By Amanda Durish Cook
NiSource owes its “strong” first-quarter performance to the success of its infrastructure spending strategy, which the company intends to keep pursuing, according to CEO Joseph Hamrock.
The company earned $211.3 million ($0.65/share) last quarter, compared to $186.6 million ($0.58/share) in the first quarter of 2016. Operating income was $416.5 million, up from $381.4 million a year ago.
NiSource will invest up to $1.7 billion on new utility infrastructure this year and plans to continue spending along those lines for the next few years, company leaders said during a May 3 earnings call.
“We … expect to invest $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion annually in our utility infrastructure programs from 2018 through 2020,” Hamrock said. “The program investments are part of our more than $30 billion of identified long-term investment opportunities.”
Early this year, the company saw favorable outcomes on multiple rate cases related to gas pipeline investments, including settlement of a base rate case in Virginia and approval of bill surcharges for gas infrastructure programs in Massachusetts and Ohio. The company also filed a base rate case in Maryland, as well as a long-term gas infrastructure replacement plan update in Ohio that would allow for recovery of about $235 million in investments made last year.
In February, NiSource subsidiary Northern Indiana Public Service Co. began recovering about $46 million in costs incurred as part of a seven-year, $1.25 billion electric infrastructure modernization program extending to 2022. NIPSCO’s $824 million gas infrastructure modernization program is being completed alongside the electric upgrades.
NIPSCO is also seeking approval to perform $400 million in environmental upgrades at its Michigan City and R.M. Schahfer coal-fired plants in northwestern Indiana to store coal ash and prevent groundwater pollution, despite the planned closure of two Schahfer units by the end of 2023. (See NIPSCO Considers Closing 4 Coal Units in 7 Years.) NIPSCO officials have said that new EPA rules on coal ash contributed to the partial Schahfer closure. The utility filed the request with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission in November 2016 and expects a ruling sometime this year.
NiSource officials also said that NIPSCO is on schedule to complete two major transmission projects designed to move wind power into the eastern U.S. Slated to be in service in late 2018, the 100-mile, 345-kV Reynolds-Topeka line in northern Indiana and 65-mile, 765-kV Greentown-Reynolds line north of Indianapolis have combined costs of nearly $600 million.
