Atmos Energy Corporation

And welcome to the Atmos Energy third quarter 2020 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Dan Mazur, Vice President, Investor Relations, and Treasurer. Please go ahead, Dan.

Thank you, Kevin. Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. With me this morning are Kevin Akers, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Chris Forsyth, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. 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. Today's presentation also includes references to non-GAAP financial measures. You should refer to the information contained in the slide accompanying today's presentation for definitional information and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the closest GAAP financial measure. 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. With that, I will now turn the call over to Kevin. Kevin?

Thank you, Dan, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today 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. The safety of our employees, our customers, and the safety of our communities remain our focus as we continue to deliver safe and allowable natural gas service. Today, over 95% of our employees continue to work remotely as we are doing our part to reduce the spread of the virus by following the CDC guidelines, as well as following our safety protocols, such as hand washing, practicing social distancing, and wearing face coverings. As I've said before, we were early to transition to remote work and we will be very intentional about returning to our offices. We continue listening closely to the health experts and following the data as we go about our daily operations. As I shared last quarter, through the outstanding work of our Risk Management and Compliance Committee, our senior leadership team, and all 4800 Atmos Energy employees, we were well prepared to transition every facet of our business to a remote work environment in mid-March. That level of preparation and agility served us well as we continued executing at the highest levels during the third fiscal quarter. For example, our customer service agents and service technicians continued providing exceptional customer service as indicated by our customers rating their satisfaction with our agents and technicians at 98%. Our strategic focus on digital bill delivery and payment options is yielding benefits as the percentage of electronic bills issued as of the end of the third quarter increased to 45%. And our electronic methods of payments received such as bank drafts, credit cards, and online banking increased to 76% of the payments received as of June 30th. Through these innovative electronic bill delivery and payment channels, Atmos Energy and our customers are doing our part to conserve environmental resources. For example, on an annual basis, the use of this technology saves approximately 1,300 tons of wood, nearly 6 million pounds of carbon dioxide equivalents, 7 million gallons of water, and nearly 400,000 pounds of waste. During the quarter, we deployed Mobile Wallet, a unique bill delivery platform enabling customers to view and pay their bill and manage their Atmos Energy accounts from Apple Wallet or Google Pay. I also want to highlight the great work of our safety and enterprise services and operations teams that they are doing in the area of damage prevention, especially given we are just five days away from National 811 Day. This work is an integral part of our ongoing commitment to safety and our proactive measures to help raise awareness about third-party excavation damage, which is one of the greatest threats to the safety of distribution systems. Our teams have implemented a damage prevention ambassador program. They've developed social media alerts and other public awareness campaigns, such as postponing non-essential digging during the COVID-19 pandemic. All these efforts support the year-to-date result of a damage rate that is less than the industry average. Using our safety practices and protocols I mentioned earlier, we have continued executing our proven investment strategy and remain on track to meet our capital spending range of $1.85 billion to $1.95 billion. By safely performing distribution and transmission pipeline system work that includes maintenance and compliance activities, pipe replacement, line locating, and system inspections, our fiscal year to date consolidated capital spending grew 17% to $1.4 billion, with approximately 88% of our spending being directed towards safety and reliability, all to modernize our system. Finally, our financial position remains very strong, and at the end of June, our liquidity was almost $3 billion, and our balance sheet continues to be very strong. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Chris for a financial update, and I will turn shortly with a few closing remarks. Chris?