Good morning, and welcome to CenterPoint Energy's First Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call with senior management. During the company's prepared remarks, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. There will be a question-and-answer session after management's remarks. I will now turn the call over to Carla Kneipp, Vice President and Treasurer. Ms. Kneipp? Carla A. Kneipp - Treasurer & Vice President-Investor Relations: Thank you, Ginger. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our first quarter 2015 earnings conference call. Thank you for joining us today. Scott Prochazka, President and CEO; Tracy Bridge, Executive Vice President and President of our Electric Division; Joe McGoldrick, Executive Vice President and President of our Gas Division; and Bill Rogers, Executive Vice President and CFO, will discuss our first quarter 2015 results and provide highlights on other key areas. We also have with us other members of management who may assist in answering questions following the prepared remarks. In conjunction with the call today, we will be using slides, which can be found under the Investors section of our website, centerpointenergy.com. For a reconciliation of the earnings guidance provided in today's call, please refer to our earnings press release along with our Form 10-Q, which have been posted on our website. Please note that we may announce material information using SEC filings, press releases, public conference calls, webcasts and posts to the Investors section of our website. In the future, we will continue to use these channels to communicate important information about the company, key personnel, corporate initiatives, regulatory updates and other matters. We encourage investors, the media, our customers, business partners and others interested parties in our company to review the information we post on our website. Today, management is going to discuss certain topics that will contain projections and forward-looking information that are based…

At this time, we will begin taking questions. Thank you. Our first question is from Carl Kirst from BMO Capital.

Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Maybe a couple of questions on just CenterPoint Electric and first on Brazos Valley, could you remind me if there is from an opposition standpoint, is there anything in front of ERCOT that we need to be following or to the extent there is any opposition that will get taken into account in the PUC proceeding? Scott M. Prochazka - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Carl, good morning. This is Scott. I'm going to ask Tracy to answer that question for you. Tracy B. Bridge - Executive VP & President-Electric Division: Good morning, Carl.

Hey. Tracy B. Bridge - Executive VP & President-Electric Division: We have two sizeable generation interveners in that proceeding, one is Calpine and the other is NRG. It's not a surprise to us, they've filed a complaint at the PUC relative to the methodology that ERCOT used to determine the critical need for this asset, but this is all in the course of business. So, we'll see how it plays out, I still like our chances very much.

Okay. But it basically all kind of wrapped up within the PUC proceeding, we're not waiting to hear from ERCOT for instance on anything? Tracy B. Bridge - Executive VP & President-Electric Division: That's exactly right.

Okay. All right. Great. Thank you. And then second if I could, I'll chalk it up to Monday morning, can you remind me the issue of the reduced return on equity at CEHE with respect to the true-up proceeds? Tracy B. Bridge - Executive VP & President-Electric Division: Carl, this is Tracy, I'm not clear on your question, could you restate it please?

Well, just the $6 million reduction over first quarter of 2014, that was attributed to the true up proceeds. Tracy B. Bridge - Executive VP & President-Electric Division: Now, I got you.

And I just want to make sure, I'm understanding the mechanics, that's going on? Scott M. Prochazka - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Carl, I'm going to ask Bill to answer that question for you. I think he can give you the answer. William D. Rogers - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Right.

Got it. William D. Rogers - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: So, Carl, good morning. Thank you. So, it's not so much that was reduced in 2015 as it was that we were earning more than forecast in 2014.

I got it. Okay. All right. Thanks, guys. Scott M. Prochazka - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yep.

Your next question comes from Ali Agha from SunTrust.

Thank you. Good morning. Scott M. Prochazka - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Morning, Ali.

Good morning. Scott, first question, you guys have told this to us before that the dividend that you're going to get from Enable, the tax rate on that distribution is going to go up pretty materially over the next few years. So, on an after-tax basis, should we assume that that distribution to CenterPoint should be declining over that three-year period as that tax rate jumps up? Is that a fair way to think about it? Scott M. Prochazka - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Bill, do you want to answer this? Joseph B. McGoldrick - Executive Vice President & President-Gas Operations Division: Yes. Thanks, Scott. And good morning, Ali. I'll take this question and answer it in two parts, if I can. It's unclear as to the direction of the tax rate. Enable has provided where they expect to invest in 2015 as well as their distributions in 2015. The effective tax rate to CenterPoint in future years will depend upon the rate of Enable's investment as well as any changes or what's in effect at the time on the tax code. We have provided a forecast to you as to what that could be and that is over the next five years approximately 25%. But, that will go up and down depending upon how much Enable invest.

Okay. William D. Rogers - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Okay.

Got it. So, we'll keep an eye on that. Secondly, when do you think you will be in a position, CenterPoint, to be able to articulate your dividend growth plans going forward? I know a lot of that is hampered by the timing from the Enable side, but from a CenterPoint perspective, when do you think you are in that position? And related to that, if the macro environment doesn't change six months or 12 months from now, is there a plan B or what's the plan from your side? Scott M. Prochazka - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Ali, the question you asked about – the first one you had asked about our dividend growth rate. As you know, we had pulled back from providing multiple years based on Enable's reduction, in terms of the period they were looking forward. We'll be in a better position to articulate a growth rate. Once Enable is able to provide a little bit more clarity on their future growth, in other words, beyond 2015. At this point, they've said that they anticipate being able to provide more projection on their second quarter call. So, that's when we should have more information. I will tell you though that just from a dividend standpoint, we've remained committed to providing a secured competitive and growing dividend, and we're going to keep focused on that. Hopefully, we'll be able to provide a little bit greater clarity on what that growth rate looks like, once we get some more information from Enable.

And your ownership plans for Enable, Scott? Scott M. Prochazka - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Our ownership plans are staying as they are, Ali. We have Enable as part of our portfolio. They're important part of our portfolio. We see great opportunity for them to take advantage of what's going on in the marketplace today. They've got a solid balance sheet. There's good opportunities ahead of them. I personally believe the infrastructure space is going to be – it's going to continue to be built out for a number of reasons. So, I think there's good growth opportunity there. And I would hate to offer hypothesized considerations on alternatives, when our focus right now is to make sure that Enable is performing well and is capitalizing on the opportunities that they have in front of them.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from Matt Tucker from KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Hi, good morning. Just wanted to ask first on the Brazos Valley project, could you talk a little bit more about the variables behind the low and the high-end of the cost range? And should we look at that as $276 million or $383 million, or could it land somewhere in between? Scott M. Prochazka - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Matt. Good morning, this is Scott. I'm going to ask Tracy to answer that one for you. Tracy B. Bridge - Executive VP & President-Electric Division: Good morning, Matt. It could land somewhere in between, to answer your question directly. The low-end is more related to a direct route, which could be selected by the PUC. The high-end is to take account of the fact that there are more than 30 routes proposed as alternatives for the PUC to consider. And, if you imagine some 90 degree angles and some different transmission structures, the cost goes up as the variance from a straight line and from traditional construction standards vary. So, back to the answer, the answer is, it could be somewhere in between. We've said fairly consistently that $300 million is our best estimate, but this is a more precise range depending on the route, and the actual construction materials that have to be used based on the route.

Got it. Thanks, Tracy. Just wanted to ask also about the weather impact on utility operations. Understand that there was a significant headwind year-over-year, looks like it was still colder than normal though this year. So, was there a benefit versus normal in the first quarter of 2015 or was that all offset by the weather hedge? Scott M. Prochazka - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hey Matt, the benefit, we saw on the first quarter was technically favorable, but it was fairly negligible. It was fairly small. It was colder than normal, you are correct, but it was fairly negligible on a normal – comparing it to normal. The bigger consideration is, as you've noted and that is a substantial impact to the negative when compared to last year's rather severe winter.

Got it. Thanks, Scott. And then just final question, maybe a bit early but would you expect much opposition to the legislation to extend the DCRF or should that get approved fairly easily? Scott M. Prochazka - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We're fairly confident that that's going to pass, it has been approved by both the House and Senate. It's on the Governor's desk at the moment. So, we're anticipating a passage by the end of the second quarter.

Sounds good. Thanks a lot.

Your next question is from John Edwards from Credit Suisse. John Edwards - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Yeah, good morning, everybody. Scott M. Prochazka - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, John. John Edwards - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Thanks for the color. Just following up on Ali's question, I'm just trying to figure out basically how you're thinking about your strategy going forward, it sounds like your dividend growth outlook is dependent on Enable. So, if that's sort of slowing down, that's slowing down the dividend growth, so obviously, it raises the question of whether you should spin it off or not to Ali's question. It doesn't look like you have that much growth out of the utility, given what the payout is to support dividend growth. Maybe I'm just missing something here. So, maybe you could kind of talk about those type of trade-offs as you sort of look forward with respect to dividend policy? William D. Rogers - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: John, this is Bill. I'll start out with that, and if Scott cares to add comments he'll follow. As Scott said, we recognized the importance of a secure and competitive dividend as well as a growing dividend. We also recognize the volatility of earnings growth rates in the midstream sector, but we have to accept that this volatility does not necessarily translate into a volatile growth rate and dividends, as we seek value in a stable, consistent payout and growth rate. Scott M. Prochazka - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Just echoing Bill's comments, we have clearly been impacted by the change in forecast that Enable has shared with us, and what we're really waiting for is some additional clarity from them as to…

Your next question is from Lauren Duke from Deutsche Bank.

Hi. Good morning. Scott M. Prochazka - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Lauren.

Bill, you talked a little bit about looking for other ways to kind of control O&M. Can you just talk about where you're seeing the most opportunity there and what sort of increased run rate do you think we should think about for you guys in the future? William D. Rogers - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Lauren, it's Bill. I'll start with that, and then ask if either Tracy or Joe would like to add to it. We're committed to discipline in respect to the growth rate in our O&M. We do recognize that there will be some growth, because we have growing customer base, growing volume sales in both the electric and the gas business. The way for us to address that is to look hard at not only our labor cost structure, but maintenance contracts and quite frankly to get more efficient in all that we do, which is more a matter of many, many small items throughout our business than it is any one large item. Joe or Tracy? Joseph B. McGoldrick - Executive Vice President & President-Gas Operations Division: I'll start, Lauren. In our gas business for years now, we've been investing in capital that's had the effect of making us more efficient operationally. And I think, if you were in New York in June, we showed a pretty low growth rate in our O&M over the last several years. And we don't expect that to be much more than 2% or so over the next several years, as we continue to take advantage of that. Good example is our customer service. We've made a lot of investment in technology and in systems there. And so, we're bringing down the unit cost of fielding calls and taking care of our customers and we've…

Okay. Great. And then, can you also, beyond the Brazos Valley connection, can you talk a little bit about whether you're seeing other larger scale transmission opportunities in the states that you guys are considering? Scott M. Prochazka - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, Lauren, this is Scott, I'll answer that one for you. Most of our investment on transmission is right around our footprint. So, the nature of investment is either within the footprint, where we're building investing in transmission and substations for industrial growth, which is kind of the other big theme in terms of transmission investment. Beyond that, the next – kind of the next wave of potential investment might be for additional import capabilities, but that would be many, many years out into the future and really going to have to be a function of evaluation done at that time about the balance between growing demand in the load pocket and the amount of generation that's available locally.

Okay. Great. Thank you, guys.

Our next question is from Charles Fishman from Morningstar.

Thank you. I've got a question for Tracy. But maybe before that, I'll just say that I've been one of the people concerned about the impact of the fall in oil and gas prices with respect to Houston load growth or customer growth. That slide you have on number six really addresses that very well. I compliment you on that. And then Tracy, my question is, do you see any significant challenges to the DCRF extension? I would think that would be a lot tamer than what has gone on with the import project? Tracy B. Bridge - Executive VP & President-Electric Division: Charles, the answer is no, we don't foresee any issues with that. We think it will be enacted into law by the end of the second quarter. Both bills are identical. They've passed the House and have passed the Senate in Texas. And as Scott said, we're simply waiting for enactment. So, we don't see any issues with the continuation of that legislative authority.

Okay. Thank you. That was all I had.

Our last question is from Jeremy Tonet from JPMorgan.

Hi, good morning. Scott M. Prochazka - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Jeremy.

Just wanted to start off with a quick housekeeping item, could you remind us on the utility side, what was the trailing 12 months payout ratio? Do you have that handy? Scott M. Prochazka - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Bill, do you happen to have that? William D. Rogers - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: We will get that for you.

Okay. Yeah, that'd be helpful. Great. And then just wanted to see if you had any thought, I think there was some discussion as far as alternative structures. I think a peer out there had been discussing in the marketplace as far as whether or not to utilize a REIT structure or there was some discussion general around that. And I am wondering if you guys had paid any thought to that and if you had any thoughts to share there? Scott M. Prochazka - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, Jeremy. That's an interesting space. We have actually been looking at REITs and examining the many issues around them as you well know. Looking for opportunities, where REIT structure could be value enhancing for either our customers or the rate payers, I'm sorry – or the investors. And what we're seeing so far is, while this is interesting, there's still a number of complications in regulatory issues that we think make this space more challenging than opportunistic; but that said, we're going to keep exploring and keep looking at how that area develops to see if it could represent opportunity for us.

That's very helpful. Thank you.

This does conclude CenterPoint Energy's first quarter 2015 earnings conference call.