DTE Energy Company

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the DTE Energy fourth quarter 2020 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Barbara Tuckfield, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Before we get started, I would like to remind everyone to read the safe harbor statement on page two of the presentation, including the reference to forward-looking statements. Our presentation also includes references to operating earnings, which is a non-GAAP financial measure. Please refer to the reconciliation of GAAP earnings to operating earnings provided in the appendix of today's presentation. With us this morning are Jerry Norcia, President and CEO, David Slater, President and CEO-elect of Midstream, and Dave Rude, Senior Vice President and CFO. And now I'll turn it over to Jerry to start the call this morning.

Well, thanks, Barb, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe. This morning I will start off by giving you a recap of our 2020 business performance and provide highlights on how we are well positioned for future growth. Then David Slater will give some details on our midstream business and provide an update on the spin transaction. Babe Ruth will provide a financial review of the year and wrap things up before we take your questions. So let's start on slide four. 2020 was clearly a challenging year for so many with the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting everyone's lives. And as I reflected on this past year, I think the best word to characterize my thoughts is pride. I cannot be prouder of how our DTE family confronted these challenges and took them head on and created incredible success in every part of our company. I am proud of how our employees responded to ensure their own safety and the safety of our communities while continuing to deliver for our customers. DTE also delivered very strong financial results, continuing our incredible track record of success. In 2020, we achieved extraordinary engagement and safety performance We achieved our safest year on record. As you all know, the safety of our people and our customers has always been our top priority at DTE. I am so incredibly proud of our team for this achievement while navigating through a pandemic. Additionally, our team remained highly engaged throughout the year. We were ranked by Gallup among the top 5% globally for employee engagement, earning our eighth consecutive Gallup Great Workplace Award. Best-in-class employee engagement is our secret sauce that defines our strong corporate culture and provides a foundation for long-term value creation and repeated success on the delivery of our goals. And as I said, our DTE team stepped up and supported our customers and communities through these tough times in 2020. Our team significantly streamlined payment plans for customers impacted by COVID-19 WE FOUND CREATIVE WAYS TO PUSH OUT RATE CASE VIOLENCE, WHICH WERE SUPPORTED BY THE MICHIGAN PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION, EFFECTIVELY KEEPING RATES UNCHANGED FOR CUSTOMERS THROUGH 2021. DTE LED A $23 MILLION INITIATIVE THAT PROVIDED 51,000 TABLETS AS WELL AS INTERNET ACCESS TO DETROIT PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS, ASSURING THAT EDUCATION WOULD NOT BE INTERRUPTED. WE ALSO DONATED OVER 2 MILLION MASKS TO EMERGENCY MANAGERS first responders, and hospitals when PPE supplies were low. The DTE Foundation contributed to pandemic-related relief efforts in unprecedented ways in 2020. Finally, I'm incredibly proud of how our team worked together to execute our economic response plan to ensure a strong financial performance. We quickly analyzed how the pandemic could affect our company, customers, and communities, and put a plan in place to minimize the impacts We then followed through and executed on that plan. Our workforce of over 10,000 employees embraced our culture of continuous improvement and found opportunities to increase efficiency across all of our businesses. This work led to a successful year in 2020 and set DTE up well for the future. I want to congratulate all of our DTE family who delivered one of the best years on many fronts since I have been with the company. I will discuss our 2020 accomplishments on the next slide. As I mentioned, the success of 2020 was fueled by the execution of our economic response plan, which led to really strong earnings. 2020 was also a year of very strong cash flows for DTE, and we were able to use some of that strength to increase investment in our operations, positioning us nicely for 2021. Our 2020 operating EPS of $7.19 represents 14% growth over DTE's 2019 operating EPS. This is nearly 9% higher than our original 2020 guidance midpoint. 2020 was the 12th consecutive year we exceeded our original guidance midpoint. This success demonstrates our team's commitment to delivering results and continuous improvement. We also increased our dividend 7% for 2021, marking the 12th consecutive year of a dividend increase. In addition to solid financials, GT achieved many regulatory and operational successes in 2020. GT Electric received approval for an innovative one-time voluntary refund to customers for unexpected COVID-19 related sales. This will help maintain our customer affordability positions BT Electric to further defer its next rate case filing. We will continue to work on innovative ways to delay rate cases. BT Gas reached a constructive rate case settlement, which was approved by the NPSC in August. As a result, both utilities achieved regulatory certainty in 2020 that allows us to keep base rates steady for customers through 2021. We are very proud of these accomplishments as we continue our commitment to provide reliable affordable energy to our customers. I will go into more detail on the 2020 achievements for our utilities in a few minutes. Our non-utility businesses also achieved operational successes in 2020. DTE Midstream placed a lead pipeline in service ahead of schedule and under budget and began delivering for our customers, not a small feat in today's environment. At P&I, we continue to focus on the development of R&G and cogeneration projects to backfill the sunsetting REF business. In 2020, we operationalized our Wisconsin RNG project and Ford Central Energy Plant, and also finalized an additional cogeneration project. This continues our cadence of new project completion, accompanied by a strong pipeline for future growth. Turning to slide six, I'll discuss how DT is positioned for future success. Overall, our achievements in 2020 have set us up well for continued success in 2021. Our 2021 operating EPS guidance midpoint of $7.07 provides 7% growth over 2020 original guidance. The vast majority of our growth comes from our utility businesses. At DT Electric, we are investing heavily in the modernization of the grid and cleaner generation. At DT Gas, our main renewal work as well as infrastructure improvements. We continue our steady growth in our non-utility businesses through strategic and sustainable investments. As you know, we are executing the spin of our midstream business this year. David Slater will give you more details, but let me just say that the transaction is progressing as planned and we are on track for completion mid-year. This separation positions DTE as a predominantly pure-play utility and establishes Midstream as an independent C-Corp gas midstream company. We truly believe this transaction unlocks significant value for investors of both companies. We are reaffirming our 5% to 7% long-term operating EPS growth for DTE from our 2020 original guidance bid point, and will continue to provide an attractive and growing dividend to investors. DTE has a long track record of delivering premium shareholder returns, consistently beating the S&P 500 utilities index, and we plan to continue delivering for our investors. As I said, we have exceeded the midpoint of our operating EPS guidance for 12 straight years. And early in this year, we feel we are well positioned to continue that streak in 2021. Turn to slide seven, I'll highlight some of the successes at DT Electric. Both utilities progressed on key initiatives in 2020 while navigating the pandemic. For DT Electric, that has included clean energy investments as well as investments to accelerate the modernization of our electric grid. In 2020, DT Electric commissioned the largest wind park in Michigan, which is the Polaris Wind Park, with 68 turbines generating 168 megawatts of power. Our voluntary renewables program, My Green Power, continues to exceed our high expectations. The program is the largest of its kind in the nation with 850 megawatts of commitments to date and 25,000 customers enrolled. Enrollment in this program has doubled over the past year. We continue to be excited about this program and see additional opportunity for expansion as the customer enrollments continue to grow. These accomplishments helped DT Electric work towards its net zero carbon emissions target by 2050. DT Electric also announced its commitment to promote electric vehicles by joining forces with other companies to facilitate the construction of a network of fast charging stations across the Midwest. To assist our customers with affordability during the pandemic, we filed an innovative plan to delay an electric brake case filing. The Michigan Public Service Commission approved this plan, allowing us to provide study-based rates for our customers and regulatory certainty for our company and investors. The Commission also approved a one-time customer refund for unexpected load increases from additional residential usage from customers working from home due to COVID-19. This allows us to defer our next rate case even further and keep customer rates steady longer. Looking forward, the future is bright for DP Electric. At the EEI conference, we rolled forward our five-year capital plan, which included a 17% increase in capital at the electric company compared to our prior plan. These investments will focus on cleaner energy as well as infrastructure investments for reliability and growth. We're also upgrading substations for current and future load growth and addressing aging infrastructure to position a grid Through the implementation of this plan, DTElectric is targeting 78% long-term operating earnings growth. Moving to slide 8, I'll describe the successes of DTE Gas. DTE Gas progressed on key initiatives in 2020 and is well positioned for future growth. We announced an innovative program to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. and customers. Recently, we also announced a voluntary program for customers to purchase carbon offsets and renewable natural gas to offset 25% to 100% of the average home's gas use emissions. We progressed on a major transmission renewal project in northern Michigan. This project includes the installation of new pipeline and facility modification work, provide redundancy, and mitigate customer outages. We have completed the first of three phases for this project, with the second phase scheduled to begin in June. DTE Gas also continued main renewal upgrades and operational improvements in 2020, including completing 206 main renewal miles, despite a pause in work during the height of the pandemic in the spring. Finally, DTE Gas achieved a rate case settlement in August that supports investment plans PROVIDE REGULATORY CERTAINTY THROUGH 2021. THE CURRENT CAPITAL PLAN FOR DT GAS INCLUDES ADDITIONAL OPPORTUNITIES THAT COULD POTENTIALLY BE INCLUDED AS WE CONTINUE TO FIND WAYS TO CREATE HEADROOM AND AFFORDABILITY WITH CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT. OUR FIVE-YEAR INVESTMENT PLAN ON DT GAS FOCUSES ON MAIN RENEWAL, PIPELINE AND TRANSMISSION INTEGRITY, AND ENHANCED TECHNOLOGY. UPGRADING OUR SYSTEM and replacing aging infrastructure continues our path to reducing costs and improving customer satisfaction. DT Gas recently filed a gas rate case with the NPSC to support these investments in infrastructure and reliability for our customers. With our usual 10-month rate case cycle, new rates will be effective in 2022. Before I turn it over to David Slater, who will walk you through the successful year Midstream had, and give updates on the spin transaction progress. Let me congratulate him on being elected to serve on the Income Board as chairman of the industry group representing Interstate Gas Pipelines. David, over to you.

Thanks, Jerry, for the kind words. The next year will be a defining period for our industry, and I look forward to ensuring that policymakers and regulators understand the importance of natural gas in a lower carbon future. I'll start on slide nine. As Jerry mentioned earlier, our spin transaction is well underway, and we recently initiated the Form 10 process. This keeps us firmly on schedule for a mid-year spin. I'll now discuss the successes Midstream achieved across all of our platforms last year, and then go over the execution of our spin transaction. We placed LEAP in service last summer ahead of schedule and under budget. It is a 155-mile, 36-inch pipeline that extends our gathering system to the Gulf Coast interstate systems and LNG export markets. This asset is a great addition to our portfolio. We delivered strong financial results this year across all of our platforms, producing strong adjusted EBITDA of $713 million, which was above plan. We also executed a three-year contract on Nexus with Ohio Utilities. and we continue to see strong interest in Nexus capacity. Overall, portfolio continues to be well contracted. Our major customers are in solid positions connected to premium markets and have minimal near-term debt maturities. I also wanted to mention that Midstream recently announced a net zero emissions target by 2050, making us one of the first companies in the Midstream sector to announce such a goal. We intend to use every tool available to reach our sustainability targets and believe this will evolve to become a significant opportunity over time for Midstream. With the position of our assets and the strength of our counterparties and contracts, the Midstream company has highly visible cash flows and a stable long-term outlook. We remain focused on disciplined capital deployment to fuel our growth and are supported by a flexible, well-capitalized balance sheet. The creation of an independent midstream C-Corp will provide the opportunity to leverage these positive attributes to further advance the company and create value. Now let's turn to slide 10. The midstream business has been transformed over the last decade, and this solid, steady, strategic transformation has positioned midstream to become the industry leader it is today. We felt that naming the company DT Midstream will allow us to build on DTE's legacy of success as we progress on our new journey. As I said earlier, the spin is well underway with the expected completion by mid-year. We began the SEC Form 10 initial registration process earlier this month. We will be meeting with the rating agencies and initiating a debt raise in the second quarter. Throughout this process, we will be hosting events with analysts and investors and are planning to hold a roadshow in June. I am feeling very optimistic about our leadership team. As we mentioned on the last earnings call, Bob Skaggs will be the executive chairman of the board. I am pleased to announce that Jeff Jewell, who is currently vice president, treasurer, and chief risk officer of DTE Energy, will become the CFO of DT Midstream. I have worked with Jeff for years, and I can tell you that both Bob and I are delighted to have him join our leadership team. He is a highly qualified expert and has a solid track record of delivering results. I am confident that Midstream is well positioned for the future. Our seasoned leadership team, proven track record of success, and our unique set of assets will allow us to deliver strong financial results year after year. will continue this track record with a targeted EBITDA range of $710 to $750 million. And a strong capital structure with an initial four times debt to EBITDA ratio and a two times dividend coverage ratio that will provide financial flexibility. The portfolio generates significant cash flow and is well positioned to create value for investors. The spin will provide midstream strategic opportunities and optionality to continue this record of success. And I'm looking forward to talking to many of you between now and the SPIN completion. Now I'll turn it over to David to discuss DTE's financial performance.

Thanks, David. And good morning, everyone. 2020 was a year that brought its share of opportunities and challenges. And the hard work of our employees allowed for us to continue to deliver for our stakeholders, including delivering strong operational and financial results while providing great service for our customers. As Jerry mentioned, we executed on our economic response plan to offset the impacts of the pandemic and the warm winter weather. With our quick action and the incredible performance from the whole team, we were able to achieve solid financial performance across all of our business units. Let me start on slide 11 to review our year-end financial results. Total operating earnings for the year were $1.4 billion. This translates into $7.19 per share for the year. You can find a detailed breakdown of EPS by segment, including our reconciliation to GAAP reported earnings in the appendix. I'll start the review at the top of the page with our utilities. DT electric earnings were $813 million for the year. This was $97 million higher than 2019, primarily due to higher residential sales from more people working from home during the year and new rate implementation, offset by rate-based growth costs. Moving on to DT gas, Operating earnings were $196 million, $15 million higher than last year. The earnings increase was driven primarily by one-time O&M cost savings, new rate implementation, and the infrastructure recovery mechanism revenue is offset by warmer-than-normal weather and rate-based growth costs. Let's keep moving down the page to our gas storage and pipelines business on the third row. Operating earnings for GSP were $303 million. This was $90 million higher than last year, with strong performance at each of our platforms and driven primarily by a full year of Blue Union earnings and placing the LEAP pipeline in service last summer. On the next row, you can see our power and industrial business segment operating earnings were $150 million. This is a $17 million increase from 2019 due to new industrial energy services and R&G projects offset by steel-related sales. On the next row, you can see our operating earnings at our energy trading business were $39 million, This was $9 million higher than last year, mainly due to performance in the gas portfolio. Finally, corporate and other was unfavorable by $4 million year over year, primarily due to higher interest expense. Overall, DT earned $7.19 per share in 2020, which is $0.89 per share higher than 2019. Let's move to slide 12. As Jerry mentioned, we are reaffirming our 2021 operating earnings guidance. We would like to remind you that this guidance does not reflect the strategic separation impacts, and any post-transaction guidance will be provided later in the process as we approach the spend date. Our 2021 operating EPS guidance range is $6.88 to $7.26 per share. The midpoint is $7.07 per share, which is 7% growth from our 2020 original guidance midpoint. We are comparing our 2021 guidance to the 2020 original guidance midpoint to normalize the one-time items included in the 2020 actual results, given that 2020 was such a unique year. Our 2020 results included a number of non-recurring items. We experienced higher COVID-related residential electric sales, which are projected to begin to normalize in 2021. These sales were, in part, offset by the voluntary refund to customers. We also had one-time interest and investment returns, higher energy trading earnings, and we experienced higher than planned non-utility earnings due to conservative planning and cost control during COVID. We are projecting another strong year in 2021 with growth in each segment. At DT Electric, growth will be driven by distribution and cleaner generation investments. As we've said before, we have worked and continue to work to hold electric base rates flat for our customers. ZT Gas will see continued investment in main renewal and other infrastructure improvements that provide enhanced reliability for our customers. GSP will continue organic growth across all its pipeline and gathering platforms, and continued R&G and cogeneration project development will drive growth at P&I. Now let's move to slide 13 to talk about our long-term growth. The spin transaction unlocks the full potential of our premier regulated utilities and premium natural gas midstream business. DTE becomes a high-growth, predominantly pure-play regulated Michigan-based utility. If you look at our post-spin business, we are growing at 7.4% from our 2020 pro forma operating EPS original guidance midpoint, excluding the midstream impacts. In addition, we are maintaining our 5% to 7% operating EPS growth through 2025 from the 2020 original guidance, despite significant milestones during that time, which includes the conversion of $1.3 billion of mandatory equity units in 2022 and the sunsetting of the REF business at the end of this year. Over 90% of our operating earnings will come from our two utilities, which will deliver operating earnings growth in the early years of the plan that are higher than their average operating earnings growth over the five years. Overall, we feel optimistic about our outlook and our operational and financial performance. Let's turn to slide 14 to briefly discuss our balance sheet and equity issuance plan. We continue to focus on maintaining strong cash flows and solid balance sheet metrics. Due to the strong cash flows in 2020, DT is targeting the low end of our planned equity issuances in 2021 and continues to have minimal equity needs in our plan beyond the convertible equity units in 2022. We are maintaining our focus on our leverage and cash flow metrics. As we mentioned before, The SPIN transaction will be credit-enhancing, allowing us to lower our FFO to debt target from 18% to approximately 16% while maintaining a solid credit position. We continue to focus on top-tier cash management as we took fast action to ensure strong liquidity at the onset of the pandemic that resulted in having $3.1 billion of available liquidity at the end of last year. Now I'll wrap up the call, and then we can open it up for Q&A. As we have demonstrated today, DTE had a very strong year in 2020, and clearly this is a result of the incredibly hard work of every member of our DTE family. Throughout a year impacted so greatly by the pandemic, we were able to continue to deliver clean, safe, reliable, and affordable energy to our customers. The DTE team achieved remarkable engagement and safety performance. We also were able to assist our customers and communities during the pandemic in unprecedented ways. Our DTE team delivered our 12th consecutive year of exceeding our original guidance midpoint, while also increasing our dividend and positioning DTE for success in 2021 and into the future. With that, I thank you for joining us today, and we can open up the line for questions.

As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, please press the pound or hash key. Your first question this morning comes from Michael Weinstein from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, guys. Good morning, Michael.

Hey. Maybe you could go through some of the highest priorities you're going to have with the electric filing as it comes up eventually and, you know, what will be the focus of that rate filing? Okay.

Sure. The primary focus will be our capital investment plan, continuing to build out, modernize our electric grid. So our investments in the wires business will be front and center in that filing, along with continued investment in clean generation and, of course, typical capital investments to maintain the system in good working order. So those would be the key priorities.

Right. And, you know, along those same lines, you know, as you maintain the 5% to 7% growth rate, growth target going forward, what is the – where do you think that most of that backfill will come from, you know, from the elimination of the GT&S segment, you know, considering that that was a pretty high growth segment contributing?

Yeah, I think as we've shown in our – In our growth plans at EEI, we have a very large backlog of capital infrastructure that needs to be deployed both in our electric business and gas business. And then our P&I segment is obviously focused on renewable natural gas and code generation that will drive a nice growth profile there. So overall, based on a large inventory of capital that we need to deploy on behalf of our customers, we see a very good, strong growth rate for EEI. DTE post-spin of 5% to 7% EPS growth.

Right. And the low end of equity needs, is that through the entire plan or just the early? Did I hear that right, just the first year of the plan? Dave Rude, do you want to take that?

Sure. Yeah, over the three-year period, you see the $1.3 billion of converts come in in 2022. But besides that, we do think we'll be at the low end of our equity plan during that period.

For the entire period, right?

Yeah, the entire three years.

Okay. Is that driven just by better results, more cash flow?

Yeah, we had really strong cash flow in 2020 that positioned us even better.

It's not a reflection of a rating agency, more laxness, I guess, in your credit rating targets.

Well, you can also see that we have it on one of the slides that we were targeting an 18% FFO to debt prior to the spin. But we have talked to the rating agencies, and this spin will be credit enhancing for the company. And so we are able to reposition that 18% to a 16% FFO to debt and still be in a consistent place on our ratings and our positions there.

Is that a driver of being at the low end, though, of equity needs, or is it mostly just about having more cash flow than you expect?

When we talked to the EI, this was part of how we were able to be at the lower end of our equity needs or to lower our equity needs. But now this additional cash has pushed us down to the lower end of that range as well. Okay. All right.

That's all I've got. Thank you. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Jeremy from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Good morning. Hello. Just want to start off on the midstream side, if I could here. And just wanted to see if, you know, the frigid temperatures that have been coming through the nation, if that kind of impacts any of your operations there as far as flows that you might be, you know, seeing. or even if I guess maybe higher gas prices might influence producer activity, just trying to think through the different ramifications of what we've seen this past week.

So I'll start by saying that our assets operated quite well across all of our platforms. Some of our customers in our southern platform had issues, but perhaps I'll let David Slater describe that in a little more detail.

Sure. Thanks, Jeremy, for the question. And that's very topical, given it's on the news every night. So yeah, first off, our midstream assets performed really well. I'm proud of the operating team in the field. They saw that weather coming in and started to take actions in advance of that to make sure our system operated reliably. So it has We have seen, from a customer producer perspective, well freeze-offs, and it's really driven by an extended period of very frigid weather in the Louisiana, Texas area, and that, over time, does affect production. That said, it looks like the weather is breaking today and tomorrow. We expect that those volumes will come back online over the weekend and into the beginning of next week. So there has been a short-term production reduction that occurred, but it's going to be bouncing back fairly quickly.

Got it. That's helpful. And then just thinking about the volatility in the markets there, wondering if that could create opportunities on the energy trading side that could benefit you in the first quarter?

Well, I'll say this, that at our energy trading operations, we've got very small positions and typically we're long. So we have seen some favorability that will roll through the energy trading business for sure.

Got it. That's helpful. Thanks. And just for midstream, as we think about the shape of earnings across the year, you talk about growth in that business. I'm just wondering, do you see kind of a ramp across the year here or any other color you can provide as far as just the shape of midstream earnings across the year as you see it now.

David, do you want to take that?

Sure, I can take that. I think it should be fairly steady across the year, Jeremy. I don't see any significant lumpiness over the year, so it should be fairly steady.

Got it. Maybe... Last one on midstream, if I could here, and I'm not sure if you're in a position to discuss it much at this point, but just when you think about your midstream business and you think about, you know, what other publicly traded comps out there, are you able to kind of provide any thoughts on how you think your business compares versus others, what you think is the closest comps?

David?

Yeah, Jeremy, when we've talked about this in the past, the two that I reference would be Equitrans and Williams. Equitrans is similar size. They're focused in the Appalachia. We are more diversified than they are. But in terms of size and portfolio composition, we're similar to them. And then Williams, they're larger than we are. But again, in terms of focus primarily on gas and the portfolio composition. So those are the two that we kind of point to. as proxies. I believe that we're going to have a pretty strong portfolio and, you know, with a strong, clean future in front of us. So, you know, we expect the trade to have a strong multiple on our EBITDA.

Got it. That's very helpful. I'll stop there. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Julian de Mullen-Smith from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, team. Thanks for the time. Good morning, Julian. Good morning. A couple of clarifications, if you don't mind. Number one, with respect to what's happened here in Texas, how do you think about the energy trading impact? I just want to clarify the last response, that indeed your book across its various exposures is intact. And then I've got a more substantive question.

So at the highest level, Julian, As I mentioned, we have small positions, but we find ourselves typically long in those positions. So the impact on commodity prices has actually provided favorable trends for our trading business, certainly, in the last several days.

Okay, excellent. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify about trading specifically. Then separately, if I can... obviously just very successful 2020. How do you think about taking some of those tailwinds and putting them into 21 here? I get that there are a number of one-time items, including cost savings in 20, but how do you think about that moving forward in 21 here as it goes? And then if you can speak to it as well, I just noticed the cash flow steps down probably, again, off of some one-time items into 21, if you can speak to that a little bit.

So, Julie, I would say that 2020 positioned us extremely well for 2021. As the year begins and progresses here, we are seeing favorability and also likely trending towards the higher end or beyond the midpoint of our guidance, but still inside our guidance. So I feel very positive about the year. as it's starting to progress. But we'll speak more about that as the quarters progress here. But feeling really strong about how 2021 is shaping up. Dave Rude, do you want to add some thoughts on the cash flows or earnings for this year?

Yeah, sure. You're exactly right, Julian. 2020 was a really good year for cash for us, primarily driven by strong performance in the business. But we also did have some one-time impacts, particularly from the CARES Act, which gave us some really good favorability. So 21 cash is lower than 2020 as we adjust for those one-time things that won't repeat, but still we'd be a good solid cashier for 2021 too.

Excellent, guys. Thank you very much, right?

Thanks.

Your next question comes from Jonathan Arnold from Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Good morning, guys.

Morning.

Just back on equity just for a second. Isn't the low end of the range excluding the unit zero? I just maybe I'm being slow on that.

Yeah, the low end there is zero. And we're just in case there are some internal equity issuances or something, we're just saying near the low end. But we don't see a need for much equity issuance at all beyond the converse over the next three years.

Yeah, that's what I was hearing, but I just wanted to clarify. And thank you. And then just to follow up on the question of sort of seasonality around midstream, yeah, it looked like the fourth quarter sort of stepped back to the $72 million range, which is kind of where it was in Q1 and Q2, and then just had this really big third quarter, over $100 million. Are we saying that that was an anomaly in 2020 and we should just have much more? Because your guidance would seem to point to sort of 75-ish each quarter if it occurs ratably. So I just wanted to maybe get reminded what happened in Q3.

David Zweiger?

Yeah, I'm just thinking out loud here on Q3. There may have been a few one-time items that rolled through the portfolio on Q3. But again, I think as I look forward, I don't see any large bumps quarter by quarter right now. So I think a rateable view is probably appropriate.

Good enough. And then just one final thing on your corporate segment numbers in the fourth quarter. It looked like they came in a good bit better than guidance for the year. What was going on there? Did you have some conservatism or were there some one-timers or just maybe a little more color?

You nailed it there. When we did our revised guidance on the third quarter call, we did still have some conservatism in there to protect ourselves from any other variability that would come up. And then... As things played out, we did see some upside as well from one-time interest expense, interest income, and some investment returns that caused that to go higher.

Okay. Can you quantify what those one-timers might have been?

There was like some interest expense was down there. They were all kind of not small. None are really big, but when they add them together, they kind of give us that increased, so it was interest expense down. There was some interest income, again, related to the CARES Act that came through. And then we had some investment returns that were slightly up also. So there's kind of three together that came in.

Great. Thank you. And if I may, just during more sort of big picture, could you potentially look at accelerating your 2015 net zero for the electric side and If so, how would you go about it? Is that something you're starting to think about?

We are thinking about it, Jonathan. We are running many scenarios right now internally to understand, is there an opportunity to accelerate our retirement schedule for our coal assets? As you know, we still have a very large coal operation. Currently, we're forecasted to retire our Bell River power plant, which is about 3%. 1,200 megawatts in 2030. So we're looking at ways to accelerate that, which is our first retirement in our lens this decade. And then our Monroe Power Plant, which is a very large coal facility, almost 3,000 megawatts. We're looking at ways to potentially accelerate the retirement of that up from 2040. So much more to come on that, but we are deep into that analysis right now, and we're required to file an IRP in 2023, and we will detail all of that then.

Okay. So you think there might be some sort of interim updates along the way? It's kind of a long way out.

Yes, there will be interim updates along the way. We expect that.

Okay. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from Durgesh Chopra from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Hey, Gene. Good morning. Good morning. Just one question for me. Good morning. Everything else you guys have answered. Maybe just give us any color to the extent that you can as to what to expect when you start doing these roadshows. Like, should we expect a, for the midstream business, should we expect a sort of a five-year look, you know, or just in terms of, How many years worth of projections? And part two of that question, how should we think about dividends? You're saying the post spin off the dividends are going to be higher than pre-spin that sort of suggests a materially high growth rate for the worst of the peers on the midstream business, right? Am I thinking about that the right way?

David, do you want to take that?

Yeah, I'll take it. And Dave Rude, you can fill in. So maybe I'll start with the roadshow and what to expect on the roadshow. So that'll be the opportunity for DT Midstream to provide guidance basically for the first time as a standalone company. So as we work through the debt raise and sort of lock down a lot of variables, then I think we'll be in a position to provide more clarity and color. Our goal is to provide, you know, best-in-class guidance in the midstream space. As you know, the midstream space, what's normal there is different than what's normal in the utility space. So our goal will be to provide as much visibility into the company and really be distinctive in that regard. In terms of some of the details around the dividend, You know, we're publicly communicating we'll have a two times dividend coverage ratio. We've not provided the exact number on the dividend. And, again, you should expect that in the roadshow. But, Dave Root, I don't know if you wanted to add any more color to the dividend question.

Yeah, I can explain why that looks higher in 2022 than it would have been together in 2021. So the goal for each company is to have a dividend that's consistent with the best peers that we have in that industry. And so for DTE, we'll have a dividend consistent with the highest performing peers and consistent with where we've been in a payout ratio that's around 60%. And then midstream, as David mentioned, we'll have a dividend that's set to a dividend coverage ratio of approximately two times the distributable cash flow. When you put those together, it does result in a higher dividend. And it's really a result of that two times distributable cash flow equating to what would have been a higher payout ratio. So that's what makes 2022 look higher than what it would have been otherwise had the companies been together.

Understood. Thanks for that color, guys. Appreciate it.

Your next question comes from Steve Fleischman from Wolf Research. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for all the updates. Good morning, Steve. Good morning, Jerry. So I was actually interested, a question I guess for Dave, just on both the net zero target for midstream and also as incoming head of INGA. Just could you maybe give more of your high-level view of how natural gas fits in decarbonization and energy transition? You know, you don't have to go that long, but just high level. Thank you.

Sure. Thanks, Steve. Yeah, that's a very good question and topical in the country right now. So first off, in January, we announced a net zero by 2050 target for the midstream business, with a milestone of getting 30% of the way there by the end of this decade. So there'll be lots of actions that we'll take around that. But I'd say at the very highest level, Steve, there is a significant opportunity to decarbonize the energy infrastructure that carries natural gas. Just to frame it up, it carries about a third of the energy we consume every day in North America. So it's a massive energy distribution system. And just as DTE has successfully decarbonized and is on a pathway to decarbonize the electric grid, I believe the same opportunity exists for the natural gas energy distribution system. So that, I expect that over time that's going to take capital investments and, you know, creating the policy framework to enable those capital investments I think is important. So I'm kind of pivoting now to the Inga conversation. And at INGA, I announced two weeks ago a statement on behalf of the industry that the industry is committed to a net zero aspiration by 2050. So there's definitely a desire to move in this direction amongst all the industry participants and work closely with the new administration and just societal requirements to move to a lower carbon footprint. So, again, I think over time this is going to create investment opportunities in the infrastructure, and I think the task before us right now is to – we have a lot of great technology that can be deployed quickly. That's what I'll call on-the-shelf technology, working with the regulators to create the framework to allow that to happen across the industry broadly. Okay.

Okay, great. I've got a lot of follow-ups to that, but I'll save it for another time. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Andrew from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning, everybody. Morning. My first question, I want to follow up on the cost cuts. You did a tremendous job in 2020 offsetting the headwinds from the pandemic and your usual course of constant improvement. You mentioned that it positions you well for 2021. My question is, what's your latest thinking on how much of those savings are permanent or sustainable as opposed to being one time in nature?

Well, I'll start and then I'll turn it over to Dave Rude. But certainly, you know, the success that we expect in 2021 is driven by some of the work that we did in 2020 as it relates to the cost reductions. And also, you know, strengthens our plan long-term. As you saw at EEI, we pulled forward $2 billion in investments into the electric business in order to accelerate our modernization program for the electric grid. That was a result of a lot of the learnings that we experienced in 2020. Now, some of those cost reductions are one time in nature, and I'll let Dave Rude describe some of those as well.

Yeah, you're right, Sherry. As we look at the initiatives we implement in 2020, our goal is going to be to keep as much of that going forward as we can. We consistently have, through our normal processes, always looking at costs. But in 2020, we did see some additional reductions. Some of those, of course, are one-time. We had more people working capital, and we had some delays in some of our work due to COVID. But some of the things will be real and will stay with us. You know, I'm confident that we're going to find some real efficiencies by how we learned to work this year and having more people work remotely. And so we're going to be able to take a lot of what we learned and roll that forward. You know, somewhere in the, you know, probably half of what we saw, we're going to be able to look at trying to find ways to continue that on in 2021 and then continue concentrating again, as Jerry said, so that we can have more room for additional capital that we need to help serve our customers.

Okay, terrific. So about half, I think I heard. Then on the regulatory front, you've historically been an annual filer. Now you're staying out rate cases for both electric and gas. Could this be something of a paradigm shift or is it a unique one-time thing given the economic challenges so many of your customers are facing?

Well, certainly, uh, You know, we will target the delay rate cases as long as we possibly can. We think that that's a benefit to our customers, and we'll continue to look for creative ways to do that. We are exploring ways to do that right now with the commission staff. So we'll report more on that as the year progresses, and that's related to our electric rate case. Right now we're targeting a May filing, but we're looking at creative ways perhaps to delay that even further. So more to come on that, but always working on ways to reduce the impact of our investments on our customers.

Great. One last one, a bit of a curveball here. I'm well aware that auto isn't a huge exposure for you in terms of volume or margin, but with all the headlines around chip shortages impacting manufacturing for the automakers and their supply chain, are you seeing any disruptions or reduced operations from those customers?

We've not seen anything that's impactful to our earnings this year, our guidance this year. But, Dave Root, any further thoughts on that?

No, I agree, Jerry. At this point, we haven't seen the impacts. You know, overall, our industrial load, outside of a few key customers, has come back really well from where it was at the low points in the pandemic. And so we have not seen those impacts yet.

Okay, terrific. Thank you very much.

Your next question comes from Sophie from KeyBank. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I have two questions for you guys. First, can you discuss if we might see some creative approaches to your gas rate case, like mitigation measures similar to what you had done recently in the electrics? or should we expect the gas case to be fairly straightforward?

Yeah, at this point in time, we expect our gas rate case to be pretty straightforward. It's really about our main replacement program and our meter move belt program, so it's really all about infrastructure renewal. So we expect it to be pretty straightforward.

Got it. Thank you. And secondly, a little bit of a high-level question. With the situation in Texas, right, and the failure of basically electric heating, right, when electricity, electric grid failed or generators failed and people couldn't heat their homes, do you see that dynamic kind of affecting the conversation around building electrification and sort of the gas utilities and their role in the infrastructure mix moving forward?

Well, certainly I expect the conversation to be around making sure that there's enough baseload generation and a well-functioning capacity market in certain deregulated markets. What I will say about Michigan is that we're a highly regulated market here, such that you can allow for good planning, good long-term planning, and making sure that we have reliable sources of generation So I feel really good about our position in Michigan. I think in deregulated states, there would probably be a pretty robust conversation about the suitability of capacity markets.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Anthony Crudell from Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, Jerry. Good morning, Dave. Good morning, Anthony.

Hi, Anthony.

Hey, Jeff, congratulations on the new position also. Well deserved. I guess my first question maybe follows a little off of some of the previous questions. I guess it's related to your gas utility. And I don't know if Michigan has experienced the volatility in natural gas prices that other parts of the Midwest have. But I just want to know if with that volatility or if you've experienced it, how does it impact customer bills? I mean, is there a chance customer bills could really ramp up because of the high cost of gas or is just ETE have storage or is that kind of sit on your balance sheet and deferred for a future rate case? And then I have a follow up.

Sure. Great question, Anthony. So first I'll say that, you know, the volatility in Michigan was much more muted than it was in the rest of the country. So that's one. Two, our gas utility, when it enters the winter, is usually 95% fixed already in terms of price. And then for the prompt year, it's about 50%. And then the third year, 25%. So we have a good edging program, if you will, for commodity prices. So this volatility, even though it was muted in Michigan, will have, I would say, negligible impacts on our customers.

Great. And I guess the follow-up is a little off of Sophie's question earlier. I think we've talked about natural gas as maybe a bridge fuel, or we've used different things to describe it. We talked about maybe cold weather, LDCs get treated differently. But I guess that's all through the investing community. I'm just curious, when you talk to regulators or policymakers in your state, do they share the same view as this? Or how do they view gas, I guess? I'll leave it at that.

I'll say this. When we speak to legislators and regulators in the state of Michigan, they view gas as fundamental to our energy future and to our current status. It was minus five degrees here in Detroit a couple of days ago, and I've got to tell you, when it's minus five degrees, I think there's a very strong appreciation for our ability to deliver natural gas to homes and businesses to make sure that they stay warm and comfortable. In cold climates, natural gas is highly valued by our customers and by our legislators and by our regulators.

Great. Great. Thanks so much. Looking forward to catching a wings game with you guys. Thank you.

Look forward to it as well.

Your next question comes from David Fishman from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Morning. Just a, Chris, a question on RNG here. I think the call has been pretty thorough so far. But I was just wondering on your guys' perspective on how you've seen economics kind of evolve for RNG over the past couple of years. We've seen a range of kind of companies start to announce similar projects, especially as the LCFS market has tightened. So I was just wondering if competition could start to impact returns or if, you know, just overall demand for low-carbon technology likely outweighs this over time.

So, David, we're still seeing a strong pipeline of growth opportunities, and I have not seen our unlevered IRs being impacted by new entrants. We're still able to originate and find really strong returning R&G projects, and I would say the simple cash feedbacks are still in the order of three to five years.

Okay. Thank you. And then just also thinking about what's in your guidance, both on the five-year and kind of the one-year basis when you think about P&I. You know, it tends to, I guess, similar to most of your businesses, ends up being a little bit conservative. But I'm just wondering how you kind of guide around kind of the LCFS and the RFS kind of prices. Do you take more of a conservative approach, or is it kind of where they currently trade?

Well, we're seeing – The LCFS has been a very stable market and, you know, well-defined by the California regulators, and they continue to advance, you know, interest and requirements in that space to make that market very attractive. The RFS market had a little bit of volatility the last several years, so we took a pretty conservative view of that market and continue to do so. But we are starting to see – last year we saw more stabilization there, and it was really around volumes. where we needed things to see things stabilize, and we have started to see that. And with the new administration and leadership at EPA, I think that that trend will continue, the stabilization and certainty of the federal markets. So it makes our RNG projects quite attractive to have a strong, stable LCFS market as well as a stabilizing federal market.

That makes sense. And then just the last question on that. I know you've talked about in the past that energy trading can provide a little bit of a hedge, but have you guys or do you have much interest in potentially or are you even able to enter into kind of longer-term contracts, maybe five to ten years or something like that with some of these projects?

Right now we're – go ahead.

No, go ahead.

We're seeing our trading company has actually been able to take contracts out as far as three years, and so we have a pretty robust hedging program. We also have some longer-term fixed-price contracts that are bilateral in nature. And then, of course, we leave a little bit open. So that's the way we're approaching that market right now.

Okay. Awesome. I always appreciate all the insights. Congrats on getting here.

Thank you.

This concludes the time that we have for the Q&A portion of our call, and I would like to turn it back to Jerry Norcio for final comments.

Well, look, thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I'll just close by saying again that I'm extremely proud of our team and how we've delivered during 2020. We are well positioned to achieve our 5% to 7% operating earnings growth target in the future, and I hope everyone has a great morning, and stay healthy and safe.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you once again for participating. You may now disconnect.