Suburban Propane Partners, L.P.

Good morning and welcome to the Suburban Propane Partners, L.P. first quarter results. All participants will be 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. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. This conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, relating to the partnership's future business expectations and predictions and financial condition and the results of operations. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties. The partnership has listed some of the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in such forward-looking statements, which are referred to as cautionary statements. in its earnings press release, which can be viewed on the company's website. All subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to the partnership or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by such cautionary statement. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Davin D'Ambrosio, Vice President and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Davin D' Thank you, Eileen. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning for our fiscal 2021 first quarter earnings conference call. Joining me this morning are Mike Stivala, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Mike Kuglin, our Chief Financial Officer and Chief Accounting Officer, and Steve Boyd, our Chief Operating Officer. This morning we will review our first quarter financial results along with our current outlook for the business. Once we've concluded our prepared remarks, we will open the session to questions. Our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 26, 2020, and Form 10-Q for the period ended December 26, 2020, which will be filed by the end of business today, contain additional disclosure regarding forward-looking statements and risk factors. Copies may be obtained by contacting the Partnership or the SEC. Certain non-GAAP measures will be discussed on this call. We have provided a description of those measures. as well as a discussion of why we believe this information to be useful in our Form 8K, which was furnished to the SEC this morning. Form 8K will be available through a link in the investor relations section of our website at suburbanpropane.com. At this time, I will turn the call over to Mike Stivala for some opening remarks.

Mike? Thanks, Devin, and good morning. Thank you all for joining us today. First, I hope you and your families all remain safe and healthy as our nation continues to contend with COVID-19. At Suburban Propane, we are continuing to take necessary precautions to protect the health and safety of our employees and customers while ensuring that we can seamlessly provide the outstanding essential services that our valued customers rely on. A brief update on the impact of COVID-19 on our business. As the first quarter progressed, we continued to see demand softness in the commercial sector albeit not to the extent of the declines that we experienced in the early part of the pandemic. These declines were offset somewhat by increased usage in the residential sector due to widespread stay-at-home initiatives as well as in certain other customer segments such as resellers, restaurants, and others that benefited from the demand for temporary portable energy solutions. All that said, customer demand in the fiscal 2021 first quarter was most affected by unseasonably warm weather that dominated the quarter throughout the majority of our service territories. In fact, November registered as one of the warmest on record, and the overall heat and degree day index for the quarter was 13% warmer than normal and 9% warmer than the prior year first quarter. Cooler temperatures kicked in toward the end of December and created some momentum heading into the second quarter. Throughout the first quarter, our operations personnel did an outstanding job staying focused on adhering to our safety and operating protocols, managing margins and expenses, and executing on our customer-based growth and retention initiatives. Overall, adjusted EBITDA was $80 million for the first quarter, which was $5.4 million below the prior year, and Mike Kuglin will give some details on that in a moment. On the strategic front, we continued to advance our growth initiatives with the acquisition of a well-run propane business in North Carolina, as well as further investments in Oberon Fuels to support our collective efforts to commercialize renewable dimethyl ether as a blend with propane to reduce its carbon intensity. We are also committed to advancing our advocacy and innovation initiatives for the clean attributes of propane as a solution for a sustainable energy future. and we achieved another important milestone for our Go Green corporate initiative with the recent official registration of our Go Green with Suburban Propane logo with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. So, despite the challenges from the ongoing effects of COVID-19 pandemic, we remain focused on our strategic growth objectives, which includes a combination of organic customer-based growth New Market Expansion Through Greenfield Development in Attractive Markets, Investments in Propane Acquisitions, and Strategic Diversification with a Focus on Building a Renewable Energy Platform, all while continuing to also work toward our debt reduction targets to further strengthen our balance sheet. In a moment I'll come back for some closing remarks. However, let me turn it over to Mike Kuglin to discuss the first quarter in some more detail. Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everyone.