Good morning and welcome to Genie Energy’s First Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. (Operator instructions) After today’s presentation by Genie Energy’s management there will be an opportunity to ask questions. (Operator instructions). In this presentation Genie Energy’s management team will discuss financial and operational results for the three-months ended March 31, 2014. Any forward-looking statements made during this conference call, either in the prepared remarks or in the Q&A session, whether general or specific in nature are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those which the company anticipates. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to specific risks and uncertainties discussed in the reports that Genie Energy files periodically with the SEC. Genie Energy assumes no obligation, either to update any forward-looking statements that they have made or may make or to update the factors that may have caused actual results to differ materially from those that they forecast. Please note that the Genie Energy earnings release is available on the investor relations page of the Genie Corporation website, www.genie.com. The earnings release has also been filed on a Form 8-K with the SEC. Please note this event is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Geoff Rochwarger, Genie Energy's Vice Chairman and CEO of IDT Energy. Please go ahead, Mr. Rochwarger.

On behalf of our Chairman and CEO, Howard Jonas, and the entire Genie management team I want to welcome you to our first quarter 2014 earnings call, and thank you for your interest in the company. The first quarter was characterized by continued progress on the Genie Oil and Gas side of the business, and as well by an extremely challenging environment on the retail energy side. For those of you who are new to our company, Genie Oil and Gas is an early-stage development of three oil shale projects on the western slope of Colorado, in Central Israel and in Mongolia. These are long-term projects with tremendous upside potential, but commercial operations are at best several years in the future. In addition, we are in the process of characterizing a potentially significant tight oil resource in northern Israel pursuant to an exploration license granted to us last year by the Israeli Energy Ministry. The latter project, which is managed by our Israel-based Afek subsidiary has potentially a much shorter time frame to commercial development. Although at this point the nature of the resource remains in question, and all aspects of the project are contingent upon licensing of regulatory approvals, we are extremely excited about its potential. Afek has completed its above ground geo-physical testing, including an electromagnetic survey in the reprocessing of 2-D seismic data. While the company has done a considerable amount of analysis on the data, including consultation with outside experts, we won’t be certain about the nature of the resource not be able to asses its commercial prospects until we have data from at least several exploratory wells. During the first quarter, we continued preparations for the exploratory drilling program. We submitted an application to permit a 10-well 36-month drilling program and the public commentary has…

Thank you, Geoff and thanks to everyone on the call for joining us this morning. My remarks will cover our financial results for the first quarter of 2014, except where indicated otherwise, all comparisons in my remarks are to the results for the comparable year ago period, the three months ended March 31, 2013. I like to start by addressing a few key items. As we mentioned on the last call and as Geoff discussed in some detail in his remarks, IDT Energy was materially impacted by extreme weather in the early part of the quarter. In addition to the lower gross profit and EBITDA resulting from the hit to our margins and the cost of the rebates we provided we saw a substantial increase in the non-cash working capital on our balance sheet. We bought commodity at higher prices for a substantial portion of the corresponding revenue was in Accounts Receivable, which increased by $34 million at quarter end. This resulted in the use of cash of $29.7 million in the quarter. Virtually all of our receivables are guaranteed by utilities under [PLR] programs. We have already collected a significant portion of this amount since the close of the quarter. Additionally, we have changed the way that we define adjusted EBITDA within our quarterly reports and communication to exclude the impact of stock based compensation. We feel that this will provide investors with a more accurate view of the company’s quarterly performance. As in prior quarters, IDT Energy accounted for all of Genie’s revenue, cost of goods sold and gross profit. On a consolidated basis, IDT Energy’s revenue increased to $130.3 million from $85.3 million. An unusually severe winter associated with the polar vortex resulted in significant increases in both commodity prices and consumption per customer. Sales of electricity…

As this is my first time addressing this call, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Michael Stein. I am proud to be the SVP of Operations at Genie Energy, a position I took on full time in January. I hope all those who are listening are as confident about Genie’s prospects as we are. On April 10, Zacks.com posted an article called should you get rid of Genie Energy now. The conclusion of the article was that it may not be a good decision to keep this stock in your portfolio anymore, at least if you don’t have a long-term horizon to wait. I would like to take a few minutes of your valuable time to explain why those this author’s advice have lost confidence in our company, made a big mistake and will lose out on a great opportunity. So many early stage E&P companies face difficult challenges on the start-up. We often have a hard time finding the talent willing to take the risk of starting a new venture. They face capital needs and the constant needs by route of equity stakes at unattractive valuations until they achieve a discovery and can implement real valuations and be self-sufficient and profitable. They can also find it difficult to work in foreign countries that have regulatory frameworks so different from that of the U.S. as they do not have the resources or experience to navigate those waters. Genie despite its young age has managed to avoid those typical growing things. We boast an unparalleled technical team led by doctors Harold Vinegar and (inaudible), who are supported by a world-class team that no early stage company could hope to have. Our first-rate lab team at (inaudible) works day in and day out to understand the geology of our…

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. My name is Michael Jonas, and I serve as Executive Vice President of Genie Oil & Gas. I spend most of my time spearheading our project in Mongolia, and I am also involved on various levels with Genie Oil & Gas’ other development projects. As with all companies seeking to develop new technologies and access natural resources in new ways, Genie Oil & Gas faces significant challenges from a variety of directions. While we have an excellent team and have identified exciting prospects and we are confident that we will not only persevere but drive. For the past few years, we have embarked on a long-term project to produce oil and gas in a clean and affordable manner from the world’s abundant oil shale resources. We have assembled a scientific team of recognized world experts and are one of the companies leading in this space. Genie Oil & Gas entered the industry in 2008 and we are now actively working on four projects across the globe. We have also developed key skills at finding new resources and opportunities that are overlooked by the engineers and geologists of others in the industry, and our business development team is committed to identifying and developing the different projects in our pipeline. All of our projects are progressing, (inaudible) but always focusing on the ultimate goals. In Israel, as Geoff mentioned, we are continuing with the regulatory process for our oil shale pilots and are hoping to shortly receive all the necessary permits for exploratory drilling programs in the northern part of the country. In Colorado, our project is focused on evaluating various approaches to shift the shale (inaudible) to restart our pilot. In Mongolia, we are continuing our exploration opportunities and are very encouraged by our findings to…

Thank you, we will now begin the Question-and-Answer session. (Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from Marco Rodriguez from Stonegate Securities. Please go ahead sir. Marco Rodriguez – Stonegate Securities: Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what’s the ITD Energy size first, in your press release you talked about temporarily suspending some acquisition efforts in the quarter. Was this driven by any sort of regulatory issues or what was kind behind that decision?

Hi, it’s Geoff. No, this was not driven by any regulatory factors. It was driven by our thought process that at least in the hardest hit of four main utilities in Pennsylvania were the largest share of the price increases were felt by the customers. We wanted to take a step back for a little while, work on the programs that we did and bringing additional value to those customers with rebates, with some refunds and rate relief. But we do expect shortly within this next quarter to resume marketing in those four territories and that will probably be actually introductory ground for some of our new products starting with a fixed rate program within the coming weeks and months or so. Marco Rodriguez – Stonegate Securities: Okay. So those areas that you stopped acquiring [leaders], you are still suspending any sort of efforts right there and when do you expect in the quarter to kind of start that up again?

I expect within a month or so to resume marketing activities there. We will probably launch it a little bit more slowly than we would normally start in a new territory just because there is obviously customer sensitivity there. But we expect to start full marketing that's only during the quarter, probably the later end of the quarter. Marco Rodriguez – Stonegate Securities: Got it. And you also mentioned about the ComEd territory Illinois kind of gained traction, can you discuss with the market size opportunity is there by RCs or [leaders]?

Hi, this is Terry Stronz, I think the total ComEd market size is little over $2 million, so it's a pretty good size territory, now some of those in that territory there are some municipality agreements, some aggregation that's already taken place but still it's a very good size opportunity for us. Marco Rodriguez – Stonegate Securities: Got it and are you going to be when you are – I believe you said you are still testing up that market, are you going to be launching here with all the new products that might provide this fixed pricing for customers?

Okay. I am sorry. It is our goal to ultimately release a version of a fixed rate product maybe variable rate product with the Cap rate possibly even something that we would call a 12 month promotion guaranteed rate program. It is ultimately our thought process that so long as we see customer appetite, number one, for that type of product and number two, that we can do that, we can offer that program without taking on additional material exposure and risk to the commodity side of the market, we will – that is something that we will slowly launch in market, say certainly given what has just happened with the polar vortex in the northeast specifically in terms of any and we do believe that this is the right market, these are the right for utilities to start introducing these products and it will also serve as a good test market for us to really make sure that we are comfortable releasing that in additional markets. Marco Rodriguez – Stonegate Securities: Okay, so launching these new products if I am understanding you correctly is going to be in Maryland Pennsylvania, Illinois and New York or not New York?

So right now the only specific plans we have are to just start off with the full utilities in Pennsylvania, our thought process is assuming that goes well. We probably expand it to the full state of Pennsylvania and then from there we do not yet have the states that are on a prioritized basis in terms of launch but again I believe that so long as we can offer this out there and there is demand for it, and we find that we can offer it without additional material exposure, yes ultimately we would look to expand this offering to all of our markets. Marco Rodriguez – Stonegate Securities: Got it, understood. Are there any sort of regulatory hurdles that you need to crossover in order to promote these new products in these new markets or in these existing markets, excuse me?

Really the main hurdles really in administrative manner where as with any new offering we would need to put in place a contract that lays out these specific terms that contract would have to be approved by the PC or the PSC in any state. There are ways to certainly in terms of how we release the product if it's released as a fixed rate, there are some additional administrative hurdles that just take time factor, if it's a promotional rate or guaranteed rate or a Capped rate, we can really – we can fairly, quickly release that with a minor modification of our terms and conditions. So I don't see that as at this point that that’s not going to prevent us or slow us down. Marco Rodriguez – Stonegate Securities: Understood. And what are sort of the expectations you guys are thinking about from an EBITDA standpoint for IDT Energy in fiscal 2014?

So we are not putting out an official number at this point but we have always talked about sort of that $25 million target. I think it's fair to say that given what we have experienced in the first quarter it's unlikely that we will hit that within this calendar year but that being said we still believe that absent, more extreme types of weather environments such as what we are experienced now and given the growth initiatives that Geoff and Terry have been describing that we will quickly be able to return to that level. Marco Rodriguez – Stonegate Securities: Understood. And then kind of shifting gears here to Afek, you mentioned here that the community there is reviewing public comments now and you are expecting, assuming a timely approval to start exploratory drilling in the second half of this year, can you maybe talk a little bit about what might arise from those public comments of what you have seen thus far that could cause this timeframe to be delayed?

Sure. I think that – so the public commentary expired last week in the middle of the week. And there is probably some 800 or so informal, individual comments that were raised with the municipality which is not a number that on a hold that that concerns us and thus far as the municipality and the council sort through those comments. There has more in direct dialog with them almost on a real time basis. There is nothing that’s brought to our attention as of yet that causes any concern I think that probably at this point I think the only expectation is that to call through those issues to make sure that they are addressed in the right manner that will probably delay slightly the final primitive approval from where we originally thought. I don't believe that it will be a – I don't believe that we are talking about a material at the time, I think that we are still on track as we have said in the prior quarter and that we expect to receive the permit, the final permit and in the second quarter of this year to start our drilling program. I think that we are still even given what we have seen now we are still on track for that. Marco Rodriguez – Stonegate Securities: Okay and then the kind of the time line that you outlined there to start the drilling, is that based on sort of a historical standard if you will or is that kind of a best case scenario excuse me.

I think that it's I would probably call it what we feel is a realistic scenario based on where we are right now in terms of the permitting process, number one, based on our operational readiness as we have been started work in parallel to these permit proceeding, preparing ourselves working very closely with the rig company in terms of mobilizing the rig for shipping, the ancillary drilling services, site preparation. So I think that we have tried as best as possible to balance the reality of wherever things stands right now and where we think it will be within the next few months and short of something that is – something that occurs out of our control, I think that we should be on target. Marco Rodriguez – Stonegate Securities: Got it and then in Mongolia, can you give us a sense of as far as where you might be with the government on framing this regulatory framework to kind of proceed there? Are we still kind of in first innings here?

This is Avi. We are still in the similar position to where we were as we’ve been discussing this process, we have been working very closely with the government on helping them look to draft and implement the series of regulations that we feel will be necessary to spur the development of these resources. That being said, the license that we do have this [geological] survey gives us fair amount of operating latitude and which tools to look for and identify promising basins and the ability to then take that to the government and discuss with them to sort of finalize the form of the commercial framework before we would move forward. So what’s holding us back right now has been similar to sort of some of the things we’d experience therefore sometime. But we are seeing some progress and we are seeing some indications that the things are moving in the right direction. Marco Rodriguez – Stonegate Securities: Got it and last question, I will jump back in queue on and so this is the second quarter in a row here now that you haven’t funded your portion. Is it fair to kind of reading into that that your interest in this project is somewhat diminished a bit?

No, I wouldn't necessarily qualify that. I think that the appropriate way to think about it is that given the series of projects that we have within our portfolio and in the capital that we have and the various ways in which we think things are going to play out in the near term and where capital money need to be allocated, fairly quickly to Afek as that project moves forward hopefully and fairly quickly in a fairly quick timeframe that we looked at the projects and look to see where we have some flexibility in our partnership (inaudible) gives us the flexibility to make sort of quarterly decisions whether or not to fund our still significant shareholders within that joint venture and have very hopes for its long term potential and something we are going to revisit on a quarterly basis. Marco Rodriguez – Stonegate Securities: Got it. Thanks a lot guys.

(Operator Instructions). Our next question comes from George Spindler with [Retail], please go ahead sir.

Hi. Good morning. I am an individual investor and not a balance sheet expert at all. But I kind of heard you guys say that you would be removing stock base compensation from your accounting and you positioned that as giving the investor a better view on the financials of the company, it seems that might be a move that (inaudible) transparency a little bit and maybe dilutes the share price which has been nothing sort of a disappointment. So my question is it may be time to take a break from stock based compensation and give the shareholders an opportunity to see a boosted share price?

So Greg this is Avi. I would be glad to address that question. So what we have done is specifically within our definition of adjusted EBITDA, so if you look at our financial disclosure, we typically you will see it describes adjusted EBITDA and it shows operating income which for many quarters has always been effectively the same number being shown twice. What we have done is we have removed and if you look around you will see a lot of companies to do something similar remove stock based compensation from the definition of adjusted EBITDA, it is still in all of the other financials are still in that income. It's still all of our financial disclosure is in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, so you will see within the financial statement we have decided to remove from that one line item because as a non-cash item, and one that tends to fluctuate widely from time to time, we felt that the ability for investors to see that line item reflect sort of more of a – it's not particularly cash because there are other things that moved around in there but a closer to cash operating pipeline item it's still shown in operating income to investors still have the ability to see it’s intact and we felt that would be more easier for people to see what's actually happening within the operations.

Thank you.

Operator, are there any other questions?

At this time I see no other questions.

Okay and in that case I could thank everybody for joining us this morning and we look forward to speaking with you on future earning calls.

Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.