MDU Resources Q3 2026 Earnings Call: Bakken East Advances, EPS Guidance Reaffirmed

Key Takeaways

• MDU Resources Group Inc. (NYSE: MDU) reported Q3 2026 earnings of $14.0 million, or $0.07 per share, versus $18.4 million, or $0.09 per share, in Q3 2025. Adjusted earnings were $16.6 million, or $0.08 per share.
• Electric utility earnings increased to $26.5 million from $21.5 million, supported by new rates, the Badger Wind Farm and higher retail demand. Total retail electric sales rose 9.3%, including an 18.4% increase in data center volumes.
• The board approved the final investment decision for the Bakken East Pipeline. Estimated investment was narrowed to $2.8 billion-$3.1 billion, with two phases targeted for service in late 2029 and late 2030.
• Management reaffirmed 2026 EPS guidance of $0.93-$1.00 and maintained its long-term EPS growth objective of 6%-8%.
• MDU has more than 1 gigawatt of data center load under signed energy service agreements, with approximately 280 megawatts online and additional volumes expected to ramp over the next several years.
• The company is evaluating financing and partnership structures for Bakken East while seeking to retain majority ownership and operational control. Management expects to provide more information around the year-end earnings call in February.

Core Financial Data

Business and Operating Performance

Electric Utility

Electric utility earnings increased to $26.5 million from $21.5 million. New rates in North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming added $7.1 million of revenue, while the Badger Wind Farm contributed $3.2 million of earnings.

Warmer weather drove higher retail volumes across all customer classes. Total retail electric sales increased 9.3% year over year, and data center sales rose 18.4%. Higher operating and maintenance costs and lower returns on nonqualified benefit plan investments partly offset these gains.

Natural Gas Distribution

The segment recorded a seasonal loss of $20.7 million, compared with a $18.2 million loss a year earlier. Results included a $2.1 million after-tax loss following the decision to discontinue development of a renewable natural gas project in Oregon.

Management attributed the decision to rising development costs and rule changes that delayed and reduced the state’s need for renewable natural gas. Payroll-related costs, interest expense and weaker benefit plan investment returns also weighed on results, partly offset by new rates and higher retail volumes.

Pipeline

Pipeline earnings declined to $13.1 million from $16.8 million. Higher operating and maintenance expenses, Bakken East advisory costs, lower storage injections and weaker benefit plan investment returns were partially offset by short-term transportation contracts and contributions from completed growth projects.

The Bakken East Pipeline is designed to transport 1.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day over approximately 350 miles. Its finalized design includes 42-inch, 36-inch and 30-inch pipe, four new compressor stations and added compression at two existing facilities. Management said the larger pipe configuration should reduce compression requirements and customer fuel costs.

The company expects to submit its FERC Section 7(c) filing in Q4. It is also evaluating financial and strategic investors while intending to retain majority ownership and operational control.

Data Center Demand

MDU has signed agreements covering more than 1 gigawatt of data center load, including approximately 280 megawatts already online. Management said large-load customers are expected to bear the costs they create through contracts, tariffs and regulatory mechanisms.

Since 2023, the company has returned $45.4 million to North Dakota customers under this cost-causation approach. MDU remains open to utility-owned generation investments for large loads, but management said each project must make sense for both shareholders and customers.

Management Guidance

MDU reaffirmed its 2026 EPS guidance range of $0.93-$1.00 despite unfavorable weather in the first quarter. The outlook assumes normal weather, economic and operating conditions, continued customer growth, execution of the capital plan and constructive regulatory outcomes for the remainder of the year.

Management also maintained its long-term EPS growth objective of 6%-8%. The company did not provide 2027 guidance and indicated that its normal timing for the next annual outlook is the Q4 earnings call.

MDU plans to release an updated five-year capital expenditure forecast later in November, following the EEI conference.

Risks and Areas to Watch

• Bakken East requires an estimated $2.8 billion-$3.1 billion of capital, making financing structure and potential partner participation important variables.
• The project remains subject to regulatory approvals, execution requirements and phased in-service targets in late 2029 and late 2030.
• Several rate proceedings remain pending or subject to refund, including interim electric rates in North Dakota and Montana and Pipeline rates scheduled to take effect December 1.
• Higher operating and maintenance expenses affected multiple segments during Q3.
• Lower returns on nonqualified benefit plan investments reduced earnings by approximately $0.015 per share compared with Q3 2025.
• The Other category posted a $4.9 million net loss, versus $1.7 million a year earlier, due mainly to higher captive insurance claims and income tax expense adjustments.

Analyst Q&A Highlights

Analysts focused primarily on Bakken East financing, project design and MDU’s ability to participate in data center-related infrastructure growth.

Management said it is actively considering all financing options for Bakken East, including financial and strategic investors. The company intends to balance investor returns, external financing needs and funding for its existing capital program. More detail is expected around the year-end call in February rather than with the November capital plan update.

The narrowed $2.8 billion-$3.1 billion project range reflects greater certainty around pipe size, compressor requirements, equipment orders, mill capacity and contractor planning following the final investment decision.

On data centers, management said MDU could benefit through both electric utility investments within its service territory and pipeline transportation serving power generation. Any utility investment would remain subject to cost-causation protections and case-by-case economic review.

Full Earnings Call Transcript

Complete Earnings Call Transcript

Management Remarks

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us, and welcome to the MDU Resources Group Inc. Q3 2026 Earnings Conference Call.

[Operator Instructions]

I will now hand the conference over to Brent Miller, Treasurer of MDU Resources Group. Brent, please go ahead.

Brent Miller

Thank you, Jen, and again, welcome, everyone, to our third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Our earnings release and supporting materials for this call are available on our website at mdu.com under the Investors section.

Leading today's call are Nicole Kivisto, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Jason Vollmer, Chief Financial Officer of MDU Resources Group.

During today's call, we will make certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Please refer to our SEC filings for a discussion of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ. We may also refer to certain non-GAAP information. For a reconciliation of any non-GAAP information to the appropriate GAAP metric, please refer to our earnings release.

I'll now turn the call over to Nicole for her prepared remarks. Nicole?

Nicole Kivisto

Thank you, Brent, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today and for your continued interest in MDU Resources. This morning, we reported third quarter 2026 earnings of $14 million or $0.07 per share. Our results reflected solid performance for the underlying businesses, including strong performance at our Electric segment, benefiting from new rates, the Badger Wind Farm and higher retail sales volumes. We are also reporting adjusted earnings to reflect the impact of a couple of items not reflective of ongoing operations. At the Natural Gas Distribution segment, a decision was made to discontinue development of the not landfill renewable natural gas project. And at our Pipeline segment, we incurred advisory costs associated with the Bakken East project that are not eligible to be capitalized as part of the project cost.

Adjusted earnings, absent these items, were $16.6 million or $0.08 per share for the quarter. Jason will provide more detail on the quarterly results later during this call. The most significant milestone this quarter was our Board's positive final investment decision to proceed with WBI Energy's Bakken East Pipeline project. This decision reflects the customer commitments we have secured, our confidence in the strategic importance of the project and our belief in the long-term economic opportunities it creates for MDU Resources, North Dakota and the broader region.

We have narrowed our estimated capital investment range to between $2.8 billion and $3.1 billion and finalize the project design, which will include segments of 42-inch, 36-inch and 30-inch diameter pipe. We also expect 4 new compressor stations along the 350-mile route with additional compression at 2 existing facilities on our system.

The project remains designed to transport 1.4 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas and will be constructed in 2 phases with in-service dates of [ late 2029 ] and late 2030. We are still anticipating a Q4 filing date for our FERC 7C filing and are also actively evaluating financing options, including potential participation of financial and strategic investors, while maintaining our expectation for [ WBI ] to retain majority ownership and operational control. We also continue to see encouraging development activity across our service territory, including data center opportunities and broader infrastructure demand.

As we have discussed previously, our approach to serving data centers and other large load customers is grounded in protecting existing customers while ensuring growth creates value for the communities we serve. We continue to follow the principle of cost causation, customers that create costs are responsible for those costs through contracts, approved tariffs and regulatory mechanisms. This approach allows existing customers to benefit from broader utilization of our system while supporting economic development opportunities within our service territory and results in a reduction to customer bills.

As an example, since 2023, we have returned $45.4 million to our North Dakota customers with this approach. We currently have over 1 gigawatt of data center load signed under [ ESAs ] with approximately 280 megawatts currently online and additional volumes expected to ramp online over the next few years. As I did mention during the quarter, we did make the decision to discontinue development of the not landfill renewable natural gas project in Oregon due to continued increased development costs and changes enacted by rule-making that have shifted the timing and reduced the volume of our need for the renewable natural gas in the state. We believe this decision reflects disciplined capital allocation and a continued focus on investments that are expected to provide the strongest long-term value for customers and stockholders. This decision resulted in the recognition of an after-tax loss of $2.1 million in the quarter.

Now moving on to regulatory matters. In North Dakota, interim electric rates of $26.3 million became effective September 1, subject to [indiscernible]. In Montana, interim electric rates of $10.4 million remain in effect, subject to refund, while the settlement agreement of $10 million is still pending approval. At our Natural Gas Distribution segment, a $12.2 million annual revenue increase was approved in our [ Oregon ] rate case settlement with rates effective October 31. We also filed a Minnesota rate case on October 30, requesting an annual revenue increase of $4.5 million. An interim rate increase request of $3.9 million was also filed and if approved, will be implemented on January 1, 2027. Our Washington multiyear rate case filed in May remains pending before the commission.

At the pipeline segment, rates from the FERC rate case we filed in May will become effective December 1, subject to refund and the outcome of hearing procedures if a settlement with our customers in FERC is not reached. We have made significant progress on the regulatory front and with continued deployment of our capital plan, we believe we will be filing about 3 to 5 rate cases annually.

As we near the end of the year, we have delivered solid underlying business performance, advanced regulatory initiatives executed on a robust capital plan and made a strategic decision to advance the Bakken East project. Despite the negative weather impact in the first quarter, we demonstrated solid performance on a year-to-date basis, [ putting ] us in a position to reaffirm our 2026 earnings per guidance range of $0.93 to $1. This guidance continues to assume normal weather, economic and operating conditions, continued customer growth, successful execution of our capital investment plans, constructive regulatory outcomes for the remainder of the year. Our long-term earnings per share growth objective remains at 6% to 8%.

We remain focused on disciplined execution of our capital program while advancing infrastructure investments that support growing energy demand throughout our service territories. As always, MDU Resources is committed to operating with integrity and with a focus on safety. We remain dedicated to delivering safe, reliable, cost-effective and environmentally responsible energy services while positioning the company for compelling long-term growth.

I will now turn the call over to Jason for the financial update. Jason?

Jason Vollmer

Thank you, Nicole. This morning, we announced third quarter earnings of $14 million or $0.07 per share compared with $18.4 million or $0.09 per share in the third quarter of 2025. Adjusted earnings for the quarter totaled $16.6 million or $0.08 per share. Year-to-date earnings were $116.1 million or $0.55 per share compared with $114.1 million or $0.56 per share through the first 9 months of last year. Adjusted year-to-date earnings totaled $119.4 million or $0.57 per share.

We did experience lower returns on nonqualified benefit plan investments when compared to the same quarter last year, which impacted all of our business segments. In total, this reduced earnings by approximately $0.015 per share when compared to the third quarter of 2025. Operating income for the quarter was $47.6 million compared to $39.8 million in the third quarter of 2025. On a year-to-date basis, operating income was $211.2 million compared to $183 million last time -- [ last year ] at the same time. This 10% increase in operating income highlights the strength of our operations and the meaningful impact that our growth projects and positive rate case volumes have had over the last year.

Now let's turn to our individual business segments. Our electric utility reported third quarter earnings of $26.5 million compared with $21.5 million in the third quarter of 2025. The increase was driven by $7.1 million in additional revenue from new rates approved in North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming, $3.2 million earnings from the Badger wind farm investment as well as higher retail sales volumes across all customer classes due to warmer weather. Total retail electric sales volumes increased 9.3% year-over-year and data center sales volumes increased 18.4%. These favorable impacts were partially offset by higher operation and maintenance expense as well as lower returns on nonqualified benefit investments.

Our Natural Gas Distribution segment reported a seasonal loss of $20.7 million compared with a seasonal loss of $18.2 million in the third quarter of 2025. This year-over-year decline reflects higher operation and maintenance expense costs including payroll-related expenses and the $2.1 million after-tax loss related to the not landfill project that Nicole previously discussed. Higher interest expense and lower returns on nonqualified benefit plan investments also contributed to the decrease. These impacts were partially offset by new rates, particularly in Idaho, Washington and higher retail sales volumes across all of our customer classes.

Pipeline segment earned $13.1 million during the quarter compared to $16.8 million in the prior period. Results were impacted by higher operation and maintenance expense, including payer-related and materials costs as well as advisory costs related to the Bakken East project and lower storage injections and lower returns on nonqualified benefit plan investments. These impacts were partially offset by short-term natural gas transportation contracts and contributions from previously completed growth projects. The other category reported a net loss of $4.9 million compared to a net loss of $1.7 million in the third quarter of 2025. The decline was primarily related to higher claims experienced within our captive insurance operations and higher income tax expense associated with adjustments related to the company's annualized effective tax rate. We continue to maintain a strong balance sheet and ample access to working capital to finance our operations.

That summarizes our financial highlights for the quarter. We appreciate your interest in MDU Resources and would ask that we now open the line for questions. Operator?

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

Your first question comes from the line of Aidan Kelly with JP Morgan.

Question-and-Answer Session

Aidan Kelly

Yes. Maybe just to pick up on Bakken East to start the elephant in the room. How are you evaluating the trade-offs between financial [indiscernible] and partnerships as of now? I know you kind of mentioned Sales you look to kind of maintain that majority ownership structure. But just curious how we should think about also like the potential to kind of mitigate external equity needs while kind of preserving the longer-term earnings contribution? Just any kind of in-depth color how you think about the equity portion at this point of time?

Nicole Kivisto

Yes, I'll have Jason go ahead and talk about this. But certainly, we are keeping the options open as we did mention in the script as well as the news release, our parameters are that we want to be the majority owner as well as the operator of the pipeline, but continue to evaluate the financing options.

But Jason, maybe you want to provide additional detail there.

Jason Vollmer

Yes. Certainly, a great question, , and I appreciate the follow-up here. And as we know, high focus items for investors to think about the size of an important project like this for our business. Our base capital plan that we've been working on here in the last -- again, what about data last year in November, we'll probably update that here again towards the end of November on the business, as we look forward here. But we have a sizable amount of capital investment that we are spending on this company, even outside of this Bakken East project. We're extremely excited about the Bakken East project and where this is going to go.

But I think your point on balancing external financing with executing the existing business plans here is very important. So as we look at longer term, what this project will do for the organization, certainly a positive project to bring into the group. We want to make sure that we are looking for all at the investments we're making and making sure that we've got a good ability to finance this and provide solid returns for our investors into the long term. So to Nicole's point, we are looking at all options for how to finance this project. We're actively pursuing that as we speak here today. We don't have a lot of updates for you at this point in time as we get into the new year and think about our fourth quarter call that we would have in February, I would expect we'll have a lot color on that, likely as far as where we're at in the process of finalizing those opportunities.

But it's a high focus item for us here internally making sure that we balance the appropriate return for investors going forward with also looking at the impact of the ongoing business here and making sure we've got the right financing structures in place.

Aidan Kelly

Great. Thanks for the rundown on that, Jason. It sounds like to keep our eyes peeled for 4Q plan [ afresh ], I guess. Maybe just one other question on my end, kind of just turning to some of the disclosures on the project itself. It looks like you narrowed the cost range slightly to [indiscernible]. So just curious if you could provide any detail on what gave you the confidence to kind of tighten the range at this point in time. And just the rationale behind the revised compressor station configuration and whether that there's any read-through for like implications on project costs or future expansion capacity there. Any detail there would be great.

Jason Vollmer

Yes. Certainly, I can provide a little bit of detail on that. So as we think about, again, this project, as you know, we've been working on this for a long time, looking at different design, routes, various items that would make sense here. The new item that we would have talked about now is that we have finalized the pipe sizes with this, they starting with 42-inch in the West going to 36 and then down to 30-inch pipe. What that does do, and specifically to your compressor station question is it does allow us to operate this more efficiently with less compression needed from a larger pipe basis, which then offset some need for additional compression, but also for our customers involved here, will reduce fuel cost for them on a go-forward basis as well.

So we think that is the optimal structure based on what we've determined with where we're at now. So that does change a little bit of the calculus, I guess, on the overall cost. So narrowing the range now. I think what we've been able to do as we've continued to progress and work on this project, reaching FID in the end of September was a very important milestone for us. Now moving forward, we've been able to take some of the unknowns that we would have here and make them a bit more known as we've continued to work through. So again, getting in front of the -- finalizing the design, understanding what compressor items we need, getting orders made in certain areas, working on pipe design, pipe -- the mill space working with contractors, gave us a lot more clarity to be able to narrow it down and really kind of take in the bookends of that range and narrow to something that we feel very comfortable with here now landing in this $2.8 billion to $3.1 billion range.

Nicole Kivisto

Yes. No, only thing I would just highlight -- go ahead, I'm sorry.

Aidan Kelly

No, [indiscernible] Nicole.

Nicole Kivisto

Yes, I was just going to highlight one more item that you would note for CapEx as it relates to the pipeline, you would have seen an increase compared to last quarter. Basically, once we got to FID, we're bringing those into CapEx. But what that CapEx demonstrates is we are making some of these decisions that Jason alluded to, we've been working through this project for quite some time, but we're now able to kind of get to a decision point and lock some of these things in as we finish out the year, and that actually helped us then to his point, narrow that range a bit.

Aidan Kelly

Got it. That's super clear. Well, I appreciate all the color, and I'll leave it there. See you guys soon.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies.

Brian Russo

It's actually Brian Russo on for Julien. You mentioned a fourth quarter kind of update. Is it at all possible to get some insight into who the partner might be or financing structure when you report the updated CapEx with your usual annual update, I guess, in November?

Nicole Kivisto

Yes. Our normal cadence, I think, that you're referring to is when we update and refresh our 5-year capital plan. We normally do that following EEI. But as Jason mentioned, I don't know that we'll be in a position to be disclosing anything at [indiscernible] as it relates to financing. What he alluded to would be we would have more information at our year-end call. which is more in the February time frame.

Brian Russo

Okay. Understood. And when we look into 2027, you've given the cases that have concluded for partial year contribution this year, full year next year, along with the interim rate filings. Do you think you can kind of move back up into the -- comfortably in the middle or the high end of that 6% to 8% long-term range just based on rate relief.

Jason Vollmer

I can take that one, Brian. I think as we look ahead, we certainly have not given guidance beyond '26 at this point, right? We did update and reaffirm our guidance, I guess, for '26 at this point. We feel comfortable with that range we've got now. I was leading to '27, certainly, the rate case activity that we've had along with some of the growth projects we've had here, I think we'll continue to provide benefit for as we look forward. But I don't want to get ahead of foreshadowing any guidance for next year yet. We just haven't given that yet. That's typically a fourth quarter cadence for us as well. So again, a similar time frame with what Nicole just mentioned with our fourth quarter call.

Brian Russo

Okay. And then lastly, we've seen some nonutility generation being developed in the region to serve some of your data center customers, I believe. And I'm just curious, have you been involved in any of those discussions and why MDU is in a position to not only serve economic growth through the [ Bakken East ] pipeline, but also through utility-owned generation.

Nicole Kivisto

Yes. I would just say, as we think about the development that we're seeing and as you know, Brian, it's been our practice to really talk about the -- where we're at with these once we have a signed [ ESA ], but it is fair to say that we continue in conversation on various other opportunities. Now saying that, I think you're really getting to the question of, are we willing to make investments to serve these types of loads. In the past, we have not done that, so that would be different. And what I would say is we're not opposed to that, looking at investment opportunities that make sense. But we're going to want to make sure that we've got the right cost causation similar to how we've treated these in the past that the large load pays for that cost. And that it makes sense for our shareholders and customers as well.

So again, we will continue to evaluate these opportunities on a case-by-case basis. It's not that we're opposed to investment, but it's going to have to make sense for our shareholders.

Jason Vollmer

And I would probably just add a little bit to this, too, when you think about the pipeline project and what this does for the state of North Dakota, again, getting this FID decision with Bakken East has been very instrumental, I think, not only for our company, but even for economic development across the state. We don't serve the entire state of North Dakota, but North Dakota is a state that has had a lot of data center development going on. So to your point, you're probably seeing others that are announcing generation projects. Where we see the value of the business mix that we have today is our ability to potentially participate by serving data centers ourselves or large [ load ] customers of our sorts if they and in our service territory.

But alternatively, with our pipeline business, we certainly have the ability to serve power generation to serve whatever kind of load that would be, whether that's existing load growth that we may see customers have or whether that is large load customers in there. So we think we sit kind of in a unique position to be able to capitalize on both opportunities.

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Nicole Kivisto for closing remarks.

Nicole Kivisto

All right. I want to thank you all again for joining us today and for your thoughtful questions. We certainly appreciate your continued interest in and support of MDU Resources.

As a reminder, we do plan to release our new 5-year capital expenditures forecast later this month, in line with our typical timing of releasing after the EEI conference. We look forward to seeing many of you at the conference. And finally, I do want to close by once again thanking our employees for their ongoing commitment to safety, reliability, operational excellence and customer service. It is their dedication that enables us to continue delivering for our customers while advancing opportunities for future growth.

With that, we look forward to staying engaged with you throughout the remainder of the year. Operator, you may now conclude the call.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.