RGC Resources Inc (RGCO) 2023 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to RGC Resources 2023 First Quarter Earnings Call. I am Paul Nester, President and CEO of RGC Resources.

早上好，歡迎來到 RGC Resources 2023 第一季度財報電話會議。我是 RGC Resources 的總裁兼首席執行官 Paul Nester。

Let's review a few administrative items. (Operator Instructions) At the conclusion of the presentation and our remarks, we will take questions. The link to today's presentation is available on the Investor and Financial Information page of our website at www.rgcresources.com.

讓我們回顧一些管理項目。 （操作員說明）在演示和我們的評論結束時，我們將提出問題。我們網站 www.rgcresources.com 的投資者和財務信息頁面上提供了今天演示文稿的鏈接。

Joining me this morning are Jason Field, Chief Financial Officer; Tommy Oliver, Senior Vice President of Regulatory and External Affairs; and Kelsey Davenport, Director of Finance.

今天早上加入我的是首席財務官 Jason Field；監管和對外事務高級副總裁 Tommy Oliver；和財務總監 Kelsey Davenport。

Moving on to Slide 1. This presentation does contain forecasts and projections, and Slide 1 has our forward-looking statements. The agenda for today's call is on Slide 2. As usual, we will review operational and financial highlights from the first quarter, talk about our fiscal 2023 outlook, and again, we'll be happy to take questions at the end of the call.

轉到幻燈片 1。此演示文稿包含預測和預測，幻燈片 1 包含我們的前瞻性陳述。今天電話會議的議程在幻燈片 2 上。像往常一樣，我們將回顧第一季度的運營和財務亮點，討論我們的 2023 財年展望，我們很樂意在電話會議結束時回答問題。

Moving on to Slide 3. We continue to have good customer growth. You'll notice that the bar chart there shows a slight decrease in customer count from 2021. You may remember, as we've discussed extensively going back to 2020 about the moratorium that was imposed on utility disconnects and the effect that, that had on our customer counts in March of 2022, we were able to resume our collection processes for nonpay turnoffs. And consequently, as we've gotten into the colder weather this winter, we have been able to re-add some of those customers. Our total customer count is just under 63,000. We're really happy with that number. We fully expect to go over 63,000 here in the coming months. We had a good first quarter, adding new services and main extension, another 1.1 miles of main. We really believe that the housing development in the Greater Reno Valley is still strong. We expect again this year to add approximately 500 to 600 new customers.

轉到幻燈片 3。我們繼續保持良好的客戶增長。您會注意到，那裡的條形圖顯示自 2021 年以來客戶數量略有減少。您可能還記得，正如我們廣泛討論的那樣，可以追溯到 2020 年，關於暫停公用事業斷電以及對電力公司的影響我們在 2022 年 3 月的客戶數量，我們能夠恢復我們的收款流程以處理非付費關閉。因此，隨著今年冬天天氣變冷，我們能夠重新增加其中一些客戶。我們的客戶總數不到 63,000。我們對這個數字非常滿意。我們完全預計在未來幾個月內這裡的人數將超過 63,000 人。我們在第一季度表現不錯，增加了新服務和主要延伸部分，又增加了 1.1 英里的主要部分。我們堅信大雷諾河谷的住房開發依然強勁。我們預計今年將再次增加約 500 至 600 名新客戶。

Jason, walk us through our delivered volumes, and financial statements and capital spending for the first quarter.

Jason，帶我們了解第一季度的交付量、財務報表和資本支出。

Would be happy to, Paul. Thank you. We are on Slide 4. Our first quarter delivered volumes were up approximately 620,000 decatherms compared to the first quarter of 2022. That's a 23% increase due largely to the colder-than-normal weather compared to a year ago. Heating degrees overall were 31% greater than last year. Additionally, we continued to benefit from an increase in transportation and interruptible volumes due to our single multi-fuel customer that has continued its higher natural gas utilization during the quarter.

很高興，保羅。謝謝。我們在幻燈片 4 上。與 2022 年第一季度相比，我們第一季度的交付量增加了約 620,000 十熱量。增加了 23%，這主要是由於與一年前相比天氣比正常情況更冷。整體供暖度數比去年高出 31%。此外，由於我們的單一多燃料客戶在本季度繼續提高天然氣利用率，我們繼續受益於運輸量和可中斷量的增加。

Moving to Slide 5. Our financial results are highlighted. For the quarter, our operating income of $5.544 million was up from the previous year, approximately $166,000. Operating revenues adjusted for normal weather were up, while nongas operating expenses for the quarter exceeded the prior year due to higher expenditures for contracted services, bad debt expense and personnel costs. Interest expense for the quarter was higher compared to last year due to increases in rates on our variable rate debt, primarily in our midstream affiliate. Overall, we saw a reduction in net income of approximately $329,000 compared to the first quarter of last year. On an earnings per share basis, we recorded $0.33 per share, which was down about $0.10 per share, and that was a result of the dilutive effect of the equity offering, which occurred in March of 2022 and the small reduction in net income. The comparison of our 12-month operating results ending December 31, 2022, is difficult due to the impact of the impairments that we recorded again in our midstream affiliate relative to the Mountain Valley Pipeline. We've adjusted for that impairment on Slide 6.

轉到幻燈片 5。突出顯示了我們的財務結果。本季度，我們的營業收入為 554.4 萬美元，比上年增加約 166,000 美元。經正常天氣調整後的營業收入有所增加，而由於合同服務、壞賬費用和人員成本的支出增加，本季度的非天然氣營業費用超過了上年同期。由於我們的可變利率債務利率上升，本季度的利息支出高於去年，主要是在我們的中游附屬公司。總體而言，與去年第一季度相比，我們的淨收入減少了約 329,000 美元。按每股收益計算，我們錄得每股 0.33 美元，每股下降約 0.10 美元，這是 2022 年 3 月發生的股票發行的稀釋效應和淨收入小幅減少的結果。由於我們在中游附屬公司中再次記錄的減值的影響，我們很難比較截至 2022 年 12 月 31 日的 12 個月經營業績。我們已經針對幻燈片 6 中的減損進行了調整。

If you move to Slide 6, you'll see our underlying net income, which removes the after-tax impact of those impairments and reflects the underlying net income of $8.851 million. As you recall, we recorded those in the second and fourth quarters of 2022. This result is down $112,000 compared to the 12 months here in 2022. And overall, we're pleased with that financial performance. Our management of costs in this inflationary environment were -- we feel like we did a good job with that. We'll discuss a little later the nongas rate case filing, which we filed in early December, which we expect to alleviate some of those cost pressures through the remainder of the year.

如果你轉到幻燈片 6，你會看到我們的基本淨收入，它消除了這些減值的稅後影響，並反映了 885.1 萬美元的基本淨收入。如您所知，我們記錄了 2022 年第二和第四季度的數據。與 2022 年的 12 個月相比，這一結果減少了 112,000 美元。總體而言，我們對財務表現感到滿意。我們在這種通貨膨脹環境中的成本管理是——我們覺得我們在這方面做得很好。我們將在稍後討論我們在 12 月初提交的非天然氣費率案件備案，我們預計這將在今年剩餘時間內緩解部分成本壓力。

If we transition on to Slide 7, you'll see that we experienced strong investments made by the Roanoke Gas utility for utility property in these first 3 months of the fiscal year. Overall, we invested approximately $7.5 million in utility property, and that was up compared to the first quarter of last year by about $1.8 million. This increase was primarily the result of investments that we've made in the RNG project and SAVE eligible renewal projects.

如果我們轉到幻燈片 7，您會看到我們在本財年的前 3 個月經歷了 Roanoke Gas 公用事業公司對公用事業財產的強勁投資。總體而言，我們在公用事業物業上的投資約為 750 萬美元，與去年第一季度相比增加了約 180 萬美元。這一增長主要是由於我們對 RNG 項目和 SAVE 合格更新項目進行的投資。

Paul and Tommy will now discuss the outlook for the remainder of fiscal 2023.

保羅和湯米現在將討論 2023 財年剩餘時間的前景。

Thank you, Jason. I'd just like to make one comment about the first quarter before we review the fiscal year forecast. I'm really happy with our Roanoke Gas operation and the overall quarter we had, but just incredibly thrilled and proud of the efforts in mid-December leading up to Christmas with the extreme cold weather event that we had in our part of Virginia here. Our folks and our teams performed exceptionally well. We did not lose a single customer, and that's something that we are very proud of and happy about. So as we look at our 2023 forecast, we will look at the capital investment projection for the full year. Tommy is going to give us some further details on our nongas base rate case filing. We'll talk about our earnings per share projection, and then Tommy will conclude with a nice update on our RNG facility project.

謝謝你，傑森。在我們審查財政年度預測之前，我只想對第一季度發表評論。我對我們的 Roanoke Gas 運營和我們的整個季度感到非常滿意，但對於 12 月中旬聖誕節前我們在弗吉尼亞州發生的極端寒冷天氣事件所做的努力，我感到非常興奮和自豪。我們的員工和團隊表現出色。我們沒有失去一個客戶，這是我們非常自豪和高興的事情。因此，當我們查看 2023 年的預測時，我們將查看全年的資本投資預測。湯米將向我們提供有關我們的非天然氣基本費率案件備案的更多詳細信息。我們將討論我們的每股收益預測，然後湯米將對我們的 RNG 設施項目進行一個很好的更新。

Moving on to Slide 9. You can see, we are still leading our capital investment with $6.8 million of SAVE spending. Just a little comment there. Tommy is going to talk about this in a minute, but we -- that's renewal spending essentially. In other words, we're still renewing pre-1973 adelaide plastic pipe. That's been about our annual spend for the last 3 or 4 years. We're going to continue on that trajectory through the remainder of this year. We actually have a couple of other noteworthy projects in addition to the RNG facility that I'd like to update you on. We're in the process of doing an Enterprise Resource Planning, or ERP, system upgrade. We're projected to spend about $1.4 million on that this fiscal year. Our old system is at its end of life. It's actually 30 years old. It's been a very good system, but it's time for us to modernize and get a new tool there, and our teams in our finance area and IT areas and operations areas are working through that project right now. We're going to invest about $1.7 million in the Carilion and Virginia Tech, Carilion Medical School area to support the growth. It just continues down there. There's a new addition to the Reno Memorial Hospital, and the medical school is also building another building. We're going to put a large 8-inch plastic main to reinforce the distribution system in that part of downtown Roanoke. We also have approximately $2 million of Virginia Department of Transportation related projects. And what those are is, our general assembly over the last 5 years, in particular, has resumed funding, if you will, for important and necessary road infrastructure projects. And we have a pretty major bridge replacement that's occurring as well as some other road maintenance that requires us to relocate existing gas mains. And we'd like to take those opportunities to make the mains either larger for more capacity or in fact, safer. The bridge mains an example. We're going to be putting that main underground instead of hanging on the bridge as it presently does. So again, those are good projects, good for the community in terms of transportation, but also good in terms of making our system safer and more reliable.

轉到幻燈片 9。您可以看到，我們仍然以 680 萬美元的 SAVE 支出領先我們的資本投資。那裡只有一點評論。湯米將在一分鐘內談論這個，但我們 - 這本質上是續訂支出。換句話說，我們仍在更新 1973 年前的阿德萊德塑料管。這是我們過去 3 或 4 年的年度支出。在今年餘下的時間裡，我們將繼續沿著這條軌跡前進。除了 RNG 設施之外，我們實際上還有幾個其他值得注意的項目，我想向您介紹最新情況。我們正在進行企業資源規劃 (Enterprise Resource Planning) 或 ERP 系統升級。我們預計本財年將在這方面花費約 140 萬美元。我們的舊系統已走到生命盡頭。實際上已經30歲了。這是一個非常好的系統，但現在是我們實現現代化並在那裡獲得新工具的時候了，我們在財務領域、IT 領域和運營領域的團隊現在正在完成該項目。我們將在 Carilion 和弗吉尼亞理工大學 Carilion 醫學院地區投資約 170 萬美元以支持增長。它只是繼續下去。 Reno Memorial Hospital 新建了一棟，醫學院也在建造另一棟大樓。我們將安裝一個 8 英寸的大型塑料總管，以加強羅阿諾克市中心那部分的配電系統。我們還有大約 200 萬美元的弗吉尼亞交通部相關項目。這些是，特別是在過去 5 年中，我們的大會已經恢復為重要和必要的道路基礎設施項目提供資金（如果您願意的話）。我們有一個非常重要的橋樑更換正在進行，還有一些其他道路維護需要我們重新安置現有的煤氣總管。我們想利用這些機會使主電源變得更大以提供更多容量，或者實際上更安全。橋幹線就是一個例子。我們將把主幹道埋在地下，而不是像現在這樣吊在橋上。因此，這些都是好項目，在交通方面對社區有利，而且在使我們的系統更安全、更可靠方面也有好處。

Tommy, give us a few details of the recent rate case filing.

湯米，給我們介紹一下最近提交的費率案件的一些細節。

All right. Well, thank you, Paul, and good morning, everybody. We are on Slide 10. As we mentioned in our earnings call from last quarter, the company did file for a rate increase with the Virginia Commission in December of 2022. We put those rates into effect on an interim basis on January 1, 2023. We requested an increase in nongas base rates of approximately $8.55 million, of which approximately $4.500 million is being recovered through the SAVE. Since we are now collecting costs associated with our SAVE plan through interim rates, we did terminate our SAVE Rider effective January 1. As Paul mentioned, we continue to spend on renewals, but those costs will be recovered through our base rates. We will be filing for approval of a new SAVE plan later this year for rates to become effective October 1. The increase in nongas base rates will result in the average monthly residential customers bill increasing by $5.78. Since early winter, natural gas commodity prices have been declining and are currently below $2.50 per decatherm for the prompt month. We started incorporating these lower gas costs in our gas rates on January 1, and again, February 1. As a result of these changes or these adjustments, customers are now experiencing an overall decrease in their bill of approximately 19%. With the roll-in of our SAVE year capital spend of approximately $22 million, our total net rate base coming out of the rate case will be approximately $190 million.

好的。好吧，謝謝你，保羅，大家早上好。我們在幻燈片 10 上。正如我們在上一季度的財報電話會議中提到的那樣，該公司確實於 2022 年 12 月向弗吉尼亞委員會申請了加息。我們將這些稅率於 2023 年 1 月 1 日臨時生效。我們要求將非天然氣基本費率提高約 855 萬美元，其中約 450 萬美元通過 SAVE 收回。由於我們現在通過臨時費率收取與 SAVE 計劃相關的費用，因此我們確實從 1 月 1 日起終止了 SAVE Rider。正如 Paul 提到的，我們繼續在續訂上花費，但這些費用將通過我們的基本費率收回。我們將在今年晚些時候申請批准一項新的 SAVE 計劃，以便於 10 月 1 日生效。非天然氣基本費率的增加將導致平均每月住宅客戶賬單增加 5.78 美元。自初冬以來，天然氣大宗商品價格一直在下跌，當前月價格低於每十熱量 2.50 美元。我們於 1 月 1 日和 2 月 1 日開始將這些較低的天然氣成本納入我們的天然氣費率。由於這些變化或這些調整，客戶現在的賬單總體減少了約 19%。隨著我們 SAVE 年度資本支出約 2200 萬美元的轉入，我們從利率案例中得出的總淨利率基數將約為 1.9 億美元。

Paul will now discuss our earnings outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year.

保羅現在將討論本財年剩餘時間的盈利前景。

Thank you, Tommy. And just as a reminder, we last filed a nongas base rate -- or for a nongas base rate increase in October of 2018, which the commission final ordered in January of 2020. So we've been about 3 years (inaudible) since the last rate case.

謝謝你，湯米。提醒一下，我們上次提交了非天然氣基準利率——或者說非天然氣基準利率上調是在 2018 年 10 月，委員會最終於 2020 年 1 月下令。所以我們已經大約 3 年了（聽不清）最後一個案例。

Okay. We're on Slide 11, and we haven't changed our EPS guidance from the last quarter for fiscal 2023. And again, as a reminder, fiscal 2022, as Jason mentioned earlier, is adjusted for the noncash impairment loss recorded in the midstream subsidiary. For 2023, we are projecting a $0.20 per share loss in the midstream subsidiary, primarily due to interest costs, which have increased greatly due to the higher interest rate environment that we all presently exist in and the lack of offsetting operating income from the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Just as an update, MVP joint venture is presently working with the respective agencies to have the needed permits reissued so that construction can hopefully resume in the very near future. Roanoke Gas, as you can probably tell from our update, is on track to have another solid year, certainly pending the outcome of the rate case and other general economic factors. We would like to note that the dilution effect from the March 2022 equity offering approximates $0.07 per share.

好的。我們在幻燈片 11 上，我們沒有改變上一季度對 2023 財年的每股收益指引。再次提醒，正如傑森之前提到的，2022 財年針對中游記錄的非現金減值損失進行了調整子公司。到 2023 年，我們預計中游子公司每股虧損 0.20 美元，這主要是由於利息成本，由於我們目前所處的較高利率環境以及缺乏來自山谷的抵消營業收入，利息成本大幅增加管道。作為更新，MVP 合資企業目前正在與各自的機構合作，以重新頒發所需的許可證，以便有望在不久的將來恢復建設。正如您從我們的更新中可以看出的那樣，羅阿諾克天然氣公司有望迎來又一個穩健的一年，這當然取決於利率案件和其他一般經濟因素的結果。我們要注意，2022 年 3 月股票發行的稀釋效應約為每股 0.07 美元。

We'd like to conclude with what's really one of the great stories probably in the history of this company, and it will probably get greater as we continue to move toward ultimate project completion and end service, but Tommy, give us an update on what's happening with our renewable natural gas facility project.

我們想總結一下這家公司歷史上真正偉大的故事之一，隨著我們繼續朝著最終項目完成和最終服務邁進，它可能會變得更偉大，但是湯米，給我們介紹一下最新情況發生在我們的可再生天然氣設施項目中。

Sure, Paul. We're on Slide 12, and we've been talking about the RNG project for some time now, and it has finally come to fruition. We did receive commission approval of the project and approval for cost recovery through a separate Rider in January of this year. We're working on the administrative approval of the rates and tariff for the project, and we expect to have everything in place to start billing March 1. Rates will be designed to recover the cost associated with operating and maintaining the facility as well as a return on the $7.7 million investment. Construction has been progressing largely on time and on budget, and we expect that the project will go into service in March as well. As a company, we've been working on this project for about 2 years, and we are very pleased with the outcome, and I believe the quote from the commission's order summarizes the project well. And the commission in their order stated, Roanoke Gas project has the potential to achieve a rare combination of increasing local fuel supply, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing utilities profit while also lowering customers' rates.

當然，保羅。我們在幻燈片 12 上，我們討論 RNG 項目已經有一段時間了，它終於有了成果。我們確實在今年 1 月通過單獨的 Rider 獲得了該項目的委託批准和成本回收批准。我們正在努力對該項目的費率和關稅進行行政審批，我們希望一切就緒，以便在 3 月 1 日開始計費。費率將旨在收回與運營和維護設施相關的成本，以及770 萬美元的投資回報。施工在很大程度上按時和按預算進行，我們預計該項目也將在 3 月投入使用。作為一家公司，我們已經在這個項目上工作了大約 2 年，我們對結果非常滿意，我相信委員會訂單中的引述很好地總結了這個項目。委員會在他們的命令中指出，羅阿諾克天然氣項目有可能實現增加當地燃料供應、減少溫室氣體排放和增加公用事業利潤同時降低客戶費率的罕見組合。

And I'll turn it back over to Paul now.

我現在將其轉回給 Paul。

Yes. Thank you, Tommy. It really is credit to Tommy and his team and the other folks in the company that supported the application process there with the Virginia State Corporation Commission. It is, in fact, the first such approval of a project in the state of Virginia by gas utility, and we haven't done the finite research, but possibly, on the East Coast of the United States. So very proud of receiving that order, and what it means to our company and the community. Our partner on the project, the Western Virginia Water Authority, has done a fantastic job, and we're so pleased to have them as a partner on the project and look forward to turning the switch on Tommy here in about 45 to 60 days.

是的。謝謝你，湯米。這真的要歸功於 Tommy 和他的團隊以及公司中支持弗吉尼亞州公司委員會申請流程的其他人。事實上，這是天然氣公用事業公司首次在弗吉尼亞州批准此類項目，我們還沒有進行有限的研究，但可能在美國東海岸進行了研究。非常自豪收到該訂單，以及它對我們公司和社區的意義。我們在該項目上的合作夥伴西弗吉尼亞水務局做得非常出色，我們很高興他們成為該項目的合作夥伴，並期待在大約 45 到 60 天內為湯米打開開關。

That concludes our prepared remarks. (Operator Instructions) How are you today?

我們準備好的發言到此結束。 （操作員說明）你今天好嗎？

I'm seasonably warm.

我很暖和。

Well, it feels more like North Florida here in Southwest Virginia. Today, it's been very warm here. And in fact, January -- we're closing the books for January now, but January was approximately, what, Jason, 240 heating degree days warmer than normal, one of the warmest January on record. February continued with that trend. So they're not -- these are not good gas days, Mike, but just construction days. We try to be the best in all the weather.

好吧，感覺更像是弗吉尼亞西南部的北佛羅里達州。今天，這裡很暖和。事實上，1 月——我們現在正在關閉 1 月的賬簿，但 1 月大約是什麼，Jason，比正常溫度高 240 個采暖度日，是有記錄以來最熱的 1 月之一。 2 月延續了這一趨勢。所以他們不是——這些不是加油的好日子，邁克，而只是建築日。我們努力在所有天氣中做到最好。

I only really had one question that was, you spend a lot of time on the R&D facility. I'm just wondering, once you get past this one, which is like a couple of weeks away, is there anything else out in your geographic footprint you're looking at doing in terms of renewable projects in general, not just RNG, but anything else you might see?

我真的只有一個問題，那就是你在研發設施上花了很多時間。我只是想知道，一旦你通過了這一個，大約幾週後，你的地理足跡中還有什麼你正在考慮在一般可再生項目方面做的事情，不僅僅是 RNG，但是你還能看到什麼？

Mike, we've been contacted by a couple of organizations that are looking at RNG projects in the area. Some want to just inject into our system. We're talking to them. Others want us to run pipes to interconnect them, and we're evaluating all that and make a decision based on the economics once we have to make that decision.

Mike，一些正在關注該地區 RNG 項目的組織已經與我們聯繫。有些人只想注入我們的系統。我們正在和他們交談。其他人希望我們運行管道將它們互連，我們正在評估所有這些，並在我們必須做出決定時根據經濟情況做出決定。

Okay. Does solar have any benefit for you given the -- I know you're in a very mountainous region there and in some parts of it, does it make sense?

好的。太陽能對你有什麼好處嗎——我知道你在一個非常多山的地區，在它的某些地方，它有意義嗎？

Yes. So there's been some move, Mike, in the last, I would say 2 years, of course, primarily by the big electrics to site, some solar facilities in this region. And so there -- if you find an appropriate piece of ground to your point that's southernly facing, it probably can make sense. But you're right, those pieces of ground are fairly precious in our area due to the mountainous terrain. We have not spent a lot of time looking into solar since we put the solar facility on our headquarters building here back in 2021. But Tommy's good comment a moment ago that now that we're coming out of this RNG project, it's going to give us some time and opportunity to explore some of those other options.

是的。因此，邁克，在過去，我想說 2 年，當然，主要是大型電力公司在該地區的一些太陽能設施中採取了一些行動。所以在那裡 - 如果你找到一塊合適的地面到你所在的位置，它是朝南的，它可能是有道理的。但你是對的，由於多山的地形，這些土地在我們地區相當珍貴。自從我們在 2021 年將太陽能設施放在我們的總部大樓以來，我們並沒有花很多時間研究太陽能。但是湯米剛才的評論很好，現在我們要結束這個 RNG 項目，它將給我們有時間和機會探索其他一些選擇。

Okay. Yes, that's pretty much all I had. I hope it turns colder for you.

好的。是的，這就是我的全部。我希望它對你來說變得更冷。

Well, thank you. We wouldn't mind having a little more cold weather before winter officially leave. I'd only add one more comment to your solar question, and there's press to this. So this is not, per se, my opinion. But like we've seen with the Mountain Valley and other infrastructure projects, the solar projects in this area that are being proposed by our electric provider are facing stiff opposition to get permitted and cited. Almost impossible to have them permitted and cited. So back to the permitting reform that was percolating in the United States Congress in the fall of 2022, there's still a need for that. It's not just for Mountain Valley Pipeline and other natural gas infrastructure, but even renewable infrastructure.

嗯，謝謝。我們不介意在冬天正式離開之前天氣再冷一點。我只會對您的太陽能問題再添加一條評論，並且有壓力。所以這本身不是我的意見。但就像我們在山谷和其他基礎設施項目中看到的那樣，我們的電力供應商在該地區提出的太陽能項目正面臨強烈反對，無法獲得許可和引用。幾乎不可能讓它們被允許和引用。因此，回到 2022 年秋季在美國國會滲透的許可改革，仍然有必要這樣做。它不僅適用於山谷管道和其他天然氣基礎設施，甚至適用於可再生基礎設施。

Well, I wish you the best on that Valley. It'd be great to see them actually get back in the field.

好吧，祝你在那個山谷裡一切順利。很高興看到他們真的回到這個領域。

Yes, that's our desire, too. And there's no question to be able to complete the project in a timely fashion is, I think, of utmost importance of this region and to our country at large. And to get the right of way restored and also the most environmental responsible thing, so we're doing everything we can to advocate and help push that along.

是的，這也是我們的願望。毫無疑問，能夠及時完成項目，我認為，對這個地區乃至整個國家來說都是最重要的。為了恢復通行權，也是對環境最負責任的事情，所以我們正在盡我們所能來倡導和幫助推動這一點。

Thank you, Mike. Thank you for being with us today. Do we have any other questions? (Operator Instructions)

謝謝你，邁克。感謝您今天與我們在一起。我們還有其他問題嗎？ （操作員說明）

Well, it doesn't look like we have any other questions today. We would like to thank you again for being with us. We certainly hope you have a safe and pleasant weekend. And this concludes our first quarter earnings call. We certainly look forward to being with you again in May to discuss our second quarter results. Thank you.

好吧，看來我們今天沒有其他問題了。我們再次感謝您與我們在一起。我們當然希望您度過一個安全愉快的周末。我們的第一季度財報電話會議到此結束。我們當然期待在 5 月再次與您一起討論我們的第二季度業績。謝謝。