Transportadora de Gas del Sur S.A. - Q1 2022
May 10, 2022
Transcript
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
Good morning, everyone. I'm Carlos Almagro, Head of Investor Relations. I would like to welcome everyone for attending TGS first quarter 2022 results video conference. TGS issued its earnings report yesterday. If you have not received a copy, please do not hesitate to contact us by email. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded, and all participants will be in listen-only mode during the presentation. After the company remarks, we will host a Q&A session. A question will need to be submitted in writing through the Q&A chat box. Before we begin the call today, I would like to remind you that forward-looking statements made during today's video conference do not account for future economic circumstances, industry conditions, and company performance and financial results. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties.
All figures included herein were prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, IFRS, and are stated in constant Argentine pesos as of March thirty-first, twenty twenty-two, unless otherwise noted. Joining us today from TGS in Buenos Aires is Alejandro Basso, Chief Financial Officer. Now we turn the video conference over to Mr. Basso. Alejandro, please begin.
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
Thank you, Carlos. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss the 2022's first quarter earnings and highlights for Transportadora de Gas del Sur. To begin the call today, I would like to share with you some of the recent relevant news that have taken place since our last quarterly earnings call in March. To begin, I will address our midstream business in Vaca Muerta. In March, we announced that the government of the province of Neuquén granted TGS an extension of the transportation concession to build and operate the north branch of the gathering pipeline. This extension consists of expanding the current 115-kilometer north branch pipeline by approximately 32 kilometers to allow for the transportation of up to 17 million cubic meters per day of off-specification shale gas from further fields.
Works are scheduled to start next month, and the pipeline extension will be fully operational starting June 2023, with an investment of $48 million. This project is additionally to the two expansions that we are conducting at the conditioning plant in Tratayén, which consists in increasing its capacity by 7 million cubic meters per day this year, and adding another 6.6 million cubic meters per day in 2023, with a total investment of more than $110 million. In addition, new agreements with gas producers were executed in the last two months. Thus, TGS continues to consolidate its midstream business in Vaca Muerta by providing efficient solutions to natural gas producers as the company invests in large infrastructure projects.
Talking about the construction of the Néstor Kirchner pipeline, the Argentine government has already executed the agreement with the pipe supplier, which was the only bidder in the auction of last February. It is suspected that the government will call another bid this month to construct the pipeline. The Argentine government expect to begin the works in September of 2022, aiming to have the new pipeline completed and in operations by the winter of 2023, with an initial transportation capacity of 11 million cubic meters per day. The construction of this pipeline will allow TGS to continue its expansion at the conditioning plant with additional capacity in 2024, whose works could start this year, as well as execute other big projects that are currently under evaluation.
In terms of the subsidies to the natural gas prices, and with the goal of reducing them, the Argentine government called two public hearings to be held today, May 10, and a second one on May 12, to push for increase in natural gas price paid by the residential users by increasing final tariffs starting maybe June. Finally, during TGS shareholders meeting, which was held on April 5 2022, it was decided to postpone the deadline to hold the TGS treasury shares until November 2025. Currently, TGS treasury shares represent 5.25% of the total capital stock. Turning to slide four, I will now briefly address some of the highlights of our 2022's first quarter results.
To remind you, all figures presented in this quarter and comparisons made with the previous quarter are expressed in constant pesos as of March 31, 2022, following the provisions established by the IFRS for the financial reporting in hyperinflationary economies. As seen on the slide, we reported net income of ARS 8.2 billion during the first quarter of 2022, compared to ARS 6.1 billion reported in the same quarter of 2021. Total EBITDA decreased by ARS 830 million, mainly resulted from the natural gas transportation EBITDA decrease of ARS 1.7 billion, which was partially offset by increase in the liquids EBITDA amounting to ARS 831 million.
Meanwhile, the other service EBITDA remained basically unchanged. It is important to stress that the main drivers of the ARS 2.1 million bottom line positive variation were related to the ARS 2.2 million in financial asset loss registered in the financial results during the first quarter of 2021, and the ARS 1.2 million lower income tax registered in the first quarter of 2022. Moving on to slide 5, EBITDA from natural gas transportation business decreased by almost ARS 1.7 billion and was mostly affected by the inflation rate of 55%, which negatively impacted the ARS 2.8 billion. This effect was partially offset by the 60% tariff increase, which impacted only one month of the quarter as it became effective in March, increasing our net revenues by ARS 1 billion.
EBITDA was affected by a lower interruptible transportation service, which generated lower revenues of ARS 340 million, which was more than offset by ARS 418 million lower operating expense, where ARS 220 million were related to lower property, plant and equipment maintenance expenses. On slide six, you can see that EBITDA from the liquids business increased in the first quarter of 2022 from ARS 9 billion to ARS 9.9 billion. The main positive variation was associated with higher international prices, which increased between 40% and 60% compared to the liquids average prices recorded in the first quarter of 2021, and generated additional revenues amounting to almost ARS 4.6 billion.
Furthermore, revenues increased ARS 2.2 billion as the export volume rose mainly for propane with an additional 25,000 metric tons, increasing from 51,000 to 76,000 metric tons. Ethane volume sales also rose by 20,000 metric tons and generated higher revenues of ARS 679 million. It is worth noting that ARS 513 million revenue increase is also related to a higher ethane price. This ethane price increase was due to a natural gas price increases as established in the agreement signed with PBB Polisur. These positive effects were partially offset by a ARS 3 billion higher natural gas cost, which is mostly explained by the average price increase to $2.7 per million BTU from 1.5 previously.
In addition, we recorded a ARS 2.2 billion negative variation related to the monetary effect as inflation soared by 55% compared to a 20% increase of the exchange rate, as well as ARS 720 million associated with higher natural gas consumption and higher export taxes of ARS 570 million. Turning to slide 7, EBITDA from other services remained stable with an increase of ARS 12 million. Higher revenues generated by more services rendered at Vaca Muerta amounted to ARS 537 million, and other services one hundred and forty-one million were offset by higher operating costs of ARS 137 million and ARS 529 million monetary effect loss as the annual inflation rate was above the annual foreign exchange rate increase.
On slide eight, we can see that the financial results recorded a positive variation of ARS 1.9 billion. This variation was mainly explained by the financial asset loss of ARS 2.2 billion generated in the first quarter of 2021. In addition, we recorded a lower foreign exchange rate loss of ARS 1.4 billion, which was attributable to a lower dollar denominated net liability balance, as well as lower Argentine peso depreciation. Additionally, financial asset income increased by ARS 777 million, mainly due to higher financial investment denominated in pesos. These effects were partially compensated by a lower inflation exposure gain of ARS 2.3 billion.
Finally, turning to cash flow on slide 9, our cash position in real terms increased by ARS 8 billion in the first quarter of 2022 from ARS 47 billion to ARS 55 billion, equivalent to around $493 million. EBITDA generation in the first quarter amounted to ARS 15.2 billion, out of which 75% was generated by our non-regulated businesses. CapEx amounted to ARS 3.5 billion, and our working capital increased by approximately ARS 600 million. We also bought back $7.3 million nominal value of our own debt for ARS 1.5 billion, and paid income tax for around ARS 700 million. As you can see, our cash position remains robust with no debt amortization until 2025.
In 2022, we expect to finance our $160 million CapEx with our own cash generation. This concludes our presentation. I will now turn it over to Carlos who will open the floor for questions. Thank you.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
Thank you, Alejandro. The floor is now open for questions. If you have a question, please send it through the Zoom chat. We will read it, and answer the question in the order in which they are received. Also, please make sure that your name and company are displayed so we can introduce you to the audience. Please lower your hands once your question is answered. Should any participants need assistance, send us a message in the chat box. Please hold while we poll for questions. Thank you. Well, the first question is from Ezequiel Fernández from Balanz. He has four questions. The first one regarding if TGS has a relevant transportation contract maturing in the next, in the following three or four years.
If TGS it has a, like, a competition with the Néstor Kirchner pipeline on trying to renew these volumes.
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
Hi, Ezequiel. Well, regarding these questions, we don't have any significant maturity, and we also don't expect to have a problem with our firm term contracts in the medium term, as the new pipeline capacity is being put in service. What we can see is that we can have some impact on our interruptible services, okay? Which are currently around 15% of the total revenues coming from the transportation business. Some negative effect. No, not significant.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
The second one is regarding the first quarter, the garrafa-related price, which is the price per ton, and what can we expect for this year, the evolution of the price of the product?
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
Okay. In the first quarter, the regulated price per ton is around ARS 15,000. It has been recently increased by 20% to approximately ARS 18,000. We have also a sort of subsidy assistance of around another 20%, which was put in place last year in August, and it is still in place until the end of this year. Obviously this price is not enough to cover the gas costs, okay. We are constantly requiring the government to update this price. As you know, this product, this butane is used mainly by poor people, so it's not an easy solution for us.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
The third question is regarding that if we will have gas cuts for Cerri, considering the winter and the lack of natural gas.
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
Okay. Well, currently we are seeing this situation with more hopefully. We think that the government is going to be able to contract more ships for LNG. They have also closed an agreement with Bolivia recently. Nevertheless, we are expecting lower volumes than the previous year for this winter, mainly.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
Well, the last question is regarding the non-regulated business in Vaca Muerta regarding the extension of the pipeline that we mentioned in the call. Is there some kind of contract related to this extension for which areas of Vaca Muerta or operators targeted?
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
Okay. The extension is fully prepaid by our client, by Chevron, and the capacity that they have contracted there is around 7 million cubic meters per day. Then we have a spare capacity in that part of the pipeline and also south from the existing pipeline. Well, we are trying to get additional contracts for this. Okay. The extension is fully contracted or with this fully paid with the prepayment.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
Now the question is from Constantinos from Puente. The third question is regarding if we can have some insight of the contracted natural gas volume for the Cerri facility, how much of it was renewed in April of the natural gas purchases agreement.
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
Okay. Regarding natural gas for Cerri, we have reached new agreements of more than 1 million units per day. Our spot needs are less than 1 million units per day in the remaining months of the year up to April next year. We consider that we are very well contracted regarding natural gas supply.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
The second question is more general, is regarding this new expansion led by the government. The impact that it could have in the TGS EBITDA.
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
Okay. Well, the operation of the new pipeline is going to be bid by ENARSA. Okay? We obviously target to be the operator of this new pipeline in the first place. Regarding the BDA that we are expecting coming from this, well, we cannot speculate on that. What we can say is that all our business are going to benefit from it.
The transportation business with the operation contract, the liquids business, because of the fact that an additional gas is going to be in the systems and the midstream services, obviously, because of the fact that our pipeline in Vaca Muerta will have additional gas and our conditioning plant will have additional contracts that we have talked about, that we are expanding the plant. We have additional projects that we can develop with this new pipeline coming soon. Okay.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
Now, Ignacio Sniechowski from Invertir en Bolsa is asking about the proportion of the purchase of natural gas are made in the spot market, which is this percentage under some contracted.
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
Yes. It's from 10%-20%, depending on the months and the availability of natural gas. On average, maybe 10%, 15%.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
Carlos Moraes has two questions, one regarding the NGL pricing and margin into the coming quarters considering contracted natural gas price in Argentina. If the company could use its cash posi— This is another question.
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
Well, obviously, in winter we expect higher natural gas prices. As I have said, as we have already contracted most of the gas that we are going to contract spot supplies if the margin is positive for us. You know that winter margins are lower than summer or spring margins, okay, in the liquids business. Well, what we can say that the margins that we expect for the next winters are positive margins also. As you know that the liquids prices are much higher than the previous year. This may somehow compensate the natural gas price increase. Okay.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
The second question from Carlos, if the company could use its cash position to do the repurchases, or is there any plan to prepay the outstanding 2025 bond?
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
No, no. Currently, we are repurchasing our debts, but in small positions. Obviously, we analyze all our options for investing the money. Just small purchases or repurchases.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
Excuse me, because I wasn't ready. Juan José Muñoz from BTG want to have some color regarding the possibility that TGS here regarding the construction of the gas pipeline in Vaca Muerta.
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
Well, this new pipeline give us several opportunities. One, to profit with our current pipeline in Vaca Muerta, to be able to increase the capacity we have there, the spare capacity. Also to expand our conditioning plant. Also we have other projects, LNG modular project at Cerri, with gas coming from this pipeline, which is going to be connected to our pipeline in the final stretch in Buenos Aires. Also that is connected also to TGS's complex at Cerri, in Bahía Blanca.
We have also a project to convert our plant in Tratayén to a processing plant, to a gas processing plant, and then transport these products, LPGs and natural gasoline to Cerri, and there to construct the fractionation and storage and dispatch facilities to be able to export additional liquids. Okay? We have these two big projects in addition to our current facilities in Vaca Muerta.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
Second question, Juan José Muñoz, is about the tariff regulatory tariffs. Bad news for TGS.
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
Well, you know that ENARGAS is working currently in a integral tariff revision. Their goal is to have this revision finalized by the end of the year. What we cannot do is to speculate on Argentina's current political situation. We don't know if this tariff review is going to be put in place, these new tariffs is going to be put in place or the size of the increase, obviously. You know that we have a very important reduction in our tariffs in constant pesos, with what you can see in our financials. Okay. The recovery of tariffs should be significant in this tariff review.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
Constantinos is asking about the subsidies that we collect, if we're collecting this payment on time.
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
The assistance and the butane Programa Hogar prices are for 20% of the price. Okay?
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
His question is regarding if we are collecting on time. The butane subsidy and the propane.
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
Well, no. We are not collecting that on time. The government has, I guess, around six months of delay in the payments of the propane and three months in the case of the butane. The propane for the networks has a higher impact on us. I guess that currently they owe us around ARS 500 million.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
Daniel Guardiola from BTG is asking about what we are planning to do with the excess of cash that the company has been generating in the past quarters.
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
Okay, Daniel. Well, the main use that we have in the medium-term is for all these projects that I was talking about. Okay? At the same time, we are trying to invest that in solid investments and safe investments. Okay.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
Max Figueroa is asking about some guidance regarding the export forecast that we can have this year. If there are some special-
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
The export expectations is lower than the previous year because of the fact that the natural gas supplies is going to be less than 2021. We don't expect that the exports are going to fall significantly. Maybe, I don't know, maybe 10% lower than the previous year, and we are going to see higher production or sales of liquids in the domestic market, mostly propane. In this case, in the case of the propane, we don't have any impact on our prices because the price that we sell propane in the domestic market is at par.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
Luciano Buyo from Santander Asset Management UK. He said that TGS is buying public debt and private debt to maintain the excess cash. Any policy regarding credit quality or any coverage hedging to minimize an eventual credit event?
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
As I said, we are trying to invest in solid corporate assets. Okay? We try to cover, and mainly in dollars also, and we are reducing our sovereign exposure. Okay?
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
Marina Martens from Noctua Partners. She has two questions, one regarding the integral tariff revision that we think it will be postponed. This is the first question.
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
Okay. I have talked about the tariff revision. It may be postponed. In that case, the government should at least adjust our tariff by at least inflation, okay? They should be doing that if they postpone the tariff revision. Obviously, it's not easy to anticipate their move. Currently, they are working on the process.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
His second question is about the gas shortage expected for this winter. If it could affect the volumes in the liquid segment.
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
Yes. As I said, it can affect the volumes on the liquid segment. Our current expectation is around 5% or 10% lower than the previous year.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
Daniel Guardiola has another question from BTG. Last quarter we have seen a significant outperformance of the liquid business. If we can provide more detail behind the positive performance on this unit, prices, volume, how sustainable are these results from the liquid segment?
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
Regarding prices, natural gas prices, I already said that prices are going up in Argentina. In that case, we're seeing lower margins in our liquids segment. Nevertheless, the margins are very good, and we expect them to be to keep on being quite acceptable for us. Regarding international prices, all consultants are saying that the liquids prices will remain higher in the next years. It's just expectations, okay? You know that in the case of ethane, we have a natural hedge there in our price, which is 40% of the volume.
Carlos Almagro (Head of Investor Relations)
Well, this concludes the question and answer section. We will turn to Alejandro for final remarks.
Alejandro Basso (CFO)
Okay. Thank you for participating in TGS' first quarter 2022 conference call. We look forward to speaking with you again when we release our second quarter 2022 results. However, if you have any questions in the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact our investor relations department with any questions. Have a good day.