The Southern Company

Good afternoon. My name is Kelly, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Southern Company first quarter 2002 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press the one followed by the four on your telephone. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Scott Gamel, Investor Relations Director. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Kelly. Good afternoon and welcome to Southern Company's first quarter 2022 earnings call. Joining me today are Tom Fanning, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Southern Company, and Dan Tucker, Chief Financial Officer. Let me remind you, we'll be making forward-looking statements today in addition to providing historical information. Various important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements, including those discussed in our Form 10-K, Form 10-Qs, and subsequent filings. In addition, we will present non-GAAP financial information on this call. Reconciliations to the applicable GAAP measure are included in the financial information we released this morning, as well as the slides for this conference call, which are both available on our investor relations website at investor.southerncompany.com. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Tom Fanning.

Thank you, Scott. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. As you can see from the materials we released this morning, we reported strong adjusted earnings results for the first quarter ahead of our estimate. The economies within our Southeast Service Territories are among the best in the United States, and we believe we are well positioned to achieve our financial objectives for 2022. Before turning the call over to Dan for a more detailed look at our financial performance, I will first provide an update on recent progress at Plant Vogel Units 3 and 4. Importantly, the projected completion timeline and capital cost forecast for both units are unchanged from the updates that we provided last quarter. Since that time, we've seen sustained progress consistent with our expectations for each unit. The NRC completed its follow-up inspection last week and issued its final supplemental report. The inspection verified that Southern Nuclear effectively implemented the corrective actions and remediation efforts at the site. No additional findings were identified during the follow-up inspection, and the findings identified last year have been closed. With this step complete, the Vogel site returns to the baseline inspection program. Let's focus now on Unit 3. We continue to progress towards receipt of the NRC's 103 letter. All necessary systems have been turned over from construction to testing, and nearly all the inspection records necessary for submission of the remaining ITAC are now complete. Associated with this progress, 70 ITAC were submitted to the NRC since our last earnings call, and 53 ITAC remain. Of these remaining ITAC, the last 30 to 40 are expected to be completed just prior to submitting the all ITAC complete letter to the NRC in support of the 103G letter. Considering our progress over the last two months, we have provided an updated ITAC completion schedule. Following receipt of the 103G letter from the NRC, and as Unit 3 continues its transformation from construction to operations, Our efforts will be focused on completing the remaining inspection records, system turnovers, and the necessary pre-operational and component tests required to load fuel later this year. Turning to Unit 4, direct construction is now approximately 94% complete. Unit 4 continues to make progress in advance of cold hydro testing and hot functional testing. We believe we have the resources we need onsite for Unit 4 and have a clear plan for transitioning additional personnel from Unit 3 as we continue our focus on increasing productivity and ensuring first-time quality. Overall, construction completion has averaged 0.9% per month since the start of the year, supportive of a September 2023 in-service and ahead of the 0.4% average projected to be needed through the year-end to achieve a December 2023 in-service date. For electrical production specifically, progress on Unit 4 is meeting our current expectations. However, electrical production will need to increase to support our projected in-service dates. The schedule changes announced last year required Vogel 3 and 4 owners to affirmatively vote to proceed with the project, which in late February, they unanimously voted to do. This decision underscores the importance of the 2,200 megawatts of baseload carbon-free energy, which will be vital to increasing the availability of net zero resources for customers across the state. We value our partners on Vogel 3 and 4 and the relationships that we have had with them across multiple endeavors for decades. We look forward to our continued partnership as we work to bring Vogel Units 3 and 4 safely online, providing Georgia with a reliable, carbon-free energy resource for the next 60 to 80 years. We are pleased with the progress at the site over the past few months and incredibly proud of the entire team at Vogel Units 3 and 4 for their relentless commitment to completing this important project safely and with the utmost quality. Dan, I'll now turn the call over to you.