Thank you, Lucas. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our fiscal 2026 third 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 32 and are more fully described in our SEC filings. With that, I will turn the call over to Kevin.

Thank you, Dan, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate your interest in Atmos Energy.

Yesterday, we reported year-to-date fiscal '26 net income of $1.2 billion or $7.33 per diluted share. We reaffirmed our earnings per share guidance in the range of $8.40 to $8.50.

Our capital expenditures for the fiscal year total $3.1 billion, with over 87% of these investments focused on enhancing the safety and reliability of our distribution, transmission, and underground storage systems. Across our service territories, we continue to see steady, diversified customer growth.

For the 12 months ending June 30, 2026, we added nearly 51,000 new customers, with nearly 39,000 of those new customers located here in Texas. During the third quarter, we added 600 commercial customers and over 2,500 commercial customers fiscal year-to-date.

Additionally, we added 5 new industrial customers during the third quarter and 12 new industrial customers fiscal year-to-date. The 12 new industrial customers are anticipated to use approximately 950,000 Mcf per year once they are fully operational.

That is volumetrically equivalent to adding 18,000 residential customers. This continued demand from all customer classes demonstrates the value and vital role natural gas plays in economic development across our Atmos Energy service territory.

The Texas Workforce Commission reported that Texas once again added jobs at a faster rate than the nation over the last 12 months ending June 2026. In 2026, Texas added 3 Fortune 500 companies, bringing the total number of Fortune 500 companies to 57, the most in the nation, and highest level in Texas since 2010.

In APT, we continue to work to enhance the safety, reliability, versatility, and supply diversification of our system, as well as support the continued growth we are seeing in the local distribution companies behind APT's system. APT is currently working on 2 separate projects to the southeast of the DFW Metroplex that will install a total of 29 miles of 36-inch pipeline to connect 2 adjacent compressor stations to our Tri-Cities storage facility.

These projects enhance system reliability and capacity for gas transported from the Haynesville and Cotton Valley shale plays to our Bethel and Tri-Cities storage facilities, all to support the growing DFW Metroplex. To the east of the Metroplex, we began construction of a bi-lateral compressor station in Carthage, Texas, that will increase the capacity of our 36-inch Line S-2 pipeline.

Finally, we are working on the final phase of the WA Loop project to support growth in the northwestern portion of the Metroplex. This final phase will install 15 miles of 36-inch pipe and it will complete a 92-mile, 36-inch pipeline loop.

All of these projects are currently scheduled to be placed into service by the end of the calendar year. This month, APT will submit its annual Rider REV tariff, seeking to reflect $160 to $165 million in revenue credits for LDC customers on the system between November 1st, 2026, and October 31st, 2027.

If this amount is approved as filed, these customers will have received over $300 million in savings through the Rider REV mechanism from November 2023 through October 2027. Our customer support associates and service technicians continue to provide exceptional customer service, achieving customer satisfaction ratings in excess of 97% for the first 9 months of this fiscal year.

Finally, during the first 9 months of the fiscal year, our customer advocacy team helped nearly 49,000 customers receive about $16.2 million in funding assistance. I'll now turn the call over to Chris for his update.

Thank you, Kevin, and thank you to everyone for joining us this morning. As Kevin mentioned, earnings per share for the first 9 months of the fiscal year was $7.33, which represents a 14.5% increase over the prior year period.

Our year-to-date results include $132 million, or 63 cents, from the impact of Texas House Bill 4384. $71 million was recognized in our distribution segment, and the remaining $61 million was recognized at APT.

In addition to the impact of House Bill 4384, I wanted to highlight a few other drivers of our financial performance for the fiscal year-to-date period. Rate increases in both of our operating segments totaled $227 million.

Operating income increased by an additional $41 million through residential and commercial customer growth and increased customer load. APT's through-system revenues, net of Rider REV, increased about $34 million or 16 cents.

This increase continues to reflect the significantly higher spreads realized during fiscal '26 compared with fiscal '25 that we've been discussing this entire fiscal year. During the first 9 months of fiscal '26, the spreads we captured averaged $4.66 compared with $1.77 in the prior year period, reflecting rising associated gas production, constraining takeaway capacity, and lower demand due to unseasonably warm weather during the past winter heating season.

Finally, consolidated O&M decreased $14 million, reflecting higher employee compliance and safety-related spending in our distribution segment, higher maintenance spending at APT, all offset by the impact of the implementation of the House Bill 4384 deferrals. From a regulatory perspective, since the beginning of this fiscal year, we have implemented $396 million in annualized operating income increases.

Of this amount, $260 million was implemented during our third and fourth fiscal quarters. Currently, we have 7 filings in progress, seeking nearly $344 million in annualized operating income increases.

We expect to implement most of this amount in the first quarter of fiscal '27. Our equity capitalization as of June 30th was 60%, and we do not have any short-term debt outstanding.

At quarter-end, we had $4.6 billion in available liquidity to support our operations. This includes approximately $937 million in net proceeds available under existing forward sale agreements, which is expected to satisfy the remainder of our anticipated fiscal '26 equity needs and a significant portion of our anticipated equity needs for fiscal '27.

As we reported last night, we reaffirmed our fiscal '26 earnings per share guidance in the range of $8.40 to $8.50. APT's through-system business during the third fiscal quarter was in line with our expectations.

Beginning in June, spreads have narrowed significantly now that additional takeaway capacity has come online, some sooner than expected. Additionally, O&M spending in fiscal '26 is trending slightly higher.

We now expect fiscal '26 O&M, excluding bad debt expense, to be in the range of $875 million to $885 million. Finally, we remain on track to spend approximately $4.2 billion in capital expenditures for fiscal '26.

We appreciate your time this morning and your interest in Atmos Energy. We will now open up the call for questions.

Good morning, this is Whitney Mutalemwa here for Constantine. Thanks for taking the questions.

Great quarter. Given we are a quarter short of the year, do you anticipate to be in the top end of guidance?

Do you anticipate any offsets to the strong year-to-date performance in 4Q? Maybe just a quick question around APT.

Given where Waha has been trading, are contributions still moving in the same direction or do you anticipate some narrowing?

Good morning again. As we've mentioned, we've reaffirmed our guidance in the range of $8.40 to $8.50.

As I mentioned, APT's performance in the third quarter was in line with our expectations. As I also highlighted, we are seeing significantly narrower spreads beginning in the latter half of the third quarter and continuing through today as a result of additional takeaway capacity coming online, some of which was coming online sooner than expected.

A couple of different pipes expected to go online in the fourth quarter of the calendar year and they came on, one in late June and one here in late July. They're beginning to ramp up, causing a compression of the spreads.

All in all, we are standing by our $8.40 to $8.50 range of EPS for fiscal '26 and we will see where the fourth quarter takes us in terms of spread opportunities and other operational factors for the remainder of the fiscal year.

Got it. Okay.

Just to squeeze a tiny question, given the strength in fiscal year '26, do you feel you can carry some flex into fiscal year '27 just from an O&M and cost perspective? That will be all.

Thank you.

If I understand your question correctly, in terms of if you're talking about APT, we certainly had mentioned before that we will continue to reflect in our base plan that we will roll forward in the fall an amount coming from APT's through-system business in line with the benchmark that we have established at roughly $170 million. With respect to O&M, in our five-year guidance that we have out there right now, we anticipate a 4% O&M increase per year and we'll refresh that when we roll forward the five-year plan later this fall.

Sounds good. Thank you.

Hey, good morning, and thanks for the time today. I actually want to follow up on some of those APT questions.

Just last quarter, I think it was an 8 to 12 cent range for 2H uptick you guys had spoken to. Looks like you captured most of that this quarter, but is 8 to 12 cents still the right range to be thinking about over that period, meaning for the balance of the year on 4Q?

Rich, thanks for the question this morning. As you mentioned, we did pick up the 8 cents in the third quarter.

With the tightening in the spreads, I would say that we're probably going to be in the lower end of that range at this point in that 8 to 12. We'll see, again we'll have to continue to see what happens with maintenance on some of this takeaway capacity, where the summer heat load is going, and we'll just see where we go from that.

I would think the lower end of that range is more appropriate.

Okay. That's helpful context.

Then I also wanted to follow up on O&M and just, I think ask, sort of in a similar way, right? You picked up the low end of the range, $10 million.

I realize it's relatively modest, but is that reflective of any activities kind of getting pulled forward into '26 from '27? Or is that more around line locates, other kind of external drivers?

Just curious to parse that a little bit and think about kind of '26 versus '27 O&M activity.

As typical at this time of year, it's more related to ongoing activity across the Metroplex and other areas with the growth that we're seeing, line locate activities, ongoing compliance and maintenance activities in that area. That's what we normally see around this time of the year.

Great. I'll leave it there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hey guys, Luke Fenker on for Julien. Nicely done with the quarter.

I just wanted to ask on Rule 7- 7.102, just given the benefits we've seen of late, can we expect it to maybe remain a discrete earnings benefit in '27 or does it increasingly roll into Texas recovery from here? Just want to get a sense of how that's trending.

Thanks for the question, Luke. Good morning.

Fiscal '26 is a step-year change as a result of the implementation of 77.102. As we've said going forward, we expect that year over year to be more in line with what we've experienced in the past with respect to say Rule 8.209.

As we said at the end of the second quarter, we are anticipating launching a 6% to 8% earnings per share growth off of our current range, our guidance range of $8.40 to $8.50. That reflects that it's more of a moderation effect going forward now that we've got a full year's impact of the rule under our belt at this point.

Awesome. Thank you.

Then maybe just wanted to see the latest timing and your confidence level around the Mid-Tex Cities' RRM, and maybe how you see yourself positioned on customer bill affordability in Texas more broadly?

If you look in our deck that's out there, particularly our May investor deck, I think it's slides 18 through 21 or 22, we have good information out there about affordability, both from a customer bill perspective where we remain the lowest bill in the house. You want to look at it on a energy comparison basis, kilowatt to kilowatt, Btu to Btu, across our service territories, we range from 2% to 4% lower than electricity on a household basis.

You want to look at wallet share both from a low-income and a median-income perspective, we range from 1% to 1.2% of the wallet, with on the electric side ranging at about 2 to almost 3 times wallet share. We think our team continues to do an excellent job of keeping affordability top of mind, focusing on things we can control and being an efficient provider.

Awesome, I'll leave it there. Thanks guys.

All the best.

Thank you.

everybody, congrats on a good quarter here. Just kind of wanted to get back to Waha.

With Waha now back in positive territory and additional takeaway capacity expected to come online over the next several quarters, how are you guys thinking about how this is going to impact APT's earning power and utilization in the near term?

As we said, Chris, Chris just highlighted where we think we're going to be on the guidance he gave before at the lower end of the 8 to 12 cent range. Again, we budget the benchmark for Rider REV and we'll continue to monitor what we see over the next few months as we head into the fall in the heating season.

Definitely no crystal balls here. We're not going to try and guess what's going to be going on in that period.

We'll just have to see what the rest of the summer cooling load looks like. Then as we move into the fall, does winter and fall show up early and cause a spike in demand?

What does that look like? Again, pretty much back to basics as we do every year, year in and year out.

We're going to budget the benchmark and then we'll see what comes our way from there.

Gotcha. No, I appreciate the color.

That's all I got.

Thank you.

We appreciate your interest in Atmos Energy and thank you again for joining us this morning. A recording of this call is available for replay on our website through September 30th, 2026.

Have a good day.