管理層發言
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Hello, and welcome to XPLR Infrastructure First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Operator provided instructions. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kanghee Jeon, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Dustin. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our first quarter 2026 financial results conference call for XPLR Infrastructure. With me this morning are Alan Liu, President and Chief Executive Officer of XPLR Infrastructure; and Jessica Geoffroy, Chief Financial Officer of XPLR Infrastructure. Alan will walk through our business highlights, and Jessica will provide an overview of our financial results. After that, our executive team will be available to answer your questions. On this call, we will be making forward-looking statements based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from our forward-looking statements if any of our key assumptions are incorrect or because of other factors discussed in today's earnings news release, in the comments made during this conference call, in the Risk Factors section of the accompanying presentation or in our latest reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, each of which can be found on our website, www.xplrinfrastructure.com. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements. Today's presentation also includes references to non-GAAP financial measures. You should refer to the information contained in the slides accompanying today's presentation for the definitional information and reconciliations of historical non-GAAP measures to the closest GAAP financial measure. With that, I'll turn the call over to Alan.
Thank you, Kanghee. Good morning, everyone. We delivered a solid start to 2026. Performance across the business was consistent with our expectations as we continue to advance our strategy to simplify our capital structure and maximize the value of our portfolio. The portfolio continues to deliver steady performance, and the team continues to execute in a disciplined manner with progress across our key focus areas. Our repowering program continues to progress well. To date, we have completed approximately 30% of the repowering projects planned for 2026. The remaining projects are on track and are expected to enhance output and longevity of XPLR's fleet and support overall portfolio performance over time, while positioning XPLR for the future in this growing power demand environment. We also completed the final expected draw from our project financing commitments secured in 2025, successfully funding certain of our repowering investments with long-term and low-cost asset level financing. With the successful execution of planned refinancing and recapitalization activities in 2025, we have a relatively modest financing plan ahead of us with the next major corporate refinancing activity not expected until 2027. With respect to the previously announced interconnection sale and battery storage co-investment agreement with NextEra Energy Resources, XPLR completed its evaluation and exercised its options to co-invest in the storage projects. XPLR will participate with a 49% expected interest in each of the four projects, which are expected to add approximately 200 net megawatts of battery storage capacity to our portfolio by year-end 2027. As a reminder, after asset level financing proceeds, the net equity required for XPLR is expected to be approximately $80 million, which XPLR plans to fund through the sale of certain interconnection assets and rights to NextEra Energy Resources and to the four to-be-formed joint ventures. We believe that the structure for the joint ventures represents a disciplined and capital-efficient way to add incremental growth, leveraging our existing platform while maintaining a focus on balance sheet strength. Lastly, we continue to see improving power market fundamentals that we believe are supportive of the value and the optionality of our assets, and those favorable market dynamics are starting to translate into tangible opportunities. We recently recontracted roughly 90 megawatts at an existing wind site at a rate that is roughly $25 per megawatt hour higher than realized pricing on that project's generation over the past year. It's a small project, but the revenue uplift is meaningful on a percentage basis. And more importantly, we are optimistic that this is an early example of a broader opportunity set as legacy contracts expire. Our team is pursuing additional opportunities to recontract and optimize existing contracts across multiple markets where there is strong demand growth. With that, let me turn it over to Jessica, who will review our first quarter 2026 results in more detail.
Thank you, Alan, and good morning, everyone. Let's begin with XPLR Infrastructure's detailed results. For the first quarter of 2026, XPLR portfolio generated approximately $435 million in adjusted EBITDA and $89 million in Free Cash Flow Before Growth. First quarter results from existing projects were affected by lower wind resource, which came in at approximately 99% of the long-term average compared to 103% in the prior year period. This impact was partially offset by contributions from repowered assets, which continue to enhance generation and cash flow across the portfolio. Favorable weather and strong execution during the first quarter allowed us to pull ahead planned major component work from later in the year, which was the primary driver of higher year-over-year O&M costs. In addition, the results for both adjusted EBITDA and Free Cash Flow Before Growth reflect the impact of asset dispositions completed in 2025. The year-over-year decline in Free Cash Flow Before Growth was consistent with the company's expectations as it was primarily driven by higher financing costs resulting from the balance sheet simplification and capital plan funding activities in 2025. Specifically, XPLR Infrastructure's First Quarter 2026 Free Cash Flow Before Growth includes approximately $74 million of incremental corporate interest expense from the approximately $1.75 billion of unsecured notes issuances in March 2025. It also includes approximately $12 million higher year-over-year interest expense from project financings raised in 2025. As a reminder, Free Cash Flow Before Growth reflects actual cash interest payments within the measurement period. As a result, quarterly results can vary based on the timing of interest payments, along with the natural seasonality of wind and solar generation. Taken together, these factors typically result in a lighter contribution in the first quarter. Specifically, XPLR's First Quarter 2026 Free Cash Flow Before Growth is expected to represent roughly 12% to 15% of its expected full year results. Additional granularity on the timing of expected interest payments can be found in the appendix of today's presentation. For 2026, we continue to expect adjusted EBITDA of $1.75 billion to $1.95 billion and Free Cash Flow Before Growth of $600 million to $700 million. As always, our expectations assume our usual caveats, including normal weather and operating conditions. Let me close by reinforcing the key elements of the XPLR platform. XPLR is a contracted infrastructure platform generating stable cash flows supported by long-term agreements and high credit quality counterparties. Our strategy remains focused on two priorities: continuing to simplify the capital structure and executing on attractive investments into the existing asset base to create value for unitholders. We believe that consistent execution against these priorities supports both our financial flexibility and our strategic positioning. We believe that the combination of stable cash flow generation and a disciplined capital plan allows XPLR to allocate retained cash flows in a value-maximizing manner over time. That discipline underpins our strategy and positions XPLR to capture long-term value as U.S. power demand continues to grow. That concludes our prepared remarks, and we will now open the line for questions.
分析師問答
Operator provided instructions. We will take our first question from Nelson Ng from RBC Capital Markets.
Alan, you mentioned there was a small recontracting during the quarter with a $25 improvement in the power price. Are you able to provide the power price prior to the recontracting? I was just wondering what the percentage improvement was.
We did not provide the prior contract price due to commercial sensitivity of where the ultimate PPA landed. But if you think about it, and we've given you some disclosure previously about on average the uplift, this is in line or even slightly better than the uplift we would have expected for this market. The opportunities, as we've highlighted before, are generally in SPP and ERCOT, and WACC. So it's a project in one of those markets and in line with where we expected, which is that it's a multiple above where the previous price was.
Okay. And then just on the battery storage front, I think you previously agreed to sell interconnection rights to raise $45 million of the $80 million required for your equity contribution. Have you identified the rest of the projects that you're looking to sell? And then just a follow-up on that. Is there a timeline in terms of when there could be another batch of projects that XPLR could co-invest in?
I'll address the first question, which is the funding for the existing storage joint venture. We're certainly working through a list of potential opportunities with NEER. As a reminder, construction for these projects aren't slated to begin until at the earliest the end of this year, but most likely throughout 2027 and then they are COD in late 2027. So we have some time. With the list and the opportunities that we're looking at, we feel confident we will be able to fund those with additional asset sales. Regarding whether there will be additional storage opportunities, the right way to think about it is across our 10-gigawatt portfolio, we have multiple gigawatts of surplus interconnection. Those represent potential opportunities. We expect there are opportunities for additional co-located storage or other development opportunities. Whether those projects are ultimately attractive to XPLR is site location specific and comes down to many factors, including the demand and the pricing that can be achieved for those specific projects. Ultimately, whether we participate or monetize those, the value of that interconnect will fall under our existing capital allocation framework. It is subject to what else we can do with our money, whether there are better returning allocations, and it is subject to the balance sheet and our cost of financing. So a long way of saying yes, there is opportunity. We have not committed to any incremental investments at this time, but we will keep you posted.
And then just one last question. You mentioned the balance sheet. Looking at the balance sheet, there's about $943 million of cash and equivalents. I presume a lot of that cash is at the project level. But roughly how much of that cash is readily available at the corporate level?
Nelson, it's Jessica. We break out the amount of cash held in reserves at the projects in our SEC filings. Our 10-Q for this quarter will be released after market close today. Looking back at the last quarter, there's roughly $300 million held in reserves at the projects.
Operator provided instructions. And we will take our next question from the line of Mark Jarvi from CIBC Capital Markets.
Just going back to the recontracting opportunity. Can you comment at all in terms of how big the funnel would be? How many megawatts across your portfolio are something you're actively exploring? I assume it's more weighted to wind given the vintage of the contracts and assets. Is that right?
Mark, that is correct. The majority of the opportunity will exist in wind projects and in specific markets we've highlighted before. In the near term, we have provided a schedule that shows there are increasing opportunities as we get closer to 2030. There will be tangible opportunities we are working on now, but the majority—roughly 70%—of the opportunity exists beyond 2030. We are continuing to execute in the next few years leading up to that.
And obviously, the pricing you received was attractive. I think NextEra said around $20 a megawatt hour what they got. So that's a good uplift. Just curious in terms of what the tenor of the contracts are out there and the trade-off between price and duration.
I believe it was a 15-year contract, but we'll confirm. To confirm, it was a 15-year busbar contract. As you know, there's always a trade-off between tenor, whether it's hub settled or busbar. For us, this made the most sense between duration of the contract and the fact that in this particular market we preferred the busbar over a potentially higher hub-settled contract.
Got it. And just on the battery projects co-investment, are the costs all locked down for those projects, like everything locked down in terms of equipment, EPC, all that kind of stuff, so that you know the $80 million investment is more or less firm at this point?
This is a true equity co-investment alongside NextEra Energy Resources. As with any equity investment, if there are cost overruns, we would be a partner funding that. But we feel good about this project. It's well advanced. On supply chain, we have the same benefits of having NextEra as a partner, which gives us access to the supply chain and the equipment. We feel very good about what we have secured.
There are no further questions on the queue. That concludes our question-and-answer session for today. That also concludes our call for today. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect.