Suburban Propane Partners, L.P.

Welcome to Suburban Propane Partners' first quarter earnings conference call. 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. 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.

Thanks, Jason. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning for our fiscal 2024 first quarter earnings conference call. Joining me this morning are Mike Stavala, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Mike Coogland, our Chief Financial 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 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 results of operations. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties. We have 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 our earnings press release, which can be viewed on our website at suburbanpropane.com. 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 statements. Our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2023. and Form 10-Q for the period ended December 30 of 2023, which will be filed by the end of business today, contain additional disclosures 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 8-K, which was furnished to the SEC this morning. Form 8-K will be available through a link in the investor relations section of our website. At this point, I will turn the call over to Mike Stavallo for some opening remarks. Mike?

Mike Stavallo Thanks, Davin, and good morning, and thank you all for joining us today. The first quarter of fiscal 2024 was dominated by widespread, unseasonably warm weather, particularly during the month of December, which represents the most critical month of the quarter for heat-related demand. However, continued improvements in our customer-based growth and retention initiatives, combined with active crop drying demand in the agricultural sector, helped to mitigate the adverse impact of the warmer weather on volumes. Propane volumes for the first quarter of fiscal 2024 were down just 2 percent compared to the prior year first quarter, despite average heating degree days that were 9% warmer than normal and 6% warmer than the prior year, and with December reflecting 10% warmer weather. Our field operations continue to do an excellent job managing selling prices in a lower but at times volatile commodity price environment and are leveraging our efficient operating model to help manage expenses. For the quarter, adjusted EBITDA was $75.2 million, a decrease of 14.8 million from the prior year. In our renewable natural gas operations we acquired at the beginning of the second quarter of last year, we have taken a number of steps to integrate the business and install the kind of operating disciplines, efficiencies, safety practices, and leadership that we have developed over the decades of operating our propane business to be recognized as best-in-class operators. I highlight some of our achievements since taking ownership of these assets. We terminated the third-party operating contracts at both the Stanfield, Arizona and Columbus, Ohio facilities. These locations are now staffed with employees of our suburban renewable energy subsidiary, including the facilities manager for the Stanfield location, who is now overseeing all of our RNG facilities. We exited the management services agreement that was supported by the Cellar Equilibrium Capital Group two years ahead of schedule. We have increased the intake of local food and municipal waste to enhance the opportunity for improved tipping fee revenues and increased production of D5 RNG. We are now selling nutrient-rich digestate from our Stanfield facility, which is a byproduct of RNG production, the material remaining after the anaerobic digestion of biodegradable feedstock. And we are selling that to local feedstock fertilizer producers to provide added revenue streams. We have made capital improvements to the production equipment to increase efficiencies and enhance production output of both D3 and D5 RNG. And we are beginning to develop relationships with additional dairy farms in the Stanfield area to potentially increase the manure intake and in turn increase the amount of RNG output. And finally, we are continuing to execute on our capital improvement plans for the installation of RNG upgrade equipment at our Columbus, Ohio facility and are advancing the engineering and construction of our anaerobic digester facility at Adirondack Farms in upstate New York. We expect construction for the Columbus facility to be completed in the early part of fiscal 2025, while we have experienced some delays in construction at Adirondack Farms due to permitting delays. So, while warm weather weighed on customer demand, we continue to manage the things we can control, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to our strategic growth objectives. There is still a lot of heating season ahead. Our operating personnel are very well prepared to handle any surge in demand from colder weather, such as some of the extreme cold conditions experienced in January 2024. as well as to adapt in the event of further softness and weather-related demand as the season progresses. In a moment, I'll come back for some closing remarks and provide added color on our strategic initiatives. However, at this point, I'll turn the call over to Mike Coogland to discuss our first quarter results in more detail. Mike?