Lease Commitments

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2015

Leases [Abstract]

Lease Commitments

Lease Commitments

The Company leases office buildings, vehicles, and other equipment under operating leases. In addition, PNM leases interests in Units 1 and 2 of PVNGS and, through April 1, 2015, an interest in the EIP transmission line. All of the Company’s leases are accounted for as operating leases. Additional information concerning the Company’s lease commitments is contained in Note 7 of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in the 2014 Annual Reports on Form 10-K, including information regarding renewal and purchase options, and actions taken by PNM, under the PVNGS leases.

The PVNGS leases were scheduled to expire on January 15, 2015 for the four Unit 1 leases and January 15, 2016 for the four Unit 2 leases. The four Unit 1 leases have been extended to expire on January 15, 2023 and one of the Unit 2 leases has been extended to expire on January 15, 2024. For the other three PVNGS Unit 2 leases, PNM elected to purchase the assets underlying those leases on the expiration date of the original leases and has entered into agreements with the lessors that establish the purchase prices, representing the fair market value, to be paid on January 15, 2016 by PNM for the assets underlying the leases. The leases remain in existence and PNM will record the purchases at the termination of the leases on January 15, 2016.

PNM will pay $78.1 million for the assets underlying one of the Unit 2 leases, which is for 31.25 MW of the entitlement from PVNGS Unit 2. PNM will pay $85.2 million for the assets underlying the other two Unit 2 leases, which are for 32.76 MW of the entitlement from PVNGS Unit 2. PNMR Development is also a party to the agreement regarding these two leases, which constitutes a letter of intent providing PNMR Development with the option, subject to approval by the Board and negotiation of definitive documents, to acquire the entities that own the leased assets at any time from June 1, 2014 through January 14, 2016. The early purchase price would be equal to the January 15, 2016 purchase price discounted to the actual purchase date. The early purchase amount was $79.9 million on June 1, 2014, $82.5 million on March 31, 2015, and escalates to $85.2 million on January 14, 2016. The consideration paid to the lessor on an early purchase would include an additional amount equal to the discounted value of the lessors’ equity return portion of the future lease payments. Such additional consideration was $5.8 million on June 1, 2014, $2.7 million on March 31, 2015, and declines to $1.2 million on January 14, 2016. Currently, PNMR does not anticipate that PNMR Development will exercise the early purchase option.

At March 31, 2015, PNM owned 60% of the EIP and leased the other 40%, under a lease that expired on April 1, 2015. Following procedures set forth in the lease, PNM and the lessor entered into a definitive agreement for PNM to exercise its option to purchase on April 1, 2015 the leased capacity at fair market value, which the parties agreed would be $7.7 million. PNM closed on the purchase on April 1, 2015 and will record the purchase at that date.