CenterPoint Energy and OGE Energy delivered positive earnings Thursday, a year after taking financial hits from their Enable Midstream Partners joint venture and several months removed from February’s winter storm.

“We are observing a sense of normalcy starting to return here in Texas and in many of our other jurisdictions,” CenterPoint CEO David Lesar told financial analysts during the company’s first-quarter earnings call.

The Houston-based company said it was not affected by the high prices for natural gas during the storm, as they are a pass-through cost and did not have an effect on earnings. However, it is working to recover those costs through “early adjustments to our normal cost recovery mechanisms.”

Lesar said CenterPoint has already reduced customers’ exposure to incremental gas costs by $300 million, down to $2.2 billion, by auditing and challenging its suppliers. The company, which sells electricity and gas in eight states, has started recovery in Arkansas and Louisiana and is pursuing recovery of storm-related costs in Minnesota, where it wants to charge its 800,000 customers a monthly surcharge with 8.75% interest.

After earlier working with OGE to sell Enable to Energy Transfer Partners for $7.2 billion, CenterPoint last month agreed to sell its Arkansas and Oklahoma gas distribution companies in a $1.725 billion deal. (See Energy Transfer to Acquire Enable Midstream.) Both transactions are expected to close in the second half of 2021.

The latter bid attracted more than 40 interested parties, Lesar said, with 17 making bids. He said the transaction is a perfect example of CenterPoint’s “efficient capital recycling strategy.”

“You sell at 2.5 times the rate base and invest at one times the rate base,” Lesar said. “If we see another opportunity to recycle capital in a similarly attractive way, we would explore it as part of our broader strategy.”

CenterPoint reported first-quarter earnings of $334 million ($0.56/diluted share). A year ago, the company took a $1.23 billion loss (-$2.44/diluted share) after writing off $1.6 billion for its Enable investment.

The company’s stock price opened at $24.39 and traded between $23.86 and $24.58 on Thursday. It was trading at $24.36 after hours, a gain of 9 cents on the day.

OGE up on Plant Performance

OGE CEO Sean Trauschke told analysts that the company prepared well for the storm, having winterized its generating facilities when under construction or added weatherization packages to existing units.

“Every single one of our plants was generating megawatts every single day of the storm,” he said. “The fleet performed just great. We were prepared because we made those investments.”

Still, he said, OGE will take a “hard look” at its natural gas supply chain. The company plans to take advantage of securitization laws recently passed in Oklahoma and Arkansas to recover fuel and purchased power costs of about $930 million.

OGE expects SPP to true up its purchased power settlement amounts in June.

The Oklahoma City-based company reported earnings of $52.7 million ($0.26/diluted share). OGE had a loss of $491.8 million (-$2.46/share) in last year’s opening quarter as a result of a $590 million impairment charge, net of tax, related to Enable. It expects full-year earnings of $1.76 to 1.86/share.

OGE’s stock was going for $34.02 in after-hours trading, a gain of 60 cents.