Atmos Energy Corporation

Slide 17 through 24 summarize these outcomes. And slide 16 outlines our plan filings for the remainder of the fiscal year. To date, we have completed over $1 billion of long-term financing. Following the completion of the $600 million 30-year senior note issuance in October, we executed four sales arrangements under our ATM program for approximately 2.7 million shares for $260 million. And we settled board agreements on 2.7 million shares for approximately $262 million. As of December 31st, we were profiting $295 million in net proceeds available under existing forward sale agreements. As a result of this activity, we have now priced a substantial portion of our fiscal 22 equity needs and anticipate satisfying our remaining equity needs through our ATM program. As a result of this financing activity, our equity capitalization, excluding the $2.2 billion of winter storm financing, was 59% as of December 31st. Additionally, we finished the quarter with approximately $3.1 billion of liquidity. In January, we completed the issuance of $2 million in long-term debt through a TAF of our existing 10-year 2.625% notes due September 2029. The net proceeds were used to pay off our $2 million term loan that was scheduled to mature in April. Following this offering, excluding the interim winter storm financing, our weighted average cost of debt decreased 3.81%, and our weighted average maturity increase at 19.23 years, which further strengthens our financial profile. Additional details for our financing activities, our equity forward arrangements, as well as our financial profile can be found on slides seven through 10. And we continue to make progress on securitization. Yesterday, the Texas Railroad Commission unanimously issued a financing order authorizing the Texas Public Financing Authority to issue custom rate relief bonds to securitize costs associated with Winter Storm URI over a period not to exceed 30 years. We currently anticipate the securitization transaction will be completed by the end of our fiscal year. Upon receipt of the securitization funds, we will repay the $2.2 billion of Winter Storm financing we issued last March. And in Kansas, we started our securitization proceedings with the Kansas Corporation Commission in late January. Based on the current procedural schedule, we are anticipating a financing order by the end of our fiscal third quarter. Our first quarter performance was a solid start to the fiscal year. The execution of our operational, financial, and regulatory plans are on track, which positions us well to achieve our fiscal 22 earnings per share guidance of $5.40 to $5.60. Details around our guidance can be found in slides 12 and 13. Thank you for your time this morning. I will now turn the call over to Kevin for his closing remarks. Kevin?

Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. Before I begin my update today, I want to take just this opportunity to recognize and say thank you to all 4,700 Atmos Energy employees. It is through your dedication, your focus, and effort that we safely provide natural gas service to 3.2 million customers in 1,400 communities across our eight states. Thank you for all you do every day for Atmos Energy. I also want to take this time to thank our hometown heroes. our first responders and emergency responders for their continued dedication and support for all of us. And as you just heard, we're off to a great start. The results Chris summarized reflect the commitment of all 4,700 Atmos Energy employees as we work together to continue modernizing our natural gas distribution, transmission, and storage systems on our journey to be the safest provider of natural gas services. During the first quarter, we achieved several project milestones that further enhance the safety, reliability, versatility, and supply diversification of our system. For example, at APT, we placed into service phase one of a two-phase pipeline integrity project that will replace 125 miles of Line X. As a reminder, Line X runs from Waha to Dallas and is key to providing reliable service to the local distribution companies behind APT's system. Phase 1 replaced 63 miles of 36-inch pipeline. Phase 2 includes an additional 62 miles of 36-inch pipeline and is anticipated to be completed late this calendar year. Additionally, we completed the first of a three-phase project to replace our existing Line S2. This 91-mile, 36-inch project will provide additional supply from the Hainesville and Con Valley shell place to the east side of the growing Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Phase one replaced 21 miles of this line and phase two will replace an additional 18 miles and is expected to be completed late this calendar year. Phase three, which will replace the remaining 52 miles, is expected to be in service in 2023. During the completion of phase one for Line X and phase one for Line S2, our teams used recompression practices to avoid venting or flaring over 70,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. This is an excellent example of how Atmos Energy's environmental strategy is being integrated into our daily operations. APT's third salt dome cavern project at Bethel is now approximately 80% complete and remains on track to be placed in service late this calendar year. As a reminder, this project is anticipated to provide an additional 5 to 6 BCF of cavern storage capacity. As I mentioned during our November call, we have started work on a 22-mile, 36-inch line that will connect the southern end of APT's system with the 42-inch Kendra Morgan Permian Highway line that runs from Waha to Katy. This new line will support the forecasted growth and increase supply diversity to the north of Austin in both Williamson and Travis counties in Texas. This line is expected to be in service late December of this year. In addition to those system modernization projects, we continue to make progress in advancing our comprehensive environmental strategy that is focused on reducing scope one, two, and three emissions and reduce our environmental impact from our operations in the following five key areas. Operations, fleet, facility, gas supply, and customers. For example, across our storage facilities, we utilize advanced methane detection technologies, including gas cloud imaging, acoustic monitoring, forward-looking infrared handheld cameras, and laser-based remote methane leak detectors. At APT Storage Fields, we are making progress with the installation of the remaining gas cloud imaging cameras for continuous methane monitoring and anticipate completion by the end of this fiscal year. Our RNG strategy focuses on identifying opportunities to transport RNG for our customers. We currently transport approximately eight BCF a year and anticipate another four projects to come online within the next 12 to 18 months. Those four projects are expected to provide an additional BCF a year of RNG capacity. Furthermore, we are evaluating approximately 20 opportunities that could further expand our RNG transportation. Two zero net energy homes are underway in Texas. One in Taylor and the other in Dallas. The home in Taylor is being developed through our partnership with the Williamson County Habitat for Humanity, and we estimate the home to be completed in late March. And in Dallas, we are working with the Dallas Habitat for Humanity and estimate construction of this zero net energy home to begin mid-March. These homes use high efficiency natural gas appliances, coupled with rooftop solar panels and insulation to minimize the home's carbon footprint. These zero net energy homes demonstrate the value and vital role natural gas plays in helping customers reduce their carbon footprint in an affordable manner. Providing these families with a natural gas home that is environmentally friendly and cost efficient is just one way Adamus Energy fuels safe and thriving communities. And finally, over the next five years, we will invest $13 to $14 billion in capital support to replacement of 5,000 to 6,000 miles of our distribution and transmission pipe, or about six to 8% of our total system. We will also replace 100 to 150 steel service lines, which is expected to reduce our inventory by approximately 20%. This level of replacement work is expected to reduce methane emissions from our system by 15 to 20% over the next five years. Our first quarter activities and initiatives reflect the continued successful execution of our strategy to modernize our natural gas distribution, transmission, and storage systems as we continue our journey to be the safest provider of natural gas services. These efforts, along with the strength of our balance sheet, our strong liquidity, have Atmos Energy well positioned to continue serving the vital role we play in every community. That is delivering safe, reliable, efficient and abundant natural gas to homes, businesses, and industries to fuel our energy needs now and in the future. We appreciate your time and interest this morning. We'll now open the call for questions.

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question is from Richard Sunderland of JP Morgan. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just starting on O&M, how is the balance of work and timing tracking versus expectations? Just curious if you have any early sense here, I guess, directionally where expenses are putting you in the guidance range?

Yeah, sure, Richard. This is Chris. Good morning. Really, the O&M spending was generally in line with our expectations. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, when you look at our current year compared to the prior year quarter, the prior year quarter was a bit of a low mark. So when you look at where we are now, it's roughly a 15% increase quarter of a quarter. But when you look to the midpoint of our guidance compared with last year's O&M levels, that's about a 3% increase. So right now, we're still seeing O&M trending in that $6, $9, $7, $10, $7 or $10 million range. And we believe that at least where we are as we sit today, that that spending will continue to be in line with those expectations.

Got it. Thanks for the color there. And then maybe just at a high level, could you outline the expected timing of major base rate cases over the next, say, two to three years, including the APT system?

Sure. I mean, again, we typically execute 18 to 20, 22 annual regulatory filings. The fiscal second quarter is our busiest filing period, so we'll be making a number of grit filings at APT as well as in our mid-techs and West Texas divisions. We'll also be making a regulatory filing, an annual regulatory filing in Mississippi in early March, as well as in Louisiana, and a secondary filing in July in Mississippi. So live activity to be coming over the next several months. Much of this will be implemented by the end of the fiscal year. We will also file our West Texas and Mid-Tex RRM filings generally at the end of March, first part of April, and those are scheduled to become implemented on around October 1st, so at the start of the next fiscal year. With respect to APT, the general rate case is scheduled to begin in our fiscal 2023 time period. So we've factored that into our five-year plan. So the grip filing that we'll make here in mid-February will be the last grip filing before that annual rate proceeding next year.

Got it. Thanks for outlining all of that. Thanks for the time today. Thank you, Richard.

Our next question is from Julian DeMoulin-Smith of Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning, team. Thanks for the time. Congratulations and everything here. Just following up here. Good morning. Just following up on Kansas here. Obviously, the process kicking off here. Just can you talk a little bit about the expectations on the tenor ultimately on that proceeding and, frankly, anything else that you think relevant that we should be talking about in terms of parameters? Obviously, kudos on getting the ROC finalized here.

Well, thank you. So on Kansas, as I said, we're kind of in early stages right now. I'm beginning the securitization proceedings. You know, in terms of tenors, you know, It will depend upon what market conditions look like. We're obviously going to be looking to seek AAA rating on that. And we will be working with our banking partners as well as with the staff to determine the appropriate period to make these securitization costs, if you will, as affordable as we can for our Kansas customers. But it's still too early to tell where we are at this point.

Got it understood. And actually related, especially considering the progress that you've made with the RRC, I mean, how are you thinking about the rating agencies moving forward here on removing the outlook here, removing the negative outlook to be specific?

Yeah, the dialogue we've had with both Moody's and S&P has been, they've basically been telling us we're going to wait to see what the Texas Railroad Commission financing order looks like. That was issued yesterday. I'm sure they have a copy of that now, so we're anticipating conversations with those rating agencies hopefully here this second fiscal quarter.

Got it. And a quick last one here just on tax rate. Obviously depressed here. Just the comments in the transcript here, to the extent to which that you should expect to continue to see this rate going forward, the lower rate, just given the tax liabilities?

Sure. So, you know, our effective tax rate for the first quarter was about 5.9%. We're anticipating, you know, including the excess deferred tax liabilities. uh an income effective income tax rate in the seven to nine percent given that we are uh refunding these excess deferred tax liabilities over the next three to five years that effective tax rate should be in place in that in that general range over that time period but when you back out the impact of the excess deferred tax liability refunds the marginal effective income tax rate is in the 22 to 24 range

Right, yeah, indeed. Thank you for clarifying that. Sorry, actually, if I can clarify the last question on APT. Sure. I mean, how are you seeing customer growth trend here? I mean, some of your peers are talking pretty robustly of late. Just curious to see what you're seeing, especially if it impacts some of your other jurisdictions here, like APT.

You're talking about particularly here in the metroplex, Julian, as Chris mentioned in his opening remarks, We've been growing just a little bit north of that 1.7% here in the Metroplex, probably in the 40 to 45,000 customer range per year. It's a lot of residential growth. And then as you get those rooftops, as you know, you'll have the supporting commercial businesses as well. We do have a few industrial customers that come in in the Metroplex area. A lot of this is also showing up in residential rooftops down in the Austin corridor as well. Again, that's why we're putting in that permanent connector line down there. Forecasted growth, forecasted demand, expansion down there with all of the people moving in from various locations across the country. That's what we're seeing, at least here in Texas, across our other jurisdictions as we've talked about. It's been a really good, diverse mix of not only residential, but as well as industrial growth as well. I reported, I think, at our fourth quarter call that we added 45 industrial customers last year that we anticipate once they're fully online or utilized somewhere between 12 and 14 BCF of natural gas. That equates to around 200,000 residential customers. And these are customers that are in the metals, they're in the healthcare, they're in the auto industry, a good variety distilling. So we're getting a good mix of natural gas demand and response for the product across all sectors, whether that's Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, good industrial growth. We continue to see good residential growth in our Colorado properties with people coming from the West Coast into Colorado and then again outside of Olathe, Kansas property.

Got it. Excellent. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. I'll pass it on.

Our next question is from Insoo Kim of Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

Yeah, thank you. My first question is just on cost overall. You know, I think you've recorded in the fiscal first quarter, you know, the distribution gas costs of, you know, over $7 per MTF, you know, versus I think $4 range last year. And thinking about that and other potential inflationary factors, whether it's labor or other commodities for your CapEx. We need to do the math. Any concern there in your ability to achieve your, whether it's a 22 or beyond CapEx while managing the bill impact?

Yeah, and so I'll start out and then hand over to Chris. Short answer is no on that. As you've heard us talk about at the end of the last quarter when we kind of rolled out our five-year plan and forward look there, we did have some of this contemplated in our O&M projection that Chris just talked about. As well, you've heard us also talk about we worked very hard to our procurement team to stay ahead of some of our needs. We try and keep at least a six-month inventory. We're trying to increase that now, whether that's at our supplier or in our own warehouses. And as you may have heard us say before, all of our steel pipe needs for this fiscal year, all those projects that we just talked about, All that pipe is onsite at location. So we feel like we're in really good shape. We stay ahead of our needs through our vendors. So at this point, I think given the work of our procurement team, given that we've got our pipe needs, at least our steel pipe needs covered at this point, we anticipate that our O&M levels that we have baked in right now should be able to handle what we're seeing right now and should not have any impact on our capital span going forward in the short range.

Got it. Thanks for that reminder, and that's good color. My second question is kind of related to that. Maybe on the other side, I think we've seen the gas bases in in your Texas region, kind of widened out again, given talks about, you know, takeaway capacity concerns. You know, you're obviously working on a line to connect with the Condor line there. But any views on, you know, future gas cost forecasts in your Texas jurisdiction and any opportunity to potentially take advantage of that spread in the near or longer term? Acknowledging that, you know, from a hedging perspective, I know you're limited on kind of what you can do.

Yeah, I'll start out and again, we'll see if Chris wants to add anything here. I'm looking at, um, you know, Waha prices this morning, uh, cash prices and we're setting at, uh, $3 and 60 cents out there. You know, the forwards, uh, for Waha, if you're taking a look at that for the April off period is around three, $3, 45 cents, something like that. So no crystal ball here, obviously. But I think when you look at the rig count that we're seeing just last week of well over 600 rigs in the U.S. working, about half those in the Permian, we're seeing production levels that are now in the 14 to 14 and a quarter BCF a day range with projections, I think, by the end of this calendar year, first of 23 in the 16 BCF a day range. I would hope that kind of supply pushes these prices down even further, but we'll have to wait and see on that piece of it. But very encouraged again by the number of rigs, the supply that's coming online. And just one last comment there on the basis differential. Remember that that's part of our rider ref mechanism we have on APT and 75% of that goes directly back to the customer. to reduce those rates. So that is a sharing mechanism there for those customers' benefit. Chris, anything additional?

Yeah, I think the right rep comment is spot on, Kevin. You know, we don't – we certainly think about that in our planning process, but it's not a material portion of APT's business.

Got it. But at least it would, yeah, help with the bill headroom. So I guess indirect benefit on that front. Got it. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. The confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we toll for additional questions. Our next question is from Ryan Levine of Citi. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning. Just to follow up on the APT expansion to Permain Express, can you elaborate on the timeline in terms of executing on that project, and if you're seeing any other commercial development opportunities off of APT that are gaining more traction?

Well, as I said in my opening remarks there, this is going to be a 22-mile line, 36-inch. will help us meet the forecasted growth in that Austin corridor, both in Williamson and Travis counties down there. And we anticipate this line to be in service late this calendar year, could be first of next year. We're well on our way with all the necessary aspects to get that project rolling forward. So right now, those are the projects outlined, Phase 2, X2, Phase 2. And phase three of S2 and then this project here are the major projects we have on tap for APT, along with the finalization of that third cavern there. And those all, again, will bring that diversity, reliability, and versatility to APT's system. Many areas to bring supply in and increase capacity.

And do you have all the right-of-ways and supplies already procured to help execute on that project?

Yeah, we have the majority of what we need to begin work on that at this time.

Okay. And switching gears in terms of the financing plan, you outlined your maturity schedule. It looks like there is a bigger maturity due next year with some floating rate debt. I'm curious how you're thinking about staggering your debt maturities going forward. and also in context of the recent decision from yesterday.

Sure, Ryan. So the big maturity that you see next year is the $2.2 billion interim winter storm financing we executed last March. We're anticipating with the completion of the Texas securitization process. By the end of the fiscal year that we would use the net proceeds received from that securitization process to repay that $2.2 billion. So Again, setting aside the $2.2 billion, when you look at our wave average maturity of 19.23 years, we're in a very, very good spot. And as we continue to execute the five-year financing plan, Dan Nazir and his team are looking at all the options that are on the table in terms of laddering maturity schedules, all with the idea of trying to minimize costs for our customers.

Okay. And then last question for me, there continues to be talk of LBC assets in the market for sale. Curious if there's any change in how you're looking at deals and if you're spending any more time contemplating acquisitions.

Well, Ryan, as we've said before, we certainly don't have our heads in the sand here. We're always got our eyes and ears open on the market and what's going on. But We believe we have the best properties out there, and we're in very supportive natural gas states, communities. We have very supportive regulatory and legislative jurisdictions, as you know, with six of our eight states having all fuels bills. Another one, Virginia, I believe, has something in the legislature this year along the lines of an all fuels bill, so that could move us to seven of our eight jurisdictions. As we talked about this morning, these communities are growing. They're expanding, both residential, commercial, and industrial. And as we talked about before, we don't need an acquisition to meet our 6% to 8% earnings per share growth that we talked about in our plan. So at this point, we remain focused on executing our system modernization strategy. as we continue our journey to be the safest provider of natural gas services.

Appreciate the time. Thank you.

Thank you.

We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Dan Mazur for closing remarks.

We appreciate your interest in Atmos Energy, and again, thank you for joining us. A recording of this call is available for replay on our website through March 31st of 2022.

Have a good day.