Greetings, and welcome to Atmos Energy 2018 Fourth Quarter Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Jennifer Hills. VP - Investor Relations.

Thank you, Dana. Good morning, everyone, thank you for joining us. This call is being webcast live on the Internet. Our earnings release and conference call slide presentation are available on our website at atmosenergy.com. As we review these financial results and discuss future expectations, please keep in mind that some of our discussions might contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act and the Securities Exchange Act. Our forward-looking statements and projections could differ materially from actual results. The factors that could cause such material differences are outlined on Slide 23 and are more fully described in our SEC filings. Our first speaker is Chris Forsythe, Senior Vice President and CFO of Atmos Energy. Chris?

Thank you, Jennifer; and good morning, everyone. We appreciate your interest in Atmos Energy. Yesterday, we reported fiscal 2018 adjusted earnings from continuing operations of $444 million or $4 per diluted share compared with $382 million or $3.60 per diluted share in the prior year. Adjusted earnings from continuing operations excludes a $159 million or $1.43 per diluted share benefit from the revaluation of our deferred taxes as a result of tax reform. For the fourth quarter, adjusted earnings from continuing operations rose $46 million or $0.41 per diluted share compared with $36 million or $0.34 per diluted share in the prior year period. These results exclude a $7 million or $0.06 per diluted share shrewd out to the one-time benefit from implementing tax reform after the IRS clarified the implementation day of the new capital extensive rules in August. Our fiscal 2018 results were above the midpoint of our updated guidance range representing 16 consecutive year earnings per share growth. Slides 5 and 6 provide details of the year-over-year changes to operating income for each of our segments. I will touch a few on the fiscal year highlights. Contribution margin in our distribution segment rose a net 4.6% or about $64 million year-over-year. Rate increases driven by increased capital spending related to safety and reliability improvements, providing incremental $71 million, about 85% of these increases were in North Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi service areas in line with contribution to our portfolio of assets. We also continue to experience solid customer growth. Over the last 12 months, our distribution segment added a net 34,000 customers, a 1.1% increase for the year. And our transportation margins increased 15% year-over-year. In addition to adding customers to the system, several other our existing customers, transportation customers increased their consumption either through plant expansions…

Thank you, Chris, for that great update. As you can see from our fiscal 2018 results, it was another successful year where we met our financial targets driven by our proactive pipe replacement and system modernization investment. This year was not without its challenges. The tragic event that occurred in February continues to weigh heavily on our hearts as our leaders and employees continue to dedicate themselves to all aspects of safety. The unprecedented system performance we experienced in Northwest Dallas further reinforced our strategy of closely monitoring potential threats that may impact integrity of our system and also accelerating the replacement of aging infrastructure. The effort to replace 24 miles of distribution main and service line serving 2,400 customers in Northwest Dallas, which would normally take one year was completed safely in three weeks. We saw the very best from our employees, our contractor partners and the affected customers during that difficult period. And we learn new information about our system performance under various environmental operating conditions. With the support of our regulators, we're working to incorporate these findings into our risk models, our policies and our procedures. As Chris mentioned, during the fourth quarter, we announced plans to further accelerate our pipe replacement activities in our Mid-Tex Division. We're on track to double the work crews dedicated to pipe replacement activity in Dallas by the end of this calendar year. This increase is in addition to the 40 crews added earlier in the year, following the planned outage. With these additional crews, we intend, among other things, to perform an entire system replacement of a significant portion in Northwest Dallas by the end of 2019 to eliminate cash payment from the Mid-Tex distribution system by 2021. We are committed to operating safely and reliably, while we continue to…

Great. Thank you, Dana. Thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning. A recording of this call is available for replay on our website through February 6, 2019. We appreciate your interest in Atmos Energy, and thank you for joining us. Goodbye.