NewJersey Resources Corporation

would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Adam Pryor, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Welcome to New Jersey Resources Fiscal 2024 Second Quarter 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. 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 differ materially 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, 10-K and 10-Q, as filed with the SEC. We do not, by including this statement, assume any obligation to review or revise any particular forward-looking statements 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 4. Steve will begin with this year's highlights, followed by Roberto, who will review our financial results. Then we will open it up for your questions. With that said, I'll turn the call over to our president and CEO, Steve Westhoven.

Please go ahead, Steve. Thanks, Adam. Good morning, everyone. New Jersey Resources delivered a strong performance in the second quarter. We reported net financial earnings of $1.41 per share in the period, and we are reaffirming a fiscal 2024 NFEPS guidance range of $2.85 to $3 per share. I'll take you through the highlights, which are outlined on slide five in our presentations. We continue to see a trend of strong customer growth at New Jersey Natural Gas and achieved higher utility gross margin for the quarter. Throughout a relatively warm winter marked by periods of volatility, New Jersey Natural Gas once again demonstrated its ability to provide cost-effective and reliable service. New Jersey Natural Gas is decoupled, meaning the utility gross margin is insulated from changes due to weather and customer usage. We continue to remain aligned with all of our stakeholders to provide $850 million since the settlement of our last rate case in 2021, as well as a new SAVE Green program that represented the largest energy efficiency filing in our history. We remain active at Clean Energy Ventures with approximately 34 megawatts of projects under construction that will add to the 5 megawatts of capacity placed in the service thus far this year. And our project pipeline is expanding, allowing this growth to continue well into the future. We reported solid contributions from S&T, and as we announced in our last conference call, energy services outperformed in January, capitalizing on a brief period of pricing volatility. Moving to slide six, in November, we provided NFVPF's initial guidance range of $2.70 to $2.85 per share. As a result of our outperformance, we increased our fiscal 2024 NFVPF's guidance by 15 cents per share in February. growth rates. Slide 7 shows the expected NFEPS percentage contribution by business segment for fiscal 2024, as well as a general guide for what we expect in the future. 2024 is somewhat unique, as energy services will represent a higher portion due to the AMAs and outperformance in the quarter. However, in future years, we expect to return to a more normalized segment breakout with 60 to 70 percent coming from our utility business. With that, I'll turn the discussion over to our business units, beginning on slide 8 with New Jersey Natural Gas. We've invested $211 million at New Jersey Natural Gas through a variety of programs in fiscal 2024, with approximately 45% of that capex providing near real-time returns. Within that 45% is the Save Green program, which helps residential and commercial customers lower their energy usage. We have spent approximately $33 million thus far this year to help our customers save money and reduce their carbon footprint. We achieved solid new customer growth during the period through a combination of new construction and conversions throughout our service territories. Finally, we are continuing to pursue new innovations that further our decarbonization strategy. These units, which are in the initial phase of testing, are expected to reduce the emissions profile of our building while providing additional data as we pursue new decarbonization initiatives. By encouraging innovation in energy efficiency, clean fuels, renewables, and other emerging technologies like carbon capture, we are demonstrating our ability to achieve long-term emissions reductions goals. Turning to slide nine, I'll provide an update on our base rate case. On January 31st, we requested an increase of base rates of approximately $223 million, equivalent to an increase of $159 million in operating income. The rate case is progressing as expected, and we plan to update our filing to include nine months of actual results later this month. We will continue working with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities towards a resolution that balances the interests of our customers and the company new rates expected to be in place for fiscal 2025. Moving to slide 10, Clean Energy Ventures has continued to add new solar capacity during the fiscal year with an additional 34 megawatts under construction. We are also growing our solar pipeline, which now includes over 870 megawatts of potential investment options. Over the past few years, we've expanded our portfolio geographically with 51% of our pipeline outside of New Jersey. Our focus is on developing solar investment opportunities that provide high, single-digit, unlevered returns. Finally, our S&T business performed to our expectations during the period. We continue to pursue organic growth opportunities to maximize those assets. At Leap River, we are initiating the capital investment process to expand the working capacity within our caverns by We recently initiated an open season to provide additional capacity to our customers in regions with considerable demand for reliable and affordable natural gas storage capabilities. With that, I'll turn the call over to Roberto for a review of our financial results.