UGI Corporation

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to UGI Corp Q2 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask the question during this session, you will need to press star then one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker for today, Tamika Morse. You may begin.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our fiscal 2022 second quarter earnings call. With me today are Roger Perot, President and CEO, Ted Yastrzewski, CFO, and Bob Beard, Executive Vice President, Natural Gas, Global Engineering and Construction and Procurement. Roger and Ted will provide an overview of our results, and the entire team will then be available to answer your questions. Before we begin, let me remind you that our comments today include certain forward-looking statements which management believes to be reasonable as of today's date only. Actual results may differ significantly because of risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Please read our earnings release and our most recent annual report for an extensive list of factors that could affect results. We assume no duty to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that are different from expectations. We will also describe our business using certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the comparable GAAP measures are available within our presentation. Now I'm pleased to turn the call over to Roger.

Thank you, Tamika, and good morning, everyone. On today's call, we will provide a business update, review our financial results for the quarter, and discuss the outlook for the rest of this fiscal year before concluding with a question and answer session. Let's start with an overview of market conditions and UGI's financial results in our fiscal year second quarter. While we continue to operate in a dynamic macroeconomic and geopolitical environment, Our business has shown tremendous resiliency and made good strides on several key strategic priorities. For the fiscal second quarter, UGI reported adjusted EPS of $1.91, and our reportable segments delivered adjusted EBIT of $631 million, which was fairly consistent with the prior fiscal year. We saw strong results from our natural gas businesses largely due to incremental earnings from our recent acquisitions, Mountaineer and Stonehenge. UGI International reported a higher LPG margin as the business worked to recover the significant increases in commodity costs. In addition, we began to realize benefits from the several expense control actions implemented during the quarter. This performance partially offset the lower delivered volumes at Amerigas and declined an energy marketing margin at UGI International. For the full fiscal year, we expect adjusted EPS for fiscal 2022 to be within a revised guidance range of $2.90 to $3, inclusive of the effects of margin management and expense control actions implemented in the first quarter. And we expect to see benefits throughout the year. Ted will expound on these results and the updated guidance in further detail. I would also like to take a few minutes to highlight several key accomplishments. First, the utility segment remains on track to make record capital investments in this fiscal year. We also added approximately 4,000 new residential heating and commercial customers at the utilities, demonstrating sustained and attractive customer growth within our service territories. Our recent acquisition in the regulated utility space, Mountaineer, continues to perform in line with our expectations and deliver robust results in the quarter. Similarly, the integration of Stonehenge is also progressing smoothly, and we are pleased with the incremental accretion from these quality assets that was realized during the quarter. At UGI International, Our LPG business implemented price increases designed to mitigate the impact of higher commodity prices. And our domestic propane business, Amerigas, continued to experience strong cylinder exchange and national account volumes during the quarter, showing sustained increases in comparison to pre-pandemic volumes. Turning to our renewables and rebalancing strategy, in February, we announced an agreement with Global Clean Energy Holdings to purchase and distribute renewable LPG to motor fuel and other customers, primarily in California. The biorefinery that will produce this renewable LPG is expected to be operational in the second half of calendar 2022. In April, we acquired a 33% equity interest in Agrid Energy. a renewable energy producer with projects in the United States. AGGRID is currently engaged in the production of renewable power with four operational projects in the Northeast. The company also has a strong pipeline of dairy and food waste digester projects that are expected to produce additional renewable power and renewable natural gas in the U.S. GHI Energy will be the exclusive off-taker and marketer of RNG for AGGRID. Lastly, our previously announced RNG projects remain on track with the first in Idaho expected to be completed and operational in this fiscal year. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Ted to walk through our financial results. Ted?