South Jersey Industries, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the South Jersey Industries third quarter 2021 earnings conference call webcast. All participants will be in a 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. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Dan Fidel with Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to SJI's third quarter 2021 earnings conference call and webcast. I'm joined today by Mike Renna, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Steve Kochi, our Chief Financial Officer, as well as additional members of our senior management team. Our earnings release and the presentation slides that accompany the call were issued yesterday after the close of the market and are also available on our website at investors.sjindustries.com. Throughout today's call, we'll be making references to future expectations, plans, and opportunities for SJI. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in many forward-looking statements. For a discussion of factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to our SEC filings. In addition, the earnings released in the 10-Q provide an in-depth review of earnings on both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis using our non-GAAP measure of economic earnings. Reconciliations of economic earnings to the comparable GAAP measures appear in both documents. At this time, I'll now turn the call over to our CEO, Mike Renna, who will review our operations and strategic priorities. Our CFO, Steve Kochi, will then review our third quarter and year-to-date operational performance and financial outlook. Mike will conclude by offering some closing remarks. After that, be happy to take your questions. With that introduction, let me now turn it over to Mike.

Thanks, Dan. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. I am pleased to report that SGI, notwithstanding the continuing challenges of COVID, again delivered solid performance in the third quarter and through the first nine months of 2021. And we remain on track to achieve our strategic and financial goals for the year. Through the first nine months, we have seen economic earnings increase by 12%, or approximately $12 million, reflecting solid performance in both our utility and non-utility businesses. Consistent with our strategy, our utilities, South Jersey Gas and Elizabethtown Gas, represent the bulk of our earnings. Utility margin growth remains strong, reflecting above-average customer growth, positive rate case outcomes, infrastructure modernization programs, and effective O&M management. Natural gas remains in strong demand across New Jersey, with our utilities adding more than 12,000 new customers over the last 12 months. And while we are seeing increased new construction across the state, most of our growth continues to come from customers converting from heating oil and propane. Our infrastructure modernization and energy efficiency investments, critical to ensuring safe and reliable service to our customers, remain on track. and have the added benefit of significantly reducing methane emissions. On October 1st, in keeping with the cadence approved by the BPU, we began recovery of these investments made over the last 12 months. I am also pleased to report that our regulatory initiatives continue to advance. In August, the BPU approved South Jersey Gas' engineering and route proposal to construct needed system upgrades in support of a planned two BCF liquefied natural gas facilities. As you know, the BPU has called for utilities in New Jersey to evaluate preparedness for potential gas supply interruptions. This investment is critical to ensuring service is not interrupted in the event of a significant outage, either behind our city gate or in one of the two interstate pipelines that serve the South Jersey gas system. Preliminary engineering and design of the project has commenced. Regarding pending initiatives, we have requested $742 million in Phase III infrastructure modernization investments at South Jersey Gas. This next phase of system modernization targets coated steel and vintage Adelaide plastic pipe, supporting the Murphy administration's safety and reliability, job creation, and environmental goals. The retirement of Ray Council in September and the leapfrogging of approval of our LNG redundancy proposal has extended our anticipated timeline a bit. But settlement discussions continue to progress, and we remain optimistic for a positive resolution soon. With regard to pending legislation, the potential for rate-basing RNG and hydrogen investments in New Jersey continues to enjoy strong bipartisan support. It aligns with Governor Murphy's clean energy goals and is expected to be a priority item during the upcoming lame duck period. As previously communicated, we believe this legislation will encourage innovation and accelerate New Jersey's decarbonization efforts. Turning now to our non-utility operations, both our energy management and energy production segments delivered solid quarterly and year-to-date results. Energy management results reflect strong performance in both wholesale marketing and fuel management. while energy production reflects positive results from fuel cell and solar investments over the past 12 months, particularly our Staten Island fuel cell, as well as contributions from our 35% equity interest in our RNG development partner, REV. I am pleased with our progress on our clean energy and decarbonization goals. Our five megawatt fuel cell project in the Bronx that was announced in June is under development and moving forward. Similar to our two Staten Island fuel cells that were brought online in 2020, this fuel cell, which will be our third at Catamaran, is eligible under New York's VITA program, which fixes 75% of revenue and is supported by an O&M agreement that guarantees 95% availability. SGI will receive 92% of the investment tax credits, cash flows, and net income from this project. Our decarbonization investments through our partner REV remain on track as well. Our 35% ownership of REB is now contributing nicely to our bottom line. And our development of renewable natural gas for future injection into SGI's system and other utility systems across the country continues to move forward. Engineering and design work at eight dairy farms is wrapping up with construction on deck and in service on track for the second half of 2022. We have added a farm development status slide in our third quarter presentation to provide you with additional detail regarding these investments. At this time, I'll turn it over to Steve to review our financial performance and outlook. After which, I look forward to offering some closing remarks.