National Fuel Gas Co (NYSE:NFG) Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call August 3, 2023 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Brandon Haspett - Director, IR

David Bauer - President, CEO & Director

Justin Loweth - President, National Fuel Gas Midstream Company, LLC & Seneca Resources Company, LLC

Timothy Silverstein - Principal Financial Officer & Treasurer

Conference Call Participants

Umang Choudhary - Goldman Sachs Group

John Abbott - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Trafford Lamar - Raymond James

Operator

Thank you for standing by. My name is Kayla Baker, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the National Fuel Gas Company Q3 Fiscal 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to turn the call over to Director of Investor Relations, Brandon Haspett, you may begin.

Brandon Haspett

Thank you, Kayla, and good morning. We appreciate you joining us on today's conference call for a discussion of last evening's earnings release. With us on the call from National Fuel Gas Company are Dave Bauer, President and Chief Executive Officer; Tim Silverstein, Treasurer and Principal Financial Officer; and Justin Loweth, President of Seneca Resources and National Fuel Midstream. At the end of the prepared remarks, we will open the discussion to questions.

The third quarter fiscal 2023 earnings release and August investor presentation have been posted on our Investor Relations website. We may refer to these materials during today's call. We'd like to remind you that today's teleconference will contain forward-looking statements. While National Fuel's expectations, beliefs and projections are made in good faith and are believed to have a reasonable basis, actual results may differ materially. These statements speak only as the date on which they are made and you may refer to last evening's earnings release for a listing of certain specific risk factors.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Dave Bauer.

David Bauer

Thanks, Brandon, and good morning, everyone. Last night, we reported adjusted operating results for the quarter of $1.01 per share. While generally in line with our expectations, earnings were down compared to last year. Appalachian production was up 6 Bcf versus last year, despite the impact of over 5 Bcf of curtailments during the quarter. But this was more than offset by the loss of earnings related to our California properties that were sold last June and sharply lower natural gas prices.

You'll recall that during last year's third quarter, NYMEX averaged about $7 a dekatherm as compared to about this year. Operationally, it was a good quarter across the company. Seneca continues to see excellent results from its development program, which has driven production to record levels.