Vectren ended 2014 with profits that were right in line with its expectations, the Evansville-based utility reported Monday.
In its fourth-quarter and full-year 2014 earnings report, released Monday afternoon, Vectren reported net annual income of $188 million ($2.28 per share), up from $174.1 million ($2.12 per share) in 2013.
The numbers exclude results from coal mining subsidiary Vectren Fuels, which Vectren sold in August 2014.
The company’s full-year earnings were on target with its previous earnings guidance, which was in the range of $2.25 to $2.35 per share.
“Both the quarter and the year really met our expectations,” said Vectren’s Chief Financial Officer Susan Hardwick.
Vectren’s operations include a utility group, which provides electric and/or natural gas service to customers in Indiana and Ohio. They also include a nonutility group, which includes both infrastructure services and energy services.
Infrastructure services — utility pipeline construction and repair work — is done by subsidiaries Miller Pipeline and Minnesota Limited. Subsidiary Energy Systems Group handles energy services.
In 2014, Vectren’s utility group earned $148.4 million, up from $141.8 million in 2013. Earnings were up in both the natural gas and the electric utility segments.
The company’s nonutility group earned $39.1 million last year, up from $33 million the year before.
In recent years, Vectren’s infrastructure services segment has benefitted from the boom in shale oil and gas, because as producers tap into these reserves, they need new pipelines to transport them.
Hardwick said Vectren has been asked recently how the recent drop in oil prices will affect Miller Pipeline and Minnesota Limited.
The answer, Hardwick said, is “not much.”
About 85 percent of the subsidiaries’ pipeline projects are repair and replacement jobs, as municipalities and utilities seek to replace their aging infrastructure. Demand for those projects remains strong, Hardwick said.
“Since we’re so heavily weighted to the repair side, we just don’t view it (low oil prices) to be a big problem for us,” she said.
If oil prices do stay low this year, the company says it will take eight to 12 months before Vectren would see any related slowdown in pipeline projects.
Looking at the fourth quarter alone, Vectren posted net income of $56.2 million (68 cents per share), up from $49.8 million (60 cents per share) during the same period in 2013.
Vectren also affirmed its full-year guidance for 2015. The company said it expects earnings in the range of $2.40 to $2.55 per share. This includes utility group earnings in the range of $1.85 to $1.95 per share, and nonutility group earnings in the range of 55 to 65 cents per share.