Spire Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the SPIRE year-end conference call. 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 and then one. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Please also note today's event is being recorded. and at this time I'd like to turn the conference call over to Scott Dudley, Managing Director of Investor Relations. Sir, please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to SPIRE's fiscal 2020 year-end earnings call. We issued an earnings news release this morning and you may access it on our website at spireenergy.com under newsroom. There is a slide presentation that accompanies our webcast and you may download it from either the webcast site or from our website under investors, and then events and presentations. Presenting on the call today are Suzanne Sutherwood, President and CEO, Steve Lindsey, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, and Steve Rasche, Executive Vice President and CFO. Before we begin, let me cover our safe harbor statement and use of non-GAAP earnings measures. Today's call, including responses to questions, may contain forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although our forward looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, there are various uncertainties and risk factors that may cause future performance or results to be different than those anticipated. These risks and uncertainties are outlined in our quarterly and annual filings with the SEC. In our comments, we will be discussing net economic earnings and contribution margin which are both non-GAAP measures used by management when evaluating our performance and results of operations. Explanations and reconciliations of these measures to their GAAP counterparts are contained in both our news release and the slide presentation. With that, I will turn the call over to Suzanne.

Thank you, Scott, and good morning to everyone joining us for our fiscal 2020 full year update. I'm pleased to report that in 2020, with all of its challenges, we were able to achieve progress on our strategic priorities, delivering growth and solid financial and operating results while advancing our sustainability objectives. Steve Lindsey will provide an update on our capital investment, regulatory matters, and operating performance, and Steve Rasche will cover our financial results and outlook. But first, I'd like to cover the highlights for 2020 and provide a glimpse into the future as we step forward into 2021 and beyond. As you know, nearly all of our business is from our gas utilities, so it was and is important for us to help our customers manage through a challenging year while remaining focused on upgrading our infrastructure. We continued our robust capital expenditure program with the majority of our spend focused on pipeline replacement. This important work is the primary path toward reducing our methane emissions footprint and advancing our company's goal of carbon neutrality. We continue to achieve organic growth supported by our investment in new business and our economic development initiatives. And we also continue to advance in innovation, including the upgrade of our enterprise technology management systems and deployment of advanced metering technology, among other initiatives. We could not have achieved our collective success this year without the dedicated efforts of our 3,600 incredible Aspire employees. As the coronavirus pandemic unfolded earlier this year, Aspire employees were, and still are, resilient, stepping up to make the adjustments necessary to ensure that our customers and communities are well served, supported, and kept safe and healthy as possible. I'm especially proud of our efforts to support our customers through enhanced bill assistance and other initiatives to help people cope with the financial challenges created by the pandemic. For this, and for their continued diligence, care, and compassion in this very challenging time, I extend my gratitude to each and every Spire employee. This year, we advanced on regulatory matters in Missouri, gaining greater clarity on infrastructure replacement recovery in three ways. the passage of new ISRA legislation, the resolution of past authorizations that have been under appeal, and agreement on our 2020 request. We're also preparing to file our next rate case, which will reflect our significant investment in the state since 2018. Overall, we've achieved solid performance this year. Our earnings were up over last year, despite the impact of the coronavirus, and we built on our strong performance on the operations side. Based on our solid performance and future growth opportunities, today we're launching an expanded five-year capital spend plan totaling $3 billion through 2025. And we've increased our long-term growth target range. We now expect our earnings per share to grow to 5% to 7%. This is driven by our gas utilities with a focus on infrastructure upgrades and rate-based growth while continuing to step forward with emission reductions. As FHIR, we have an excellent ESG track record with strong performance in the areas of social and governance. For example, in 2020, FHIR was recognized by Newsweek as one of 300 companies across 14 industries to be included in the Good List as one of the most responsible companies in the United States. And FHIR was recognized by the Women's Forum of New York for having a diverse board of directors with 30% female representation. In regards to environmental sustainability, SPIRE continues to reduce its carbon footprint through lowering greenhouse gas emissions. For example, we're targeting methane emission reductions from 2005 levels and have already achieved a cumulative 39% reduction through 2019 and expect to see further reductions when our numbers are finalized for 2020. By 2025, we are targeting a cumulative 53% reduction. As you know, our long-term goal is to achieve carbon neutrality by mid-century, and we are busy developing plans to do so. While the main driver is in our investment in pipeline upgrades, we are also looking at other means to achieve our environmental goals. These include renewable natural gas, our RNG, hydrogen, carbon offsets, and energy efficiency programs. for evaluating RNG opportunities across our utilities and have already contracted for RNG supply through an intercontinental agreement in Missouri. The Missouri Public Service Commission has recently opened a working case to study and address quality standards for biogas. We are actively engaged in this process and plan to seek approval to offer RNG in our upcoming rate case filing. There is more work to be done to fully understand the feasibility, economics, and methane reduction potential of RNG and hydrogen. Some of the key considerations in determining how RNG as well as hydrogen might fit with our gas system include the availability of surplus renewable energy, the required investment and commodity cost and achievable environmental benefits from replacing some portion of our natural gas. There are also operational considerations including the impact of hydrogen on our infrastructure, and end users, including their equipment and facilities. As we endeavor to advance our environmental sustainability, we're engaging with and leveraging the work that AGA is doing. In fact, I have a leadership position on the AGA Board of Directors and I co-chair a task force to help shape AGA's leadership on climate change and greenhouse gas emission policy. With that, I'll turn the call over to Steve Lindsey. Steve?