Operator
Operator
Good day, and welcome to the Duke Energy First Quarter Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded. And at this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Bill Currens. Please go ahead, sir.
Duke Energy Corporation (DUK)
Q1 2016 Earnings Call· Tue, May 3, 2016
$126.78
-0.81%
Same-Day
+1.50%
1 Week
+1.55%
1 Month
+1.57%
vs S&P
-0.43%
Operator
Operator
Good day, and welcome to the Duke Energy First Quarter Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded. And at this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Bill Currens. Please go ahead, sir.
Bill Currens - Vice President-Investor Relations
Management
Thank you, Yolanda. Good morning everyone, and welcome to Duke Energy's first quarter 2016 earnings review and business update. Leading our call today is Lynn Good, Chairman, President and CEO along with Steve Young, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Today's discussion will include forward-looking information and the use of non-GAAP financial measures. Slide two presents the Safe Harbor statement, which accompanies our presentation materials. A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures can be found on duke-energy.com and in today's materials. Please note that the appendix to today's presentation includes supplemental information and additional disclosures. As summarized on slide three, Lynn will cover our first quarter financial and operational highlights and provide an update of our recent strategic and growth initiatives. Then Steve will provide an overview of our first quarter financial results, an, update on economic activities within our service territories and close with our key investor considerations. With that, I'll turn the call over to Lynn. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I'm very pleased with our solid first quarter financial results, our continued focus on operational performance and the progress we've made on our strategic portfolio transition and important growth initiatives. I'll provide an update on our progress on these initiatives in just a moment. First, let me begin with a few financial and operational highlights of the first quarter as summarized on slide four. This morning we announced first quarter 2016 adjusted earnings per share of $1.13. Results for our regulated utilities were modestly below our internal plan as a result of significant storm costs in the Carolinas, milder weather and weaker than expected customer volumes. We continue to see strong customer growth and our 12-month rolling average volumes continue to track consistently with…
Bill Currens - Vice President-Investor Relations
Management
Okay. Greg, I think we've got you first in the queue. We'll go to Greg Gordon. Greg? Operator, if you can hear us, we'll go ahead and take Q&A now. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: We appear that we having some technical difficulty. So, we'll wait for a few minutes to see if we can establish the line for questions.
Bill Currens - Vice President-Investor Relations
Management
If everyone could just bear with us for one second. They had a fire alarm over at the operator's location. So just bear with us for a second here.
Operator
Operator
We'll take our first question from Greg Gordon with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.
Greg Gordon - Evercore Group LLC
Analyst · Evercore ISI. Please go ahead
Hey. Thanks. Bill, first of all I wanted to say congratulations. You've run a fantastic IR program. You're leaving it in great hands as well.
Bill Currens - Vice President-Investor Relations
Management
Great. Thank you for that comment Greg. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Greg.
Greg Gordon - Evercore Group LLC
Analyst · Evercore ISI. Please go ahead
Yes. Good morning. How are you? So, couple of questions on tax. So you're ahead of the game on tax and international. I was a little bit distracted when you were going through that part of your script, so can you rehash what's going on there? And does that effectively put you ahead of target for the year for that segment, since you're already more than halfway there in the first quarter on your targeted guidance assumptions? Or is the tax drag year-over-year from other parts of the business offsetting it? And finally, you're at a 26% effective tax rate year-to-date. Are you still expecting it to be 32%, 33% levelized over the course of the year, or is that also trending better? Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So Greg, let me start with a little explanation on the tax adjustment, then I'll turn it to Steve on specifics around effective tax rate. So coming into this year, we had the extension of bonus depreciation and then the planned announcement of the exit of international, put us in a position where we could relook at the tax consequences of the sale of the business and we are going to be in a position to utilize more of our foreign tax credits, which is real economic benefit from the combination of the extension of bonus and the decision to exit. And so that economic benefit is being reflecting in the first quarter. It does put us ahead of our first quarter plan on international as a result of that. But also as we indicated in the script, we will begin recognizing tax expense, because we will no longer be making the assertion that the proceeds do not come onshore and that tax expense will be reflected over the balance of the year. So, ahead of plan through the first quarter, good economic benefit from the tax planning that the team has accomplished here, and I'll turn it to Steve to talk about effective tax rate. Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes, we had expected and forecasted an effective tax rate for the year of about 32% to 33%. I think it will be lower than that. You might lower it by 1% on that range, as a result of the tax strategies we put forth related to international.
Greg Gordon - Evercore Group LLC
Analyst · Evercore ISI. Please go ahead
Okay. So some portion of that $0.11 will flow back, but there will be a net benefit when we look back at the end of the fiscal year. Is that a fair summary? Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: That's correct. Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes, that's true. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: That's correct. A modest amount will turn, Greg.
Greg Gordon - Evercore Group LLC
Analyst · Evercore ISI. Please go ahead
Okay. I think I understand. Thank you, guys. I'll cede to the next question. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Okay. Thanks so much.
Operator
Operator
We'll take our next question from Jonathan Arnold with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Jonathan Philip Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.
Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead
Thank you, guys. That was actually going to be my first question. So, I'll ask my second one which was on the international sale. Can you give any insight at this stage whether you feel it's more likely the assets get sold in one block or in packages or some other structure? Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Jonathan, we're pleased with where we are on the process. There's been good market interest in the assets. We're still in preliminary phases. So, I can't speak to whether or not the transaction will be a single transaction or a combination. Our objective will be to optimize the value of the portfolio. And as the year progresses, we'll keep you informed on timing and expectations. But I would say we're off to a solid start on the process.
Jonathan Philip Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.
Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead
Are you committed to exiting everything, or is it possible that there would be a partial sale if that was the better value outcome? Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: We've made a decision to exit, and are certainly in that process today, Jonathan, and as we move through it we'll have a better sense of timing and approach. So, I think that's a question that we'll be prepared to give more specifics on as the year progresses. But again, we're off to a good start with the degree of market interest we're seeing in the assets.
Bill Currens - Vice President-Investor Relations
Management
Thank you. And thank you to you as well Bill. And good luck.
Bill Currens - Vice President-Investor Relations
Management
Thank you, Jonathan. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Jonathan.
Operator
Operator
We'll go next to Steve Fleishman with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.
Steve Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC
Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please go ahead
Yeah. Hi. Good morning. Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Good morning.
Steve Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC
Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please go ahead
Thanks for that peaceful moment there earlier. Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: We didn't know what was going on for awhile. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I know, when we figured out it was a fire alarm, it has to be one of the first ever. Mr. Currens (32:20) on his final call.
Steve Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC
Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please go ahead
Yes. So, we'll always remember your final call, Bill. So, just one other clarification on the international. There were Bloomberg Radio story headlines this morning that seemed to imply there was a comment from that saying that the dilution from the sale would be less than you had thought going forward. That's not what you said though here in this call. So, could you just clarify, did you say something about that or is there anything to add there? Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Steve, thanks for that question. So it's kind of all a part of this discussion around economic value from this tax adjustment. So, we still intend, believe the transaction will be dilutive. We'll give more visibility on valuation as the process continues. But the fact that we've had a tax planning strategy here that has provided an economic value reflected in the first quarter is significant. It's a combination of bonus and the decision to sell. So that was the point I was making. But we'll know more on the valuation of the entire transaction as the year progresses.
Steve Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC
Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please go ahead
Okay. But there just to, I'm sorry to clarify again. So you were referring to the benefit that you got in this first quarter. There is not some other tax benefits that occur post sale that we weren't. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: That's correct.
Steve Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC
Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please go ahead
Okay. Great. And then, just maybe on the clarifying kind of going back to last call. So you had said before, the 4% to 6% growth rate and it's going to be kind of maybe kind of lower toward the beginning of the period, then rising toward the end of the period. Is that still kind of the way you look at it? Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: That's correct, Steve.
Steve Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC
Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please go ahead
Okay. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: We don't expect linear, just given the timing of our capital deployment, the approach we take toward rate cases and resetting our prices. But over the five-year period, we believe we have the capital investments, the growth initiatives that will drive growth within our 4% to 6% targeted range.
Steve Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC
Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please go ahead
Okay. And then lastly, I think Piedmont has a stake in the Constitution Pipeline. I mean, I'm sure that's not a huge part of the company, but just does that affect much at all your kind of expectations there, the delay? Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So, we've been following that closely. Steve, and of course are disappointed in the ruling in the State of New York. I think the partners in the projects have been very clear on where they are and the fact that they are reviewing a number of options to go forward. At this point, we're planning for a delay in the project. But as these options are pursued, some of which could include resubmission or appeal through the courts, we'll have a better sense of timing and outcome, so more to come on that.
Steve Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC
Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please go ahead
And their stake is like $250 million, is that the right number? Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Around $200 million. Around $200 million, Steve.
Steve Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC
Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please go ahead
Okay. Okay. Thank you. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.
Operator
Operator
We'll move next to Julien Dumoulin-Smith with UBS. Please go ahead.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC
Analyst
Hey. Good morning. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Julien. Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Good morning.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC
Analyst
Get it started. So, a few clarifying questions here. Following up on Steve's last question, how do you think about hitting the bottom end of the range through at least the near-term period? Just to kind of clarify that. Do you expect to be able to hit that 4% in the subsequent years, especially given the year-to-date start and where the sales process is et cetera? Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: You know, Julien, I think our guidance on that is as it was at the end of the year. We have reaffirmed our range of $4.50 to $4.70 for this year. We're in the midst of portfolio transition with the sale of international and the acquisition of Piedmont, both of which we expect to make substantial progress on in 2016. That will have bearing on 2017 and forward, so we'll give you a better sense of 2017 as we get close. We're confident in the range. We believe it will be nonlinear, as we've talked about, but don't have anything further to say on that at this point. But we're working hard on all elements of both growth initiatives, capital deployment, pursuing rate cases at the right time, and moving aggressively through the transition in the portfolio.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC
Analyst
And then a quick follow-up on pension accounting here. We've seen some companies in the sector pursue some new policies on discount rates. I'd be curious, is that something you all are reviewing? Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: We keep abreast of the various accounting rules and options available to us and those are things that we look at with a regular basis and we're keeping an eye on those things. We're aware of the different methods of selecting discount rates, yield curves, bond methods, spot methods, so we're keeping an eye on that. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Just no decisions at this point. Julien. Those decisions will be finalized in connection with our year-end planning process.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC
Analyst
So, would that still affect potentially this year? Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: No, no decisions have been made at this point. Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: No decisions, and typically a decision like that would impact prospective years.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC
Analyst
Okay. Thank you. And then, more strategic question here. As you think about the gas expansion that you are undertaking by the acquisition of Piedmont, how are you thinking about future expansions or exposures on the gas side of the equation? And specifically here, either more gas utilities or more importantly, I suppose the more direct midstream pipeline exposure. I'd be curious. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Julien, we're excited about what the potential of the Piedmont acquisition represents for Duke and our focus here in 2016 is on closing the transaction and also progressing Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Sabal Trail. We also see growth within the Piedmont franchise, both with customer additions as well as infrastructure that would support gas generation here in the Carolinas. So, we expect to continue to build on that platform in particular. We'll look at assets that make sense for Duke, whether they're midstream or local distribution companies, but don't have anything more specific to share with you at this point. We're focused on closing the transaction and integrating it in a successful way.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC
Analyst
Got it. Thank you. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.
Operator
Operator
We'll take our next question from Chris Turnure with JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Chris.
Christopher J. Turnure - JPMorgan Securities LLC
Analyst · JPMorgan
Good morning. I had a more specific question on timing for the international sale. I do respect that it's still relatively early in the process, but it's my understanding that you really got the ball rolling back in January, so it's been a couple months now. At least you do have those I guess confidentiality agreements in place, and you are in discussions. Maybe it would be helpful to hear a best case scenario here knowing what you know, in terms of timing for the ultimate close of the transaction. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. And you know, Chris, the ball was rolling in January and February on planning. The ball began rolling into the market with discussions with counterparties on non-disclosure agreements and interest more in the late March, April timeframe. And so we are two months into that process. The data room, the data book is in the hands of prospective buyers, and over the next couple of months, we'll be learning more about degree of interest, number of parties that intend to stay in the process, and we'll have more to update in the second quarter. I just you know, given where we are, I don't have any more specifics to share with you. Jonathan I believe or someone asked earlier about, is it one transaction or multiple. That of course would impact timing. Our objective is to optimize the value of the portfolio, and we're going to move through this in a thoughtful way to accomplish exactly that. And we'll give you more specifics when we are further into the process.
Christopher J. Turnure - JPMorgan Securities LLC
Analyst · JPMorgan
Great. And then my second question is on Atlantic Coast Pipeline. We did have the delay in the start of construction I guess that you gave some color on in your prepared remarks, but the overall cost and completion date remains unchanged. Is there any more information that you can give us there in terms of the drivers of that delay and start of construction and maybe moving pieces within the lack of change of completion date and lack of change of total costs that might have kind of netted to no effect there, I guess. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Chris, there has been a very active engagement on the part of the partners throughout this process and the delay in receipt of FERC approval has really been the result of pursuing alternate routes and addressing environmental and stakeholder concerns along the way. So the schedule, as originally developed, had contingency timing in it which we've continued to work actively with our partners, including you know the way we're engaging with contractors. And at this point believe that we are on target for a mid-2017 approval from FERC, which should give us an ability to continue to target late 2018 for in-service. So, a lot of good work has been going on to look at a variety of alternatives and to work with the contingency that was within the original project plan.
Christopher J. Turnure - JPMorgan Securities LLC
Analyst · JPMorgan
Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.
Operator
Operator
Our next question will come from Michael Lapides with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Michael Lapides - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Hey, guys. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Hi, Michael. Michael Lapides - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Couple of easy ones. Can you all talk about how much utility O&M was down year-over-year in the quarter excluding the impact of storms? Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes, Michael. The O&M, the non-recoverable types O&M was down $0.04 year-over-year in the quarter. And again, we had about $0.05 of storms delta quarter-over-quarter offsetting that. But we had the $0.04 benefit. Michael Lapides - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Okay. And then CapEx in the quarter came in, like if I just annualize that number, that would imply a year-end number several billion below kind of what you highlighted for 2016 levels. Should we just assume CapEx is very back-end loaded in the course of this year or is there a kind of downside potential to that CapEx number? Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I think our original capital plans for the years are still intact. I think it's just a shaping during the year. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: And Michael, if you look back even at 2015, we spent about 20% of capital last year. We're kind of in that range this year in the first quarter, and then it picks up over the course of the year. So the pattern looks similar to what we've experienced in previous years. Michael Lapides - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Got it. And then finally, can you just remind us what are your thoughts or plans around rate case timing across the…
Operator
Operator
Our next question will come from Jim von Riesemann with Mizuho. Please go ahead.
James von Riesemann - Mizuho Securities USA, Inc.
Analyst · Mizuho. Please go ahead
I am all set. Thank you. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Jim. Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thanks, Jim.
Operator
Operator
We'll move to our next caller then, Praful Mehta with Citi.
Praful Mehta - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.
Analyst
Hi, guys. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Hello. Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Hello.
Praful Mehta - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.
Analyst
So, my quick question was, you mentioned on growth on the gas side that you might look at other gas assets. So just to clarify, are you talking about building on your platform for gas with acquisitions or are you looking for organic growth to build on your gas platform? Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: The first objective is to close the sale, or close the purchase of Piedmont Natural Gas. And we believe that we'll have organic growth opportunities within that platform not only for new customer additions but expansion of the interstate pipeline system in the Carolinas as we continue our strategic move from coal to gas. And then beyond that, for midstream or LDCs, there was a question earlier that address our interest in that. We will consider those types of additions to the portfolio that make sense, complement what we're trying to do. But our primary objective is closing the transaction, focusing our attention on integration, focusing our attention on growth organically as I outlined, and then other opportunities we'll evaluate as they arise.
Praful Mehta - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.
Analyst
Got you. Thank you, guys. That's all I have. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.
Operator
Operator
Our next question will come from Ali Agha with SunTrust. Please go ahead.
Ali Agha - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.
Analyst · SunTrust. Please go ahead
Thank you. Good morning. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Hello. Good morning. Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Hello Ali.
Bill Currens - Vice President-Investor Relations
Management
Good morning.
Ali Agha - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.
Analyst · SunTrust. Please go ahead
Good morning. Can you remind us for this year, the commercial power earnings that you've budgeted, how much of that is essentially coming from recognition of tax credits? Is it almost all of it? Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: If you look in the slide deck, Ali, on slide 13, it gives you the full year assumption for commercial, and that business is commercial wind and solar, which as you know have tax credits as an important part of their economics. So, that gives you a range or a perspective on the magnitude of that contribution.
Ali Agha - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.
Analyst · SunTrust. Please go ahead
And Lynn, what is the mix between ITC and PTC recognition there? Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: More heavily PTC, just because of the nature of our portfolio, Ali.
Ali Agha - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.
Analyst · SunTrust. Please go ahead
Okay. And what's current the average life of contracts on the PTC side? Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: On the PTC side, we look at PPAs that are in the range of typically 15 to 25 years, in that type of range. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: And the PTC benefit, Ali, as you know is a 10-year benefit.
Ali Agha - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.
Analyst · SunTrust. Please go ahead
Yes. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah.
Ali Agha - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.
Analyst · SunTrust. Please go ahead
And you are relatively early in that recognition, right, for most of the portfolio? Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: You know, certainly, we've been in the business, started modestly in 2007 and then you can look at our kind of capital contribution in growth 2012, 2013, 2014, so I would say early in that PTC period generally.
Ali Agha - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.
Analyst · SunTrust. Please go ahead
Yeah. And lastly, Lynn, I know when you provide us full-year guidance, you lay out what you're expecting adjusted ROEs to be across the portfolio as well. And in general, I mean would you say is there much in terms of, because looking at those numbers, it doesn't seem to be, but is there much in terms of regulatory lag that you would say exists in your portfolio that perhaps can be captured in future years or are you thinking generally speaking the ROEs will move when you file those rate cases in the back end of the five-year forecast? Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Let me make a comment and then Steve can continue. Steve commented a moment ago, Ali, that we see the potential for rate cases in South Carolina in 2016 that's consistent with capital spending and cost structure and earned returns. And so we do have rate case potential in South Carolina in the very near term. And then later in the five-year period in North Carolina, that will be the result of regulatory lag showing up on capital investment that is occurring now and will occur into the future. I commented on trackers in Indiana and Florida, but at some point, we'll address updating those rates as well. So, I think regulatory lag for any jurisdiction where we have historic test periods or the need to use base rate increases to achieve prices is going to have some regulatory lag associated with it. And that's the careful analysis that we closely watch in determining the timing for filing. Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: And I would add, as we said in February, we had a slide on our five-year growth and we showed the lag was about 3% negative. And that's an average number over the five-year period. It will vary year per year. And it is as Lynn said related to the jurisdictions where you've got gaps between rate cases and you build up investments during those gap periods. So, we're working on that and planning around those events.
Ali Agha - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.
Analyst · SunTrust. Please go ahead
Thank you. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Ali.
Operator
Operator
We'll take our next question from Paul Patterson with Glenrock Associates. Please go ahead.
Paul Patterson - Glenrock Associates LLC
Analyst · Glenrock Associates. Please go ahead
Good morning. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Paul.
Paul Patterson - Glenrock Associates LLC
Analyst · Glenrock Associates. Please go ahead
Congratulations again, Bill.
Bill Currens - Vice President-Investor Relations
Management
Thanks, Paul.
Paul Patterson - Glenrock Associates LLC
Analyst · Glenrock Associates. Please go ahead
I wanted to just sort of touch base on the storms. Is there a normal number for storm costs that we should be thinking about in this quarter? Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: It is hard to predict storms obviously. The past three years we've seen winter storms that have hit us in the range of $50 million or $60 million a year, but whether that's normal or not, I would hesitate to say. We try to impute an amount that we think about in our budgeting, but you'll have during the summer season the potentials for hurricanes in the Southeast and then in the winter storms across our jurisdictions other than Florida, typically there's the potential. there. Hard to predict, but we've seen winter storms the past three years in the neighborhood of $50 million or $60 million.
Paul Patterson - Glenrock Associates LLC
Analyst · Glenrock Associates. Please go ahead
Okay. On slide 19, it looks like you guys are indicating that for the utilities, only about $0.01 was impacted by unfavorable weather. And I mean, is that solely because of it seems – it's a little surprisingly, it seems a little low. Does that take into account storm outages that might lower customer usage or, because when we look at slide eight, it looks like non-weather adjusted sales were down 4%, and I think that does not include leap year, correct? Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: That's correct. Yes. Let me give a little color on this. But typically, outages from storms do not affect volumes very significantly, as one point to make there, when you're looking at the whole breadth of things. I would say that the, I always want to say this, when you're looking at a quarter in particular, short periods of time, you have to be careful about weather normalized data. I think the first quarter of 2016 was mild, particularly March, and I don't know whether we pulled all of the weather impacts out appropriately in the first quarter of 2016. Correspondingly, the first quarter of 2015 was very, very cold. And I don't know whether all of the weather was pulled out of that quarter as well. So you're comparing these two weather normalized periods, and it shows that the weather impact may not have been that significant. I suspect that it may have been more mild than what we showed in the first quarter here, but I don't try to guess at what that could be. So we just roll with the data. I like to look at the 12 months rolling more critically there. We did as we acknowledged it, it was a bit of a soft quarter, but I think the 12-month rolling numbers are in line with what we've been forecasting. And I would want to emphasize that in response to a relatively weak load, we have aggressively pursued our cost structure to offset that. That's part of our long-term plans.
Paul Patterson - Glenrock Associates LLC
Analyst · Glenrock Associates. Please go ahead
Okay. Great. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: You know Paul, the only thing I would add to it is, we have standard methods of identifying what is weather related and non-weather related. And what Steve is commenting on is those standard methods can be impacted in periods where there is extreme temperature. So extreme cold or extreme warm weather that we experienced in March. So that all leads us to look at longer time periods, so that we don't have those anomalies that could exist in any quarter. And that is really what has led us to this 12-month rolling average discussion on load because we think that is more indicative of trends we're experiencing. And as you can imagine, we watch this really closely and manage the business for a low load growth environment.
Paul Patterson - Glenrock Associates LLC
Analyst · Glenrock Associates. Please go ahead
Excellent. Thanks a lot. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.
Operator
Operator
And our final question will come from Andy Levi with Avon Capital. Please go ahead. Andrew Levi - Avon Capital/Millennium Partners: Hi. Good morning. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Hi, Andy. Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Hey, Andy. Andrew Levi - Avon Capital/Millennium Partners: How you guys doing? Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good. Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well.
Bill Currens - Vice President-Investor Relations
Management
Yes, sir. Andrew Levi - Avon Capital/Millennium Partners: You're one of the best ever, even though you never won that award, okay. I just want to say that. I would have given you that award.
Bill Currens - Vice President-Investor Relations
Management
You just gave it to us, so thank you. Andrew Levi - Avon Capital/Millennium Partners: Okay. But maybe next year Michael will win it, so. Actually I think most of my questions have been answered, but just back on the sales. So leap year is what, about 30 basis points on an annual basis, is that? Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: That's roughly right, Andy. Andrew Levi - Avon Capital/Millennium Partners: Right, so I guess for the quarter, you times up by four or something like that, or is that not the right math? Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah I think you could get in the ballpark there, and it's a little, that's a rough way to do it. Andrew Levi - Avon Capital/Millennium Partners: Right. Steven K. Young - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: But again, I think getting weather normalized data is as much art as science and when you get an extreme period like we had in March and comparing it to an extreme period like a prior year, I think you can get fluctuations that make that comparison a little distorted. We think our customer growth and volumes are in line with our broad prediction levels and we'll keep an eye on it. Andrew Levi - Avon Capital/Millennium Partners: What do you guys think, I mean just in general, because it's not just you who are seeing like decent customer growth or weak sales trends and it's not just this quarter. Is it still energy efficiency or what else could it be? Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: The other thing that we look at, Andy, is multifamily housing versus single family homes. We're starting to see…
Bill Currens - Vice President-Investor Relations
Management
All right. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Andy.
Bill Currens - Vice President-Investor Relations
Management
Thank you, Andy. Andrew Levi - Avon Capital/Millennium Partners: Yes. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Okay.
Operator
Operator
With that being our last question, I'll turn the call back to Lynn Good for closing comments. Lynn J. Good - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Okay, Yolanda, thank you. And thanks everyone for hanging in with our fire alarm and our farewell to Bill Currens and welcome to Mike Callahan today. And most of all, thank you for your interest and investment in Duke. We look forward to meeting with many of you over the next several weeks and months and look forward to continue discussions. So, thanks again.
Operator
Operator
That will conclude today's conference. Thank you all once again for your participation.