly resilient.

If I could slip in one more on RNG. Just wondering if you could expand a little bit on how large do you see this business growing over time, given there's more focus there? And how do you see the growth rate of that business comparing to the rest of DTE?

Well, the nonutility business will make up no more than 10% of overall operating earnings for the company. So the growth will be modest compared to the growth that we're seeing at our two utilities. We're planning to invest over the next five years somewhere between $1.5 billion and $2 billion in our nonutility businesses. So it will be a modest level of investment. We don't need a lot of income growth from that business. So we're being very selective about the projects that we invest in, in RNG, where we see three to four-year paybacks, simple cash paybacks and unlevered IRRs after tax in the teens. So that's what we're going after. Thus, not a lot of pressure to grow there, and we are being very discerning about our growth projects.

Quick question. I think you've alluded to it a couple of times, and I think Jeremy might have been trying to get at this. But you've alluded to a smooth trajectory here of 5% to 7% into '22. I just want to make sure that on balance net of all these items, that's still the ballpark where we should be assuming, right?

That’s correct, Julien. We're typically targeting the midpoint of our growth rates. That's how we plan for our business, build contingency plans, and that's what we aim to deliver next year.

And then perhaps even more importantly here, as you think about layering in these incremental items, be it the IRP at some point or frankly some of the renewable opportunities that are more on the voluntary side and/or some additional, as you say, perhaps late stage or advanced stage conversations on the industrial and R&D side. What's that outlook, the timeline here? Some of the IRP updates maybe beyond the five years, or do you think that some of that actually accrues in the near term? I would presume the voluntary renewables and the nonutility businesses would be more in that five-year period?

The voluntary renewables update that we'll provide in the fall will certainly play into the five-year plan. I would say the IRP work that we're doing could come into the five-year plan, the latter part of the five-year plan, but certainly there will be a good story beyond the five-year plan as well.

And then maybe to clarify your earlier comment about sort of showing a normalization in the rate base growth trajectory when you commented to Shar. Is that beyond the five-year that you’re talking about, or is that even within the five years that you’re kind of alluding to potentially seeing a more sustained current level of rate base growth rather than that normalization trend?

What we are seeing, Julien, is growth rates in our operating earnings growth for the utilities higher than our average that we’ve advertised, the 9% at the gas company and 7%, 8% at the electric company in the first couple of years of our five-year plan. That's helping us deliver that smooth EPS growth rate that we’ve described. Then that returns more to the average in the out years of the plan as we’ve described.

So despite the long-term nature of some of the IRP, on balance, we could see some of that really accrue into the back half of this five-year plan, regardless?

That’s possible. Too early to tell, but certainly possible.

And just again to come back to Jeremy’s quick question there on the RNG side. Again, your 10%, you're sticking with it, right? So we should really be thinking about scaling at the sizing within that bucket, right?

Right.

My first question on the financing side of things. When you think about the five-year growth plan and beyond 2023, how should we think about potential equity needs in the back half of that plan and what's embedded in your guidance?

Dave?

Right now, you've seen we've given the guidance through the three years, which only has really acquisitions as those converts that come in '22. As we look out to the five-year plan, our goal is going to be to continue to minimize the equity issuance we make, and that's how it fits within the plan that we're looking at right now.

So based on the current CapEx plan, you're looking at more moderate level of needs, that’s kind of like what you're seeing on the 2023 front?

Right.

And then just going back to RNG a little bit, I appreciate the earnings mix that's going to have in the overall portfolio. When you talk about the strong returns that you're discussing, are you seeing increased competition now with a lot of other players focused on that? And as you look out at potential new projects, are you seeing those translating into tougher returns on a comparable basis?

What we're seeing is with the level of investment that we have to make, which is a couple of RNG projects a year, a couple of dairy farms a year is another way to think about it. Not really having trouble originating greenfield, where we've seen things get a little more competitive is when assets are up and running. People are paying a lot of money for these operational assets, private equity and other types of investment vehicles. But on the origination front, greenfield, we're able to get the returns we want from the projects we choose.

On the trading in the quarter related to the gas portfolio, was the sale of storage connected to the winter storm event, or was that more favorable in the first quarter and this reflects continued strong performance? I'm interested in what is driving that.

This was just continued good performance of the trading group in the gas portfolio. But I can't say what gave us the confidence to raise the guidance was the favorability we had from that small physical storage position that gave us the gain during the first quarter during the cold weather in Texas. Our expectation moving forward in future years is that we'll be more in line with our original guidance when we don't have those kind of unexpected one-time events.

And then just back to the growth rate and the comments about a smooth trajectory, Gerry, just to be clear, you're talking off of the original 2020 midpoint, right, which was, I think, $5.13. I just want to be sure that is that the number of which you're intending to show smooth 5% to 7% growth, and we should think of sort of this Q '21 favorability, which kind of puts you above that range, but you're still using that as the base? I just want to be clear about that.

You're correct. We're using the original 2021 guidance that we provided as the basis for our growth rate.

And is that '21 or 2020?

2020, but it would be similarly smooth for '21 because we target midpoint for each of the years in terms of original guidance as a starting point.

So we should just be calibrating off of original guidance in both cases and that...

Correct.

Maybe just update us on what's the most recent on the gas rate case front and the timing of the electric rate case. Is that still sort of late this year?

So on the electric rate case, yes, it's still late this year, no earlier than October of this year that we will file. On the gas case, we've engaged in conversations with interested parties to try and move the case towards some form of settlement. We're feeling pretty good about that in terms of how that case is progressing and the final outcome.

And then just a quick clarification. I know you sort of addressed the demand trends, pretty strong quarter, Q2 '21 versus Q2 '20. Obviously, a ton of concerns around this delta variant. Anything striking or material for us to discuss regarding anything that you're seeing in your territory, any signs of concern as it relates to the delta variant?

We are not, at this point. Certainly, the large manufacturers are starting to take actions to make sure that the delta variant doesn't impact our operations, including reintroducing things like masking and social distancing in preparation for a potential delta variant surge here in Michigan. But we're not seeing anything that puts any of our margin at risk at this point in time.

Many of my questions were answered, and I appreciate the conservative approach, especially considering your growth of 12.5% this year compared to a 9% increase in 2020. However, we will maintain a forecast of 5% to 7% for now. I have two clarifying questions regarding the 2021 outlook. First, does the updated guidance take into account the weather from July?

Dave?

We do take weather into account, but there hasn't been too much unusual weather in July.

Then on cash flow I see you updated the outlook from cash from operations to reflect the Midstream spinoff. What about the underlying DTE business? It looks like cash has been stronger than expected since you're pointing to no equity needs this year. Of that $300 million reduction, can you talk about how much was midstream if there was any change to the base business?

In the guidance update that was all taken out in the second half of midstream. And you're right, we have seen some strength too, and we're coming in a little bit above our plan in cash so far this year, mainly due to strength in operating cash flows from electric and from some of the other businesses as well.

But that strength is not reflected in the updated guidance, right? So there might be some upside?

Yes, there might be some upside. The guidance was really just taking out the midstream part.

Can you update us on longer-term O&M outlook and now that we're emerging from a COVID environment, are you seeing any more structural changes to your cost profile?

We constantly work to maintain our O&M as flat as possible. I think you'll see from our history that we're one of the better performing utilities in terms of being able to keep our O&M costs relatively flat. Over the last several years, we've been about a 1% CAGR on O&M. We do have significant opportunities to continue to manage that looking forward. And that certainly is built into our growth plans as well as our affordability goals for our two utilities.

Are you seeing any inflationary pressure for labor or any other component of your cost structure?

We've been looking at that pretty hard as we started to build our plans for '22 and beyond. We have long-term contracts for some of our key commodities on the material side. So we're not seeing pressure there. And with our contractors, I don't do a good portion of our work; those are obviously negotiated prices, and again, not seeing anything that would give us great concern at this point in time.

And then on Energy Trading, you had highlighted the increase in guidance range that largely was reflecting the year-over-year increase for the second quarter. Is there embedded conservatism for the second half outlook in light of some of the volatility in gas prices and higher prices, or is there any color you can share on what's driving the relatively no change?

Yes, there is conservatism in that. As you can see, we put our guidance from 25 to 35, and we're pretty much within that range or at the top end of that range already. So we do have some conservatism in that number. We'll just have to watch how it plays out throughout the year.

One real quick question. I know it's early in the IRP is sort of the end of next year, but as you're approaching the acceleration potentially of more coal. How are you thinking about the regulatory recovery mechanisms for accelerating that coal retirement? Are you thinking more regulatory asset model or securitization potentially?

What we're looking at are various techniques that we have at our disposal, one is accelerated depreciation. We're also looking at ways to extend the asset lives in terms of getting ready and using additional strategies for that. There are all kinds of fiscal options for that that we're considering. We're also looking at some tax strategies that could help smooth affordability as well. So multiple ways that we're looking at making the financing of the retirement of coal earlier more affordable to our customers, and also ensuring that our investors get their value out of these assets.

Just one quick one. On the convertible post the spin, I believe the numbers may change in terms of the shares that will convert into and what have you. Will that be disclosed in the quarterly report, or can you give us some guidance here as to what the implications of the spin with conversion?

Yes, there will be an adjustment to the settlement rates to ensure consistency of the economics. It will change the convert price in proportion with the equity price so that equity holders remain whole. Barb can send those mechanics to your group after the call if you need more information.

But those are now set, David, it's really my question, or are they still pending on trading levels?

I think with the trading levels, seeing where the stock price will be at the time of the converts still will affect that.

Hopefully, two easy ones. I guess the first one, Gerry, earlier in the call, you were highlighting how the transaction team worked, and you got the spin of DTE Midstream seems very seamless. I mean, you seem like your transaction team is in mid-season form right now. Any thought to keeping them busy with other transactions?

Well, right now, Anthony, we're really focused on our $17 billion growth agenda to utilities, which is the lion's share of our CapEx and of course, having modest growth for our nonutility business, P&I and RNG projects primarily. So that's really our play right now for the next five years.

And then just lastly, post spin, do you know if your ESG score is under evaluation now that the company has removed the ESP business? And looking at your new environmental footprint, DTE classic. How often does that review happen, or any insight you can give on the potential for a change in your ESG score?

I would venture to say that our ESG metrics will improve with the spin of DTM. But Barb, perhaps you can provide insights as to when that might happen, when we might get the next score.

Yes, those assessments happen annually, typically. And right now, we're sitting above average on quite a few of those metrics.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I'll just close by saying that DTE had a very successful first half of the year, and we're feeling really good about the remainder of 2021 and also how well we're setting up for 2022. So I hope everyone has a great morning and stay healthy and safe.