Good day, and welcome to the Star Gas Partners' Fiscal 2017 Second Quarter Results Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Steve Goldman, Chief Executive Officer. Sir, please go ahead.

Thank You, Steven. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. With me today is Star's Chief Financial Officer, Rich Ambury. After some brief remarks, Rich will review the fiscal second quarter ending March, 31, 2017. We will then take your questions. Before we begin, Chris Witty, of our Investor Relations firm, Darrow Associates, will read the safe harbor statement. Please go ahead, Chris.

Thanks, Steve, and good morning. This conference call may include forward-looking statements that represent the partnership's expectations and beliefs concerning future events that involve risks and uncertainties and may cause the partnership's actual performance to be materially different from the performance indicated or implied by such statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts included in this conference call are forward-looking statements. Although the partnership believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can't give no assurance that such expectations will prove to have been correct. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the partnership's expectations are disclosed in this conference call and in the partnership's quarterly reports and annual report in Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2016. All subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to the partnership or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements. Unless otherwise required by law, the partnership undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise after the date of this conference call. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Steve Goldman. Steve?

Thanks, Chris. One year later and I find the summary of this past quarter not too different from last year's comparable period. The weather for the quarter was somewhat of a disappointment and very similar to 2016. It was much warmer than we would have expected in total, and the weather variances were rather difficult to adequately plan for in terms of staffing. But nonetheless, our well managed operations did their best to serve our customers where the need presented itself, while simultaneously working to shrink expenses where and when they could. Overall, we did not let the less than ideal weather deter us from moving the company forward and as we continue to strengthen our platform to serve and expand our footprint. Notably in the past year, we have given special attention to our IT group. Starting at the top and encompassing every level in terms of execution, our IT team now under very strong leadership, has spent the past 12 months working on several new technological areas designed to improve our relationship with our customers. We believe that once these initiatives are woven together, they can positively impact how we interact with our customers, help us understand their views and shed light on what things we could be doing better to increase customer loyalty and profitability. We are implementing such measures in a very careful steps so as not to disturb anything that our customers are used to experiencing now. We have already begun deploying many of these tools and they have been positively received by both our employees and where they impact our customers. It also appears that in terms of improving customer service, our actions are showing real promise. While our new initiatives will take time to measure, one thing that has changed in a positive…

Thanks, Steve. For the quarter, our home heating oil and propane volume decreased by 3 million gallons or 2% to 154 million gallons, as the additional volume provided from acquisitions was more than offset by net customer attrition and other factors. Temperatures were equal to last year and 13% warmer than normal. Our product gross profit rose by $2 million or 2.4%, as the impact of higher home heating oil and propane margins more than offset the decline in home heating oil and propane volume. Our delivery and branch expenses increased by $1.7 million or 2%, largely due to a higher spending relating to certain marketing and customer's feedback initiative. We recorded a noncash charge of $12 million for our derivatives. While on the prior year's comparable quarter, we recorded a credit of $14 million. We posted net income of $40 million or $15 million less than in the prior year period. Our adjusted EBITDA decreased to $88 million, down $0.5 million or less than 1%, as the impact of higher home heating oil and propane margins along with acquisitions, virtually offset the decline in home heating oil and propane volume, an increase in the gross loss from service installation and increases in certain operating expenses. For the first half of fiscal 2017, our home heating oil and propane volume increased by 17 million gallons or 7% to 254 million gallons, as the additional volume provided from acquisitions and the impact of colder weather was somewhat offset by net customer attrition and other factors. Temperatures were 11% colder than last year's comparable period, but again, around 12% warmer than normal. Our product gross profit increased by $16 million, due to the higher home heating oil and propane volume, partially offset by just slightly lower home heating oil and propane margins.…

Thanks, Rich. At this time, we would be pleased to address any questions you may have. Steven, please open the phone lines for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Andrew Gadlin with Odeon Capital Group. Please go ahead.

Can you talk about some of the M&A targets that you're looking at? What geographies and any particular mix of business? How it's different from or the same as what you just think, perhaps?

The M&A targets are basically in nearly every geography we're operating in. So we have some now in the Midwest that we're looking at. We have some in the New York area. We have some down in the southern part of our, where we have a footprint. Several of the acquisitions represent new geography for us to operate in. There is businesses we're looking at that are relatively small, and then some that we'd consider medium size. The mix is very similar to what we currently have as far as product type. We have some -- mostly heating oil acquisitions, we have some -- nearly all propane acquisitions, we have some that are half propane, half heating oil and some diesel and other distillates. But it just been have a healthy flow of communication with potential sellers. Again, like previous conference calls, we've been speaking aggressively with a lot of potential sellers for the last 5, 6 months, and our last thing we closed was a very small acquisition that was mostly oil, down in the Delaware marketplace, Maryland, Delaware marketplace. We, with a couple of them, our confidence level's pretty high, over 80% probably looking like, but there is always work out to be, the facts at the end. But I'm feeling pretty good about just the flow that it's picked up so much. I think some of that has to do with couple of tough years of weather. And people who have, that are on business are frustrating and I think they will monetize what they have, and that's good for us.

[Operator Instructions] And our next question comes from Matthew Spiegelman with Locust Wood Capital.

Congrats on the good quarter. I just had 3 quick questions. The first was on the technology angle that you mentioned. Can you give us any flavor of what sorts of things you're doing there? The second was just on the fuel margin. And it was very impressive, despite stronger oil prices. We're just sort of curious how we should think about sustainability of that fuel margin? And the third was just on the corporate structure. And in light of potential tax reform, do you have any thoughts on the MLP structure versus any potential change to a C Corp and what barriers that could be there?

Let me, I'll address the first 2 and Rich can talk about structure. I'll talk about margin, the easiest. We don't really deviate from our strategy on trying to get the best margin for the conditions in the marketplace. Certainly, a volatile oil price, as we've seen in the last several months, gives us some window to do that. I think the cold in March helped us also in that. It kept customers buying, even though they didn't buy as much in January, February as we would've liked. There was enough cold in our footprint to push customers to still value what we were doing, and extend their winter sort of this year, differently than they may have, if there was a warm March. And that certainly helped us with margins. We were aggressive with a focus knowing that other revenue aspects of the business were under duress. And it's a challenging year, but I think our team of management is pretty seasoned. And we have a good platform to manage our pricing correctly. And I'm happy with the execution in that area. Technology, it's interesting. We've been, some of these projects we've been working on for a bunch of months. They start the discussions, have started in some cases a year ago, in some cases six months ago, and it's just this large convergence of a lot of things that are now really coming together for us. And I'll talk about couple of them, because there are just so many small enhancements that our key group has been able to work on and see some benefit for us as a business. One is, the technology that's new to us, which is a handheld alternative for our service technicians, and that device, it's by a company called Click. And what's…

And with regard to the structure, we really don't know except for the one pager that was kind of put out as to where tax rates are going. We really don't know too much about any changes to the IRS rules and regs. So I really have no kind of comment as this structure right now.

[Operator Instructions] And it appears there is nobody in the queue at this time. So I'd like to turn the call back over to Mr. Goldman for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Steven, and thank you all for taking the time to join us today and for your ongoing interest in Star Gas. We look forward to sharing our third quarter 2017 results with you in August.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.