Good morning. My name is Sun Xie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Chesapeake Utilities 2013 Year End Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you. Ms. Beth Cooper, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, you may begin your conference.

Good morning and welcome to the Chesapeake Utilities year end 2013 earnings conference call. Turning to Slide 2, before we begin, I would like to remind you that matters discussed in this conference call may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Please refer to the Safe Harbor for forward-looking statements in the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K. This section provides information on the risks and uncertainties related to the company's forward-looking statements. As shown on Slide 3, yesterday morning, we announced our results for 2013, record net income of $32.8 million or $3.39 per share. 2013 earnings per share were 13.4% higher than 2012 earnings per share of $2.99. Further, compound annual earnings growth for the five years ended December 31, 2013, exceeded 11%. This consistent level of superior earnings growth also supported growth in the dividend. Our most recent dividend increase in May of 2013, represented growth in the annualized dividend of 5.5% or dividend payout ratio of approximately 45%. Growth in our earnings has facilitated growth in our dividend, and has also enabled us to retain earnings, to make additional investments to generate continued earnings growth in the future. The significant growth in 2013 earnings over 2012 reflected positive contributions from recent acquisitions, continued strong growth in the natural gas distribution and transmission businesses, from new service expansions and new customer growth. A return to more normal weather on the Delmarva Peninsula and higher retail propane margins. While these factors were instrumental in driving our higher performance in 2013, the acquisitions, pipeline and distribution system expansions and customer additions, also provide opportunities for continued margin growth in the future. I will next highlight the key accomplishments and results for the company's business…

Thank you, Beth, and good morning everyone. As Beth has highlighted, in 2013 we increased earnings per share by $0.40 or 13% and had another record year. I couldn't be prouder of our team's efforts over the last several years. A lot has been done, but there are still more to be accomplished. Having said that, we as a country are very fortunate. We have an abundance of clean burning, low cost natural gas, that provides an opportunity for us to lower energy bills and improve our competitive position worldwide. At Chesapeake, we are working tirelessly to identify opportunities to deliver this clean fuel, to as many residential, commercial and industrial consumers as possible. Our efforts are saving our customers and the communities we serve money and improving their local economies. We are reducing our emissions, while creating jobs. Finally, our efforts are also generating value for our shareholders. While I am proud of what our team has accomplished to-date, we know that we always have to look ahead. We are continuing to invest in our distribution-transmission systems for all the reasons described above, including generating earnings. We are continuing our efforts to identify opportunities to expand our service offerings and our transmission and distribution systems. We are making important investments to expand our capabilities and bandwidth to serve the significant growth that we are already serving, and to increase our ability to identify and develop the significant growth potential we see ahead. Before I move on, let me talk about the shareholder value we are creating, and some of the types of opportunities we are seeing, and how we plan to continue to producing superior returns and growth. As you can see on Slide 10, total shareholder return for 2013 exceeded 35%. In addition, our average annual shareholder returns…

(Operator Instructions). And we do have a question from the line of Spencer Joyce with Hilliard Lyons. Your line is now open.

Beth, Mike, good morning. Congrats on a really good year.

Thanks Spencer.

Thank you.

Just one quick one for me here, maybe a little more over the weekend. But Beth, I may have asked you this before, but can you just refresh us on why we see the downtick in D&A in Q4, sequentially from Q3?

Sure. We actually had other post retirement benefit gain, that impacted quarter four. It represented about $510,000.

That was through the depreciation line?

Yes. The amortization. Yes.

Okay. Thanks. That all I had. Again, good year guys.

Thank you.

Thanks Spencer.

(Operator Instructions). Your next question comes from the line of Michael Gaugler with Brean Capital. Your line is now open.

Good morning everyone.

Good morning.

Good morning Michael. One item I did notice in the slides, your CapEx by business segment in Slide 9, certainly a step-up in the CapEx on the electric side. I just was kind of wondering, what's driving that increased investment profile there?

On the electric side, there are some additional -- they have a replacement program, and so, some of the pull replacement and some of the other equipment that they have, the process of going through replacing that and upgrading that.

And then, would you anticipate that level of spend for a couple of years, or is 2014 just kind of a one-off?

I mean, they have had spend each year, related to those initiatives. I think there are some things that they are trying to actually pursue a little bit faster this year, to get in place, just to get the system where they would like it to be. So there is a little bit more this year. I wouldn't expect, that as we go out, you would tend to see that level reoccurring year-over-year. But there will be some each year.

Okay. That's all I had, and congrats on a nice quarter.

Thank you.

Thanks Michael.

(Operator Instructions). And we do have a question from the line of Spencer Joyce with Hilliard Lyons. Your line is now open.

Hi. I remembered I did have one other one. In Q4, we saw pretty sharp increase in year-over-year O&M expense, about 17 percentage points there. And I know that something that you all have been talking to us for a while, that we may see a bit of growth in over the next year or two. I know you don't get too specific with line item guidance, but can you give us kind of a feel on what sort of growth we should we expecting out in 2014 there for the O&M?

Well, there is going to be a couple of things that are going to be impacting 2014, probably, one of the largest is going to be the fact that you are going to have five additional months of Sandpiper. So you are going to see a step-up in our expenses that come from that business, and the expenses that we incur basically from January to May; because they joined us in June of last year. So that in and of itself, Spencer will be a step-up that you'll see. Then above and beyond that, as we have been expanding into new areas, we have had increased business unit expenses, and we have also -- and we have had costs in our corporate area, both of which are to support the growth that we have seen, as well as the growth that we expect to continue to see, as we are building out in these areas, and as we are continuing to look at new investment opportunities. So I think, if you take a look at the run rate of the fourth quarter of 2013, there were a couple of things that impacted that quarter, but I think that's a fairly good trend to build off of, as we are coming into 2014 and you will still continue to see a gradual increase there, compared to going back several years ago.

So a couple of special items here in Q4, but again, the trend should be up a little bit?

Yes.

Okay. Great color there. Thanks.

And there are no questions at this time. I'd turn the call back over to presenters.

Well thanks everyone for your interest in Chesapeake, and we appreciate all of your support, and have a nice weekend. Thank you.

Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.