Our activities in the energy industry expose us to a number of risks in the normal operations of our businesses. Depending on the activity, we are exposed to varying degrees of market risk and credit risk. To manage and mitigate these identified risks, we have adopted the Black Hills Corporation Risk Policies and Procedures. Valuation methodologies for our derivatives are detailed within Note 1.

Market risk is the potential loss that may occur as a result of an adverse change in market price, rate or supply. We are exposed, but not limited to, the following market risks:

Credit risk is the risk of financial loss resulting from non-performance of contractual obligations by a counterparty.

We attempt to mitigate our credit exposure by conducting business primarily with high credit quality entities, setting tenor and credit limits commensurate with counterparty financial strength, obtaining master netting agreements and mitigating credit exposure with less creditworthy counterparties through parental guarantees, cash collateral requirements, letters of credit and other security agreements.

We perform ongoing credit evaluations of our customers and adjust credit limits based upon payment history and the customer’s current creditworthiness, as determined by review of their current credit information. We maintain a provision for estimated credit losses based upon historical experience, changes in current market conditions, expected losses and any specific customer collection issue that is identified. Our credit exposure at December 31, 2022 was concentrated primarily among retail utility customers, investment grade companies, cooperative utilities and federal agencies.

Our derivative and hedging activities included in the accompanying Consolidated Balance Sheets, Consolidated Statements of Income and Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income (Loss) are detailed below and within Note 10.

The operations of our Utilities, including natural gas sold by our Gas Utilities and natural gas used by our Electric Utilities’ generation plants or those plants under PPAs where our Electric Utilities must provide the generation fuel (tolling agreements), expose our utility customers to natural gas price volatility. Therefore, as allowed or required by state utility commissions, we have entered into commission approved hedging programs utilizing natural gas futures, options, over-the-counter swaps and basis swaps to reduce our customers’ underlying exposure to these fluctuations. These transactions are considered derivatives, and in accordance with accounting standards for derivatives and hedging, mark-to-market adjustments are recorded as Derivative assets or Derivative liabilities on the accompanying Consolidated Balance Sheets, net of balance sheet offsetting as permitted by GAAP.

For our regulated Utilities’ hedging plans, unrealized and realized gains and losses, as well as option premiums and commissions on these transactions are recorded as Regulatory assets or Regulatory liabilities in the accompanying Consolidated Balance Sheets in accordance with state regulatory commission guidelines. When the related costs are recovered through our rates, the hedging activity is recognized in the Consolidated Statements of Income.

We periodically have wholesale power purchase and sale contracts used to manage purchased power costs and load requirements associated with serving our electric customers that are considered derivative instruments due to not qualifying for the normal purchase and normal sales exception to derivative accounting. Changes in the fair value of these commodity derivatives are recognized in the Consolidated Statements of Income.

To support our Choice Gas Program customers, we buy, sell and deliver natural gas at competitive prices by managing commodity price risk. As a result of these activities, this area of our business is exposed to risks associated with changes in the market price of natural gas. We manage our exposure to such risks using over-the-counter and exchange traded options and swaps with counterparties in anticipation of forecasted purchases and sales during time frames ranging from January 2023 through December 2024. A portion of our over-the-counter swaps have been designated as cash flow hedges to mitigate the commodity price risk associated with deliveries under fixed price forward contracts to deliver gas to our Choice Gas Program customers. The gain or loss on these designated derivatives is reported in AOCI in the accompanying Consolidated Balance Sheets and reclassified into earnings in the same period that the underlying hedged item is recognized in earnings. Effectiveness of our hedging position is evaluated at least quarterly.

The contract or notional amounts and terms of the natural gas derivative commodity instruments held by our utilities are comprised of both short and long positions. We had the following net long positions as of:


		December 31, 2022				December 31, 2021
	Units	Notional Amounts		Maximum Term (months) (a)		Notional Amounts		Maximum Term (months) (a)
Natural gas futures purchased	MMBtus		630,000		3		590,000		3
Natural gas options purchased, net	MMBtus		1,790,000		3		3,100,000		3
Natural gas basis swaps purchased	MMBtus		900,000		3		870,000		3
Natural gas over-the-counter swaps, net (b)	MMBtus		4,460,000		24		4,570,000		34
Natural gas physical commitments, net (c)	MMBtus		17,864,412		12		16,416,677		24

(a)

Term reflects the maximum forward period hedged.

(b)

As of December 31, 2022, 1,646,200 MMBtus of natural gas over-the-counter swaps purchased were designated as cash flow hedges.

(c)

Volumes exclude derivative contracts that qualify for the normal purchase, normal sales exception permitted by GAAP.

We have certain derivative contracts which contain credit provisions. These credit provisions may require the Company to post collateral when credit exposure to the Company is in excess of a negotiated line of unsecured credit. At December 31, 2022, the Company posted $2.9 million related to such provisions, which is included in Other current assets on the Consolidated Balance Sheets.

As required by accounting standards for derivatives and hedges, fair values within the following tables are presented on a gross basis aside from the netting of asset and liability positions. Netting of positions is permitted in accordance with accounting standards for offsetting and under terms of our master netting agreements that allow us to settle positive and negative positions.

The following tables present the fair value and balance sheet classification of our derivative instruments as of December 31, (in thousands):


	Balance Sheet Location	2022			2021
Derivatives designated as hedges:
Asset derivative instruments:
Current commodity derivatives	Derivative assets - current	$	118		$	2,017
Noncurrent commodity derivatives	Other assets, non-current		198			18
Liability derivative instruments:
Current commodity derivatives	Derivative liabilities - current		(1,703	)		—
Total derivatives designated as hedges		$	(1,387	)	$	2,035

Derivatives not designated as hedges:
Asset derivative instruments:
Current commodity derivatives	Derivative assets - current	$	464		$	2,356
Noncurrent commodity derivatives	Other assets, non-current		337			804
Liability derivative instruments:
Current commodity derivatives	Derivative liabilities - current		(4,897	)		(1,439	)
Noncurrent commodity derivatives	Other deferred credits and other liabilities		(18	)		(20	)
Total derivatives not designated as hedges		$	(4,114	)	$	1,701

The impact of cash flow hedges on our Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income and Consolidated Statements of Income is presented below for the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020. Note that this presentation does not reflect the gains or losses arising from the underlying physical transactions; therefore, it is not indicative of the economic profit or loss we realized when the underlying physical and financial transactions were settled.


	2022			2021		2020			2022			2021			2020
Derivatives in Cash Flow Hedging Relationships	Amount of Gain/(Loss) Recognized in OCI							Income Statement Location	Amount of Gain/(Loss) Reclassified from AOCI into Income
	(in thousands)								(in thousands)
Interest rate swaps	$	2,850		$	2,851	$	2,851	Interest expense	$	(2,850	)	$	(2,851	)	$	(2,851	)
Commodity derivatives		(3,532	)		1,952		540	Fuel, purchased power and cost of natural gas sold		2,708			2,051			(601	)
Total	$	(682	)	$	4,803	$	3,391		$	(142	)	$	(800	)	$	(3,452	)

As of December 31, 2022, $4.5 million of net losses related to our interest rate swaps and commodity derivatives are expected to be reclassified from AOCI into earnings within the next 12 months. As market prices fluctuate, estimated and actual realized gains or losses will change during future periods.

Derivatives Not Designated as Hedge Instruments

The following table summarizes the impacts of derivative instruments not designated as hedge instruments on our Consolidated Statements of Income for the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020. Note that this presentation does not reflect the expected gains or losses arising from the underlying physical transactions; therefore, it is not indicative of the economic gross profit we realized when the underlying physical and financial transactions were settled.


		2022			2021			2020
Derivatives Not Designated as Hedging Instruments	Income Statement Location	Amount of Gain/(Loss) on Derivatives Recognized in Income
		(in thousands)
Commodity derivatives - Electric	Fuel, purchased power and cost of natural gas sold	$	—		$	(144	)	$	144
Commodity derivatives - Natural Gas	Fuel, purchased power and cost of natural gas sold		(797	)		2,599			1,640
		$	(797	)	$	2,455		$	1,784

As discussed above, financial instruments used in our regulated Gas Utilities are not designated as cash flow hedges. However, there is no earnings impact because the unrealized gains and losses arising from the use of these financial instruments are recorded as Regulatory assets or Regulatory liabilities. The net unrealized losses included in a Regulatory asset related to these financial instruments used in our Gas Utilities were $8.8 million and $2.6 million at December 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively. For our Electric Utilities, the unrealized gains and losses arising from these derivatives are recognized in the Consolidated Statements of Income.