Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q4 2025 Black Hills Corporation Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Sal Diaz, Director of Investor Relations.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to Black Hills Corporation's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. You can find our earnings release and materials for our call this morning on our website at blackhillscorp.com. Leading our earnings call are Linn Evans, President and Chief Executive Officer; Kimberly Nooney, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Marne Jones, Senior Vice President and Chief Utility Officer. During our earnings discussion today, 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 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. With that, I will now turn the call over to Linn Evans. Linn?

Thank you, Sal. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today. I'll begin my comments on Slide 3 with a summary of our achievements in 2025 and our strategic outlook, including an update on our merger with NorthWestern Energy. Kimberly will provide our financial update, and Marne will discuss our operational performance and progress on a few key initiatives. I'll start with a sincere thank you to our Black Hills team. I'm incredibly proud of our team's accomplishments in 2025. We achieved the key commitments we made at the beginning of the year, setting the stage for ongoing success. We once again fulfilled our financial commitments, achieving the midpoint of our earnings guidance and long-term growth target. We successfully executed our financing strategy, maintaining our solid investment-grade credit ratings. We achieved strong earnings through the consistent execution of our long-term strategy, which drove new base rates, rider recovery and enabled customer growth. Notably, we witnessed growing demand from our large load customers such as data centers and solid economic development in our service territories. We also increased our dividend for the 55th consecutive year in 2025 and recently extended that industry-leading track record to 56 years. Our team made strong regulatory progress, completing 3 rate reviews and advancing several strategic project approvals. We also advanced our plans to serve data center demand, tripling our data center pipeline during the year to more than 3 gigawatts. In just 3 years, our team successfully designed, permitted, constructed and energized our 260-mile Ready Wyoming transmission project, delivering the project on schedule. This transformative project is a great example of our commitment to innovative and customer-centric investments. By strategically interconnecting our electric systems in South Dakota and Wyoming, we're providing value that will reliably and affordably serve our customers for generations to…

Thank you, Linn, and good morning, everyone. Our team did an exceptional job of delivering on our strategy and financial commitments for 2025. Together, we are pleased to deliver another year that advanced our track record as a trusted energy partner by achieving the midpoint of our earnings guidance and maintaining our strong investment-grade credit rating while efficiently funding our $900 million capital investment plan during the year. And as Linn mentioned, regarding the merger with NorthWestern Energy, we are working towards a stronger future, including a larger balance sheet that will support our ability to execute with confidence on the needs of our customers with a stable financial foundation. On Slide 10, we provide a bridge comparing results for 2025 to the prior year. We delivered GAAP EPS of $3.98, which included $0.12 of merger-related transaction costs. Adjusting for these costs, we reported $4.10 of adjusted EPS for 2025, an increase of 5% compared to $3.91 per share in 2024. We successfully executed our regulatory strategy, delivering $0.95 per share of new rates and rider recovery margin, along with ongoing customer growth, which more than offset higher operating, financing and depreciation expenses. Weather was favorable by $0.09 compared to a very mild 2024. However, when compared to normal, weather represented an $0.11 headwind we overcame in 2025. O&M was higher by $0.36 per share, which included $0.12 of merger-related transaction costs. Excluding merger costs, our O&M expenses increased $0.24 per share year-over-year, primarily driven by $0.13 of higher employee and outside service expense, $0.08 per share of higher insurance costs and $0.05 of unplanned generation outages. Financing costs increased $0.33 per share which included $0.25 of higher interest expense, $0.19 of share dilution and a benefit of $0.12 per share from AFUDC, driven by large construction projects. We also…

Thank you, Kimberly, and good morning, everyone. As Linn and Kim already outlined, we had a remarkable year, providing safe and reliable service to our customers. Operational performance was excellent, as we continue to deliver top quartile reliability and invest in a resilient and reliable energy future, advancing electric transmission and generation projects as well as safety and integrity focused projects for our gas utilities. We advanced regulatory and growth initiatives and continued to work to address wildfire risk. I'm pleased to report on our success this year, which did not come without hard work and dedication. An example of the resilience of our team and system was response to an extreme wind event in December. With winds reaching 100 miles per hour in Rapid City, South Dakota, our teams and mutual aid partners work throughout our communities to restore power safely and as efficiently as possible, replacing damaged poles and lines. Thank you to our dedicated team members and the response from our community and our restoration efforts. I'll start on Slide 16 with our 2025 accomplishments. In December, we completed construction of our 260-mile Ready Wyoming transmission project that energized the final segments on schedule. This is a milestone in our history, and I couldn't be more proud of our team and partners as this project is transformational to our ability to serve customers reliably and cost effectively. It reduces our reliance on third-party transmission, enhances resiliency and increases access to market energy. Our interconnected transmission network will support long-term price stability for our customers and enable continued growth across our service territory. And as a reminder, the bulk of this investment is being recovered through our Wyoming transmission rider. Moving to Slide 17. In 2025, we broke ground on our Lange II project, a 99-megawatt utility-owned natural…

Thank you, Marne. I'm excited about all that we've accomplished as a Black Hills team over the past year with a long list of other wins beyond what we had time to mention today. As you've heard, we continue to consistently achieve our financial commitments and make excellent progress on our regulatory plan, our growth initiatives and our strategic goals. We're already off and running with a consistent focus in 2026 with customer-centric innovation as we pursue our mission of improving life with energy and how we do business and be the energy partner of choice. As we look forward, Black Hills offers a compelling long-term value proposition when considering our customer-focused growth, competitive yield and significant upside opportunities above and beyond our 5-year plan. Additionally, our planned merger with NorthWestern Energy will provide us with the advantages of increased scale and new opportunities as a larger and premier regional electric and natural gas utility company. Thank you for your interest and your trust in the Black Hills team as we partner to grow long-term value for our customers and stakeholders. This concludes our prepared remarks, and we're happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Chris Ellinghaus with Siebert Williams Shank.

Linn, vis-a-vis the 3 gigawatt pipeline. Can you give us any sense of what proportion that might fall within your 5-year window? Or how much of it is beyond the 5-year plan? Can you give us any color on timings or even geography?

Chris, thank you for the question. I appreciate that. Yes, I'm happy to provide some color as best I can here. We have two existing customers in Microsoft and Meta, they continue to be in our pipeline. We indicated in our opening comments that we would be 600 megawatts by 2030. That's our estimate based upon forecasts and conversations, things of that nature. And then beyond that, we do have the 3 gigawatt plus. And I would say the best way to describe that is, the ones that we are negotiating with the most aggressively might be the right phrase or the most right now -- want to take service in that 2027 time frame. And then realize when they start to take service, it will ramp up. It won't be all at once as they construct, as they expand their data centers, et cetera. So hopefully, that gives you some idea about how we think about it, Chris.

Okay. That helps. So obviously, you have a much better sense of what's likely and what the time frames are. And the equipment queue is tight. Can you file CPCNs in advance of having exact specificity of what resources you might need to sort of get that ball rolling and maybe get some greater security for yourself in terms of trying to get in equipment queues and whatnot?

Chris, this is Marne. So I can talk to you a little bit about the CPCN process. So typically, you want to have as many of the facts present as possible when you look at CPCN. As we are working through this, as you mentioned, the equipment queue is tight, we are in those queues. We are starting to get some of those specific details about CPCN. But really, it's also important to recognize to how we'll recover on those -- any of those CPCNs and so all of this really ties together. We're still navigating. This is new territory. Obviously, CPCNs aren't new to us, but new territory as we're working on that speed to market, that we'll be working through how do we bring those CPCNs as quickly as we can.

Just emphasizing what Marne said, we're in the queue. And as importantly, our customers are also in equipment queues, so that's been helpful to us.

Okay. That helps. And as far as the NorthWestern merger goes, you've made filings, but have you had any significant interface with the Montana Commission to sort of gauge what their attitude is at this point?

I'd say the best way to describe that, Chris, is we are in discovery stage right now. So we have to be very careful of [indiscernible] things of that nature, but we are in the discovery phase. We're getting the kind of questions that we would fully anticipate and that's going. I'd say just kind of almost according to plan, if you will, certainly according to our expectations about questions that would be asked information that they need to make a good decision.

Okay. Maybe one last question about data centers since that's a topic -- Can you give us any sense of the scale or numbers of data centers in your pipeline? Or is there a bunch of -- I guess this is objective of what's large to you. But is there a bunch of large ones? Are there -- are they sort of moderate scale? Can you give us any sense of how many candidates there are in the queue?

Chris, as Linn mentioned upfront, we do have our two customers today, Microsoft and Meta, both are looking for potential opportunities to expand. We've talked a bit about Tallgrass, Crusoe. I would say, in general, that's a big chunk of what we consider as our pipeline. Obviously, there's some others out there, too, but that's the big chunk of it.

And then I would add one of the advantages of Wyoming and Cheyenne in particular, where we're seeing a lot of these data centers, bloom and blossom, is the fact that land is relatively available, and it's relatively inexpensive. So from our perspective, quite a bit of land is being acquired for these. So I think they're going to be large hyperscale data centers for the most part.

Our next question comes from Andrew Weisel with Scotiabank.

Unsurprisingly, a couple more questions about the Crusoe-Tallgrass project. First, based on the regulatory filings, and Marne, you alluded to some of this in your comments, but you're proposing to build some transmission infrastructure, including this Robinson substation and some transmission lines to connect it to your grid. And you're proposing a pretty unique setup where the customer would pay for construction to help alleviate risk and cost to the Cheyenne Light customers. I think that's a great setup. My question is, given this interconnection, do you see -- do these assets essentially ensure that the entire data center project will be "grid connected?" And therefore, would all related spending qualify for the LPCS tariff, is that your expectation? Basically, I just want to understand how this would be applied. You talked about certain fees being negotiated. How should we think about what's objective versus subjective maybe?

Yes. Andrew, coming through, I want to make sure I got your question here, so I'll give it a shot. From a microgrid management fee perspective, we really apply that to peak demand. So -- as I think all of us had mentioned, there's 3 different types of resources we can use to serve that type of load and each type of resource that we use comes with a different type of a microgrid management fee or a typical utility or risk-adjusted return, that's really that the fees that are charged based on their peak demand.

And Andrew, I believe -- Andrew, sorry to interrupt you, but I think further to that is these networks to date as we -- everything is being negotiated. Not everything is cemented, obviously or we'd be making other kinds of announcements. But much of this -- these megawatts, this energy, yes, it's tied to our system, if you will, to date.

Okay. That's helpful. I guess maybe if I could get a little more specific on the generation side. You haven't talked about generation needs as so far, it's not your project and you haven't announced contracts, of course. But Tallgrass has publicly talked about investing $7 billion of energy infrastructure in your service territory. You alluded to fuel cells. And of course, a big utility had an SEC document about $3 billion of fuel cells in Cheyenne. Some investors are confused about whether these would qualify for utility fees and the LPCS tariff. So I guess maybe could you just elaborate? Is there anything about fuel cells or anything else? How should we think about all those billions of dollars and whether or not that would apply to your fee structure?

Yes, Andrew, so as I mentioned, the resource mix is still being evaluated and how ultimately we would serve that load. As I noted, and you're very familiar with, as we use market that's more reliant on -- in lieu of building when we're looking at contracted or co-located generation that comes with a different type of pricing. And certainly, if there's opportunity to build, we would look at that through the lens of risk-adjusted utility return very similar to what we do today from a regulated rate base perspective. So all of that goes into play in the pricing, that pricing has been what is basically applied to the peak demand.

Okay. Okay. And I guess, going back to the T&D side or transmission side, really, are there other assets that you're looking to fast track to accommodate this or other big data center customers? Should we expect more filings like that Robinson substation filing?

As we've talked in the past, that 500 and 600 -- 500 to 600 megawatts, we believe, is going to require some additional investment beyond that time frame. So whether it's this project, other projects, we certainly see there's opportunities for additional investment beyond our current plan based on this pipeline.

Okay. Great. Maybe one last one and answer as best you can, I guess. You obviously still have not yet signed an energy service agreement with the hyperscaler for the Crusoe project. Will be as patient as we can. My question is they're looking to move pretty quickly and the timing of your CPCN filing calls for in-service, I believe, by March of next year, which is very fast. By when would you need to sign and announce something to keep everything on track? Is there some kind of time frame we should be watching for on the calendar?

We do know -- I mean there's intention from the customer, I think, to begin taking service in Q1 of 2027. So obviously, we are working in alignment with them as well as all the parties. We want to meet both of our goals.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Ross Fowler with Bank of America.

Hopefully not beating a dead horse here, but I just wanted to go back to kind of what we factually know at this point and kind of walk through some numbers and make sure my understanding is correct. So we have 600 megawatts currently in the plan. And we know that, that is 200 megawatts from Microsoft. Is the other 400 megawatts of that, the meta site or is there something else in that gap?

Ross, I think I'll step back and correct you on that. We have not disclosed nor has Microsoft disclosed the number of megawatts that they take from us. But we can see on a combined basis for both Microsoft and Meta, we anticipate it'll be 600 megawatts by 2030. Hopefully, that's helpful.

Okay. That is helpful. And then we know that Meta's data center is in Wyoming County. And so we know some piece of the 600 is in Wyoming County. And there's about 1,150 megawatts of generation in the interconnection queue filings in Wyoming County. So the rest of that beyond whatever I estimate Meta might be of the 600, where is that coming from? Is that the Tallgrass site? Is that some other side? Is that -- I'm just trying to scale things based on what we know from public filings?

So yes, Ross, we've shared, I guess, kind of what we can share. We are still under negotiations. We're still determining resource mix. As with any queue, you're going to have a lot of parties in queues. And so these are things that we'll continue to work through as we firm up our mixes.

And Ross, I might add to that. I'd ask you to remember that both Meta and Microsoft are taking market energy. And therefore, the megawatts of interconnection don't always connect if you will, or add up.

Okay. All right. So it's not additive because they're taking market, [indiscernible] And then the 4% to 6% EPS CAGR, right, through '28, that is inside or I should say, the 4% to 6% EPS CAGR includes that 10% EPS contribution. It's not on top of the 4% to 6%, right? It's within the 4% to 6%.

You're correct.

I would now like to turn the call back over to Linn Evans for any closing remarks.

Well, thank you very much for your questions. Thank you very much for your interest in Black Hills Energy and Black Hills Corporation. I want to once again say thank you to our team for a fantastic 2025 and thank you for leaning into 2026, and we appreciate all of you attending today and have Black Hills Energy Safe day. Thank you.

Thank you. This concludes the conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.