NewJersey Resources Corporation

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to today's New Jersey Resources Fiscal 2022 Third Quarter Conference Call. My name is Drew, and I'll be coordinating your call today. If you would like to ask a question during the presentation, you may do so by pressing Start followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press Start followed by 2. I'm now going to hand over to Dennis Puma to begin. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to New Jersey Resources Third Quarter Fiscal 2022 Conference Call and Webcast. I'm joined here today by Steve Westhoven, our president and CEO, Roberto Bell, our senior vice president and chief financial officer, as well as other members of our senior management team. As you know, certain statements in today's call contain estimates and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of the securities laws. We wish to caution listeners of this call that the current expectations, assumptions, and beliefs forming the basis for our forward-looking statements include many factors that are beyond our ability to control or estimate precisely. This could cause results to materially differ from our expectations, as found on slide one. These items can also be found in the forward-looking statements section of today's earnings release, furnished on Form 8-K, and in our most recent Forms 10-K and Q, as filed with the SEC. We do not, by including this statement, assume any obligation to review or revise any particular forward-looking statement referenced herein in light of future events. We will also be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as net financial earnings, or NFE. We believe that NFE, net financial loss, utility gross margin, and financial margin provide a more complete understanding of our financial performance. However, these non-GAAP measures are not intended to be a substitute for GAAP. Our non-GAAP financial measures are discussed more fully in item 7 of our 10-K. Our agenda for today is found on slide 2. Steve will begin with this quarter's highlights, followed by Roberto, who will review our financial results. Then we'll open the call to your questions. Our slides accompanying today's presentation are available on our website and were furnished on Form 8-K filed this morning. We'll begin with an overview of the quarter on slide three. With that said, I'll turn the call over to our President and CEO, Steve Westover. Steve?

Thanks, Dennis, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We're pleased to report that our complementary portfolio of businesses continues to perform ahead of expectations. As a result, we are increasing our previously announced guidance range for fiscal 2022 by 10 cents. This marks our second guidance increase for this year. To summarize a few highlights, New Jersey Natural Gas added nearly 1,700 new customers. In July, Clean Energy Ventures placed an eight megawatt project into service. Energy Services reported significant improvement in NFE in the third quarter as a result of our asset management agreement. And finally, Adelphi is now servicing 75% of its contractual commitments, and we expect to reach 100% by the start of the heating season. Moving to slide four, we're increasing our fiscal 2022 NFEPS guidance range to 240 to 250 a share compared to our previous range of 230 to 240 per share. This increase is due to a combination of factors, including strong performance at New Jersey Natural Gas, greater than anticipated financial margin from energy services long option strategy, and increased electricity revenue at Clean Energy Ventures. Our performance at energy services is worth noting. In line with our strategy to de-risk that business, we executed an asset management agreement in December of 2020. This transaction provides energy services with fixed payments over the next 10 years, while still maintaining the ability to capture value in times of volatility from the remaining portfolio of assets, which is what we're experiencing this summer. Moving to the next slide, I'll take a few moments to discuss the quarterly achievements at each of our business units, starting with New Jersey Natural Gas. On the left, you can see that New Jersey Natural Gas is in a solid position with strong capital deployment across a variety of programs. Year to date, we've invested $231 million with over 40% of that capital providing near real-time returns. We continue to make investments to support energy conservation, reduce emissions, and enhance the safety and reliability of our distribution system for the benefit of our nearly 570,000 customers. Thus far in 2022, we've added over 5,200 new customers through a combination of new construction and conversions. And finally, we remain on track to file our next rate case in the 23-24 timeframe. Moving to clean energy ventures on slide six, we have a healthy pipeline of projects positioned to drive significant solar investment in the coming years. CED has been able to develop a portfolio of over 380 megawatts of operational assets. and we believe the long-term fundamentals of the renewable sector are sound. The efforts to streamline regulatory and interconnection processes in the energy markets around the country are resulting in delayed development cycles, yet we believe the outcome will be improved efficiency that will ultimately strengthen and provide greater predictability for investing in renewable projects. The team at CED has exclusivity and contractual rights on 608 megawatts of capital deployment options through fiscal 2027. in addition to another 67 megawatts of projects currently under construction. This pipeline of regionally diverse projects would nearly triple the size of CEB's clean energy portfolio. Moving to slide 7, we recently placed into service an 8 megawatt facility in Holland Township, New Jersey, which will be eligible for T-REX under the BPU's Transition Incentive Program. This site was built on the location of a former paper mill. and required environmental remediation prior to construction. This is an excellent example of how New Jersey can benefit from repurposing land that would otherwise be vacant to produce renewable energy. On slide eight, I'll briefly discuss the latest developments at Adelphia Gateway, which is part of our storage and transportation business. We're in the final stages of construction at Adelphia, a converted oil pipeline. We recently completed construction at Marcus Hook in Quaker Town Compressor Stations, which keeps us on track to be fully operational by the end of the calendar year. At Leaf River Energy Center, we continue to benefit from a steady stream of contracted revenue with credit-worthy counterparties. Our excellent track record, along with tightening market conditions, bow well for long-term value of the asset. I had a chance to visit our team at Mississippi recently and cannot say enough good things about the work that they are doing. With that, I'll turn the call over to Roberto for a review of the financial results. Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone.