Atmos Energy Corporation (ATO) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Atmos Energy Corporation (NYSE:ATO) Q1 2023 Results Conference Call February 8, 2023 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Dan Meziere - Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer

Kevin Akers - President and Chief Executive Officer

Chris Forsythe - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Nick Campanella - Credit Suisse

David Arcaro - Morgan Stanley

Gabe Moreen - Mizuho Securities

Richard Sunderland - JPMorgan

Ryan Levine - Citigroup

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the Atmos Energy Corporation Fiscal 2023 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session [Operator Instructions]. This call is being recorded on Wednesday, February 08, 2023.

And I would now like to turn the conference over to Dan Meziere, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer. Please go ahead, sir.

Dan Meziere

Thank you, Michell. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining our fiscal 2023 first quarter earnings call. With me today are Kevin Akers, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Chris Forsythe, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Our earnings release and conference call slide presentation, which we will reference in our prepared remarks, are available at atmosenergy.com under the Investor Relations tab. As we review these financial results and discuss future expectations, please keep in mind that some of our discussion might contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act and the Securities Exchange Act. Our forward looking statements and projections could differ materially from actual results. The factors that could cause such material differences are outlined on Slide 24 and more fully described in our SEC filings.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Kevin Akers, our President and CEO. Kevin?

Kevin Akers

Thank you, Dan, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us and your interest in Atmos Energy today. I want to begin today's call by thanking everyone of our 4,800 Atmos Energy employees across all of our eight states with their exceptional effort and dedication to serving our customers under very challenging weather conditions during winter storms Elliott and Mara. Thank you for all that you do for our customers and our communities every day. You are truly the heart and soul of Atmos Energy. Our first quarter results reflect that effort, dedication and focus as we continued modernizing our natural gas distribution, transmission and storage systems on our journey to be the safest provider of natural gas services. Yesterday, we reported fiscal 2023 first quarter net income of $272 million or $1.91 per diluted share, and we reaffirmed our fiscal 2023 earnings per share guidance in the range of $5.90 to $6.10. Our Atmos Pipeline, Texas division achieved several project milestones during the first quarter. Our APT team completed filling the Cushing gas requirements at the Bethel 1B cavern and working gas is currently being injected and debriding operations continue with a targeted completion date of April of this year. This third cavern provides additional support to APTs operations, as well as the local distribution companies behind APT systems and adds over 6 Bcf of new working gas capacity.