Good morning. I am Tommy Oliver, Senior Vice President, Regulatory and External Affairs for RGC Resources, Inc. Thank you for joining us this morning as we discuss RGC Resources 2023 Quarter -- Fourth Quarter and Full-Year Results. I am joined this morning by Paul Nester, President and CEO of RGC Resources, and Tim Mulvaney, our Interim Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Before we get started, I want to review a few administrative items. First, we have muted all lines and asked that all participants remain muted. Second, the link to today's presentation is available on the investor and financial information page of our website at www.rgcresources.com. And lastly, at the conclusion of the presentation and our remarks, we will take questions. So slide one, this presentation contains forecasts and projections. Slide one has information about risks and uncertainty, including forward-looking statements that should be understood in the context of our public violence. The agenda is on slide two. We will review our quarterly and annual operational and financial results and discuss the outlook for fiscal 2024 with time allotted for questions at the end. So turning to slide three. Our main extensions for the year totaled 4 miles and we added over 550 new customers. Another outstanding year of customer growth and our seventh straight year of adding at least 550 new customers. I'd also like to highlight the work we have done with the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority. Since 2022, we have helped the housing authority modernize the natural gas facilities within three of its apartment complexes. After the authority renewed these facilities, Roanoke Gas assumed ownership and operational control. Not only did this add to our customer count and rate base, had provided the residents within those communities a new, safer, and more reliable gas system. The…

Thank you, Tommy. We are on slide eight now. For the fourth quarter, operating income increased $290,000 or 64% to $745,000, compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. The increase was primarily driven by interim base rates implemented on January 1. Interest expense, up $242,000 continues to be pressured due to the higher interest rate environment, which is impacting our floating rate debt supporting the investment in the Mountain Valley pipeline. Our net income for the quarter was just over $1 million, compared to an $11 million loss due to a $15 million pre-tax impairment taken on our investment in MVP in the fourth quarter last year. The fourth quarter of this year included $1.5 million of non-cash AFUDC pretax, which resulted from our investment in the MVP resuming construction. Moving on to slide nine, to aid in the comparison of our fiscal year results, excluding impairments recorded on our MVP investment in 2022, we have represented our financial results for the quarter and the year on an underlying basis on slide nine. I will now turn the presentation over to Paul Nester, RGC Resources' President and CEO for an outlook on 2024. Paul?

Thank you, Tim, and good morning. We are on slide 10, we're going to take a few minutes and review the 2024 Roanoke Gas capital spending forecast. We're also going to try to provide an update on the Mountain Valley pipeline, and then we'll share our initial guidance for our 2024 earnings per share. Moving on to slide 11, we're projecting a total spend on utility plant for fiscal year 2024 of approximately $21 million, this is down from the 2023 capital spending, primarily due to the $4.1 million we invested in the RNG facility in 2023. But this is a resumption of a more normal level of annual capital spending in the utility. I would like to take one minute and just comment on the customer growth numbers that Tommy shared with us a few moments ago. And in particular, the 63,500 customers, that is certainly an all-time high for our company. And I want to certainly thank our customer experience and our operations personnel for getting well over 1,500 customers turned on since October 1. For a small company, like ours, it's a noteworthy achievement due to a lot of dedication and hard work by many folks. So thank you. Moving on to slide 12, many of you may have seen the Equitrans 8-K that was filed last week where they provided an update on some of the statistics related to Mountain Valley construction. It's a good update. We'll try to interpret a little bit of that for you. Of the remaining scope work when construction resumed this summer, approximately 50% of the upland pipe, 65% of the tie end, 75% of the crossing, and over or approximately 104 miles of hydrostatic testing have occurred. So again, the progress has been, very good. We've had a nice dry…

Hi, good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Michael. How are you?

I'm good. How about yourself?

We're very good. Thank you.

You're getting some good weather, this quarter?

We are. We've had incredible weather. It's not been great, heating load weather, if you will, but it's been great construction weather. Then very dry, which again, ordinarily, you don't care for, but we're happy about that this year.

Okay. The -- you would mention the Franklin County tie-in, and the business park there. I think that's what we toured the last time I was down. Just wondering, are there any tenants or anybody waiting in Franklin County for the gas?

So we can't comment on very specific opportunities from an economic development standpoint, but there is a lot of potential and excitement, Michael. In fact, Tommy and Jim Shockley and are meeting this afternoon in Franklin County with the -- some of the folks down there to discuss some of these matters. So there's a lot -- again, to be excited about. And all we have natural gas in that park is a wonderful opportunity.

Okay. And then I would assume, earnings from -- we'll say cash flow from Mountain Valley. That'll be used to just reduce debt?

Yes, Tim. I think we've talked a little bit about cash flow in the 10-K. Would you like to Comment on that to Michael.

So we have certain pieces of our Mountain Valley debt that are coming due in 2024 and we're working with banks to replace that in the short-term. But as the Mountain Valley pipeline does begin to flow, there is -- there are provisions in the agreement that they will pass excess cash flow as defined in those agreements onto the company and we’d expect to use those.

And then last question. Any idea, if you had to take a guess, Paul, what month you could actually start seeing some of that gas flow into Roanoke?

Yeah. I think the public guidance from the JV, Michael, is still calendar first quarter, and they haven't gotten more precise than that. As you know, in other words, there's not a month or a day at this point. And a lot of it, of course, those depend on the ability to, do field construction over the coming days weeks as we are in the winter time, with some shorter days. So we are still planning and operationally planning for first quarter 2024. So hypothetically, if that were March 1, we'll be ready. If that's March 31, we will be ready as Roanoke Gas to receive that gas.

Okay. And I was just wondering if that lower cost gas could be flowing in January or February when you need it the most?

Yeah. It's a great question. We're not making plans for January at this point in time. That would be wonderful. But we don't know that that's maybe physically possible, so…

Okay. Well, I guess we'll wait for the next Equitrans 8-K.

Yes, yes. Yeah, that will hopefully be informational in that regard. But, again, we can see it coming from here. That's the good news.

Good. Alright, gentlemen. Congrats on a great year. Really was.

Thank you, Michael.

Thanks, Michael.

Do we have any other questions from the audience? [Operator Instructions] Any other questions? We'll pause for just a few seconds in case someone would like to ask a question. Okay, well if there are no more questions today, this does conclude our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023 earnings call. Thank you so much for joining us, and we look forward to speaking with you again in February to review the first quarter of 2024. We certainly wish you and families a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank you.