Good morning, and welcome to the Spire Q3 FY '25 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Megan McPhail, Managing Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to Spire's Fiscal 2025 Third Quarter Earnings Call. On the call with me today is Scott Doyle, President and CEO; and Adam Woodard, Executive Vice President and CFO. We issued an earnings news release this morning, and you may access it on our website at spireenergy.com under Newsroom. There is a slide presentation that accompanies our webcast, which can be downloaded from our website under Investors and then Events and Presentations. Before we begin, let me cover our safe harbor statement and use of non-GAAP earnings measures. Today's call, including responses to questions, may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although our forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, there are various uncertainties and risk factors that may cause future performance or results to be different than those anticipated. These risks and uncertainties are outlined in our quarterly and annual filings with the SEC. In our comments, we will be discussing non-GAAP measures used by management when evaluating performance and results of operations. Explanations and reconciliations of these measures to their GAAP counterparts are contained in both our news release and slide presentation. Now here's Scott, who will start on Page 4 of the presentation.

Thank you, and good morning. We are pleased to have you join us today on our fiscal third quarter earnings conference call for an update on recent developments and a review of our quarterly performance outlook. Before we dive into results, I want to take a moment to recognize and thank our employees for their unwavering commitment to safety and service throughout the quarter, especially in the aftermath of the devastating tornadoes that struck the St. Louis community on May 16. Our team rose to the occasion in extraordinary ways. We received nearly 1,300 emergency calls and responded to more than 620 emergency orders during the days that followed. Beyond restoring service, our employees supported disaster response and recovery efforts by volunteering their time and talents to ensure neighborhoods were safe and accessible. Through our customer relief initiatives, assistance programs and community support, we demonstrated what it means to care for the people and places we serve. I'm incredibly proud of what we accomplished together, and I want to thank each of you for your dedication, resilience and compassion. Our commitment to service and operational excellence also positions us for long-term growth. A clear example is our recently announced acquisition of the Piedmont Natural Gas Tennessee business from Duke Energy, a strategic investment I'll expand on shortly. But first, let's discuss our quarterly results on Page 4. This morning, we announced adjusted earnings of $0.01 per share compared to a loss of $0.14 per share a year ago. The year-over- year increase reflects growth across all of our business segments. Our performance was driven by infrastructure investments to modernize our natural gas systems, coupled with our ongoing commitment to disciplined cost management. We continue to make meaningful progress managing our expenses through a focused cost reduction and efficiency initiative while…

Thanks, Scott, and good morning, everyone. I'll start with a review of our quarterly results, which are detailed on Pages 7 and 8 of our presentation. During the third quarter, we reported adjusted earnings of $4.1 million, an increase of over $8 million compared to last year. The Gas Utility segment had an adjusted loss of $10 million in the third quarter, $1 million better than prior year. This reflects higher contribution margin at Spire Missouri, driven by an increase in ISRS revenues, partially offset by lower Spire Missouri usage net of weather mitigation. Utility earnings also reflected higher O&M expense and higher depreciation expense. On a year-to-date basis, our O&M run rate is less than 1% higher than the prior year period. Earnings in the Gas Marketing segment were higher by over $4 million as the business was well positioned to create value. During the quarter, we continued to see strong earnings growth in our Midstream segment, driven by additional capacity and asset optimization at Spire Storage, partially offset by higher operating costs from higher activity. Lastly, other corporate costs were slightly lower, primarily due to higher returns on nonqualified benefit plans, partially offset by higher interest expense. Turning to Page 9. We continue to make capital investments to improve reliability, resiliency and safety for the benefit of our customers. Year-to-date, our CapEx has totaled $700 million, with the majority of the spending taking place at our gas utilities. Year- over-year, utility CapEx increased nearly 20% as we focus on upgrading distribution infrastructure and connecting more homes and businesses to safe, reliable and affordable natural gas. Investment in our Midstream segment totaled $99 million year-to-date, largely for the expansion of Spire Storage West. The expansion is now complete and the returns on the project are exceeding our expectations. Our…

Thanks, Adam. As we look to the remainder of fiscal 2025, our priorities are clear. Operationally, our top priority remains delivering safe, reliable natural gas service to our customers. We're executing on our $875 million capital plan, which is focused on system modernization and long-term infrastructure resilience. At the same time, we're maintaining a strong focus on customer affordability through disciplined cost management. On the regulatory front, we're working to achieve constructive outcomes across our jurisdictions. Strengthening our regulatory recovery mechanisms remains essential to ensuring timely cost recovery and supporting continued investment in our systems. From a financial perspective, we are reaffirming our full year adjusted EPS guidance of $4.40 to $4.60 per share. We remain committed to maintaining a strong balance sheet, which supports both our growth strategy and our long- term shareholder value proposition. And finally, we're making progress on our recently announced acquisition of the Tennessee Piedmont Natural Gas business. We're actively pursuing regulatory approvals and advancing integration planning. Together, these priorities position us to deliver strong operational performance, financial discipline and long-term growth. We're confident in our path forward and excited about the opportunities ahead. Thank you for your continued support and interest in Spire.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Richard Sunderland with JPMorgan.

Just one for me. I'm curious about the FFO to debt targets you previously outlined of 15% to 16%. Is that still the right framework to think about going forward?

Rich, it's Adam. Those definitely are still the right targets to keep in mind, probably a little bit through the transition period of the acquisition, probably a little bit slower to get to those targets, but that's still what we're aiming for.

The next question comes from Christopher Jeffrey from Mizuho Securities.

Congratulations on the strong quarter. Just a point of clarification. Just wondering in the Midstream results, how much of that is -- how much is the expansion of Storage reflected in the full quarter? And maybe kind of just going forward, should we think of this quarter as a reasonable run rate for the business?

Yes. Chris, it's Adam. We did -- on the Midstream segment, in particular, we did see very strong year-over-year growth, obviously, with Storage coming on. About 90% of the increase in Storage year-over-year was attributable in Midstream is attributable to Storage. That would cut on a net income basis, 75% to 25% Storage to pipeline.

Okay. Great. And then maybe just sticking on the Midstream, just curious more on the pipeline side, just maybe given some trends we're seeing in Missouri comments from the electric utilities there in terms of load growth, is Spire seeing any opportunities just in terms of capacity on various pipelines?

Yes, Chris, this is Scott. Yes, that -- as we see what's taking place in Missouri, particularly around the IRPs associated with the electric businesses, those are creating some opportunities for us that are in future years. Our ability to serve them is good and low CapEx needs associated with serving those needs at this time.

Great. And maybe just one more, if I could. Just maybe any color on the strong marketing results in the quarter? And maybe as we think of 4Q, can we expect the same seasonal strong end of the fiscal year there? Or should we kind of think of those results as being pulled into 3Q a bit?

Chris, it's Adam again. The -- I think they were very well positioned coming into this quarter. It tends to be a little quieter quarter as we get into the summer. Really no comment on what we see going into the fourth quarter, but we feel pretty good about the operations of that business and what they're doing and hitting the -- hitting the targets that we've outlined for year-end.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Dylan Lipner from Ladenburg Thalmann.

Congrats on a really good quarter. I just want to kind of piggyback off of one of Chris' questions about the Storage segment. Maybe if you guys can discuss the year-over-year changes in margins at the Storage business that might be driving revenue up for you guys?

Yes. Dylan, it's Adam. A lot of that's just the expansion that's coming online there. And we are seeing similar as we talked about last quarter, not only a realization of that expansion, but also some additional optimization on top of that. But that's really the story. We do include some more specific information in the Q as it will be filed shortly.

Got you. And then when it just comes to even on the pipes from last year in 2024, should we assume that they're kind of unchanged going forward into 2025 for the Midstream business in the pipeline?

Yes. No, it should be pretty straightforward. Good observation.

The next question comes from [ Barry Klein ] from Macquarie.

I just wanted to be clear here. Does your long-term 5% to 7% growth rate include the impacts of the recent Missouri rate case settlement and future test year legislation that's been enacted?

Barry, it's Adam. So the 5% to 7% is really keyed off of our capital deployment. I think there's a realization on the fact that we had been behind on our recovery in Missouri. And so there would certainly be some catch-up there that would be in addition to the 5% to 7%. But the 5% to 7% really keys off of our rate base -- long-term rate base growth.

Okay. So not -- doesn't have anything to do with if you're able to improve the returns?

No, that's right.

The next question comes from Selman Akyol from Stifel.

Just real quick for me. On the O&M, you guys have done a great job. And I'm just kind of curious how you see that line evolving going forward?

Selman, Thank you. Yes, our target is to be at or below the rate of inflation in any given year. And just really maybe the headline for us year-to-date is we are below 1% year-to-date on O&M. In the quarter, there was a comparison there from this quarter versus last quarter. There was a onetime benefit in the quarter last year and a onetime expense in the quarter of this year that traded against us along with some other things. But all in, we feel good about where we're headed on O&M story.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back to Megan McPhail for closing remarks.

Thank you for joining us on the call today. We look forward to speaking with many of you in the near future. Have a good day.

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