RGC Resources Inc.

Good morning and thank you for joining us as we discuss RGC Resources, Inc.' 's 2024 first quarter results. I am Tommy Oliver, Senior Vice President, Regulatory and External Affairs for RGC Resources. I'm joined this morning by Paul Nestor, President and CEO of RGC Resources, and Tim Mulvaney, our Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer. Let me review a few administrative items before we get started. We have muted all lines and ask that all participants remain muted. The link to today's presentation is available on the investor and financial information page on our website at www.rgcresources.com. The conclusion of the presentation and our remarks, we will take questions. So let's transition to slide one. This presentation contains forecasts and projections. Slide one has information about risks and uncertainties, including forward-looking statements that should be understood in the context of our public violence. Transition to two. Slide two contains our agenda. We will review our quarterly operational financial results and discuss the outlook for full year fiscal 2024 with time allotted for questions at the end. Turning to slide three. Main extensions for the quarter totaled just under a mile, and we connected 185 service lines. Total customers were 63,219 at the end of the first quarter. As we discussed in prior earnings calls, the customer count for 2021-2022 were impacted by the state-mandated service disconnection moratorium that occurred during parts of 2020-2021. When factoring this into our customer counts, for the prior four years shown in the graph on the right side of the slide, we have experienced steady growth over this period. Transition to slide four, where our delivered gas volumes for the quarter, which were 9% lower compared to last fiscal year, and this is attributable to warmer weather in the first quarter of the 2024 fiscal year. As shown on this slide, gas volumes were down in total, residential and commercial volumes were lower as a result of fewer heating degree days, but that was offset by a nice year-over-year industrial utilization increase as natural gas prices remain low. So let's turn to slide five. Our capex spending totaled 5.3 million in the current quarter compared to 7.5 million last year at this time. The decline is attributable to spending for the RNG facility last year that became operational in March of 2023. When one removes the effects of the RNG spending, The year-over-year variance is approximately $500,000 spread across all categories. Paul will discuss the full-year capital spending projection shortly. I'm now going to turn it over to Tim Mulvaney, our treasurer and CFO, who will discuss our financial results. Tim.

Thank you, Tommy. Moving to slide six. We had a strong quarter. First quarter operating income increased 1.1 million, or 20%. to 6.7 million compared to the first quarter of 2023. The increase was primarily driven by interim base rates that were implemented on January 1st of 2023. Equity and net earnings of unconsolidated affiliates was 1.5 million free tax due to non-cash AFUDC, which resulted from our investment in the MVP. This AFUDC will taper off as the construction on various sections is complete and will cease as the pipeline goes into service. Interest expense increased $268,000 due to the higher interest rate environment, which is impacting our floating rate debt supporting the investment in the Mountain Valley pipeline as well as the Roanoke gas line of credit. Our net income for the quarter was $5 million, in the first quarter of this year compared to 3.3 million in the same quarter a year ago. The combination of the rate case and the presence of the AFUDC from the MVP drove the strong results. EPS was 50 cents per share for the first quarter of this year compared to 33 cents per share in the quarter a year ago. I will now turn the presentation over to Paul Nestor, RGC Resources President and CEO for an outlook on 2024.

Thank you, Tim, and I would like to just take a minute and have you join me in congratulating Tim. The board appointed Tim as our permanent treasurer and chief financial officer last week, and after serving in the interim role for about five months, so we're just delighted to have Tim with us. We are on slide seven. I plan to touch on our capital spending projection for fiscal 2024, the status of the MVP project, and our earnings forecast for the full fiscal year. But before we get to those items, I'm going to ask Tommy to come back on and provide us a regulatory update. Tommy? Certainly, Paul.