NewJersey Resources Corporation

Hello and welcome to the New Jersey Resources fiscal 2023 third quarter conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, press star one on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Adam Pryor of New Jersey Resources. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Welcome to New Jersey Resources fiscal 2023 third quarter conference call and webcast. I'm joined here today by Steve Westhoven, our president and CEO, Roberta Bell, our senior vice president and chief financial officer, as well as other members of our senior management team. 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 of 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 8K and in our most recent forms 10K and 10Q 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, financial margin, adjusted funds from operations, and adjusted debt 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. The slides accompanying today's presentation are available on our website and were furnished on our Form 8-K file this morning. Our agenda for today is found on Slide 3. Steve will begin with this quarter's highlights, followed by Roberto, who will review our financial results, and we'll open it up for your questions. With that said, I will turn the call over to our President and CEO, Steve Westhoven. Please go ahead, Steve.

Thanks, Adam. Good morning, everyone. We had another solid quarter at NJR as our complementary portfolio of businesses continued to perform in line with our expectations. As a result, we remain on track to achieve our fiscal 2023 NFEPS guidance range of 262 to 272 per share. We reported net financial earnings of 10 cents per share in the third quarter of this year and $2.40 per share year to date. To summarize a few highlights, New Jersey Natural Gas added over 1,800 new customers during the quarter, with our growth rate now beginning to return to pre-pandemic levels. In addition, we are proud that New Jersey Natural Gas has been recognized by Escalant as one of their 2023 Most Trusted Utility Brands. Clean Energy Ventures continued its strong momentum, increasing its in-service capacity and growing its project pipeline to the highest level in our company's history. At S&T, we reported strong year-over-year revenue growth. And finally, energy services improved its NFE year over year, driven by continued contribution from the AMA and strong performance from our long option strategy during the quarter. Turning to slide 5, as I noted earlier, we are reiterating our fiscal 2023 NFE-PS guidance range of $2.62 per share to $2.72 per share. Early this year, We raised our guidance by 20 cents driven by outperformance in energy service during winter storm Elliott in December 2022. Our long-term NFEPS growth range remains at 7 to 9% from our original 2022 guidance. And we expect to be at the higher end of that range for fiscal 2024. New Jersey natural gas had a strong quarter as highlighted on slide 6. We invested $315 million at New Jersey Natural Gas during the first nine months of fiscal 2023, with approximately 40% of that capex providing near real-time returns. We've added nearly 5,900 new customers this year compared to approximately 5,300 customers during the same period last year through a combination of new construction and conversions. In June, we filed our annual rate adjustments. we were once again able to provide cost savings to our customers effective this coming winter. This is in addition to the rate decrease in bill credits provided in March of this year. Our team works hard to manage supply costs, and we are pleased to pass these savings on to our customers. As indicated on prior calls, we expect to file our next rate case in fiscal 2024, consistent with the timeline of our major technology investments. Moving to slide 7, the team at Clean Energy Ventures continues to grow its project pipeline and has made great progress increasing the size of its portfolio. We have added 75 megawatts of new solar capacity since the start of fiscal 2023. This represents the largest capacity increase in any fiscal year since CEV's inception. We continue to expand geographically. Since the start of the year, approximately 40% of our capacity growth has come outside the state of New Jersey. This includes two operating assets in Michigan and Indiana that added 21 megawatts to our in-service capacity in July. Operational asset acquisitions have proven successful for us in the past. We target projects with strong offtake that offer performance optimization and future organic growth opportunities. The operations and maintenance team at CDB does an excellent job ensuring our projects perform to the highest operational standards. In fact, our portfolio typically performs at over 99% availability, a significant advantage for us as an organization and a testament to the focus of the team at CEV. Finally, our project pipeline continues to grow and now includes over 750 megawatts of potential investment options, which is the highest in CEV's history. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Roberta to review our financial results. Roberta?