John C. Griffith
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at American Water Works
Thank you, Cheryl, and good morning, everyone. Turning to slide 13. Let me provide a few more details on year-to-date results. The appendix also has details of third quarter EPS, which as many of the same drivers as year-to-date results. Consolidated earnings were $4.03 per share year-to-date, up $0.33 per share compared to the same period in 2022 and up $0.28 per share on a weather-normalized basis. Increased revenues were driven by general rate cases we completed in late 2022 and early 2023 in our larger states. These additional revenues are driven by the significant investments we have made and continue to make in our systems.
As noted, earnings were higher year-to-date by an estimated net $0.11 per share as a result of weather in the second and third quarters due to warm and dry conditions, primarily in Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. This compares to net favorable weather in the third quarter of 2022 of $0.06 per share, which related mostly to warm and dry conditions in New Jersey. In looking at operating costs, higher pension expense of about $0.10 per share and increased chemical costs of about $0.09 per share, including inflationary pressures are being recovered in large part through higher revenues we proactively sought through the use of forward test years and traditional updates to base cost of service and general rate cases we completed in the last 12 to 18 months.
This strategy has limited the bottom line impact of those higher costs in 2023 and is a strategy we are continuing to use in our recently filed and upcoming cases. Supporting our investment growth, depreciation expense increased $0.17 per share and the cost of additional long-term financing increased to $0.28 per share, primarily related to share count dilution. As I mentioned last quarter, the EPS impact of the higher share count from our equity issuance offsets the avoided interest expense in the current interest rate environment. We expect the impact to be approximately neutral to EPS for the full year as well based on the current outlook.
Turning to slide 14. This graph illustrates that our continued execution on capital investments both infrastructure projects and acquisitions are succeeding and growing regulated rate base at a long-term rate of 8% to 9%. Rate base growth, of course, will drive earnings growth. We believe the high degree of visibility to our capital investment plan, combined with the low-risk nature of the plan uniquely positions American Water in the utility sector and is fundamental to our investment thesis.
Turning to slide 15, you'll see that we continue to be set up for strong growth through acquisitions. We closed on 14 acquisitions totaling $36 million across six states in the first nine months of 2023, which demonstrates our continued ability to close deals in many states. We also had 32 transactions under agreement across 10 states through the end of September totaling $611 million, two of which we closed in early October, including one in West Virginia for $27 million.
This total also includes both the Butler Area Sewer Authority, wastewater system in Pennsylvania, and the Granite City wastewater treatment plant in Illinois, we previously announced. We expect the Butler acquisition to close later this year in Granite City around year-end, pending regulatory approvals for each and we look forward to serving those customers. Also included in our acquisitions under agreement is the Towamencin Township wastewater system in Pennsylvania, we expect to purchase for $104 million as announced back in March.
We expect to close this acquisition in late 2024 or early 2025, pending final regulatory approval, and we look forward to serving those customers as well. Our outlook for future acquisitions remains very strong as we expect to have over $250 million of acquisitions under agreement at the end of 2023 after the expected closings of Butler and Granite City. Of course, as we close on transactions, the work to build and refill the acquisition pipeline is continuous.
Our pipeline of 1.3 million customer connections is a strong leading indicator that supports this piece of our rate base growth outlook. On slide 16, we provide some considerations regarding our outlook for 2024 results in our newly established EPS guidance range of $5.10 to $5.20 per share. First, as you would expect, our growth will be driven by capital investment to serve our customers and earning a return on that investment. As we've talked about previously, 2023 is year two of our accelerated capex plan following the HOS sale, so we see that ramp-up reflected in earnings in 2024, both from base rate increases and infrastructure mechanisms.
As a reminder, approximately 45% of our capex is recoverable by infrastructure mechanisms, so it's a very meaningful driver of consistent earnings growth for us. Recent regulated acquisitions that are being incorporated into active or just completed rate cases will also drive growth next year. I'd like to note that our Military Services Group does add incrementally to our earnings growth expectation as we have continued to show in our growth outlook. MSG's great work on the 18 military installations it serves has built trust and resulted in the U.S. government allocating additional funds for improvement projects driving increased revenues. Just as critical to our growth strategy is our ability to prudently manage the operating costs it takes to run the business, which goes to my final point on this slide. Because of our strong culture of operating efficiency and cost management, we expect only modest increases in O&M in 2024.
These efforts go to the heart of the customer affordability construct we want to protect which is closely aligned with the interests of regulators and ultimately, investors in managing affordability of customer bills. Finally, related to pension, I'd simply remind you that our pension obligation remeasurement will be done at year-end 2023 and that will drive the determination of our 2024 pension expense. Turning to slide 17. I'll provide a financing plan update before closing with a look at our balance sheet and liquidity profile. In our prior five-year plan through 2027, we expected a total of $2 billion of equity financing need.
We successfully issued $1.7 billion of the $2 billion earlier this year, leaving $300 million of equity financing needed towards the end of that prior plan. Based on our new capital plan, our financing plan now includes an estimated $1 billion of equity issuances from 2024 through 2028. The $1 billion of equity in our new plan is expected to be issued near the middle of the 2024 to 2028 period subject to market conditions. The $700 million increase in the anticipated external equity need is driven by the incremental $2 billion of capex in the new plan.
As we've said many times now, we expect incremental capex to be funded roughly 50-50 debt and equity, which includes both external equity and cash flow from operations. Our financing plan design also takes into account the goal of maintaining a strong balance sheet and continuing to meet our long-term debt to capital target of less than 60%. Another assumption inherent in our new plan is that we will continue to be a cash taxpayer, especially as we will likely become subject to the new corporate alternative minimum tax in the coming years.
On slide 18, we provide a summary of our continued strong financial condition. Our total debt-to-capital ratio as of September 30 net of the roughly $630 million of cash on hand remains at 54%, which is comfortably within our long-term target of less than 60%. As we are all aware, the current higher interest rate environment is challenging. We are, however, in a position of strength on a number of fronts in dealing with the challenge. Our strategy of issuing debt at the holding company level allows us to take advantage of our scale and pricing debt issuances.
We remain confident that we will have strong access to capital for the long term. In fact, we just extended the maturity of our revolving credit facility to October 2028, which has a capacity of $2.75 billion. Our diversified banking relationships with some of the largest and strongest banks in the world, coupled with our fully regulated business model and strong credit ratings gives us great confidence around liquidity.
Our laddered approach to long-term debt financings over the years is very important in environments like the current one to manage cash flows and minimize interest rate risk, which contributes to managing customer affordability. And our short duration between general rate cases allows us to minimize any lag we may experience related to recovery of debt costs.
With that, I'll turn it back over to Susan for some closing thoughts. Susan?
