Spire Inc.

Good day and welcome to the SPIRE Inc. Second 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. To ask your question, you may press star, then one on your touch-tone phone. 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 Scott Dudley. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to SPIRE's fiscal 2021 second quarter earnings call. We issued a news release this morning and you may access it on our website at spireenergy.com under newsroom. There's 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. Also in the room with us is Adam Woodard, Vice President and Treasurer. 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 meeting 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 the news release and the slide presentation. With that, I'll turn the call over to Suzanne.

Thank you, Scott, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for our second quarter earnings conference call. As a company, we're always stepping forward to deliver on our mission. A mission to answer every challenge, advance every community, and enrich every life through the strength of our energy. We ground ourselves in this mission every day to reach our full potential in serving our customers, communities, and shareholders. So, when challenging times came our way, we know the path to take. The past 12 months have been particularly challenging with the coronavirus pandemic followed by extreme weather in the mid-continent. that significantly disrupted the supply and pricing of natural gas across many areas of our country. The combined impact of these challenges tested our industry, our company, and our employees in many ways. It tested our strategies, our operations, our technology systems, and our agility. In that context, I'm pleased to report this fire performed exceptionally well across all our businesses. First, our utilities successfully delivered essential energy to our customers and communities throughout the weather event. Our ability to deliver was the result of our consistent approach to determine and plan for the best array of assets, including storage, transportation, and gas supply. A shining example of our reliability planning process was our decision to construct the SPIRE SEL pipeline. This pipeline allowed us to connect to lower-cost, reliable shale gas at a critical time. Another example across our utility footprint is our upgraded delivery system that has been fortified by multi-year investments and the resiliency of our distribution system. While gas utilities are a primary segment, our gas marketing business was also well-positioned to serve customers. As you might recall, we increased buyer marketing storage position heading into the 2020 winter season. So, when February's cold weather hit, Spire Marketing was able to meet customer needs by accessing gas supplies at a critical time, which also allowed us to realize incremental value due to market volatility. For all our business units, success has everything to do with solid planning, investment in resources and technology, and decisive train action by the team. It's in moments like this that our Spire employees shine. We are committed to answering challenges and taking the best care of our customers. This shows up in our day-to-day work, but also in the late night hours of cold winter days when supply is short, the situation is fluid, obstacles are great, and communication is key. Regardless of the circumstances, Aspire employees don't quit until they get the job done. For this and so much more, I'm forever grateful. Moving to our financial performance, for the second quarter, we reported strong net economic earnings of 371 per share, showing solid results from the utilities and exceptional earnings growth thanks to the performance of Spire Marketing. Steve Rasche will provide more details in a moment and will also highlight our revised earning guidance and financing plans for 2021 and beyond. While maintaining the resiliency of our operations, we've been advancing our ESG initiatives and commitments. So, I'm pleased to share that next Monday, May 10th, FIRE will issue its 2020 Corporate Social Responsibility Report, or CSR report. This digital report will provide updates on our environmental, social, and governance commitments, including our promise to be a carbon neutral company by mid-century. Part of our environmental focus, we continue to make significant progress in reducing methane emissions. As the chart on this slide shows, we've achieved a 43% reduction in 15 years, which represents even more improvement from the 39% reduction reported in 2019. Based on this, we've also increased our reduction targets through 2035. Other highlights in our CSR report include initiatives and programs that support the communities we serve, plus a deeper focus on inclusion and diversity. Starting Monday, you'll be able to access FIRE's CSR report on our website at fireenergy.com. Now, I'll turn the call to Steve Lindsey to discuss how we're continuing to deliver on our commitments to our customers and employees while enhancing our operational resilience and driving growth through our investments. Steve?