CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust, Inc.

Hello, and welcome to Core Energy's conference call to discuss the third quarter 2022 results. I would now like to turn the call over to Matt Kreps, Investor Relations for Core Energy. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Kelly, and 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. Dave and Robert will provide updates on our business operations and results. and all three will be available for Q&A. Earlier this morning, we published a press release announcing the third quarter results for 2022. We expect to file our Form 10-Q later today. I'd like to remind everyone that the statements made during the course of this presentation that are not purely historical may be forward-looking statements and subject to the 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. Those documents are available on the investor relations section of our website. We do not update our forward-looking statements. During this call, we will also make reference to certain non-GAAP metrics, which are reconciled in our filings as part of our results reporting. We encourage all of you to review our complete disclosures, risk factors, GAAP financial numbers, and those non-GAAP metrics, which are with the related reconciliations. And with that, I would like to now turn the call over to Dave Schulte. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. I'll spend a couple of minutes updating you on our operations, then turn the call over to Robert for financial comments. The third quarter saw continued steady performance from our predictable MoGas and Omega natural gas operations that serve the St. Louis and surrounding areas. We also have several projects we're evaluating for both of those systems. These include supporting potential customer demand on the MoGas system that could increase volume, as well as previously discussed UESC projects at Fort Leonard Wood, where our Omega system is the last mile of distribution to U.S. Army facilities. In California, our Crimson pipelines provide a critical link in the state's energy infrastructure, operating under fixed tariffs for volumes transported with long-term investment-grade customers. While this has been a more challenging year on Crimson than we had planned, We believe these assets will fill critical energy needs in California for decades to come. On our last call, we indicated that second quarter volumes had declined due to disruptions in global supply of crude oil following the war in Ukraine. Uncertainty remains with the price cap on Russian crude taking effect in December. However, crimson volumes increased sequentially in the third quarter due to operational issues elsewhere in California. which is continuing in the fourth quarter. Looking to the future, our crimson assets have a significant untapped value in the energy transition process in California. As John discussed last quarter, our California footprint is well positioned to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions through carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS. The largest energy companies in the state are moving ahead with plans in this area. Crimson's pipeline network provides a critical link to bring CO2 back to the field where it can be stored using potential storage reservoirs. We believe there is significant potential for us in this application of our assets. The commercial case for CO2 capture is better in California than in any other state. The recent federal legislation increased the carbon capture credit from $50 a ton to $85 per ton, and to $180 per ton for direct air capture. The California Air Resources Board, or CARB, has set aggressive climate goals of a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2045 and identified CCS as a central pillar to their targets. We believe there are other low carbon energy transition related storage, and transportation opportunities in California in addition to CCS, which we will continue to consider as we work to deploy our assets and expertise as part of the next generation of energy economy. With that, I'll turn over the call to Robert to address the financials.