OGE Energy Corp

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the OGE Energy Corp third quarter earnings conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question please press star 1 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today Jason Bailey, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Andrea, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to OGE Energy Corp's third quarter 2023 earnings call. With me today, I have Sean Trosky, our Chairman, President, and CEO, and Brian Buckler, our CFO. In terms of the call today, we will first hear from Sean, followed by an explanation from Brian of financial results, and finally, as always, we will answer your questions. I'd like to remind you that this conference call is being webcast and you may follow along at OGE.com. In addition, the conference call and accompanying slides will be archived following the call on that same website. Before we begin the presentation, I'd like to direct your attention to the Safe Harbor Statement regarding forward-looking statements. This is an SEC requirement for financial statements and simply states that we cannot guarantee forward-looking financial results but this is our best estimate to date. I will now turn the call over to Sean for his opening remarks. Sean?

Thank you, Jason. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. It's certainly great to be with you. Earlier this morning, we reported third quarter consolidated earnings of $1.20 per share, including electric company earnings of $1.22 per share and a loss to the holding company of two cents. Our solid performance this quarter is due to operational excellence delivered by our team, who work to keep energy flowing to the grid during a hot summer, while setting a new hourly peak on August 21st, and without calling for public conservation that was seen in other areas of the country. I shared before that our system was designed, built, and operated for conditions like we saw this summer, and I'm proud of our team for always meeting our customers' need for reliable and safe electricity, and always keeping affordability top of mind. The third quarter was highly productive, and reflects the work we've undertaken to operate as a premium electric utility company with exceptional execution, a constructive regulatory environment, and one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry. We are operating ahead of plan this year, and as a result, we are raising guidance. Brian will share a few more details on that in just a bit. We have a wide variety of investment opportunities before us, and with the recent announcement that OG&E was awarded a federal grant from the Department of Energy for our adaptable grid project, We look forward to improving the reliability and resiliency for customers living in more than 100 communities. The total project cost is $102 million, and OG&E was one of 34 companies awarded grants under this program and one of only six to receive the maximum grant amount of $50 million. This project will deliver reduced outages and outage time for our customers and at half the cost. We have two additional grant proposals under review with the department and look forward to hearing back on those before the end of the year. You may recall last year at this time, I shared that our team was collaborating closely with school districts in our service area to apply for federal funds for districts to acquire electric school buses. Just last month, Shawnee Public Schools in eastern Oklahoma was the first school district to take delivery of five EV school buses that were awarded to them through the grant program. In total, 28 buses were awarded to eight communities in our service area and we're working closely with the school districts to ensure their success in adding EV buses into their fleets, furthering the electrification in our service territory. Our customer-centered efforts continue as we announced a significant reduction in the cost of fuel on our customer's bill just yesterday to the tune of $21 per month for the average residential customer. That relentless focus on affordability results in some of the lowest electric rates in the country for our customers, which just got even lower and continues to pay off as our service area continues to grow. Broad business expansion with sectors as diverse as healthcare, defense, tribal development, manufacturing, and retail ensure healthy economies for the future and job growth across the board. Our 2023 load forecast delivers robust year-over-year growth well above our historical growth rate. Our long-term load forecast remains strong as our service area continues to grow. On the regulatory front, we finalized an uncontested settlement with stakeholders to add new generation to our Horseshoe Lake facility, which the ALJ approved and now await a final order from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. We also received approval from the Arkansas Public Service Commission to begin construction on these units. And we filed our final formula rate plan update in Arkansas. Looking forward, we will file a rate review in Oklahoma by the end of the year, and also we will submit an integrated resource plan in the first quarter of 2024, outlining a plan to meet our capacity needs over the next several years. We expect continued constructive regulatory outcomes in both Oklahoma and Arkansas. Turning to our internal operations, we know our employee experiences drives our customer experience, and we were delighted to be named the number one employer in the state of Oklahoma by Forbes magazine. We were number two last year in our continued efforts to nurture a culture where employees learn, develop, succeed, and feel that important sense of belonging shown in these results. Our team is purpose-driven, energizing life for our nearly 900,000 customers every day. I'm so very proud of the men and women who work for OG&E and their continued dedication to our purpose. And finally, I want to leave you with a few thoughts. Number one, service. Our obligation to equally serve each customer, whether a large industrial operation or a single residential customer at the end of a 179-mile circuit, drives our team to success. And stability. We continue to build our business for today and to continue to build it for the future by delivering reliable and affordable electricity 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And with these priorities in mind, we will evaluate all of the investment opportunities before us and we'll execute the projects and make investments that support our focus on reliability and affordability to help us manage the low growth we have coming. Thank you, and I'll now turn the call over to Brian. Brian?