Northwest Natural Holding Company

Good morning and welcome to the NW Natural Third Quarter's 2020 Earnings Conference Call. All participants are in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Nikki Sparley. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Emily. Good morning and welcome to our third quarter 2020 earnings call. As a reminder, some of the things that will be said this morning contain forward-looking statements. They are based on management's assumptions, which may or may not occur. In addition, some of our comments today reference non-GAAP-adjusted measures. For a complete reconciliation of these measures and other cautionary statements, please refer to the language and reconciliation at the end of our press release. We expect to file our 10-Q later today. As mentioned, this teleconference is being recorded and will be available on our website following the call. Please note these calls are designed for the financial community. If you are an advancer and have additional questions after the call, you may contact me directly at 503-721-2530. News media may contact Melissa Moore at 503-721-2530. Thank you, Nikki, and good morning and welcome. I hope this call finds you safe and well.

Like all of you, we continue to navigate these unusual times. In addition to COVID, in September, Oregon dealt with wildfires. Our gas system was resilient and minimally impacted, but as with any event, we took proactive steps to ensure the safety of our customers and coordinated closely with fire commanders. I personally want to thank all of our employees for their hard work here and, of course, the first responders for all of their efforts during those unusual times. Moving to a few economic updates, it is important to remember where we stood in February before the pandemic started. At that time, we had a fundamentally sound, sustainable growing economy with record low unemployment, both nationally and in our service territories. As discussed in previous earnings calls, COVID impacts affected the Northwest like the rest of the country, but we've seen some economic improvement in recent months. For example, Oregon's unemployment rate was 8% in September, essentially matching the national rate. That's down from a 14.9% high in April. Job growth in Oregon bounced back to positive territory in the second quarter this year and has sustained an upward climb through September. In the Portland metro region, year-to-date closed home sales were up 3.1% from 2019, with stronger year-over-year price growth of about 10%. New single family permits issued this year are close to where we were in 2019. That's much better than what was generally expected this spring. As a result, we have connected over 13,800 meters during the last 12 months into September 30th, and that's 300 more meters than we added this time last year. Our overall customer growth rate is 1.9% for the 12 months into September and reflects a lower level of customer disconnecting from our system during the pandemic. As we resume normal disconnection practices, we will likely see this growth rate decrease a little bit. Despite the positive trends, we know these are difficult times for some customers. That's why we voluntarily suspended normal collection processes and disconnections in March. Since the pandemic began, we've been working with the commissions, staff, and stakeholders in all of our states to determine the best way to return to more normal operating practices. The last couple of months, commissions in all of our states have finalized their timelines that allow utilities to resume normal operations. Additionally, the Oregon, Texas, and Idaho commissions have approved deferral applications. On the regulatory front, an order was issued in our Oregon general rate case in October approving our previously disclosed all-party settlement. The order includes a $45.1 million increase in our revenues requirement based on the 50-50 cap structure, a return of equity of 9.4%, and a cost of capital just under 7%. In addition, the order reflects average rate base of $1.44 billion, or an increase of $242 million compared to the last rate case. New rates took effect November 1st and were largely offset by reduced gas costs from our PGA filing. In Oregon, the combined effect of the rate case and annual purchase gas adjustment resulted in a $2 increase to a residential customer's monthly bill. Overall gas bills continue to remain low. Northwest Natural customers are paying about 40% less today for their bills than they did 15 years ago. In addition, in June, we passed back a record $17 million in storage bill credits to Oregon gas customers. I'm proud to report that continuing our legacy of service, customers ranked Northwest Natural second in the West among large utilities in the 2020 J.D. Power Residential Customer Satisfaction Study. These results are a testament to our customer-centric culture. and it's especially gratifying to see customers recognize our employees and company during this challenging year. And finally this morning, I'm pleased to report that in the fourth quarter the board approved the dividend increase making this the 65th consecutive year of annual dividend increases. Our annual dividend amount is now $1.92 per share. We're proud to be one of the only three companies on the New York Stock Exchange with this long record. With that, let me turn it over to Frank to get a little bit more details of the financials. Frank?