CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust, Inc.

Greetings, and welcome to Core Energy's conference call to discuss the second quarter 2021 results. 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 the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Matt Kreps, Investor Relations for Core Energy. Please go ahead.

Thank you, everyone, for joining today's Core Energy Infrastructure Trust conference call. With me today are Dave Schulte, CEO, John Greer, COO, and Robert Waldron, CFO. This morning, we published a press release announcing the second quarter results and outlook for 2021. We will file our Form 10-Q this afternoon. We will not present slides on a live call this quarter, but do have archived slides that will be available online for your reference at the Investor Relations section of our website. We plan to update our investor slides for conferences beginning next week. You can also access a webcast replay on the site, typically posted within a couple hours of the live call's end. I would like to remind everyone that statements made during the course of this presentation that are not purely historical may be forward-looking statements and are subject to a safe harbor protection available under the applicable securities laws. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are discussed in our filings with the SEC. These documents are available on the investor relations section of our website. We do not update our forward-looking statements. During this call, we will make reference to certain forward-looking non-GAAP metrics, which will be reconciled in subsequent funds as part of our results reporting. We encourage all of you to review our complete disclosures, risk factors, GAAP numbers, and those non-GAAP metrics with regard to reconciliation. And with that, I would now like to turn the call over to Dave Schulte. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone. We continue to solidify the foundation of our capital structure post-transaction, including the internalization of our REIT manager to create a more efficient cost structure. We believe these steps will facilitate opportunities to further scale our revenue and dividend generating asset base. I want to thank our stockholders for their support of our efforts at this year's annual meeting, which just finished at the end of June. We've emerged from the Crimson transaction with a complement of critical oil and natural gas pipeline infrastructure, which serve a more diverse and stronger customer base. With the new platform demonstrating our business model as an operator of infrastructure, the addressable market to continue to acquire assets is very large, with hundreds of billions of dollars of transportation and storage infrastructure currently serving the energy market. Creating a stable base from which to grow has been our goal And we have successfully laid the foundation for our future by establishing, first, solid coverage of our debt and preferred stock dividend obligations. Second, a baseline of dividend coverage for our common stockholders, which is enhanced by the subordination of the Class B common dividend for three years. Third, a plan to grow that dividend through a variety of commercial activities and strategic actions. And finally, opportunities now emerging to gain scale through additional acquisitions of complementary as well as diversifying assets that fit our model. I'm pleased to report that we are seeing early signs of progress, even if not yet fully reflected in our reported results for the second quarter. Our MoGas and Omega assets are performing steadily, as you have seen for many years, and delivering increased volumes under expanded customer contracts and new projects completed over the past year. We are working to support the efforts of our customer Spire in St. Louis, which is a critical provider of natural gas to customers in that area, particularly with winter approaching. In California, refinery utilization has nearly returned to pre-COVID levels, but crude oil production has lagged. As the price of oil continues to climb, producers are back to profitable production for California wells. And with the return in refinery demand, We expect the second quarter may be our revenue trough. Producers are indicating a desire to return to pre-COVID production levels by Q4, although permitting has been challenging and there's always a risk of adverse impacts of demand due to renewed COVID impacts. Locally produced California crude is the ideal feedstock for California refineries. producing the state's carb-required gasoline and diesel products. In short, California refineries represent a captive market for in-state production, and Crimson operates in one of the most efficient and environmentally responsible petrochemical systems in the U.S. Turning to our platform opportunities, I want to share with you that we are reviewing potential opportunities to expand with two goals in mind. First, and with lowest execution risk, is expansion within our existing pipeline footprint. We already executed incremental volume capacity on our MoGas pipeline, which proved critical to our customers this past winter. We also are considering potential corporate-level acquisitions that can add scale and diversification through expansion into new markets where our business model offers a competitive advantage. We remain diligent and cautious, but should the right opportunity arise, we're ready to create new value opportunities for our stockholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Robert to address the financials.