Black Hills Corporation (NYSE:BKH) Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call May 5, 2022 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Jerome Nichols - Director of Investor Relations

Linn Evans - President & Chief Executive Officer

Rich Kinzley - Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Julian Smith - Bank of America

Brandon Lee - Mizuho

Andrew Weisel - Scotiabank

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Black Hills Corporation First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Liz, and I will be your coordinator for today. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes.

I would now like to turn the presentation over to Mr. Jerome Nichols, Director of Investor Relations of Black Hills Corporation. Please proceed, sir.

Jerome Nichols

Thank you, Liz, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Black Hills Corporation's First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. You can find our earnings release and materials for our call this morning at our website at www.blackhillscorp.com under the Investor Relations heading. Leading our quarterly earnings discussion today are Linn Evans, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Rich Kinzley, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

During our earnings discussion today, some of the comments we make may contain forward-looking statements as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and there are a number of uncertainties inherent in such comments. Although we believe that our expectations and beliefs are based on reasonable assumptions, actual results may differ materially. We direct you to our earnings release, Slide 2 of the investor presentation on our website and our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a list of some of the factors that could cause future results to differ materially from our expectations.

I will now turn the call over to Linn Evans.

Linn Evans

Thank you, Jerome. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I'll start on Slide 4 of our investor presentation, which summarizes our performance for the first quarter. Our team delivered excellent operational and financial performance during the quarter, providing a great start to the year.

Our earnings per share increased 18% year-over-year with strong contributions from both our electric and gas utilities. Our earnings growth in the first quarter reflects the execution of our regulatory strategy over the last several quarters, including constructive outcomes for 3 gas rate reviews and Storm Uri cost recovery.