OGE Energy Corp

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the OGE Energy Corp 2025 First Quarter Earnings and Business Update Call. At this time, all participants are in 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 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Jason Bailey, Director of Investment Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Marvin, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to our call. With me today, I have Sean Trotsky, our Chairman, President, and CEO, and Chuck Walworth, our CFO and Treasurer. In terms of the call today, we will first hear from Sean, followed by an explanation from Chuck of financial results, and finally, as always, we will answer your questions. I'd like to remind you that this conference is being webcast, and you may follow along at OGE.com. In addition, the conference call and accompanying slides will be archived 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. The first quarter of the year continued our momentum from the last few years, and we are firmly on plan. This morning, we reported consolidated earnings of 31 cents per diluted share, including 35 cents for OG&E, and a holding company loss of 4 cents. The fundamentals of our business are strong, and the team is committed to our North Star, delivering safe, reliable, and affordable electric service to our 900,000-plus customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. Today, I want to touch on a few topics that build on this momentum for the future. First, the customer growth and increasing demand for electricity we are seeing, operational excellence, and a look ahead for the rest of the year and how we view factors in the macro environment. Demand for the quarter grew 8% year over year, led by residential and commercial sectors. Customer growth is right on target at 1%, and we are excited about the pipeline for baseload growth which represents diverse industries bringing job and economic growth to both Oklahoma and Arkansas, and the new residents needed for those industries to thrive. From defense to tribal development and hospitality, this sustainable growth is how we build an even brighter future for our company. You may have seen the announcement earlier this month that Oklahoma City will host seven events for the 2028 Olympics for softball and canoe softball. We've long supported these facilities and look forward to partnering with them, the city, and the state to ensure our hometown delivers a wonderful experience for teams and visitors from around the world. We have lines of sight into new and expanding business that drive our baseload growth assumptions for the future, from an industrial customer moving their on-site generation to us, to our expanding military bases, to a midstream customer building a new processing facility in our service area. While I can't tell you the exact month or quarter today within a given year, these expansions are all built into our long-term growth projections. Looking at operations, our grid and weather strengthening investments continue to deliver great reliability results. Here we sit at the end of April after experiencing tornadoes and fires, windstorms, freezes, and thunderstorms in the last eight weeks. We're averaging 99.975% reliability. Then again last night and early this morning, another wave of tornadoes, high winds, rain, hail, and flooding came through, and the system held up very well. And the small number of outages we did have will all be back this morning. Between our teams, physical infrastructure, and technology, OG&E customers experienced fewer outages and better reliability. We'll continue to strengthen the grid for today and tomorrow and at some of the lowest rates in the nation. Today, our rates are top decile for overall retail, as noted in the most recent S&P report, and our rates are the lowest in both Oklahoma and Arkansas. We understand the importance of keeping rates low for our customers and also serving as the foundation for the economic development engine we've built over the years. Turning to generation, our power plants supply the grid with electricity that fuels economic growth. As a reminder, we have about 550 megawatts under construction today. at Horseshoe Lake and Tinker. And in the coming weeks, we expect to make regulatory filings on our most recent RFP. These filings will include a range of technology and contract types. And we're currently in discussions with a number of companies regarding data center projects, including the Google project in Stillwater. And we will file separately for those needs as those contracts are finalized. In addition to generation, we will also continue to invest in the reliability and resilience of the grid including future transmission opportunities. Continuing on the regulatory front, as we previously shared, we plan to request a rate review mid-year in Oklahoma, and Arkansas will file a general rate review and formula rate plan request toward the end of this year. Constructive regulatory outcomes enable us to drive the economy, serve customers and grow communities, and achieve results for all of our stakeholders. We recognize the uncertainty and macroeconomic factors that may create questions about our operating environment, and I'd like to share with you how we approach changes in tariff policy. We've limited our exposure through a diversified supply base, and one specific example is transformers. And since COVID, we've expanded our transformer sourcing strategies to include domestic and international suppliers. And for 2025, proactive planning and disciplined approach to inventory allows us to meet our planned projects for this year with little to no disruptions. In fact, Key components like transformers as well as wire and cable are all secured through 2026. While we don't have a crystal ball and the situation is dynamic, we will continue to do what we say we will do and deliver on our stakeholders' needs and expectations. As we plan for future investment, we'll keep all options in front of us, ensuring our business isn't predicated on a single rate filing, key supplier, or particular path forward. As I close my remarks and hand off to Chuck, I hope you hear how bullish I am on our company and our future. The case for investment in OG Energy is persuasive thanks to our growing, sustainable business model. Our financial position is strong with a high-quality balance sheet that we leverage appropriately. Our plan is designed to meet the needs of our growing customer base, keeping the macro environment in mind, and continued success in running an economic development engine that drives jobs and local economies and all of that. It's supported by operational excellence, delivered by an incredible team dedicated to reaching our North Star. So thank you. I'll turn the call over to Chuck.