Earnings Labs

Dyne Therapeutics, Inc. (DYN)

Q4 2007 Earnings Call· Tue, Mar 4, 2008

$18.16

+0.64%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.
Transcript

Operator

Operator

Hello and welcome to the Dynegy Incorporated Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2007 Financial Results Teleconference. At the request of Dynegy, this conference is being recorded for instant replay purposes. Please note that all lines will be in a listen-only mode until the question-and-answer portion of today's call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Norelle Lundy, Vice President of Investor and Public Relations. Ma'am, you may begin.

Norelle V. Lundy

Analyst

Good morning everyone and welcome to Dynegy's investor conference call and webcast highlighting the company's 2007 results and our business strategy going forward. As is our customary practice before we begin this morning, I would like to remind you that our call will include statements reflecting assumptions, expectations, projections, intentions, or beliefs about future events, particularly with respect to our growth strategy and 2008 estimates. These and other statements not relating strictly to historical or current facts are intended as forward-looking statements. Actual results, though, may vary materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statement. For a description of the factors that may cause such a variance, I would direct you to the forward-looking statements legend contained in today's news release and in our SEC filings which are available free of charge through our website at dynegy.com. With that, I will now turn it over to our Chairman, President and CEO, Bruce Williamson.

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

Good morning and thank you for joining us. Joining me this morning are several members of Dynegy's management team including Holli Nichols, our Chief Financial Officer. Let's now turn to the agenda for our call, which is highlighted on slide 3 for those of you who are following along online via the webcast. Today, I would like to provide an overview of how Dynegy set a foundation for growth in 2007. And in addition, I will highlight how the progress we made during the past year should translate into prospects for growth and value creation in 2008 and beyond. Holli will discuss our financial results and provide a business segment financial review and update our 2008 estimate. I will then discuss how our operational excellence and financial discipline strategically positioned us to capture value in a market characterized by rising power prices and declining reserve margins. And finally the management team and I will join me in answering your questions and we'll wrap up by sharing a calendar of upcoming investor events. Please turn to slide 4. During 2007, we built a solid foundation for growth by executing on our three part strategy: operate, build and transact. Today I will explain this strategy in some greater detail and then discuss how we implemented it during 2007 and how our actions should translate into future value creation. Let's begin with operate. One of our overarching goals as a company is to achieve operational excellence across our business. With nearly 20,000 megawatts of power generating capacity, Dynegy has established an enviable track record of operating our assets safely, efficiently and reliably as noted by a number of key metrics. We are also investing in our business. During the next five years, we will be introducing advanced systems for reducing emissions to ensure…

Holli C. Nichols

Analyst

Thanks Bruce. Turning not to slide 10 and our financial performance for the quarter, I would like to cover our income statement, cash flow statement and balance sheet. Before I begin, I would like to point out that this presentation does contain non-GAAP measures that are reconciled later in the presentation. Turning to results. For full year 2007, we reported net income of $264 million or $0.35 per diluted share. This compares to a net loss of $342 million or $0.75 per diluted share during 2006. The improvement in 2007 results reflects higher volumes and prices associated with our baseload fleet and the contribution of nine months of earnings from the assets acquired from LS Power. I will cover these points in more detail with a walkthrough of the business segment. The other large contributors to earnings are the gains on the sales of our CoGen Lyondell facility and a partial interest in Plum Point. All these benefits were partially offset by a tax adjustment of approximately $50 million to reflect a higher anticipated state tax rate as well as a negative mark to market impact. The negative mark-to-market impact reflects the fact that on a net basis, forward price curves at December 31st of 2007 were higher than when we entered in to the forward sales. Moving on to cash flow. Cash flows from operations totaled $341 million with generation operating cash flow approaching 1 billion as Bruce previously mentioned. We had investing cash outflows of $817 million. More than $800 million of these investing cash outflows are funded by financing cash inflows. In addition to the $800 million that's offset in financing cash flow, there is over $300 million of cash deposited to support the Sandy Creek project equity commitment that can be replaced by a letter of…

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

Thanks Holli, please turn to slide 21. To give you a better understanding of how we are strategically positioning things to capture market opportunities, look at the trends that are reflected in today's market. Markets are entering a period of higher power prices and declining reserve margins. Increased demand for fuel stocks such as coal and natural gas is driving power price volatility. As you can see on the chart on the left, natural gas prices have been extremely volatile in recent years due to range of factors including weather, storage inventories and an overall increase in global demand. During the first two months of 2008, natural gas prices have increased by more than $1 per MMBtu and the forward curve remains above $9. We are actively participating in today's market to capture upside related to near term and longer term increases in power prices. Let's consider the PJM market as an example. In PJM, capacity prices have also increased significantly. This has resulted in benefits for some of our Midwest assets. Now turning to the chart on the right, another trend is the decline in reserve margins as demand continues to increase and supply, overall tightens. The recovery time-table for our Midwest assets which are split between MISO and PJM extends to approximately 2010. Our California and Northeast assets are currently operating in an environment already marked by relatively tight supply and demand. We believe that slim reserve margins will prompt stronger energy and capacity pricing, which should ultimately encourage the new development of power plants. Well this is something the country ultimately needs. The reality is that building new baseload plants in the U.S. is becoming more and more challenging. Absent, any significant development spending, certain regions could enter in to an under build [ph] scenario in a…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Mr. John Kiani from Deutsche Bank.

John Kiani

Analyst

Good morning Bruce, Holli.

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

How are you?

John Kiani

Analyst

Fine. Thank you. If I look at Calpine, it's trading at a pretty substantial premium to Dynegy with an embedded spark spread option that's, I think, pretty similar to your 15,000 megawatt gas and oil-fired portfolio. Would you ever consider a carve out of your gas-fired portfolio to highlight and extract this value discrepancy?

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

Well, I think, John, what you highlight is I think investors should look at the companies in the power sector and understand that not all the companies are the same. The company you just mentioned is clearly trading on its, call it, on a forward EBITDA outlook given investors in that case looking forward and seeing continued market recovery, lack of new supply coming into the market and continuing U.S. increasing power demand. So that entity is in effect being priced on forward EBITDA multiples, if you will. You can compare that at the other end of the spectrum to some of the others in the IPP sector who have a lot of coal-fired generation who don't have that gas-fired upside, and they are trading more on just current EBITDA multiples. We have a bit of both of those in our portfolio as you are saying. But importantly, I think for investors, we have the diversity element of not being all one way, just a pure bet on the forward outlook nor are we just a bet on current results with no upside potential. So I think when you balance them together, I think that's what investors should look at is both the forward upside opportunity as well [ph] with sort of a core or baseload position or earning power off of the coal fleet.

John Kiani

Analyst

Okay. And then another question. Can you talk about why you include mark-to-market gains and losses from hedges for FAS 133 accounting and EBITDA guidance? It doesn't seem to be standard industry practice.

Holli C. Nichols

Analyst

I guess the way to think about it, John, is we actually don't include any anticipated effects of mark to market in our estimates as we go forward. All we reflect is what has actually happened to date, and that's what's going to start to create a disconnect, right, especially when you cross over a period, because as an example what happened here is we put positions on in 2007. We liked the price and so we locked that in on our '08 generation. But now what you will see is the earnings associated with that financial contract have been disaggregated from the actual production, which will happen in 08.

John Kiani

Analyst

Because commodities are higher?

Holli C. Nichols

Analyst

[Multiple Speakers] going to settle exactly where we expected it to and where we were happy to enter into a contract. It's just the earnings have... some are showing up in '07 and some will show up in '08.

John Kiani

Analyst

I mean is there any way to when you just report EBITDA, come up with some type of a recurring or operational EBITDA that excludes that, so that when the Street tries to benchmark your reported quarterly numbers to what your guidance was, we strip out that volatility?

Holli C. Nichols

Analyst

I think what we have tried to do, John, is to highlight what the mark-to-market impact is. For example, the annual mark to market for 2007 was $32 million in a pre-tax basis. So if you want to think about it, our earnings absent that, you would want to add that back to 2007 EBITDA.

John Kiani

Analyst

All right. Thank you, Holli and Bruce.

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

John, I guess [ph] I would say is we are trying to give you analysts on the sell side something to do. And I know we've got some SEC counsels here in the company that want us to, as much as possible, not to mention our auditors and our controllers organization, try to do as much as we can to stick with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, whether that reflects the economic reality of, I guess, I think about it or not. So what we try to do is obviously just provide enough reconciliation for people to get to the answer, and John, you guys can lead the way in helping break that down for people.

John Kiani

Analyst

Thanks. Well, you gave me something to do at 5:30 this morning.

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

There you go.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Ms. Elizabeth Parrella of Merrill Lynch.

Elizabeth Parrella

Analyst

Thank you. A couple of questions. Holli, you mentioned that gas prices now, the most recent quote for 2008 average was about 9.40, which is up $1.20 from what this revised guidance is based on, if I understand it correctly. If we go back to your kind of sensitivity that you gave us in December, would it be fair to apply that here just theoretically if the 9.40 were sustained? That's about a $60 million uptick to EBITDA, which basically offset the reductions that you've get in this revised guidance.

Holli C. Nichols

Analyst

I think the sensitivities still apply, Elizabeth. So that's probably a fair way of looking at it. And certainly when we come out with our first quarter results, we will update guidance for more current gas price. And the other key to your point was we would need to go and capture that pricing environment that's out there today. So we still have some execution around that. But I think that's a fair way of looking at it.

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

And Elizabeth, I guess I would also add, people also, I think, maybe just picking up on John's comment and looking at the forward EBITDA outlook, I think people need to focus not just on '08; they need to be looking at where prices looking like they are at for 09, maybe 2010. And it's not just taken on the gas price, which I think as of yesterday the 09 strip on coal was running around 9.25. But Midwest synergy power price is running in the low to mid 70s, around 73. So we see a very high energy price and power price environment in a tightening market, and I think longer term, that's what I would want investors to be taking a good look at.

Elizabeth Parrella

Analyst

Okay. A couple of other questions. The slide on coal hedging, slide 24, could you give us some sense of... you talk about a significant portion of the price re-opener for next year are capped. If you were to look at the 2009 coal costs, how much of it is sort of really already locked or locked down? I realize your supply is 100% locked down. But if we thought about how much of the price was really open to some type of escalator and then adjusting for how much of an escalation you could see. I don't know what that's tied to.

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

Yes.

Elizabeth Parrella

Analyst

That market price --

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

Elizabeth, on that, we've got with the suppliers, we have confidentiality agreements on those. And I think the best way we have been explaining to people to take a look at that is you can go back to our past years, you could go back. We have been doing dollars per MMbtu delivered at Baldwin now for probably at least three years, Lynn. And I think if you go back three years ago, we were probably around $1.15 or $1.10. Then it was around $1.20, $1.25. We are at about $1.30. And so even with increases that have happened over the last few years, you have a very gentle movement up and not the least of which is depending on exactly which plant this stuff ends up at. It probably is somewhere around 50% to 60% of the delivered cost is rail, which is hard fixed. So the exposure there is muted not only by sort of the rolling and capped nature of the price escalators on the coal, but moreover, by the hard fixed nature of the rail contract.

Elizabeth Parrella

Analyst

Right. But the --

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

We really just wanted to get across to people that when you see these spot Eastern prices running up, it's not a big, at this point, I would say a big factor for us given those two muting factors of the fixed rail and then the capped escalators in the various coal contracts.

Elizabeth Parrella

Analyst

Right. The market price increase we have seen, even for PRB, I think has been sharper than in past years. I am not sure, well, it will give us some general sense to go back and look at the historicals. I am not sure that this time around, it might not be more pronounced. So I am wondering if it would be possible for you to indicate at least on the general sense kind of maybe either how much of an increase or what might be sort of the worst possible percentage increase in 2009 based on where we are today for PRB prices and the way your contracts work?

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

We can take a look at it. I mean, Lynn, anything you want to add?

Lynn A. Lednicky

Analyst

Yes, well, Elizabeth, I was going to say I mean we are in the middle of discussions with coal suppliers right now. So that's part of the reason that we are a bit reticent to say too much at this point. In the next few months, we will have a much better idea of what the prices are going to like for 2009 and beyond. But our expectations now I think are in line with what Bruce said a minute ago. If you look at the kind of historical price increases that we have seen over the last few years, we expect that we will see similar type things this year. So that's probably as much as we can really say right now given that we are in the middle of those discussions.

Elizabeth Parrella

Analyst

Okay. Perhaps --

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

We have kept [ph] it for later in the year.

Elizabeth Parrella

Analyst

Yes, maybe we can revisit that on the next call.

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

Okay.

Elizabeth Parrella

Analyst

And just one other topic Bruce. In both your remarks and the slides and the press release, you talked about opportunities for creating value through investments in new projects, those brownfield and greenfield transactions, acquisitions. Where does stock buy back fit in all of this?

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

Well I think it all has to be factored in terms of capital allocation decisions. And the short answer is we have been talking for now, I guess going back to the December presentations or a little before about where the stock has been relative to replacement cost economics. And if faced with a choice of buying an asset at 80 or 90 or 100% of replacement cost or looking at where our own stock is, the stock would have a better outlook on things. And we've said that we will have to evaluate that and work on, let's say, capital allocation as we go through 2008. We continue to see strong recovery in the market and that should be good increased earnings power and so that becomes a very high quality problem for us to get to deal with in 2008 and beyond. What we are just highlighting with the capital structure and the comment is that we do have a very flexible capable structure, and that can serve us both to return money to shareholders, or to look at acquisitions, or to look at discretionary capital spending without needing to go out to the capital markets and get a lot of consents [ph] or refinancings and things like that like some of our competitors need to do. We in effect got our financings done last year.

Elizabeth Parrella

Analyst

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Mr. David Silverstein of Merrill Lynch.

David Silverstein

Analyst

Hi there. Just to follow up a little bit on what Elizabeth was talking about. If you could maybe give us an update in terms of what your committed sales are for 2009. I mean 2008 looks like it's relatively locked up given the commitments you have in place. But in terms of 2009 forward sales agreement relative to your coal costs. And I mean does it provide, given the limited upside that you see in terms of the price re-openers based upon historical... based on what this percentage increase could be, do you see an additional upside then for 2009 or do you see some contractual risks potentially in terms of escalating coal prices?

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

I think on the coal price side, we covered that, but we don't see a tremendous amount of risk to the upside in terms of an increasing coal cost. And as Lynn said, you can look at our past history kind of going over about a three-year period, and we have been moving things... things have moved up maybe a dime or $0.15 per MMbtu. I don't think we expect things to be dramatically different than that. So that's I guess on the cost side of things. If the other side of our question is then well, how are we positioned in 2009 as power prices and gas prices, setting marginal price and things like that have moved up? I would tell you that we will update 2009 forward sale outlook around the end of this year like we did last year for 2008 and the year before for 2007. But our commercial strategy remains very much the same where we want to look at the current year plus one around the baseload coal fleet and not really go out very much beyond that because we want to have that participation in the upside as the markets continue to tighten and power prices and energy prices generally look like they are tightening and moving in that direction. So we want to sort of move it into forward sales of the output in a reason [ph] and gradual manner so that we participate in that market recovery in the commodity cycle.

David Silverstein

Analyst

I mean just to be specific, I mean you are looking at a 50% increase in PRB over the last month or two. And so if you are saying that you have a strategic advantage because of the re-price... the price re-openers. And you think that the market is going to be somewhat correlated to, at least for the off peak periods, to a large degree with PRB pricing in that area or Central App for even a better situation right now. I mean that looks like substantial upside for 09, but you are not prepared to make that --

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

Yes, I think it's important that that's spot prices versus term prices and then Lynn --

Lynn A. Lednicky

Analyst

David, I think that's right. You need to remember that we are buying under term arrangements, and so the applicable [ph] comparable or term prices and not spot prices. And to this potential concern about off peak prices, you are right, off peak prices are generally set by coal units. But everybody has a similar situation. So we don't think we are disadvantaged in that respect. And for 08, as you said, things are more nailed down. As we look forward, we are watching the prices and we are managing that in concert with what's happening on the fuel side. So we don't think that there is going to be any big surprise that occurs out of that.

David Silverstein

Analyst

Okay. Because term right now for '09 is 17.5 a ton for PRB. So you are either really well positioned or you are just not willing to make that statement at this point?

Lynn A. Lednicky

Analyst

We are comfortable at the position that we've got..

David Silverstein

Analyst

Okay, got you. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Mr. Gregg Orrill [ph] of Lehman Brothers.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Thanks a lot. Wanted to go back to your slide 21 on the reserve margin guidance by market and the two questions there. Certainly... I certainly agree with the trends, but I was curious, particularly for the California and Northeast curves since they are the lowest, how you are weighting the different parts of those markets. And then second question is what's your... what are some of your thoughts on how renewables and demand response are going to affect the outlook.

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

Well I'll comment on the renewables and the demand and then maybe ask Lynn to comment... or Jason on the different segments or comment within that. I think on renewables and on demand response, I mean those are going to kick in, but they are going to be at some pretty high pricing levels. Consumers are going to respond with changes in behavior an demand I think when prices dictate that that's what they should do economically. At the end of the day, we are still seeing an overall increase in prices and not that much of an impact in terms of a curtailment of demand at this point of time. I think longer term, that's going to be part of the energy solution in the country dealing with traditional fuels, renewables, demand response as hopefully government tries to strike a balance between environmental concerns, the cost of power to consumers and energy dependence on foreign oil and foreign... and increasingly foreign natural gas. So it's not like there is just a one trick of advance this to six, one side of things with out impacting the other. In other words we can't have a whole lot of additional renewables and --without jeopardizing reliability or increasing cost, nor can we have just put all our eggs in the basket of demand response and not have new supply come into being. So, it's a complex energy problem that is going to have multitude of solutions. And then comment I guess on different regions of... Greg your other part was comment on different parts, I guess breaking down.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Yes, I guess the idea of being that.

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

Like we have it on graph, I guess Northern versus Southern and probably New England versus New York.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Just in those... right in those curves how do you see the various up segments, higher or lower than the curve?

Lynn A. Lednicky

Analyst

Well I guess we started in the Northeast. We are pretty comfortable with what we have in the Northeast because the diversity we have in the portfolio with coal and oil and gas and that gives us the opportunity to participate in several different segments. You got capacity markets that are developing in the Northeast, they have already been there in the New York region, they were now in the New England region. So we participate there. We have got well placed assets that participate well in the market so... on the energy side. So there, we've got a good portfolio and we've tried to spread around the positions that we take and the product that we sell out of those to best match where we see the opportunities. And we think that market is tight and it's likely to remain tight going forward, we would expect to see some improvements in capacity prices overtime and energy prices-- as I said, we've got new facilities, that are well position low cost. So they'll do well. And particularly, if you see any kind of weather event which can really have pronounced effects on prices when your supply demand balance is right at the margin. If you go out West to look at the California markets, there you don't have a very well developed capacity market. So, we participate more in the energy markets there in the mass landing facility, we think we've got a new, one of the lowest cost production facilities in the West. So that facility does very well. If you go back to the Arizona plant... as Bruce mentioned we had put some contracts in place which help capture some of the increasing value that we see across time. But we also have upside potential associated with those facilities that we can continue to capture as those markets develop. So I am not sure if you had something more specific in mind, but that's our general view about the two areas.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

That's great, thanks.

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

I would just, Greg I want to add one thing. Everybody want to... we usually want to talk about what's happening in the market with supply-demand or with pricing. In addition, it's important that we have assets that are going to actually operate in those markets. When the consumers need the power and that's where the traditional sources rather than renewables have been kicking at an awful lot. But what I really want to highlight is the operating performance. We rarely get a question on these calls, and I think to some extend, people sometimes take it for granted that while you're going to operate the plants when they are in the market and... Rich and his team on the operating side, I mean they had just had a stellar year last year in terms of operating the plants well. And that's a very important value driver, because it's not just about when is the pricing right. But do you have the asset up and running and in the market. And I think, I would just on this call like to highlight Rich and Keith and Dan and Sam and their team for their operating performance during the year.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Ms. Shalini Mahajan.

Shalini Mahajan

Analyst

Thanks and good morning. I just wanted to actually touch a little bit upon the market recovery, EBITDA that you gave in your December Analyst Meeting which was 1.8 billion. I am kind of thinking about the current environment impacting that number given, one, the commodities are up a lot today. But two, we are looking at a recession which might be an extended one. But how can you see these two factors impacting the extent and timing of recovery?

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

Well, I think... I am not going to try to give a recession prediction or a lack thereof. What we look for is... we look for kind of the signals that we see in the marketplace in terms of consumer demand for energy which continues to be high and continues to be strong. Probably the other area interestingly that we see evidence of how the economy is doing is when we look at the cost of labor and talent as we do things like the Consent Decree spending program and that sort of thing. And we see a very strong tight labor market there. So, we have got some very conflicting signals that we are seeing relative to all of the commentary around housing prices and sub-prime mortgages and things like that. I think there is a little bit of maybe a difference between sort of call it the broad U.S. economy and the energy economy. Because there can be some slowdown in the economy, but you continue to have strong to stable energy demand. And that's where we just need to be in market and having Rich and this team run those assts. So we are in market and available and operating. So we've got some conflicting signals I think in terms of what we are seeing. Now with crude oil coming up at $102 a barrel and NYMEX running 950 for 08 for gas and things like that. I think there are some high energy prices that are going to start to impact the U.S. economy generally. And may be that's... may be that pushes out some recovery a little bit. But I don't think from the signals that we are seeing its not that we see energy demand contracting or reducing or something like that. Maybe there is a slowing of demand, but not a decrease.

Shalini Mahajan

Analyst

Okay. And then kind of just following-up on that question and looking at slide 22 where you pointed out both the upside on margins as well as high capacity factors for your intermediate and peaking fleet. If we have to kind of think of bear case, would that to be more on the capacities factor? Or on the margin front?

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

I think it's probably... the answer is probably if you do a bear case, I guess it's probably both. But it's probably... I guess I would go back to my earlier comment, it's probably a shift in time over plan those market recovery cases were to come about more than... in my opinion on... if they come about, because we didn't have it in this presentation. But I know we have used it in December and in presentations before. And if you think about how many years toll markets are in a very tight situation, it's probably anywhere from a couple of years to maybe three or four years at most out. And if somebody isn't already building the plant in these regions, not thinking about and asking for permits and licenses and getting communities support and things like that. But if they are not building it right now, it's not going to be on the ground in two to four years. And I think that's probably one of the major factors.

Lynn A. Lednicky

Analyst

Yes and if I could just said one other thing real quickly as the way to think about it. The baseload facilities are baseload facilities and their production volumes are not going to go up, when things get tighter. And their production volume is not going to get down if there is recession. Yes it's the gas facilities that will begin to move, you'll begin to see the volumes go up in the combined cycle fleet as the economy tightens or as the supply demand balance tightens. And they will begin to move in response to what happens to spark spread. And then the peaking fleet will respond to what's going on in the supply-demand balance in the market. So, that's probably the way to think about it. One of the good things about Dynegy is we do have this portfolio so we have different parts of the portfolio that respond to different things. And overall, that gives us good exposure to the upside, but portfolio effect it gives us some stability across the whole system.

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

Yes, I might draw that back to the first question we had mentioning one of these other companies that has... have basically and all the bet is in natural gas and forward EBITDA growth. I think... again we would want to highlight for investors that we think the diversity of this portfolio gives you not only strong upside potential, but gives you sort of... a bit of... definitely what we call it baseload buffering in terms of some downside protection as well.

Shalini Mahajan

Analyst

Great, that's very helpful. Thank you.

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

Okay.

Operator

Operator

Our final question comes from Mr. Lasan Johong of RBC Capital Markets.

Lasan Johong

Analyst

Thank you, good morning. Bruce, quickly on that same page 22, you have the much of recovery on the intermediate and peaking plan. What does that represent in terms of EBITDA?

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

I believe those are the ones that... as we used December that... those sort of workout to the 1.8 billion case. And so we leave it up to you to determine at what years that will actually come in to being.

Lasan Johong

Analyst

Excellent. And can I assume that you're really not going to look at building and you are saying with LS Power until you have a cost advantage that either lower the cost per KW or boost the returns. Is that a fair assumption?

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

Well we will look at moving forward with the project as long as it clears our cost of capital. And that we think that it's the right risk for reward decision for us. I mean, like we did with moving forward with Sandy Creek last year. But at the same time as I mentioned in my remarks, it is very tough to develop new projects in the country from both, a permitting and citing standpoint. And if something can move forward and that can be economic then that's a very good thing because it indicates that there are customers out there willing to sign the long term contracts that it will be needed to underpin the project. It also probably indicates... it does indicate that at least in that instance wherever that is in the country that we are at a point where prices on a current basis are justifying replacement cost. Because that's implicitly what it will be. In the meantime, things continue to be difficult. I think that's... for investors that's in fact good news for the operating portion of our fleet, because there is continued upside out there. And we would want them to focus on that element.

Lasan Johong

Analyst

Okay then let me twist it in a slightly different way. What is now your cost-to-build Sandy Creek on a per KW basis?

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

No, I don't know if we... let me see. Somebody is going to grab a calculator here and... otherwise I can throw it to Lynn and duck your question Lasan.

Lynn A. Lednicky

Analyst

Yes, I mean I don't know that we've ever said specifically what that cost is.And we have got things largely locked down, but we are going through the construction phase now. And we are also talking to people about additional sales out of that facility. So we are not particularly interested in tipping our hand. But you can tell from what we have said about Sandy Creek and what we have said about Plum Point. And the interest that we have sold there, that... that market value is in the 2,500, 2,600, 2,700, and 2,800 per KW range. And so, if you wanted a range, that's the kind of range that we see on those facilities.

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

As we think you know that one moving forward with... and again I am highlighting the difficulty that there is in getting all the necessary permits and overall support. And you are never going to please everybody with the new development and Sandy Creek is no example, but it did work its work its way through the normal approval process. And it got a full wetting in terms of regulatory approvals and citing commissions and air quality boards and all of that and even appeals and that sort of thing. And that one is moving forward. And I think there's probably a little bit of a scarcity value that ultimately can develop on the project.

Lynn A. Lednicky

Analyst

Yes, I mean time to market can be a competitive advantage as well.

Lasan Johong

Analyst

Let me ask you this way on Sandy Creek... I am sorry on Plum Point you were able to take advantage of somebody else's cheaper cost of capital to gain a cost advantage in building the facility.

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

You mean when we sold the piece last year?

Lasan Johong

Analyst

Yes.

Lynn A. Lednicky

Analyst

We didn't actually gain in advantage in the cost of the facility, it was.

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

So what it [ph] was already underway, we just saw a great price and the performance team jumped on that.

Lasan Johong

Analyst

Absolutely and your cost on a per KW basis kind of decreased if you would?

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

Yes.

Lasan Johong

Analyst

Can we expect something similar

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

[Indiscernible] investment.

Lasan Johong

Analyst

I am sorry. Can we expect something similar on Sandy Creek?

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

If we--

Lasan Johong

Analyst

Is that the kind of opportunity you are looking for?

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

If we had a similar investor who wants to buy a piece at a price greater than what we think its worth to hold to for our investors, we would similarly jump on that. I mean like you and I have talked in the past. I mean I equate of this a lot to like oil and gas. And you know you develop a project and you even sell down pieces and farm someone in. I think as you highlighted in one of your reports that was directly analitative [ph]. I have though about it and we would be willing to entertain those as well for Sandy Creek. That's just being opportunistic and transacting. And I think we have demonstrated a very good track record of doing that.

Jason A. Hochberg

Analyst

Lasan I... this is Jason, I think a good way to think of it in what you are trying to get at is that, back when LS signed up construction contract for Plum Point, we've previously mentioned that kind of a all-in cost a build at Plum Point is about $2000 a KW or so. Now with the passage of time, as labor and materials and all these things are more and more in demand and the cost to build goes higher and higher, the fact we signed up a fixed price construction contract and began breaking ground at that time and have advanced significantly during construction, gives us a cost advantage. And with some of the trends you are seeing in all the Consent Decree and the like that overtime the cost of Sandy Creek, we expect to be more and more attractive.

Lasan Johong

Analyst

Very good thank you very much.

Bruce A. Williamson

Analyst

Okay, thank you. Before concluding today's call, I would like to remind you all to enroll in our program that enables you to receive future stock holding material electronically. This will help save all of our investors' money by reducing our printing and mailing cost and increasing efficiency. You can enroll on our web site, www.dynegy.com. Now, let me mention some upcoming investor out reach activities that various members of the management team will be participating in. First, we will be at the UBS Natural Gas and Electric Utility Conference in Austin, Texas on March 7th. Next we will be traveling to the Northeast for series on investor meetings spanning most of the week of March 10th. We also plan on attending the Deutsche Bank 2008 Energy and Utilities Conference on May 28th and 29th. And later this, year we'll be scheduling a trip to meet with investors in the Midwest section of the country. Thank you again for your time this morning and your interest in Dynegy. I look forward to seeing some of you again at these upcoming Investor events.

Operator

Operator

Thank you for joining today's conference call. You may disconnect at this time.