Spire Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the SPIRE, Inc. first quarter 2024 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 your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn to the conference over to Megan McPhail, Managing Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to SPIRE's fiscal 2024 first quarter earnings call. We issued an earnings 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. You may download it 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 statements and use of non-GAAP earning 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 SEC. In our comments, we will be discussing net economic earnings and contribution margins, 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 slide presentation. On the call today is Steve Lindsay, President and CEO, and Steve Rasche, Executive Vice President and CFO. Also in the room today are Scott Doyle, Executive Vice President and COO, Adam Waters, Vice President and Treasurer, and Scott Dudley, Investor Relations. With that, I will turn the call over to Steve Lindsay. Steve?

Thanks, Megan, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to review our first quarter performance and an update on recent developments and outlook. We'd like to begin by thanking our employees for their continuing dedication and commitment, serving our customers as we entered the important winter heating season. Following a warmer-than-normal fiscal year first quarter, we experienced extreme cold weather across our service territories last month. Rigid conditions impacted customers in Alabama. Temperatures in parts of our Missouri service territory dipped as low as negative 12, with wind chills as low as negative 35. As a result of our preparation and significant investment in our gas utilities, we were well positioned to deliver safe, reliable, and affordable natural gas energy for our customers and communities when they needed it the most. From our gas utilities to our midstream and gas marketing segments, our teams worked tirelessly, and I'm incredibly proud of our employees for their dedication and collaboration during this time. We will remain focused on the continued execution of our strategy while achieving operational excellence. In doing so, our priorities remain the same, to grow our businesses, invest in central infrastructure, and drive continuous improvement. During the first quarter, we delivered net economic earnings of $1.47 per share compared to an NEE of $1.55 per share a year ago. Our results reflect growth in our gas utility segment, and returns for more normal market conditions in our gas marketing and midstream segments compared to very favorable conditions a year ago. In regulatory matters, new rates under the Rate Stabilization and Equalization, or RSE, mechanism are now effective for our utilities in Alabama. As you may recall, this constructive annual rate setting framework uses the forward year budget and average common equity rather than rate base for rate making purposes. Further, I'm pleased to say we recently welcomed Scott Doyle to our leadership team as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Scott has nearly 30 years of experience in the industry and brings with him deep knowledge in capital deployment, regulatory strategy, and operational leadership. As COO, he will oversee our gas utilities across Alabama, Missouri, and Mississippi. I'm confident that Scott will be a tremendous addition to our companies. I'd also like to take this opportunity to recognize Ed Glotzbach, who retired from SPIRE Board of Directors last week. Ed has been a director of our company for 19 years and served as board chair since 2015. His service spanned the transformation of SPIRE from a regional utility to one of the largest publicly traded natural gas companies in the United States. We are grateful for his considerable contributions to SPIRE's success. Rob Jones, who has been a valuable member of our board since 2016, was elected chair at SPIRE's board of directors meeting last week. Rob has played a key role in the strong oversight and governance provided by our board, and I look forward to working closely with him going forward. At SPIRE, we are strongly committed to delivering value over the long term for our customers, communities, employees, and shareholders. We'll achieve this by remaining focused on providing essential energy with exceptional service. We're positioned well for success in FY2024, and over the longer term, as we execute on our capital investment plans to support the growth, expansion, and performance of our utilities and our gas-related businesses. Turning to an update on capital investments, in the first quarter, our CapEx totaled $227 million with the majority of the spend for our gas utilities. Year over year, our gas utility CapEx increased nearly 20 percent with an emphasis on upgrading distribution infrastructure and connecting more homes and businesses to safe, reliable, and affordable natural gas. The investment in our midstream segment totaled $52 million, largely for the expansion of Aspire Storage West, which remains on pace to be completed for next year's heating season. In January, we filed a new interest request with the Missouri Public Service Commission for revenues of $17.3 million. This filing includes recovery of interest-eligible investment for the September 2023 through February 2024 period. Once approved, the related rating increase is anticipated to be effective by July of 2024. I'm pleased to note that we completed our acquisition of the MoGas and Omega pipeline companies in mid-January. The MoGas pipeline consists of 263 miles of interstate natural gas pipelines, primarily in Missouri, and interconnects with SPIRE STL pipeline to deliver gas to our growing customer base. The Omega pipeline is a 75-mile natural gas distribution system primarily serving Fort Leonard Army Base in south central Missouri as interconnected with the MoGas pipeline system. MoGas and Omega are ideal fits with our existing midstream businesses as they bolster resiliency and expand our footprint within Missouri. With that, I'll turn it over to Steve Rasche for a financial review and update on our guidance and outlook. Steve? Thanks, Stephen.