Welcome to the Q2 2013 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Vanessa, and I will be your operator for today’s call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Please note that this conference is being recorded. And I will now turn the call over to Jason Lang. You may begin.

Thank you, Vanessa, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Avista’s second quarter 2013 earnings conference call. Our earnings were released pre-market this morning, and the release is available on our website at avistacorp.com. Joining me this morning are Avista Corp. Chairman of the Board, President and CEO, Scott Morris; Senior Vice President and CFO, Mark Thies; Senior Vice President and the President of Avista Utilities, Dennis Vermillion; Vice President, State and Federal Regulation, Kelly Norwood; and the Vice President, Controller and Principal Accounting Officer, Christy Burmeister-Smith. I’d like to remind everyone that some of the statements that will be made today are forward-looking statements that involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties which are subject to change. For reference to the various factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in today’s call, please refer our Form 10-K for 2012 and Form 10-Q for the first quarter of 2013, which are available on our website. To begin this presentation, I’d like to recap the financial results presented in today’s press release. Our consolidated earnings were $0.43 per diluted share for the second quarter of 2013, compared to $0.31 for the second quarter of 2012. On a year-to-date basis, our consolidated earnings were $1.13 per diluted share for 2013, compared to $0.96 for 2012. Now, I’ll turn the discussion over to Scott Morris.

Well, thank you, Jason, and good morning, everyone. I’m pleased to report that we had another strong quarter with higher than expected earnings at the Utility and Ecova. Our Utility earnings are over our expectations due to the timing of operating expenditures, the net benefit from the Bonneville Power Administration settlement and warmer weather during the second quarter. As previously discussed on July 1st, an unplanned outage occurred at Colstrip Unit #4. While the initial cause of the outage is still being investigated, the outage is expected to last at least six months. We expect to incur additional power supply costs during the second half of the year to replace the lost energy and Mark will provide more details about the impact of this outage in just a couple of minutes. Ecova had another good quarter, with increased revenues resulting from the demand for new services, increased volumes, and expense and data management services, and energy management services. Based on the year-to-date results and the timing of revenues, we expect Ecova to be within our expectations for the full year. And at this time, we are confirming our consolidated earnings guidance range of $1.70 to $1.90 per diluted share for 2013. To maintain service reliability at our Utility and meet the energy needs of our customers, we continue to invest significantly in our generation, transmission and distribution systems. Utility CapEx was $145 million for the first half of 2013 and we expect Utility CapEx be about $270 million for the full year of 2013. On the regulatory side, in May, the Washington Commission approved our accounting and ratemaking treatment related to the Bonneville settlement and the Reardan wind project. We recognized the net earnings benefit from the approval during the second quarter. And in our Oregon jurisdiction, we plan on to file a general rate case during the third quarter of 2013. The Oregon Commission can take up to 10 months to review the filing and issue a decision. So now I’m going to turn the call over to Mark.

Thank you, Scott, and good morning, everyone. For the second quarter of 2013, Utility earnings increased from 2012, contributing $0.41 per diluted share as compared to $0.31 last year. On a year-to-date basis, Utility earnings contributed $1.11 per diluted share, an increase from $0.97 last year. The increase in quarterly and year-to-date Utility earnings was primarily due to an increase in gross margin which was a result of general rate increases in Washington that went into effect on January 1, the net benefits from the Bonneville settlement and warmer weather during the second quarter. This increase in gross margin was partially offset by higher depreciation and amortization and taxes other than income taxes. For the second half of 2013, we expect the negative impact to gross margin in the range of approximately $6 million to $7 million as a result of the recent outage at our Colstrip generating facility that Scott mentioned. We also expect a reduction, as we have seen in our operating expenses compared to the forecast, to partially reverse and have more expenses coming in the second half of the year due to timing. For the first half of 2013, we recognize a pre-tax benefit of $4.1 million under the Energy Recovery Mechanism in Washington, compared to $5.1 million in the first half of 2012. The Colstrip outage is expected to move the Energy Recovery Mechanism from a positive position within the 75-25 sharing bands to a slightly negative position within the $4 million deadband for 2013. For the first half of 2013, Ecova’s earnings increased from 2012 contributing $0.05 per diluted share, as compared to $0.01 last year. Ecova’s year-to-date revenues increased $9.9 million compared to the first half of last year and totaled $87 million. Total operating expenses increased $4.6 million for the first half…

Thanks Mark. Vanessa, now we’d like to open this call up for questions.

(Operator Instructions) And our first question comes from Paul Ridzon with KeyBanc.

Good morning, guys. How are you?

Good morning, Paul. Good.

Congratulations on a solid quarter.

Thank you.

Particularly on Ecova, kind of, putting on a strong number. Just wondering your review of strategic opportunities, kind of, where that stands and if you’ve gotten any indications of where that might go?

Nothing really new to report, Paul. We continue to look for opportunities out there that are longer-term in nature. And we continue to assess opportunities. So there really isn’t anything new to report.

Okay. And if I heard you right, you have issued none of the $50 million you expect to issue this year of common stock?

That’s correct, Paul.

And then, just a reminder, I know the 3% to 4% excludes the separation costs. How much were those costs?

Last year the cost of the separation was just over $7 million.

$7 million, that’s pre-tax?

Yeah.

Okay. Thank you very much.

(Operator Instructions) And we have a question from Michael Worms with BMO Capital Markets.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Mike.

Hi, Mike.

Hi. A question, can you just go over the reasons for the 3% to 4% increase in O&M costs this year? And can you kind of give us an indication of where that might be going in 2014? And what are the drivers on the increases, particularly since you just got a rate increase decision in Washington earlier in the year?

Well, the rate increase doesn’t have any impact on the O&M cost, means, that the O&M -- that was based on history. The O&M cost increases primarily were driven by employee-related costs from a perspective of some raises, pension and post-retirement benefits. We’re the largest drivers of our O&M cost. And then the timing of the maintenance on different plants, we did have a major maintenance on a plant at Colstrip this year. So that’s included in that. So, we haven’t given forward expectations on what we expect in 2014. Next quarter, we’ll come out. Typically, we do in November. We’ve come out with our expectations for the next year. So, we are under spent in O&M through six months but we think some of that was timing and it will come back. So we’re just saying we’ll still be within our expectations.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks Mike.

And we have no further questions. I will now turn the call back over to Jason Lang for closing comments.

I’d like to thank everyone for joining us today. We certainly appreciate your interest in Avista. Have a great day.

And thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today’s conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.