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Enbridge Inc. (ENB)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 4, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, my name is Keith, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Spectra Energy and Spectra Energy Partners Quarterly Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you, Julie Dill, Chief Communications Officer; you may begin your conference.

Julie Dill

Analyst

Thank you, Keith, and good morning, everyone. My name is Julie Dill. I'm the Chief Communications Officer for Spectra and really appreciate you joining us today for our review of Spectra Energy's and Spectra Energy Partners' 2014 fourth quarter results and year-end results. With me today are Greg Ebel, CEO of both Spectra Energy and Spectra Energy Partners; and Pat Reddy, Chief Financial Officer of both companies. Pat will go through our results for the quarter and the year and then Greg will wrap things up with some closing thoughts on 2014. And as always, we'll leave plenty of time for your questions related to our 2014 results following Greg's remarks. Our Safe Harbor statement is contained within our presentation materials and available on our websites. This disclaimer is important and integral to all of our remarks, so I would ask that you refer to it as you review our materials. Also contained in our presentation materials are non-GAAP measures that we reconcile to the most directly comparable GAAP measures and those reconciliations are also available on our website. So with that, let me turn things over to Pat.

Pat Reddy

Analyst · Danilo Juvane from BMO Capital. Your line is open

Okay, thanks Julie and good morning, everyone and thanks for joining us today. As you saw in our earnings release this morning. We had a strong finish to 2014, which puts us on a solid footing as we enter 2015. A robust finish for the year underscores a couple of key points. First, [indiscernible] our ability to manage the various business and market cycles including the current lower commodity cycle that began in the fourth quarter. Thanks to a diversified portfolio, healthy balance sheet and sound business model. Importantly, the success we had last year in executing on our expansion plans, securing contracts and safe guarding our credit metrics and financial flexibility provides us with a strong platform to build on and you'll hear more about that when we review our new three-year plan with you tomorrow. So I'll speak more to the full year shortly, but let's start with our fourth quarter results, which are shown on Slide 3. Spectra Energy generated ongoing EBITDA of $180 million compared with $798 million in the prior year's quarter. On a standalone basis, SEP delivered ongoing EBITDA $424 million, $72 million higher than in the same period last year. The key drivers for the positive change in Spectra Energy's EBITDA quarter-over-quarter are increased earnings of $75 million at Spectra Energy Partners compared with last year, mainly driven by expansion projects that generated about $30 million, primarily on our Texas Eastern System. Projects like TEAM 2014 and TEAM South, which were put into service during the fourth quarter, by helping transform Texas Eastern in a bidirectional system and are underpinned by firm long-term fee-based contracts. Increased earnings at SEP also reflect higher equity earnings due to the continued ramp up of volumes on a Sand Hills and Southern Hills NGL pipelines and higher…

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

Well, thanks very much Pat and good morning to everybody on the line. As you heard from Pat, Spectra Energy delivered impressive results in 2014, which really provides us a great platform to get into 2015. We're very pleased with our performance for the year and our record of executing on growth opportunities that drive our earnings and cash flows, now and well into the future. A track record shows that we deliver on our promises, throughout all market cycles and in 2014, we even surpassed our own expectations. We beat our 2014 DCF expectation by nearly 19% at Spectra Energy and 14% and SEP. We beat our dividend and distribution coverage targets for both Spectra Energy and Spectra Energy Partners and ended the year with coverage ratios of 1.6 times and 1.2 times respectively. We improved our annual dividend growth to $0.14 per share up from our original plan and commitment to investors of $0.12 per share and we continue to increase the quarterly distribution at SEP. Announcing our 29th consecutive quarterly increase just this morning. An unit holders will be pleased with the fact that, we increase quarterly distribution by a $0.01 and a $0.25 per unit; up from $0.01 increase they received in recent quarter. Our financial results really reflect our ability to reliably execute, operate and expand our project and assets. We placed almost $800 million of projects into service during 2014, project like TEAM South and TEAM 2014 and U.S. Transmission and our liquids business expanded its Buffalo [ph] storage multi-facilitate deliveries to a new refinery customer. Western Canada also plays the North Montney project into service, which expanded processing capacity in the region under long-term contracts to meet incremental customer needs. All of these projects exemplify our ability to optimize our existing footprint to…

Julie Dill

Analyst

Thank you, Greg. We'd like to hear from you now. So we'll open the lines for your questions and I'm going to ask you to please restrict your questions to only our fourth quarter and year-end results as we've got plenty of time in the morning to discuss our 2015 outlook in plan. So Keith, if you would please provide instructions on folks can ask questions, I'd appreciate it. Keith? Alright.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] your first question comes from the line of Darren Horowitz from Raymond James. Your line is open.

Darren Horowitz

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

I appreciate you running through the detail on you know the composition of numbers on the drivers. I just had one quick question and I know you're going to get into a lot more detail about this tomorrow, but in the prepared commentary with discussion around the Express-Platte expansion, you had talked about the re-scoping of that Wyoming to Illinois pipeline impossibly incorporating those volumes into the opportunity between the system. I was just curious within that commentary, if that changes either your CapEx are scalable ultimately how large this system could be or if you could just roughly quantify the re-scoping as a result of the recent shipping commodity prices?

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

Well you're right, you'll hear a lot about that tomorrow and it doesn't change the ultimate capacity. I think what you're seeing is and that really doesn't impact our 2015 to 2015 forecast, we'll get into tomorrow, but the very big projects Darren. I mean, I wouldn't expect that every month commodity prices stay where they are kind of a final decision on those projects moves out by a month, if you will, but we had expected those projects to kind of get secured towards the latter half of the decade. I'd still expect that to be the case. Again, if you're going to assume commodity prices stay very low for a long period of time. I guess you could question that, but remember that's not really what those pipes are doing. What those pipes are doing is taking advantage of the differential. The existing Western Canada for example and getting those to higher price market. So you know for Western Canada that just for a simplicity at $50 and $55, you can get it in Wood River, Patoka or the Gulf, you're still going to try to find a way to capture that Delta. So I don't think it ultimately changes the size of those projects and I think, what we're really discussing is that, when those projects move into a final investment decision.

Darren Horowitz

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

Okay and then just as a quick follow-up and this was actually something that happened throughout the course of the fourth quarter, but I'm just curious with the new committed contracts that you had signed on Express, there was some commentary that the committed totals [ph] were coming at higher rates and I was curious if you could just quantify the variance?

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

I don't know that I've got that number for you, but I can get it for you then. I think, they have inflaters [ph] to them and I think the inflater [ph] was in the 4% range for this year.

Darren Horowitz

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

Okay, that's all I had. I appreciate catching up in more detail tomorrow. Thank you.

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Danilo Juvane from BMO Capital. Your line is open.

Danilo Juvane

Analyst · Danilo Juvane from BMO Capital. Your line is open

Good morning.

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Danilo Juvane from BMO Capital. Your line is open

Good morning, Danilo.

Danilo Juvane

Analyst · Danilo Juvane from BMO Capital. Your line is open

I just wanted to follow-up on a couple of questions on the quarter. So at Union Gas, can you guys quantify what the weather impact was and how it sort of compared relative to normal expectation?

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Danilo Juvane from BMO Capital. Your line is open

Yes, it was little warmer than the year before, not way off, those around $5 million was the impact on the downside from weather. Remember as we, you'll remember the winter of 2013, 2014 Danilo was extremely cold. So we weren't far off of normal, in fact maybe even the slightly.

Pat Reddy

Analyst · Danilo Juvane from BMO Capital. Your line is open

Though interestingly, that we were pretty much at normal, we were 6% warmer than the prior year quarter, but 7% colder than the prior year for the whole year. So the distribution during the year was kind of odd.

Danilo Juvane

Analyst · Danilo Juvane from BMO Capital. Your line is open

Okay, great. I appreciate the colour. Moving on the SEP, obviously the fourth quarter was strong because of the expansion project that you sort of mentioned there. Can we expect the fourth quarter to sort of reflect a similar run rate, how should we think about sort of rebasing 2015 I guess based on how this quarter performed?

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Danilo Juvane from BMO Capital. Your line is open

Well, Danilo if you let us, we'll spell that all out for your tomorrow, but I think you're hitting on the right theme. You know the expansion project is coming in, I think you should expect to see the benefits of that playing right through the planned period.

Danilo Juvane

Analyst · Danilo Juvane from BMO Capital. Your line is open

I guess, were there any impacts from interruptible transportation as well or was it strictly fee-based volumes.

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Danilo Juvane from BMO Capital. Your line is open

Well, we always get a little bit interruptible, but it was not a significant amount. You know, we're talking well under $5 million.

Danilo Juvane

Analyst · Danilo Juvane from BMO Capital. Your line is open

Okay, that's it from me. Thanks guys.

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Danilo Juvane from BMO Capital. Your line is open

Okay, thanks Danilo.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Craig Shere from Tuohy Brothers. Your line is open.

Craig Shere

Analyst · Craig Shere from Tuohy Brothers. Your line is open

I just had a quick question on the tax rate. It seemed, what was it 17% versus 23% to prior quarter. Can you give a little more colour on that?

Pat Reddy

Analyst · Craig Shere from Tuohy Brothers. Your line is open

Sure, so with respect to the tax rate. We had as a result of the big drop-down, the rightful drop-down a recalibration have stayed income taxes and it has to do with the distribution of income across the different states. So it was a current tax effect and also revaluation of deferred taxes to take into account the lower STEP to lower in tax rate blended through the states. So it's really a combination of those two things, Craig.

Craig Shere

Analyst · Craig Shere from Tuohy Brothers. Your line is open

Oh! Okay, so this is nothing ongoing in that whole DCP tax issue, talked about as is really a parent level DCF issues it's not a net-net statutory rate that you realize?

Pat Reddy

Analyst · Craig Shere from Tuohy Brothers. Your line is open

Well, with respect to the adjustment for the state tax, that was a catch up all in one quarter and it did look back over a couple of years. So you're right about that, that wouldn't affect our ongoing run rate and we will publish our expected cash tax rate for the three years of our plan tomorrow.

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Craig Shere from Tuohy Brothers. Your line is open

But none of that impact is related to DCP.

Pat Reddy

Analyst · Craig Shere from Tuohy Brothers. Your line is open

No, it was not.

Craig Shere

Analyst · Craig Shere from Tuohy Brothers. Your line is open

Okay, great. Thank you very much, look forward to tomorrow.

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Craig Shere from Tuohy Brothers. Your line is open

Okay, thanks Craig.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open.

Christine Cho

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

Good morning. I just want to.

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

Hi, Christine?

Christine Cho

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

Hello. I just wanted to make sure; I understand this correctly at Western Canada. The non-cash mark-to-market gains are tied to whatever volumes you have hedged going forward. Correct?

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

That is correct.

Christine Cho

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

Okay and then, just theoretically is the market liquid enough to hedged beyond one year or not really?

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

We typically, there's two effects here. One obviously it is very liquid beyond say 12-month to 18-month period so, you're right that mark and the positive mark is indicating the positive value, the hedges we put in place in 2014. In 2015 and out into 2016 as well, but the vast majority that would be in 2015, Christine. Partially its liquidity, but the [indiscernible] contact structure is work at Empress, right? You're bring in stuff in each year and year, matching up with the sales and most of contracts that Empress would run in that 12-month to 18-month period.

Christine Cho

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

Okay, now if even if back that out, I still get that Western Canada looks like it was a beat and it looks like it, sounds like it's from gathering and processing. Revenues being higher, so that to me seems to indicate that activity was higher, since commodity prices were down. Can you just talk about like the dynamic that's going on up there? What's encouraging producers to actually increase their activity rather than decrease?

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

Well, it's combination, see you're right. It's not necessarily so much an increase in activity, but an increase of interruptible. So you know the amount of throughput we realize on interruptible basis. So people who are producing gas want to keep producing that gas, they're less likely to shut in versus people that going out and spudding [ph] new wells etc. We had them through the fourth quarter, seeing any real run off from an activity perspective. I think as you won't be surprised Christine you know it takes 4 to 6 months for some of those activity impacts to start kicking in. so I'll talk about this a bit tomorrow, but again you still have largely a fee-based nature of our G&P activities up there. So there is two elements. One people wanted to use interruptible as oppose to committing to new projects that maybe others were proposing and two, we'd still have fee-based contracts up there for the vast majority of what we do in the G&P side of things being there, more like pipeline contracts here in the United States, so people still have to pay us. So, the activity impacts are much more spread out from Spectra Energy perspective than what you might see on the E&P side or versus what you might see down here in United States, that makes sense?

Christine Cho

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

Yes, is there a big backlog of work that still need to be connected to infrastructure or not really?

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

No, I wouldn't go that far. I would say, it's again more people that are have done work in 2013 and 2014 and maybe are close to completing and still wanting to be able to flow that gas, right. I mean, you're not going to close in wells that are already would be, that would be far out, in the trial of your options, closing wells that are already producing, but you might not want to sign up for new contracts instead, you're going to use existing assets, which is exactly our advantage, right? We process 6% of the gas in Greatest Columbia so as oppose to working with maybe some smaller players or committing to new plants, you'll use interruptible services that places like Spectra Energy to the extent we have capacity available in those areas.

Christine Cho

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

Okay and then last question from me and this is just sort of an accounting question. When I look at your Spectra Energy Corp, DCF table. The distribution from and consolidated affiliate, it looks like it was $107 million for the quarter. Historically, I thought that the bulk of the cash that came from this was from DCP. Am I incorrect in thinking that way?

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

Well, that is high, that's why you see it. That's correct.

Christine Cho

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

So, I guess I'm just, I saw it given the loss for the quarter at the DCP, you wouldn't take a cash distribution from DCP. Was there?

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

Well, two things are the distributions tend to run a quarter lag.

Christine Cho

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

I see, okay.

Greg Ebel

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

So really, what you would have seen pick up in the.

Pat Reddy

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

The cash we've received in the fourth quarter was from the third quarter declared distribution. So the fourth quarter distribution that would have been declared for payment in the first quarter of 2015, we won't be taking.

Christine Cho

Analyst · Christine Cho from Barclays. Your line is open

I see, okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back over to Ms. Dill.

Julie Dill

Analyst

Thank you, Keith and again, thanks to everybody for joining today. We really hope to see or hear from your tomorrow, when we roll out our 2015 business outlook and our three-year financial plan, during our Analyst and Investor meeting. So again, for information on participating in our investor meeting via the phone or the internet. Please visit the investor section of either spectraenergy.com or spectraenergypartners.com. As always if you have follow-up questions, feel free to give Roni Cappadonna or I a call. We may not get back to you right away, as we are travelling today, but we'll circle back with you as soon as we can, so thanks again for joining us, and we'll see you tomorrow.