Avista Corporation

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Avista Corporation's Q3 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during that session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your phone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded, and I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Ms. Stacey Wentz, Investor Relations Manager. Ms. Wentz, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Avista's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Our earnings and our third quarter 10Q were released pre-market this morning. Both are available on our website. Joining me this morning, I have Avista Corp President and CEO, Dennis Vermillion, Executive Vice President, Treasurer, and CFO, Mark Thies, Senior Vice President, External Affairs, and Chief Customer Officer, Kevin Christie, and Vice President, Controller, and Principal Accounting Officer, Ryan Crasselt. Today, we will make certain statements that are forward-looking. These involve assumptions, risks, and uncertainties which are subject to change. For reference to the various factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in today's call, please refer to our 10K for 2021 and 10Q for the third quarter of 2022. Both are available on our website. I'll begin by recapping the financial results presented in today's press release. Our consolidated loss for the third quarter of 2022 was $0.08 per diluted share, compared to earnings of 20 cents for the third quarter of 2021. For the year to date, consolidated earnings were $1.06 for diluted share for 2022 compared to $1.38 last year. Now, I'll turn the call over to Dennis.

Well, thanks, Stacey, and good morning, everyone. After an unusually warm and sunny October, it definitely feels like our typical fall weather has now settled into our region. We're getting some pretty good precip, and it looks like our first big mountain snow of the season, so that's a good thing. With the summer season behind us, we're happy with how our system handled this year's peak summer months. The significant investments we continue to make in our system to harden our grid and bolster the reliability and resiliency of our substations and distribution system allow us to better serve our customers. We're also making good progress in achieving our clean energy goals We're evaluating opportunities in our recent RFP, and we're implementing our Washington Clean Energy Implementation Plan that was approved in June. Turning to rate cases, we continue to work our way through the regulatory process for Washington general rate cases following the multi-party settlement we reached earlier this year. We expect a decision by the Commission in December of 2022. In Idaho, we expect to file both gas and electric rate cases in the first quarter of 23. We also plan to file a general rate case in Oregon during the first half of 2023. In Alaska, our interim and refundable rate base rate increase of 4.5% was approved by the Commission and was effective in December of 22. Now for earnings, as we previously communicated, our strategy is to achieve our 2023 guidance included adequate rate relief and cost management, and we've made significant progress on both fronts. Our Washington general rate case settlement demonstrates progress toward attaining the needed rate relief we're striving to achieve, and we have identified opportunities to manage our costs for 2023. Despite these great efforts, the goalposts have simply been moved on us. And as a result, we are lowering our 2023 consolidated earnings guidance by 15 cents to a range of $2.27 to $2.47 per diluted share. The combined upward cost pressures from inflation and rising interest rates, which accelerated in the third quarter, proved too much for our cost management efforts to offset in 2023. In particular, we expect increases in borrowing costs, pension expense, and depreciation. Higher borrowing costs and operating expense also impacted 2022, and therefore, we are lowering our 2022 guidance by 5 cents per diluted share to a range of $1.88 to $2.08. At this time, I'll turn this presentation over to Mark to get into some of the details. Mark.