Spire Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the SPIRE 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. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on a 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.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to SPIRE's fiscal 2023 first quarter earnings call. We issued our news release this morning, and you can access that on our website at spireenergy.com under newsroom. There's also a slide presentation that accompanies our webcast, and you may download that from either the webcast site or from our website. under investors and then events and presentations. 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 we use 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 slide presentation. On the call today is SPIRE's President and CEO, Suzanne Sitherwood, Steve Lindsey, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, and Steve Rasche, Executive Vice President and CFO. Also in the room today is Adam Woodard, Vice President, Treasurer, and CFO of our gas utilities. With that, I will turn the call over to Suzanne Sitherwood. Suzanne?

Thank you, Scott, and good morning, everyone. It's our pleasure once again to provide our quarterly update on SPIRE's performance, recent developments, and our outlook for the future of the industry and our company. Last quarter, I spoke to you about our long-term strategic priorities and commitments, while being mindful of the vital role natural gas plays in ensuring a sustainable, reliable, and affordable energy future. As many of you may know, this year I've taken on the role of Chair of the American Gas Association. I'm honored to lead AGF at this critical time in our industry as the debate over energy policy and climate change intensifies. It's a debate I welcome. It gives us, our industry, the opportunity to share the remarkable story of natural gas and the long-term viability of natural gas as a vital part of America's energy future. The vision for our industry does not change. It's about protecting the people, preserving the planet, and picturing the potential for natural gas During my year as chair, we are focused on ensuring that policymakers understand the unique and critical role natural gas plays in driving our economy, ensuring energy security, and providing safe, reliable, and affordable energy to 187 million Americans while achieving a cleaner energy future for our nation. In fact, natural gas is the best way to deliver affordability and reliability today and emission reductions tomorrow. As an industry, we are confident in achieving our vision based on the abundance of natural gas in this country and the extensive and advanced infrastructure we continue to invest in that will deliver essential energy at affordable prices for decades to come. Customers need reliable energy to fuel their lives and businesses, and our industry works hard every day to ensure they have the energy they need when they need it. Reliance on natural gas continues to grow, as more and more people who own homes and businesses come to understand all the benefits of using this abundant domestic resource. Every minute, another customer signs up to receive natural gas service from an AGA member company. More than 5.7 million businesses already use natural gas and realize the incredible savings over other energy sources. Nearly 30,000 new businesses sign up to use natural gas each year. As increasing energy costs and overall inflation impacts consumers, it is important more than ever that people have the right to choose the most reliable and affordable source, and that's natural gas. In fact, households that use natural gas for heating, cooking, and clothes drying save over $1,000 per year compared to using electricity. Natural gas utilities in the U.S. make significant investments in infrastructure upgrades and energy efficiency innovations, that make our systems even safer and more reliable while reducing emissions. This investment totals more than $95 million every single day. At SPIRE, we also remain committed to safety, reliability, and service quality while protecting our planet and supporting our customers and communities. These are commitments we take seriously. Steve Lindsay and Steve Rashi will have more to say about SPIRE's operations and finances in a moment, Plus, they'll share what we're doing to minimize the impact of quality costs on customer bills and provide more assistance to those who need it. Steve Lundy will also share more about this year's regulatory environment. I'm pleased to note that we have reset rates across our utility footprint and are entering a quiet period from an overall regulatory perspective. Based on the strong first quarter earnings of $1.55 per share, driven by outperformance at our non-regulated gas marketing business, We are raising our guidance range for the full year. Now, I'll pass the call to Steve Lundy.