TransAlta Corporation (NYSE:TAC) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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John Kousinioris: Yeah. I — look, I think I think CCUS is going to be a very important tool that our country and other countries are going to need to use to de-carbonized emissions. Our view is that the best use for CCUS is a large sort of industrial, whether it’s the petrochemical industry, just high emitting, but very large-scale industrial processes where there’s a need to reduce emissions and decarbonize and the kind of scale of investment required makes sense. We’re a little bit leery of CCUS investments for sort of conventional power class. We think that’s a bit more challenging. I think from an economic perspective and I don’t think our view has changed on that. And when we were looking at the Sundance five project which you rightly pointed out we set aside we were getting to the point where the cost of the CCUS was going to be significantly greater standing and also with technological uncertainty than actually the repowering was.

So it’s just hard to make that work from an economic perspective there’s better uses for CCUS. At least — that’s our view right now pending a break subsequent.

Chris Varcoe: Finally, I’m just wondering given the changes that are going in Alberta right now in the power market how do you view making investments in Alberta versus the United States or Australia or other parts of Canada?

John Harry Kousinioris: Yes. I — look it is the thing. I would say our return expectations or the returns that you see in the markets are broadly similar in all three jurisdictions. So it’s not so much because of the objective returns associated with the project. It’s more for us a question of opportunity and importantly certainty. So right now, the markets that we’re dealing with in the United States they’re more I would say static, and I think we have a bunch of certainty associated with making investments there. In Western Australia, we have very little merchant exposure. I mean typically, all of our assets and the full return of it on capital comes from our customer during the contract period that we have. So it’s — we don’t have any of that merchant exposure after the contracted period.

Is that because the remote sites, there’s no other place to sell the power. So you have all of your kind of derisked economics provided during the contract period. And look, Alberta has high growth, high income levels, we’re seeing population migration, industry grow. I mean there’s a lot of positive things that electrification is impacting all of these jurisdictions. It’s just as we are looking to sort of adjust the market structure in the province — it’s a bit more uncertain than some of our other markets and we just need to get a bit of clarity which I expect we will get in the coming year, two years, three years and then we’ll be able to have I think the confidence that we need to reevaluate being in this jurisdiction.

Chris Varcoe: Thank you.

John Kousinioris: And look and our view is the market does need to evolve a bit. So that’s not a — it’s not — it’s an understandable place to refine or solid let’s put it that way.

Operator: Thank you. And as I see no further questions in the queue, I will turn the conference back to Ms. Valentini for closing remarks.

Chiara Valentini: Great. Thank you, Carmen. Thank you everyone. That concludes our call for today. If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the TransAlta Investor Relations team. Have a great Friday and a great weekend. Thank you.

Operator: And this concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.

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