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MDU Resources Group, Inc. (MDU)

Q3 2025 Earnings Call· Thu, Nov 6, 2025

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us, and welcome to the MDU Resources Group, Inc. Q3 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Jason Vollmer, Chief Financial Officer. Jason, please go ahead.

Jason Vollmer

Analyst

Thank you, Nicole, and welcome, everyone, to our third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. You can find our earnings release and supplemental materials for this call on our website at www.mdu.com under the Investors tab. Leading today's discussion with me is Nicole Kivisto, President and CEO of MDU Resources. During our call, we will make certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. For more information about the risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to vary from any forward-looking statements, please refer to our most recent SEC filings. I'll provide consolidated financial results later during the call, but we'll first turn the call over to Nicole for her remarks. Nicole?

Nicole Kivisto

Analyst

All right. Thank you, Jason, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today and for your continued interest in MDU Resources. This morning, we reported income from continuing operations of $18.4 million or $0.09 per share for the third quarter of 2025, an increase of $2.8 million or $0.01 per share over the third quarter of 2024. Strong performance at our Pipeline segment drove results for the quarter. Typically, this is a less impactful quarter from an earnings perspective at the utility as we approach the beginning of the heating season. Increased operating costs across our business segments did impact our third quarter results. Continued strong customer demand at our Pipeline segment and progress in our utility regulatory schedule should provide opportunity as we move forward. In addition, our utility experienced combined retail customer growth of 1.5% when compared to this time last year, which is within our targeted annual growth rate of 1% to 2%. This demand and growth provides investment opportunity for customer-driven growth projects at our pipeline and in our utility infrastructure to meet the demands of our growing customer base. I'm extremely proud of our employees whose dedication to our core strategy continues to drive our business and to deliver exceptional performance while positioning MDU Resources with compelling long-term growth prospects. At our Electric segment, the North Dakota Public Service Commission approved the advanced determination of prudence filing for the proposed acquisition of a 49% ownership interest in the Badger Wind Farm, which equates to 122.5 megawatts of the project's total 250 megawatts of generation capacity. As a result, we will complete the acquisition of this investment upon commercial operation, which we expect to be around year-end. This investment is currently in our 2026 capital budget. We also filed a general rate case in Montana during…

Jason Vollmer

Analyst

Thanks, Nicole. This morning, we announced third quarter earnings of $18.4 million or $0.09 per share compared to third quarter 2024 earnings of $64.6 million or $0.32 per share. Third quarter income from continuing operations was $18.4 million or $0.09 per share compared to $15.6 million or $0.08 per share in the prior year. Income from continuing operations excludes the impacts of Everest, which was separated in a spin-off transaction on October 31, 2024. Turning to our individual businesses. Our Electric Utility reported third quarter earnings of $21.5 million compared to $24.3 million for the same period in 2024. Higher retail sales revenues positively impacted results for the quarter, but were more than offset by higher operation and maintenance expense, primarily from higher payroll-related costs and higher contract services related to electric generation station outages this year. Higher depreciation expense associated with capital projects placed in service further impacted the results. Our Natural Gas utility reported a seasonal loss of $18.2 million in the third quarter compared to a loss of $17.5 million in 2024. Increased operation and maintenance expense, primarily, again, higher payroll-related costs as well as higher depreciation expense related to capital projects placed in service drove the loss in the quarter. Higher retail sales revenue due to rate relief in Washington, Montana and Wyoming partially offset the seasonal loss. The Pipeline posted record third quarter earnings of $16.8 million compared to third quarter earnings of $15.1 million last year. The increase in earnings was driven by higher transportation revenue from growth projects placed in service in late 2024 and customer demand for short-term firm natural gas transportation contracts. Higher operation and maintenance expense, along with increased property taxes and depreciation, partially offset the earnings increase. And finally, MDU Resources continues to maintain a strong balance sheet with ample access to working capital to finance our operations. While we have no equity needs in 2025 based on our current capital plan, our capital investment program moving forward will require access to the equity capital markets. As such, we reestablished an ATM program during the quarter to meet those needs. We will update our forward-looking capital investment plan later this month, and we'll provide further details around the size and timing of the near-term equity needs at that same time. That summarizes our financial highlights for the third quarter. We appreciate your interest in and commitment to MDU Resources and ask that we now open the line for any questions. Operator?

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] There are no questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Nicole Kivisto for closing remarks.

Nicole Kivisto

Analyst

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We certainly appreciate your continued interest and support of MDU Resources and look forward to connecting with you as we finish out the year. And with that, I'll turn the call back over to the operator.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.