OGE Energy reported third-quarter earnings on Thursday, beating analysts’ expectations with a net income of about $251 million ($1.25/share). That compared favorably with the year prior, when the company reported earnings of $205 million ($1.02/share).

Thomson Reuters had projected earnings of $1.11/share.

The Oklahoma City company said it benefited from more favorable weather, rate recovery and 9,000 new customers. OGE executives said they see “upward momentum” in the company’s historical load growth of 1%.

“There’s a lot of modeling that goes into forecasting load growth,” CEO Sean Trauschke told financial analysts. “To the extent we continue to see growth and we’re able to continue to attract customers and new businesses and have sales growth, that gives you the opportunity to spread costs over a larger base and minimize customer impact.”

Trauschke said OGE’s partnership in Enable Midstream Partners is in “good shape.” The midstream gas business contributed $37 million during the quarter to OGE, marking $1 billion in total distributions since the partnership with CenterPoint Energy was formed in 2013. Trauschke said the revenues are used to support dividend growth and invest in its Oklahoma Gas & Electric utility. (See related story, Hot Summer Yields Positive Earnings for CenterPoint.)

The company revised its year-end earnings guidance to $2.24 to $2.30/share, up from $2.05 to $2.20/share.

— Tom Kleckner