Global Partners LP

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Global Partners Third Quarter 2022 Financial Results Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. With us from Global Partners are President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Eric Slivka, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Gregory Hansen, Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Mark Romain, and Chief Legal Officer and Secretary, Mr. Sean Geary. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Geary for opening remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Before we begin, let me remind everyone that this morning's call will include forward-looking statements within the meanings of federal securities laws. These statements include projections, expectations, and estimates concerning the future financial and operational performance of global partners. These forward-looking statements are based on assumptions regarding market conditions, business cycles, demand for liquid energy products and convenience store products, utilization of our assets and facilities, the regulatory and permitting environment, the forward product pricing curve, and other factors which could influence our financial results. These statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, some of which are beyond the partnership's control, including, without limitation, the impact and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on our counterparties, our customers, and our operations, and other assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from the partnership's historical experience and present expectations or projections. We believe these assumptions are reasonable, given currently available information. Our assumptions and future performance are subject to a wide range of business risks, uncertainties, and factors which are described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Global Partners undertakes no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to any forward-looking statements that may be made during today's conference call. With Regulation FD in effect, it is our policy that any material comments concerning future results of operations will be communicated through news releases, publicly announced conference calls, or other means that will constitute public disclosure for the purposes of Regulation FD. Now it's my pleasure to turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Eric Slifka.

Thank you, Sean, and good morning, everyone. We reported a strong third quarter with year-over-year growth in each segment of our business. Our performance is underpinned by solid financial and operational execution. As we've discussed many times on these calls, we have great storage, terminaling, and retail assets, and we have done an outstanding job integrating acquired sites into our portfolio. Our ability to successfully integrate these new sites into our network has enabled us to capture economies of scale and leverage our buying power to drive increased contribution from our GDSO segments. The segment continued to perform well in Q3, reflecting increased activity at our convenience stores as a result of our recent acquisitions and higher retail fuel margins year-over-year. In our wholesale segment, we continue to effectively manage our fuel inventory amidst sustained backwardation in the gasoline and distillate markets. Our commercial segment saw a year-over-year increase in bunkering activity, an area that has been very strong throughout 2022. On the M&A front, during the third quarter, we expanded our GDSO footprint in the Mid-Atlantic with the acquisition of Tidewater Convenience and its portfolio of 15 retail fuel and convenience store locations in Virginia. Our retail site count in Virginia has increased nearly sevenfold in the past year, from 13 locations at the end of Q3 last year to 89 at the same point in 2022. The M&A pipeline remains very active across all areas of our business, and we continue to evaluate potential opportunities that align with our strategic growth objectives. We continue to expand our efforts around renewable fuels. In September, we announced the receipt of regulatory approval to increase storage capacity and to transload up to 1.8 billion gallons in the aggregate of renewable diesel, renewable feedstocks, and ethanol at our CPBR terminal in Oregon. Our permits allow additional tankage and pipeline infrastructure with the potential to provide more than 600,000 barrels of storage capacity at the terminal. Product flexibility, combined with its rail and deep water access, enables CPBR to serve as a renewable fuels hub for existing and emerging low-carbon markets. We continue to employ our EV strategy of evaluating multiple ownership and or site host opportunities. Earlier this year, we received additional funding from the Mass Department of Environmental Protection under the Mass Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program to install direct current fast charging at four of our retail stores. In all of our operating states, we are actively involved in conversations regarding the national EVIP deployment. Turning to our distribution in October, the board voted to increase quarterly distribution on our common units by two cents per unit to $62.50 per unit or $2.50 per unit on an annualized basis. The distribution will be paid on November 14th to unit holders of record as of the close of business on November 8th. Now let me turn the call over to Greg for the financial review.