Ormat Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:ORA) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Doron Blachar: Olkaria has been delivering over the last few weeks between 130 to 135, 136 megawatt depends on the temperature and others, but this is where it is moving along. We are drilling today unlike Puna that we finished the drilling campaign, in Olkaria we’re still drilling another well that we plan to finish in Q1 of next year, then it needs to be heated up and connected. So it should come online sometime in Q2 and we have a third well that here that we are also in the process of drilling. I believe that in the second half of next year, we’ll see another improvement on top of what we see already now.

Q – Justin Clare: Okay. Okay. Got it. And then maybe one more just on the product segment. The backlog moved up meaningfully here to $192 million. I was wondering if you could just give us a sense for what is the time frame in which you could deliver that backlog and recognize the revenues? And then is the margin profile there in a 15% to 20% range? I think that’s what you’ve previously talked about, but I wanted to check in there.

Assi Ginzburg: In general, I would say that the backlog should translate to revenue over 18 months there might be some projects that a bit shorter or later, but in general, it should be over 18 months. And margins can be a bit higher than the 15 to 20 that you alluded to.

Q – Justin Clare: Okay. Thank you.

Operator: Your next question is from the line of Mark Strouse with JPMorgan.

Q – Mark Strouse: Yes. Thank you very much for taking our question I just had one kind of a clarification question. The 1.9 to 2 gig 2025 portfolio target that didn’t increase from last quarter despite the acquisition. I would assume that that’s just a function of the acquisition not closing yet, but I just wanted to make sure that’s the case and something else hasn’t slipped out maybe.

Doron Blachar: Obviously, as you said, until the acquisition doesn’t close, it’s not counted in any of our numbers and we usually update unless something changes in tribute guidance on the megawatt that we will have. So in Feb, we will update. I hope that by that time, we’ve already closed the Enel acquisition. So the numbers will give you in February, we will include the impact of Enel.

Q – Mark Strouse: Okay. Yes, that makes sense. Okay. I’ll take the rest offline. Thank you.

Doron Blachar: Thank you.

Operator: Your next question is from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Bank of America.

Q – Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Hi. Good morning. Thank you, guys very much for the opportunity. Just following up a couple of different questions here. First off, tax — transferability. Just to clarify this, when you think about the opportunity created there, are you rethinking how you think about leverage and appropriate leverage? We’ve seen some of the folks in the renewable space kind of capitalizing on the credit rating agency latitude, but I’m not sure it’s necessarily the same direction for you guys. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that in terms of rethinking leverage, a. And then b, just as you think about the backdrop for the market on financing, how do you think about financing the latest acquisition here? Just obviously, with the cash balance at quarter end, the latest acquisition and the projections over the next few months, just — how do you think about just the timing of capital raises here?

And how do you think about the levers, if you will, in the 6 months?

Assi Ginzburg: Julien, this is Assi. I’ll start with the second part of the question. Since the end of the quarter, we already raised $166 million, of which $73 million, which is the commercial paper at the rate of around just over 6%. We raised $50 million of commercial to corporate loan at a rate of around 7%. And we also closed the tax equity transaction for $43 million, basically we sold the PTCs of North Valley facilities. So basically out of the $270 million, $166 million was already financed. The remaining will be done through two corporate loans that we planned to take before closing of the net transaction. And those will be a similar rate the loans that I spoke before. I think because of the lower leverage versus many of our US peers that are currently at five and six debt to EBITDA and the fact that our future cash flow, the next 14 to 15 years is already tied to a non-PPA, allow us to be very aggressive on the financing of the acquisition and do the financing even before year-end, if we close the deal before year-end.

With respect to your first question, when we sell and do tax equity transaction, it does reduce our leverage as it was before. On the other hand, the ITCs that we sell to – ITC those are basically reducing our overall debt. They are not part of our EBITDA. We have seen some of our peers adding ITC’s benefit to the EBITDA calculation. We did not do it so far. We are looking into it, but that’s not part of what we’re doing so far. That’s why we don’t have any disagreement with the rating agencies because we never included ITC benefit as part of our EBITDA. So overall, we have lower leverage. The financing for the acquisition is — most of it is already done, and the remaining is on track. And we will still be in the four time leverage, which is significantly below our US peers.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Indeed, I get your lower leverage strategy. That’s why I ask if any of this matters, right? You guys just maintaining leverage. Now with that said, just to clarify, on the acquisitions, it sounds like you’re going to do this fully levered. There’s not necessarily an expectation for kind of to rebuild the equity balance for the time being from what I hear in your response, right?

Assi Ginzburg: Correct. Correct. As you see, our EBITDA this year is up significantly over last year, which allow us to continue and borrow under the coring business. And that’s why the earlier equity raise that we did already this year allow us to do this transaction without any additional equity plan.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Excellent. If I could just squeeze one more in on contracted storage just real quickly. I mean we’re seeing some of your peers in the West really pushing forward on the strategy of co-located geothermal and storage like – like COSO the other day. How do you think about potential opportunities to expand interconnect and add storage at existing sites? Just obviously, very, very robust contracting environment in the West. And do you have any comments around that?