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Text: mdu.com under the Investors tab.
President and CEO, Dave Goodin and I will be leading today's discussion.
Although the company believes that its expectations and beliefs are based on reasonable assumptions, actual results could differ materially.
Yesterday, we announced third quarter earnings of $139.3 million or $0.68 per share compared to third quarter 2020 earnings of $153.1 million or $0.76 per share.
On a year-to-date basis, we have earned $291.6 million or $1.44 per share compared to the prior year's $277.9 million or $1.39 per share.
Let's look at some of the details by segment starting with the quarterly comparison of our construction operations.
Construction Services reported third quarter earnings of $23.1 million compared to the prior year's record third quarter earnings of $29.8 million.
EBITDA at this business decreased $10.9 million from the same period in 2020 to $35.9 million.
Results were negatively impacted by $5.5 million after-tax for changes in estimates on a construction contract during the quarter.
This business also had decreased margins from higher employee cost attributed to a shortage of available skilled labor.
While we saw less storm recovery work this quarter in the prior year the demand for our general utility work has remained very strong.
Our Construction Materials business reported earnings of $96.3 million for the third quarter, down from the prior year's $107.3 million.
EBITDA decreased $13.4 million from the same period last year to $158.9 million.
The primary drivers behind the decreased earnings were lower asphalt and related product sales and margins, as well as lower contracting revenues.
Asphalt products and contracting margins were impacted by an increase in asphalt oil and diesel fuel costs as well as less available highway paving work in certain regions when you compare that to the strong third quarter we experienced in 2020.
Partially offsetting these impacts were lower selling, general administrative expense primarily from lower incentive accruals and lower benefit-related costs.
Turning to our Regulated Energy Delivery business, our Combined Utility business reported net income of $5.2 million for the quarter compared to a net loss of $800,000 in the third quarter of 2020.
The Electric Utility segment reported strong third quarter earnings of $20.6 million compared to $16.8 million for the same period in 2020.
Warmer weather helped drive an 11.1% increase in electric retail sales volumes, along with more businesses being open when compared to last year due to pandemic-related impacts.
Increased MISO revenues and transmission interconnect upgrades also had a positive impact on earnings of this business.
Our natural gas segment reported an expected seasonal loss of $15.4 million for the quarter, which was a $2.2 million improvement from the previous year.
Higher adjusted gross margin from rate relief and a 2% increase in retail and natural gas sales volumes drove the decreased loss, partially offset by higher O&M expense.
The pipeline business had earnings of $10.6 million in the third quarter compared to $8 million in the third quarter of 2020 primarily from higher AFUDC on the company's North Bakken Expansion project.
Also during the quarter MDU Resources experienced lower income tax benefits of approximately $4.6 million when compared to the third quarter of 2020 related to the timing of recognition of our consolidated annualized estimated tax rate.
That summarizes the key financial highlights from the quarter.
The strength of our two platform business model was evident during the third quarter as the strong results from our regulated energy delivery business helped offset some of the headwinds our construction businesses faced.
MDU Resources remains well positioned for a strong end to 2021 and beyond.
To summarize activity by business unit, I'll start off with the regulated energy delivery businesses.
Third quarter highlights for our utility operations include significantly high earnings on a year-over-year basis.
The utility continues to seek regulatory recovery for the costs associated with providing safe and reliable electric and natural gas service to our growing customer base.
On a combined basis, we saw 1.7% customer growth since the same period in 2020 and in the third quarter our natural gas utility refiled in the State of Washington for a $13.7 million annual rate increase that is currently pending.
We continue preparing to kick off construction in early 2020 on our Hesket Station Unit IV, which is expected to be in service in early 2023.
As a reminder, Hesket IV is a natural gas peaking unit that will aid in partially replacing the generation loss with the pending retirements of our coal-fired Hesket Station Units I and Unit II and the coal-fired Lewis & Clark Unit I that was retired in the first quarter of this year.
At our pipeline business also performed very well throughout the third quarter and reported earnings just shy of its third quarter 2018 record.
Construction is well underway on the North Bakken Expansion project.
We expect this fully subscribed project will be in service in early 2022 with capacity to transport 250 million cubic feet of natural gas per day for our customers.
While a portion of the first year customer committed volumes are delayed one year as we discussed last time at this -- last year at this time, the project is well-positioned in the Bakken and can be readily expanded in the future for forecasted natural gas production growth.
I recently had the opportunity to visit the construction site in North Western North Dakota with other members of our management team and I can tell you first hand, it was an impressive to see over 700 employees and contractors are safely and efficiently working together to complete this $260 million project.
Our pipeline business also received FERC approval during the third quarter to use the pre-filing review process for its Wahpeton Expansion Project.
This project involves constructing approximately 60 miles of 12-inch pipeline from our existing facilities at Mapleton, North Dakota, extending to Wahpeton, North Dakota.
It will add 20 million cubic feet per day of natural gas capacity and is expected to cost approximately $75 million.
Depending on regulatory approvals, construction is expected to begin in early 2024 with the completion date later that same year.
When the North Bakken and Wahpeton expansion projects are complete, WBI's total system capacity will be more than 2.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, which will help to reduce natural gas flaring in the region and allow producers to move more natural gas to markets.
Now I'd like to move on to our construction platform.
Our Construction Services Group results were impacted by changes in estimates on a construction project contract as well as higher labor costs for the quarter.
In 2021, the markets where Construction Services operates have experienced labor shortages that have in turn caused the increased employee-related costs as we continue to focus on the attraction and the retention of skilled specialized labor.
Storm-related utility repair work was down compared to last year, but we continue to see strong demand overall for utility-related work.
Demand for sales and leasing of the transmission line equipment that this business manufactures remains very high.
Coupled with the strong capex budgets that we see across utility industry, our outlook for the outside specialty contracting remains positive.
Opportunities for inside specialty contracting also remain high, especially in the commercial sector.
Construction Services ended the quarter with a backlog of $1.27 billion, down just slightly from the prior year's third year record of $1.28 billion.
Bidding remains competitive across the company's footprint and we do expect that our relationships with existing customers combined with our high quality of service and effective cost management will continue to aid us in securing profitable projects.
While Construction Services had a very strong first half of the year, we have adjusted our revenue and margin guidance for this segment to reflect the impacts of here in the third quarter.
We now expect revenues to be in the range of $2.0 billion to $2.2 billion with margins comparable to 2020 levels.
And finally our Construction Materials business; Knife River had a solid third quarter although down from last year's record third quarter earnings.
The primary impacts to earnings at this business were higher costs for asphalt oil and diesel fuel as commodity costs return to levels closer to what we saw in 2019.
As you may remember, decreased energy related cost pushed our asphalt and asphalt related product line margins to a near all-time high last year.
Knife River has also been impacted by labor constraints largely for truck drivers as the COVID-19 pandemic amplified a prior and existing labor shortage.
While labor challenges continue to impact many construction companies, Knife River is actively engaged in attracting the next generation to the construction industry.
The company is nearly finishing building a training center on a 270-acre track of property in the Pacific Northwest.
That is designed to enhance the skills of its current employees and those of partner organizations, as well as provide training to new comers to the industry.
The Knife River training center features and 80,000 square foot heated indoor arena for training on trucks and heavy equipment and an attach 16,000 square foot office with classroom and lab facility.
The center already is holding classes helping students build marketable skills through both classroom education and hands on experience.
In addition to developing individual talents, the goal of the center is to showcase construction as a true career of choice.
The facilities and classes are open to all construction companies beyond even Knife River.
Given the third quarter results we have adjusted our margin guidance for this business.
Revenues are still expected to be in the range of $2.1 billion to $2.3 billion.
However, margins are now projected to be slightly lower than those seen in 2020.
Knife River backlog as of September 30 was $651.7 million, a 14% increase from the prior year's $571.3 million.
We are seeing more bidding opportunities in certain regions from strong economic conditions.
We have exceptional employees from entry-level to management level with a number of our employees spending their entire careers in the industry.
I am confident that our management teams will continue to navigate through the labor challenges we are seeing.
Over the last year and a half our teams have managed through numerous challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and we continue to produce solid results.
Overall MDU Resources and our companies had solid performance through the third quarter and while results did not reach the level we anticipated our operations continue to operate safely and effectively.
Based on our results through the third quarter, we have adjusted our earnings per share guidance to now a range of $1.90 to $2.05 per share.
Looking forward, both our Construction Materials and Construction Services businesses are well positioned to benefit from the allocation of the American Rescue Plan Act Funds along with a federal infrastructure plan.
As the bipartisan bill progresses, the focus on traditional infrastructure projects including the construction of roads and bridges, electric vehicle and broadband build out an upgraded power infrastructure will provide significant upside for our construction companies.
And we'll also provide funding certainty for our customers and the coming years.
We also continue to seek acquisition opportunities that will enhance market share for our construction operations.
As always MDU Resources is committed to operating with integrity and with a focus on safety, while creating superior shareholder value as we continue providing essential services to our customers and delivering on our tag line of Building a Strong America.
I appreciate your interest in and commitment to MDU Resources and ask now that we open the line to questions.

user
mdu resources adjusts guidance.
sees fy earnings per share $1.90 to $2.05.
q3 earnings per share $0.68.

assistant