Shar Pourreza: Okay, perfect. That’s helpful. And then just on the next – just any status on the next NIPSCO case? Just trying to get a sense on how much renewable spending will likely be captured since the last case. Thanks.
Lloyd Yates: So, Melody, you want to talk about NIPSCO Gas case? Are you talking about – I’m sorry, Shar, NIPSCO – are you talking about the NIPSCO, current NIPSCO gas case or future electric?
Shar Pourreza: The future electric.
Melody Birmingham: Well, we have not filed an electric case, so there isn’t an electric case currently that has been shared. But we have in fact filed our gas case October of last year. And we are currently working with our interveners as we’re discussing what we see as a successful outcome through those negotiations, what we’re expecting and working towards with those interveners.
Lloyd Yates: The way to think about the next electric case, Shar, is what we like to do is file that case, pretty much align with when we finish those renewable projects. And if you think about the last case, those renewable projects went in right before that case was executed. So I think we try to keep that gap really small. So that was to be dependent upon finishing those renewable projects. And right now they’re on time and on schedule. We have more information about that. We’ll file the electric case and we’ll let you guys know that as soon as possible.
Shar Pourreza: Okay, Lloyd. Yes. That was the impetus of the question. It’s just how do we think about the timing of the next electric? I think you answered it. Thanks, guys.
Operator: Our next question comes from Durgesh Chopra from Evercore ISI. Your line is now open.
Durgesh Chopra: Hey, good morning team. Thanks for giving me time. Hey, Shawn, just housekeeping for us, the $600 million, have you done any equity so far, year-to-date? And then can you clarify, you mentioned, you might be doing some, I think you said some private placements, some small private placements, if I heard that correctly. So what did you intend to say there?
Shawn Anderson: Yes, absolutely, Durgesh. We have not executed anything under the 600 – up to $600 million ATM program anticipated for 2024. In fact, we had an ATM equity program expire at the end of 2023 and we’ll need to file a new ATM equity program to access the current guidance of up to $600 million. And we plan to do that very soon, which would give us the balance of year for us to be able to execute that equity plan. We described a potential bilateral or discrete agreement inside the context of the ATM. It wouldn’t be a private placement necessarily. However, some investors can solicit interest from sales agents directly and transact at greater than one share, for example, and that transaction would then be placed under the ATM. And certainly, we would be interested if investors are interested at an efficient pricing.
Durgesh Chopra: Got it. And so perfect, that’s very helpful, Shawn. And you’ll update us on the quarterly calls as you execute on this program, or how will we know over time what portion of the $600 million you have executed?
Shawn Anderson: Yes, that’s exactly correct. We’ll keep score along the way and we’ll certainly let folks know what we expect for the balance of the year and/or if any of the other aspects of the financing plan change, we’ll be sure to update the slide that you see in the disclosure doc deck today.
Durgesh Chopra: Perfect. Thank you. And then just one big picture question, perhaps for Lloyd, CenterPoint announced gas LDC sales earlier, just thinking about the opportunities you have within your current portfolio. Are there opportunities to optimize assets to fund that growth? Or how are you thinking about that?
Lloyd Yates: So let me talk about it this way. I don’t necessarily comment on any kind of specific M&A, but what I will say is, when you think about NiSource, we are always very diligently reviewing options to enhance shareholder value in our plan. But we’re currently focused on our organic plan, investing $16 billion at one times rate base with another potential upside to invest another $2 billion. If you go back to 2022, we did a lot of work here in terms of our business review and we see a couple of things that we like, and that is the scale at NiSource has tremendous value and we like the diversification of our six operating companies. You also saw us last year raise capital via – but you all raise capital via the NIPSCO transaction, what we thought was a very efficient process with respect – very efficient tax process with respect to taxes.
So with all that being said, what I’ll say to you is, we are always looking to enhance shareholder value. And if we find an opportunity to raise capital more efficiently to improve our enterprise value, we plan to take advantage of it. But right now, we’re focused on our organic plan.
Durgesh Chopra: Super. Very clear. Thanks guys. Congrats on a solid quarter here.
Shawn Anderson: Thanks, Durgesh.
Operator: Our next question comes from Travis Miller from Morningstar. Your line is now open.
Travis Miller: Good morning, everyone. Thank you.
Shawn Anderson: Hey, good morning, Travis.
Travis Miller: Question on this CapEx plan, I know it’s difficult to parse out things here, but especially on the gas side of that five-year plan and whatever incremental part would be associated with the gas, how much would you attribute to base spending, safety spending, core spending on the system, and then how much would you attribute to the new expansion opportunities you’ve talked about manufacturing and other new build opportunities on the industrial side.
Shawn Anderson: Yes. Thanks, Travis. This is Shawn. I think that what we would attribute the planned CapEx for gas is almost all planned for safety, reliability, and compliance work supporting our regulatory requirements from PHMSA and from the local PUCs that we support. So as we think about the gas CapEx, that’s the vast majority of the CapEx. We actually don’t plan for significant amount of future expansion costs into the CapEx guidance itself because we often see that those CapEx amounts can be supported by incoming revenues to support the cost of basis itself. So as we have incremental projects like we had in Ohio for Intel to help support a larger economic development project. We’ll work with local stakeholders, local mechanisms, and move those into the capital plan as necessary.
