Atmos Energy Corporation

Greetings and welcome to the Atmos Energy second quarter conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during a conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Dan Mazur, Vice President and Treasurer for Atmos Energy. Thank you. You may begin.

Thanks, Doug. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. This call is being webcast live on the Internet. Our earnings release and conference call slide presentation, which we will reference in our prepared remarks, are available at atmosenergy.com under the Investor Relations tab. As we review these financial results and discuss future expectations, please keep in mind that some of our discussion might contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act and the Securities Exchange Act. Our forward-looking statements and projections could differ materially from actual results. The factors that could cause such material differences are outlined on slide 32 and are more fully described in our SEC filings. Our first speaker is Kevin Akers, President and CEO of Atmos Energy. Kevin?

Kevin Akers Thank you, Dan, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us in your interest in Atmos Energy. I hope you and your families are safe and healthy as we continue to navigate our way through this challenge together. I want to take this opportunity to recognize and thank our everyday heroes. Those who are helping our country battle this pandemic. Our first responders, healthcare workers, law enforcement officials, grocery store employees, truck drivers delivering our nation's supplies, those serving in our branches of the military, and all essential services providers. working to support our communities. Thank you for what you are doing to help all of us. We are eternally grateful. I also want to thank our 4800 Atmos Energy Everyday Heroes as they continue to provide our customers safe and reliable natural gas service. I'm extremely proud of their dedication and commitment to keeping our 3.1 million customers of 1400 communities and themselves healthy and safe. Atmos Energy's commitment to safety, paired with our culture, have led us during unique times, and this will be no different. In early February, our Chief Information Officer led a team effort to assess and test our company-wide remote work capabilities, including our two customer support centers, gas supply, our two gas control centers, our shared service functions, and over 200 operational service centers across our eight state service territories. Through their efforts, by mid-March, when local and state governments started issuing shelter-in-place orders, we were ready to transition every facet of our business to a fully remote work environment. Today, we have over 95% of our employees working remotely and continuing to perform at the highest levels. As an example of their outstanding effort, for the month of April, our customer service agent satisfaction scores were 97.6%. And our service technician satisfaction scores were 97.4%. Truly outstanding work by that team. In addition, our risk management and compliance committee, along with senior leaders from across the company, focused on several operational scenario planning exercises in early March. These exercises, based on current world and U.S. situations, We're focused on maintaining the safety of our customers, communities, and employees as we continue to provide reliable natural gas service. Specific areas of focus were emergency response, system maintenance and compliance work, including pipe replacement, line locating, system inspections, as well as the ability to remotely train employees. Beside working remotely, you will see employees doing our part to reduce the spread of the virus by practicing social distancing, wearing face coverings while working in our communities, or working in smaller construction crews. We believe the above implemented practices for our employees and our contractors, along with using CDC guidelines to design safety protocols for things such as self temperature and system screening, have us positioned to continue providing safe and reliable natural gas service. Using the safety practices and protocols mentioned above, Under shelter-in-place orders, we have been able to safely perform distribution and transmission pipeline system work. This work includes maintenance and compliance activities, pipe replacement, line locating, and system inspections. In preparing our work plans, practices, and protocols, we worked with our regulatory agencies, local and state officials, emergency management, the American Gas Association, and industry peers across our service territory. We greatly appreciate their leadership and ongoing support as we all work together for the health and safety of our employees, customers, and communities. Our culture, atmosphere, has guided us in the past, is guiding us during this challenging time, and will continue to guide us into the future as we look to be at our best, the best in others, and make a difference. Making a difference for local food banks and communities across our eight states to help keep meals on tables through our donation of $1.5 million. Being at our best, Atmos Energy employees partnered with many nonprofit agencies, schools, hospitals throughout our service territory to fill lunch bags for children, provide meals for our healthcare heroes and first responders, or by donating much-needed plasma. Making a difference for our customers by temporarily suspending disconnections for nonpayment and waive late payment and certain reconnect fees during these challenging times so customers continue to have safe and reliable natural gas service for heat, water heat, and cooking. I'm extremely proud of our 4,800 employees and how their atmosphere has shined so brightly upon our neighbors and our communities. Also making a difference, we closely worked with our regulators to develop solutions to the mutual benefit of our customers and the company. We have elected to defer implementation of new rates for approximately 32% of our customers in Texas from our fiscal third quarter to at least September 1st of this year. Additionally, we have received regulatory orders in four states covering approximately 80% of our customers to defer any COVID-19 related costs, including bad debt expense. In April, we executed $900 million in new financing arrangements. to further solidify our liquidity. As of April 30th, our liquidity was $2.9 billion, and our balance sheet remains very strong. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Chris for a financial update, and I will return shortly with a few closing remarks.