DBA Sempra

Stand by. We're about to begin. Good day and welcome to the SEMPRA third quarter earnings conference call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Miss Nellie Molina. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to a third quarter 2021 earnings call for SEMPRA. A live webcast of this teleconference and a slide presentation is available on our website under the investor section. We have several members of our management team with us today, including Jeff Martin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Trevor Mihalik, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Justin Bird, Chief Executive Officer of Sempra Infrastructure, Faisal Khan, Chief Financial Officer of Sempra Infrastructure, Alan Nye, Chief Executive Officer of Oncor, Kevin Sagara, Group President, and Peter Wall, Senior Vice President, Controller, and Chief Accounting Officer. Before starting, I'd like to remind everyone that we'll be discussing forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statement we make today. The factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially are discussed in the company's most recent 10-K and 10-Q file with the SEC. All of the earnings per share amounts in our presentation are shown on a diluted basis and we'll be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the presentation slides that accompany this call for reconciliation to GAAP measures. We also encourage you to review our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30th, 2021. I would also like to mention that the forward-looking statements contained in this presentation speak only as of today, November 5th, 2021, and the company does not assume any obligation to update or revise any of these forward-looking statements in the future. With that, please turn to slide four and let me hand the call over to Jeff.

Thank you, Nelly. Several years ago, we revised our business strategy to narrow the focus of the company to invest in an energy infrastructure, and markets where we expect high growth. Today there's a growing recognition about why these types of investments are increasingly important. Whether it's the current dislocation in European energy markets, or high prices for LNG in Asia, or even challenging weather events here at home that call for greater resiliency, new investments in energy infrastructure are certainly needed. Bipartisan support in Washington for the pending infrastructure bill provides further validation of this trend. In addition to help meet the needs of the market at SEMPRA, we certainly believe energy infrastructure right here in North America is a key driver of job creation, economic growth, and competitiveness across the economy. Moreover, maintaining a modern, flexible, and secure network of electric transmission and distribution lines, natural gas pipelines, and storage facilities is essential to delivering affordable and increasingly clean energy to U.S. businesses and consumers, while promoting growth across all sectors of our economy. Against that backdrop, we'll provide a business update today on the key activities in our California and Texas utilities. Also, Justin Bird, our new CEO of Semper Infrastructure, will provide an update on how he's organized that business to capture exciting new growth opportunities. This will be followed by a summary of our financial performance. As an overview for the quarter, our strategic focus on investing in energy infrastructure across each of our three growth platforms, together with a commitment to operational excellence, continue to drive strong financial performance. As you know, we have a long track record of continuing to raise our guidance and then working hard to meet or exceed that guidance. This is a result of our high-performing culture and continuous focus on improving the quality of our operations. As a result of these efforts, we expect to be at the upper end of our full year 2021 adjusted EPS guidance range, and we're reaffirming our full year 2022 EPS guidance range. Now, please turn to the next slide where Justin and I will provide business updates. Let me start with our California utilities. In August, SDG&E filed an off-cycle application with the CPUC to update its cost of capital effective January 1, 2022. This application would increase SDG&E's equity ratio from 52 to 54%, ROE from 10.2 to 10.55%, while also lowering cost of debt from 4.59 to 3.84%. The application, if accepted by the CPUC, would supersede the automatic cost of capital adjustment mechanism. In terms of timing, SDG&E has requested a decision in the first half of 2022. Also, at SoCalGas, we recently announced agreements expected to resolve substantially all material civil litigation against SoCalGas and SEMPRA related to the 2015 Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage Facility leak with net after-tax cash flows for SoCalGas expected to ultimately be up to $895 billion after taking into consideration collection of existing insurance receivables and other adjustments. These agreements are important milestones that will help the community and our company work toward putting this difficult chapter behind us. In addition, last month, SoCalGas issued an important technical analysis underscoring the essential role of clean fuel networks that leverage existing gas infrastructure to help California achieve its net zero goals, and more importantly, to do so more affordably and more efficiently than other alternatives. Moving now to Texas, Encore announced its updated 2022 to 2026 capital plan of approximately $15 billion. It's important to note that this plan is a $2.8 billion increase over its 2021 to 2025 capital plan that was presented at the 2021 Investor Day in June. At Semper Infrastructure, we recently finalized a series of transactions, including the sale of a non-controlling interest to KKR, completing the exchange offer and subsequent cash tender offer to purchase the publicly owned IANOVA shares, and delisting IANOVA shares from the Mexican Stock Exchange. Additionally, I'd like to note, related to the formation of SEMPRA infrastructure, we've updated our gap guidance range for 2021 to include items expected to be reflected in our fourth quarter results. You can find a gap reconciliation in the appendix to the slide decks. Please turn to the next slide. Before I hand the call over to Justin, I want to make one follow-on point about Encore. We've talked a lot in the past about being in the most attractive energy markets in North America, and Texas is certainly an example. Encore today operates in one of the fastest-growing markets in the country, with some forecasts estimating that the Texas population will nearly double by 2050. With strong macro fundamentals across its service territory, Encore just announced a record high five-year capital plan of $15 billion. This capital plan is primarily earmarked to meet load growth with two-thirds of the plan dedicated to expansions of the company's transmission and distribution network. Encore's robust projected capital plan and rate-based figures are expected to support economic development across its service territory, increases in generation interconnections, strong premise growth, and critical new investments in grid modernization and resiliency. And finally, Encore now expects to grow its rate base to nearly $28 billion by 2026, which reflects a compound annual growth rate of about 8% over the five-year period. The growth the company is experiencing is just remarkable. Please turn to the next slide where I'll pass the call over to Justin to review the latest updates at Semper Infrastructure.