Piedmont Natural Gas announced results for its fiscal year ended October 31, 2015. For the year, the company reported net income of $137 million, or $1.73 per diluted share.
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This compares with net income of $143.8 million, or $1.84 per diluted share for 2014.
Adjusted for merger-related expenses incurred during the company's fourth quarter, net income and earnings per diluted share were $148 million and $1.87, respectively, increases of 2.9% and 1.6% over the prior year.
System throughput in 2015 totaled 471.5 million dekatherms, compared with 410.7 million dekatherms in 2014. The increase was largely due to a 30 percent increase in volumes delivered to power generation customers. Overall, weather during 2015 was 6 percent colder than normal and 3 percent warmer than 2014.
Margin was $727.3 million, an increase of $37.1 million from the prior year. The increase in margin is primarily attributable to integrity management rider rate adjustments in North Carolina and Tennessee as well as customer growth in all three states, partially offset by lower margin sales from secondary market transactions.
Operations and maintenance expenses increased $23.6 million from the previous year to a total of $294.5 million.
This includes $15.8 million related to the proposed Duke Energy acquisition, $8.6 million of which is in contract labor and $7.2 million in equity plan accruals from a higher stock price at October 31, 2015.
The remaining increase in O&M was primarily due to other additional contract labor, employee benefits, payroll and increased regulatory amortization, partially offset by lower bad debt expense.
Utility interest charges were $68.6 million in 2015 compared to $54.7 million in 2014. The increase was primarily due to an increase in long-term debt outstanding in the current year and a decrease in capitalized interest recorded as income.
Pre-tax income from equity method investments was $34.5 million in 2015 compared with $32.8 million in 2014.
The increase was primarily due to higher capitalized interest associated with increased capital expenditures for the Constitution pipeline project, partially offset by a decrease in SouthStar's income from lower value of hedged derivatives and less usage in Georgia and Illinois due to warmer weather, partially offset by favorable margins in Georgia, Illinois and Ohio. ■