Sierra Pacific Resources 2006 Analyst Meeting on Nov. 03. 2006 / 11:00AM
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FINAL TRANSCRIPT SRP - Sierra Pacific Resources 2006 Analyst Meeting Event Date/Time: Nov. 03. 2006 / 11:00AM ET www.streetevents.com Contact Us © 2006 Thomson Financial. Republished with permission. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of Thomson Financial. FINAL TRANSCRIPT Nov. 03. 2006 / 11:00AM, SRP - Sierra Pacific Resources 2006 Analyst Meeting CORPORATE PARTICIPANTS Britta Carlson Sierra Pacific Resources - Manager IR Walt Higgins Sierra Pacific Resources - Chairman, President, CEO Michael Yackira Sierra Pacific Resources - Corporate EVP, CFO Roberto Denis Sierra Pacific Resources - SVP Energy Supply Mario Villar Sierra Pacific Resources - Director Resource Planning and Analysis Tom Fair Sierra Pacific Resources - Executive for Renewable Energy Hezy Ram ORMAT Technologies Inc. - EVP of Business Development Jeff Ceccarelli Sierra Pacific Power - SVP for Service Delivery and Operation, President Bill Rogers Sierra Pacific Resources - Corporate Treasurer Carolyn Barbash Nevada Power - Transmission Executive Mike Smart Nevada Power - Technical Services & Support Executive Herb Goforth Nevada Power - Director - Technical Services & Support Kevin Sullivan Echelon Resorts - SVP and Chief Administrative Officer CONFERENCE CALL PARTICIPANTS Dan Eggers Credit Suisse First Boston - Analyst PRESENTATION Britta Carlson - Sierra Pacific Resources - Manager IR Good morning everyone. I am Britta Carlson. I©m the Manager of Investor Relations. All of you in the audience know me well. You call me all the time, and I want to thank you. I thoroughly enjoy your questions. And I hope that I©m able to give you the information that you need. I do want to welcome you today to Sierra Pacific Resources 2006 Analyst Meeting. We are very pleased that you could join us here in Las Vegas. It is my hometown. And at the beginning of the EEI Conference, it©s a great time to bring you all in. You get an extra weekend in town. And I hope you enjoy the festivities that Las Vegas has to offer. I want to remind you that today©s event is being webcast live for those who could not attend in person. We will also maintain an archive of that webcast on our company website for approximately 60 days. And you all know that -- the address, but I©ll give it to you again, it©s www.sierrapacificresources.com. Also due to the nature of a live webcast, I do ask that during the www.streetevents.com Contact Us 1 © 2006 Thomson Financial. Republished with permission. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of Thomson Financial. FINAL TRANSCRIPT Nov. 03. 2006 / 11:00AM, SRP - Sierra Pacific Resources 2006 Analyst Meeting question-and-answer session, you raise your hand and wait for one of the portable, wireless mics so that we can hear your question. We will also be integrating questions from those of you listening in on the webcast, so you©re welcome to type in your questions and we will integrate those into the Q&A session. My goal for today was really to give you an opportunity to better understand the strategic initiatives and operations that drive the earnings of Sierra Pacific Resources. We have assembled of group of speakers that are here to discuss the long-term growth in our state and how our utility subsidiaries will meet that growth. You will have an opportunity to ask questions after each speaker. This event is intended to give you a better understanding of the company and also to meet our operating officers that work hard every day to meet the demand of a growing service territory, which you see around you. In addition to our officers, you will hear from our renewable -- one of our Renewable Energy partners [audio skip] a large customer that is changing the landscape here on the Las Vegas strip. We will begin our meeting today with a corporate overview of Sierra Pacific Resources followed by presentations from our Generation division, one of our Renewable Energy providers, our Service Delivery and Operations group that does include Transmission and Distribution, one of our large customers and finally, our Treasurer will discuss financing activities. Right now, I would like to introduce our Chairman, Mr. Walt Higgins. Walt Higgins - Sierra Pacific Resources - Chairman, President, CEO Thank you Britta, and welcome to our combined in -- live and webcast Analyst Meeting. We appreciate your interest and continuing support of the company. We look forward to giving you some what we hope will be enlightening presentations today about the operations and the strategies and our execution on those strategies in the company. We have a line-up of very capable people. I©m actually going to take a moment at the beginning and allow each of the Sierra Pacific people that are here to stand up so you can see who they are, because during the breaks and intervening time, there may be a particular person you©d like to seek out and ask a question relative to something that©s of unique interest to you. So I want to identify those people in case you do have such a question. I©m going to start in the back of the room with [Ray Raffla], our Internal Auditor, Chief Internal Auditor. Ray©s motto is "Trust and Verify", and we appreciate his good work, Ray Raffla, Chief Internal Auditor. I have good eyes, but may not be good enough to catch everybody. Any Sierra Pacific people in the back over here on the left? All right. Coming forward, [Ruth Erbanki], is our Director of Compliance. She is the S-Ox queen of the company. Sitting right in front of her is Carolyn Barbash, Transmission Executive. Right behind Carolyn, Constanza Ashford, our Director of Budget. Coming forward, Mike Smart, Regional Executive for Service and Delivery Operations in Northern Nevada, Jeff Ceccarelli, Senior Vice President Service and Delivery for all of our territory, Tom Fair, Renewables Executive, Mario Villar, who is our Resource Planning Director, Roberto Denis, Director of -- Senior Vice President Energy Supply, Paul Kaleta, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, Compliance Officer, keep going, Mary Simmons, Vice President of External Affairs for Northern Nevada. Mary©s the native of Ely, which is where we©re building the new power plant, so Mary©s got her hands full right now, Pat Shalmy, Senior Vice President External Affairs, Jack Leone, Corporate Communications Executive, Britta Carlson, who we©re very proud of, does a great job putting things like this together. Thank you, Britta. On the front row over here, Buck Rogers, Bill Rogers, our Corporate Treasurer, John Brown, our Corporate Controller, two rows back, Joe Orfano, our Assistant Treasurer, Director of Treasury and Finance Operations, Steve Wood, Senior Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer, a little further back, [Mike Corono], Director of Regulatory Affairs, the person -- oh, Kelly Langley, Manager of Shareholder Services, standing over by the door. If you own stock on a individual basis, Kelly©s the person you talk to, and [Kimberly Tate], who makes all of this happen day in and day out, things like this, and helps the Treasury and Finance organizations. Kimberly, raise your hand. In particular, if you have any problems related to the logistics of this meeting, please see Kimberly. www.streetevents.com Contact Us 2 © 2006 Thomson Financial. Republished with permission. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of Thomson Financial. FINAL TRANSCRIPT Nov. 03. 2006 / 11:00AM, SRP - Sierra Pacific Resources 2006 Analyst Meeting All right, did I miss anybody in the room? Michael, I©ll introduce in a few minutes. Anybody else from Sierra? Okay, let©s go ahead and get started. It©s amazing. It worked. This is a little rundown. It©s in your books, what you©re going to see today. Michael and I will give you a brief overview. Then, we©ll run through a -- is Herb Goforth in the room? Okay, a series of reports on different strategic initiatives, strategic executions, and we©ll conclude with a Q&A session, but we will have time at the end of each segment for you to ask questions that are on your mind at that moment. And, I©ll remind you again, and each speaker will remind you, please do speak into the microphone. Britta did not read this, and I won©t read it. But, I do commend to you and for those of you on the webcast, there are statements that we may make today that are based on our best judgement. They may include some forward-looking comments. And, I urge you to read this document and be aware of that. Thank you, Britta. Probably creating somewhere. Can you hear me in the back? Okay. Here is a little layout that shows you the corporate structure as of today. Clearly, with the announcement that we made yesterday, the Tuscarora gas pipeline interest that we hold jointly with TransCanada will begin to move out and should, as Michael announced, close by the end of the year. And although there are some smaller, essentially non-operating subsidiaries, the bulk of the company©s focus and resources is in the utilities, data about which is listed below the names of the respective utilities, over 1.1 million, fast approaching 1.2 million customers. That is better, thank you, a service territory that comprises nearly all of Nevada, probably 95%, 96% of Nevada©s people including some 100,000 Californians, comprising about 45,000 customers in Northern Nevada.