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Ormat Technologies, Inc. (ORA)

Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 26, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to the Ormat Q4 Year End 2013 Conference Call. All lines have been placed on listen-only mode and the floor will be open for your questions and comments following the presentation. Without further ado, it is my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Mr. Robert Fink. Mr. Fink, the floor is yours.

Rob Fink

Management

Thank you, West, and thank you everyone for joining us today. Hosting the call from Ormat are Dita Bronicki, Chief Executive Officer; Yoram Bronicki, President and Chief Operating Officer; Doron Blachar, Chief Financial Officer; and Smadar Lavi, Vice President of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations. Before beginning, we would like to remind you that the information provided during this call may contain forward-looking statements relating to current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about future events that are forward-looking as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements generally relate to the company’s plans, objectives and expectations for future operation and are based on management’s current estimates, projections, future results or trends. Actual future results may differ materially from those projected as a result of certain risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, please visit Risk Factors as described in Ormat Technologies’ Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on March 11, 2013. In addition, during the call we will present non-GAAP financial measures such as EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA. Reconciliations to the most directly compared GAAP measures and management’s reasons for presenting such information is set forth in the press release that was issued last night, as well as in the slide posted on our website, ormat.com. Because these measures are not calculated in accordance with U.S. GAAP, they should not be considered in isolation from our financial statement prepared in accordance with GAAP. Before I turn the call over to management, I would like to remind everyone that a slide presentation accompanying this call may be accessed on the company’s website, ormat.com under the IR Events & Presentations link that’s found in the Investor Relations tab. With all that said, I would now like to turn the call over to Dita. Dita, the call is yours.

Yehudit Bronicki

Management

Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for the presentation of our fourth quarter and full year 2013 results and outlook for the near future. Slide 4 presents the highlight for the year. Doron will go into the numbers in detail in a minute. I would like to provide an overview of what has been an exciting and productive year from a business and operational point of view. During 2013, we successfully completed nine power plants with approximately 270 megawatt of gross generating capacity. The plants, which we completed for our customers and for our own portfolio, significantly contributed to the growth of the geothermal industry. These accomplishments, the overall performance in both our Products and Electricity Segments resulted in record revenue and adjusted EBITDA. We successfully reduced our exposure to natural gas prices by securing three fixed-price long-term PPAs in California and continued our business development efforts to expand our operations globally. Our achievements reflect Ormat’s expertise in developing and managing projects that will deliver strong earnings growth and drive value to shareholders. Our success in recent years in answering the demand for electricity with a geothermal product that is both competitive in rate and superior in its attribute to most of our other alternatives is a testament to the important role that geothermal has in addressing the energy needs of the countries that have such a recourse, while providing us with the consult that the demand for this energy will remain strong across the globe and allow us to benefit from our position in this market. With that said, I would like to turn the call over to Doron to review the financial results. Yoram will then provide a review of our operations and I will return for closing remarks before opening the call for Q&A. Doron?

Doron Blachar

Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Dita, and good morning, everyone. Let me start by providing an overview of our financial results for the year ended December 31, 2013. Starting with Slide 6. Total revenues for 2013 were $533.2 million, a 6.3% increase of revenue of $501 million in 2012. In our electricity segment, as you can see on Slide 7, revenue grew 4.7% to $329.7 million in 2013 from $314.9 million in 2012. The increase was primarily due to the new capacity coming online. In line with our policy since 2012, we continue to take actions to mitigate the impact of natural gas prices on our Electricity Segment through our hedging activities. For 2014, we entered into the relative transaction at a fixed average price of $4.07 per MMbtu. It is important to note that the hedging transaction that we do eliminates the economic impact of changes to prices of natural gas in a specific month. If we lose on the hedge contract we are compensated from the revenue that we get on the Electricity Segment and vice versa. Both parts are recorded in the electricity revenue. However, due to the accounting guidelines we are required to mark-to market our forward hedge and this brings volatility into the reported period. When we internally analyze our result, we exclude the impact of the mark-to-market. Let me demonstrate the impact of the mark-to-market adjustments on the 2013 annual revenue. As a result of our hedging transaction that we entered in 2013, for 2014 we recorded a $2.8 million loss on mark-to-market adjustment in 2013 compared with a $2.3 million mark-to-market gain related to transaction we entered in 2012 for 2013 that were recorded in 2013. Excluding this mark-to-market adjustment, electricity revenue increased 6.4% year-over-year. In the Product Segment on Slide 8, product’s revenue rose 8.9%…

Yoram Bronicki

President

Thank you, Doron and good morning everyone. Starting with Slide 19. 2013 was a very successful year for the operational and development teams of Ormat. In our O&M portfolio, we completed three new power plants, Olkaria II and III, Don A. Campbell and the refurbishment of Mammoth G1. All moved from end of construction to electricity sales at full power in less than a month, and all matter exceeded their contractual generation target. The plants in Kenya and in U.S. added 70 megawatt net of new capacity. At McGinness Hills success of the resource development and the equipment design allowed us to increase declared capacity to 38 megawatt. The well field and power plant enhancement were we conducted in Jersey Valley brought the plant to its design generating capacity. From a business standpoint, we amended the PPA at McGinness Hills allowing us to develop the second phase. We amended the PPA at Zunil and Guatemala and replaced SO#4 contracts with fixed price contracts for Mammoth G1, G3 and sign a new PPA for Heber 1, which will become effective in December 2015 and will affect the electricity revenues from 2016 onward. We also completed the acquisition of Platanares in Honduras so allowing us to release Phase 1 for drilling activity. We completed most of the work on the 10 megawatt Heber solar project, but are still waiting for the interconnection facilities to be completed. However we are considering the option of the selling the product to completion. Moving to Slide 20, the total generation for 2013 was approximately 4.3 million megawatt hours, which is an increase of 7.9% from last year. The growth in generation is mainly due to the contribution from Olkaria III Plant 2, McGinness Hills, Tuscarora and Jersey Valley. Continuous improvements in our power plants have allowed…

Yehudit Bronicki

Management

Thank you, Yoram. Starting with Slide 25, looking at the global energy landscape. We continue to see countries around the world recognizing the benefits of using geothermal to meet the growing demand. Multinational organizations and nongovernmental organizations are continuing to offer incentives to lower the cost of capital, as these various entities look to increase the reliance on renewable energy. In the United States interesting geothermal energy remained strong for numerous reasons including legislative support of renewable portfolio standout, call in nuclear base load energy retirement, and increasingly awareness of the positive value of geothermal characteristics is compelled to intermittent renewable technology. We believe encouraging environment will continue to drive growth in both segments. As we discussed in previous earnings call, we’ve been evaluating along with our Board of Directors the viability of adopting the yield cost-type structure. We’ve determined that based on our portfolio size aiming suspension pace as well as the cost of shaping another public company utilizing the public [indiscernible] is not a viable solution at this time. We determine other vehicle such as practical realization of private equity transaction as a way to generate additional shareholder value. If you could please turn Slide 26, you’ll see our CapEx requirement for 2014. We plan to invest a total of $130 million in capital expenditure for new projects under construction and enhancement. In addition, $99 million is budgeted for development, exploration activities, maintenance capital for operating projects and investments in machinery and equipment as well as an $88.4 million for debt repayment. The funding of this program will come from cash on hand at the end of 2013, unused corporate lines of credit, expected cash from operation, expected ITC cash Campbell and from an expected financing of McGinness Hills Phase 2, which is covered under the existing financing…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) First question is from Mark Barnett. Mark the floor is yours. Mark Barnett – Morningstar Research: Hi, good morning, everyone.

Yoram Bronicki

President

Hi. Mark Barnett – Morningstar Research: Let me start, Dita, by saying congratulations and well deserved break for you. I have a couple of questions about some of the items you mentioned in the slides today. And the first would be, are you still on schedule for completing the Heber work at the end of midyear this year?

Yoram Bronicki

President

Yes. Mark Barnett – Morningstar Research: Okay. And you mentioned when the Platanares project either before – I missed your full sentence, but you mentioned that you might be motivated to sell that before it’s fully brought online. Is there anything in particular that is motivating that?

Yoram Bronicki

President

This was Heber Solar and not Plantanares. Mark Barnett – Morningstar Research: My bad. Okay. So then could you also maybe talk about the circumstances around your desire to sell that project?

Yoram Bronicki

President

I think that we’re looking at what would provide the best return from that investment and given the fact that it is non-core for us, the solar part, we may actually have a better way to realize the value from that by selling the project. If not, we can certainly run it. Mark Barnett – Morningstar Research: Okay. And then just one more question on California. The last Analyst Day you had walked through some potential changes in California’s renewable compensation that particularly would benefit geothermal. I mean outside of SO#4 contracts that you’ve renegotiated. Is there anything in particular that we should be watching for on this front for your projects in that state?

Yoram Bronicki

President

I think that if you look at California, and this is certainly beyond Ormat, but if you look at California the broader aspects of California is renewable energy policy. You see that there is a growing concern about the cost of integration of the intermittent power whether it’s wind or solar and there are more thoughts about providing, if you’d like, a premium to geothermal power that is part of this solution and not part of the intermittency problem. And of course this is far beyond Ormat. We are following the process and we provide and we intervene in the process where we can, but the discussion is of course beyond us. But I think that as we look into the RPS compliance period 3, I think that there are reasons to believe that geothermal will get preferential treatment because it should. Solar is much more expensive to the state as a state than just the cost of putting it online at the plant’s gate, so to speak. Mark Barnett – Morningstar Research: Understood. Okay. Well, thanks for your comments and again, congratulations, Dita.

Yehudit Bronicki

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) The next question comes from Dan Mannes. Dan, the floor is yours. Daniel Mannes – Avondale Partners LLC: Thanks. Good morning, everyone. A nice quarter.

Yoram Bronicki

President

Thank you. Daniel Mannes – Avondale Partners LLC: Sure. And obviously my congratulations again to Dita. I do have a couple of quick follow-up questions here. First of all, as it relates to your development pipeline, you talked about a potential for 120 to 150 megawatts. You kind of call out about 77 megawatts worth. I guess my question is for the difference between the two, the projects that you’re working on that you haven’t specifically named. Given the timeline between 2015 and 2017 and knowing how long permitting is and PPA windows, I guess I’m just trying to figure out how advanced those projects are for them to be able to make that window and be online in that timeframe?

Yoram Bronicki

President

So I’ll give you an indirect answer. They are quite advanced when it comes to development, but they are not at the point that we’re comfortable releasing more details about them. So clearly we have done resource work. Clearly we have done permitting work, site acquisition, work on transmission, all of this and this is why we are fairly comfortable that there is a substantial horizon beyond the projects that were named, but none of those were released and typically our practice is to release that information once the PPA is signed. This has been our past practice and we will probably adhere to that. Daniel Mannes – Avondale Partners LLC: Okay. And conceivably could any of these be projects which you’d already worked on for a while and then maybe put on the shelf? I’m thinking something like the CD-4 expansion or something like that.

Yoram Bronicki

President

I think that you make a very compelling argument. Daniel Mannes – Avondale Partners LLC: Fair enough. Building on the discussion on California, you mentioned the next phase of the RPS. I guess I was wondering given what we’re seeing now just currently given volatile natural gas prices, the shutdown of San Onofre, the drought conditions impacting Hydro. Is that helping you at all as you think about maybe the existing SRAC contracts and maybe being able to re-contract those? Has there been any movement there or is that still in a bit of a lull?

Yoram Bronicki

President

So this is what I will say is pure speculation on my part. So all the Safe Harbor has to be doubled on that. But I would say that – I mean, the interesting part about regulation is how large the inertia is and sometimes the writing is on the wall, but it takes a lot of time for everybody to realize what the writing says or how it relates to this. And so, I think that many people say that natural gas, the low natural gas prices were not necessarily something that could stay. Nobody knows what natural gas sale prices would be. But I think that as we see just the volatility in this quarter and the very high prices of natural gas, I think should provide some reason for some off takers to try and hedge their expenses really with California moving more and more towards gas with shutting down of coal plants and of course the nuclear plant. Then I think that there should be some regulators and some utilities that would say, well, what happened between 2006 and 2008 with high natural gas prices was not a one-off incident. Here we saw it again in the beginning of 2014. So it makes a lot of sense to sign a contract, PPA with a geothermal operator that provides the same quality of power if not better than a natural gas plant at the fixed rate. So I think all these things would provide a movement. Would we be able to use it to our advantage? I think that it’s very likely. When? I don’t know. So it’s really a very high level statement. I think that these are important evidence in clarifying that natural gas burning power plants are maybe cleaner than other alternatives, but it’s not as cheap as people would say based on 2012 gas prices and I think that this could be good for us. Daniel Mannes – Avondale Partners LLC: Got it. One, if you’ll indulge me one more on the product side. You talk about margins maybe normalizing a bit. But I look over the last – I think since 2008 you’ve been consistently at 28% and higher on an annual basis. And that’s with a changing mix of business some years more EPC, some years more product. And that’s also an environment where we’re seeing competition lifting up a bit. So I guess I’m trying to understand have you guys gotten maybe more efficient on the productivity side? Has something changed in the business because it doesn’t seem like you sustained a much higher margin level for a couple of years now even though you keep kind of telling us it’s not going to stay here?

Yoram Bronicki

President

What I could say on productivity side is that certainly we got better with experience and, although we’re a very experienced company we get more experience every year. And so sometimes when it relates to a lower margin at the end of a project because of our mistake, so I think that we have learned from situations like this. Certainly we were fortunate not to see the huge spike in commodity prices that was seen between 2006 and 2008 that makes it very hard, whether it was on our internal projects or an external project. It makes it very hard on the constructor side, makes it very hard to do that. So I think that we certainly got better in some areas. Dita, I don’t know if you want…

Yehudit Bronicki

Management

And just to the volume, the fake that we have such a high volume of production in 2010 to 2013 contributed to the higher margin even though maybe that each specific project didn’t have on its own a higher margin. But to summarize the high volume is specific mix of product, I mean that’s the most important element. And some learning, some efficiency, our management efficiency all contributed to it. Daniel Mannes – Avondale Partners LLC: Got it. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) The next question comes from Gregg Orril. Gregg, the floor is yours. Gregg Orrill – Barclays Capital, Inc.: Thanks very much. You didn’t touch on the Puna contracting. Maybe you could give us an update there, kind of what’s baked in and the hedge profile?

Yoram Bronicki

President

What question specifically do you have on the Puna contracting? Gregg Orrill – Barclays Capital, Inc.: How hedged are you in 2014 and 2015 and what’s the commodity price that’s related there?

Doron Blachar

Chief Financial Officer

On 2014 we are fully hedged on the oil. We have a forward contract that they fully hedges us in pricing that is a little bit higher than 2013. 2015 is little bit further down the road. So would have been hedged year 2010 and 2015, but we are monitoring with lead pricing and if we do find a good opportunity to hedge into 2015 either for Puna or for the natural gas prices then we might take advantage of this opportunity. Gregg Orrill – Barclays Capital, Inc.: Thanks for the update.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from JinMing Liu. JinMing the floor is yours. JinMing Liu – Ardour Capital Investments LLC: Good morning thanks for taking my question. First, thanks Dita for all your hard work these years.

Yehudit Bronicki

Management

Thanks JinMing Liu – Ardour Capital Investments LLC: No problem. So my first I just want to follow-up with the previous question. What exactly are your hedging positions right now for both natural gas and the crude oil you are hedging?

Doron Blachar

Chief Financial Officer

For the natural gas we are hedged for the entire 2014 based on $4.07 per MMBtu and it compared to 2013 we hedge it $4, and it’s actually as we recognize revenue on a month by month, the revenues that we recognize either through the hedge or through the actual numbers is stated at $4.07, and on the whole number of where hedged at $125 which is a bit higher than also bit higher than 2010 and since 2013 for the entire year. JinMing Liu – Ardour Capital Investments LLC: Okay. Thanks for the clarification. Regarding your Sarulla project, you didn’t put that into your backlog in your guidance for the whole year. You put $36 million of revenue in there. So just want to clarify, are you very confident that the project will go forward this year?

Yehudit Bronicki

Management

To the extent that any project is confident and the answer is yes, the financing for the Sarulla project is progressing very well, and I think we are at the final stages of documentation. This of course doesn’t mean that we will not have crisis, before we get to closing, but we are confident that Sarulla will get to closing in first half of 2014. And as a result of it we are confident that a portion of the revenues will be recognized this year. JinMing Liu – Ardour Capital Investments LLC: Okay. Got that, thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Next question comes from Ella Fried. Ella the floor is yours. Ella Fried – Leumi Partners: Hi, hello, I also would like to congratulate Dita and thank her for her very hard and productive work. I only have one question left, and it is regarding the debt level that we should expect in the end of 2014 before the new megawatt are coming online. Should we expect to an increase in the current level of debt especially if possible sale of Heber solar doesn’t come out?

Yehudit Bronicki

Management

All right. If you refer to be the slide of the sources in uses. Ella Fried – Leumi Partners: I’m sorry, I meant the net debt – I meant the net debt.

Yehudit Bronicki

Management

Well. I think we’ve provided guidance for the numbers, we are going to pay $84 million of debt during the year. We are planning to add McGinness Hills into the OFC 2 financing, I think those are the main elements. Ella Fried – Leumi Partners: So it seems that the level is expected to be somewhat higher than presently before the new megawatts are coming online, am I right or?

Yehudit Bronicki

Management

Well, somewhat higher. If we are generating on average, I don’t know, $100 million or $120 million of case from the operations per year. And if you are planning to invest this year about $205 million in CapEx then there is going to be some encouraging debt, but not a substantial increase. Ella Fried – Leumi Partners: Okay, thank you very much. And thank you again for your contribution to the company.

Yehudit Bronicki

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Dan Mannes. Dan the floor is yours. Daniel Mannes – Avondale Partners LLC: Thanks sorry, I had one follow-up. I wanted to ask you did take a write-down on some unsuccessful drilling in the quarter. Could you comment; number one, on either what project or what area that is? And number two, how you embed that or done into your adjusted EBITDA?

Yehudit Bronicki

Management

It’s one project in Utah and one project in Oregon, I don’t think we have spoken too much about these projects. Because it was done in an early stage and it’s one of the things that we fight ourselves that we are now able to invest less in project until we determine if it is a go or no go. It was not a – taken out in adjusted EBITDA. We can think about it. Daniel Mannes – Avondale Partners LLC: Because I was going to ask about that. Normally if you are going to do an adjusted EBITDA number you kind of exclude some of those non-recurring issues and obviously, it was embedded into your CapEx and prior periods. But just wanted to make sure that was clear. Thank you.

Yehudit Bronicki

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) At this time there are no further questions.

Yehudit Bronicki

Management

Thank you all for listening and we look forward to meet you again in May.