Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to today’s NorthWestern Energy Corporation Second Quarter 2013 Financial Results Conference Call. Today’s call is being recorded. At this time I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Travis Meyer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Catherine. Good afternoon and welcome to NorthWestern Corporation’s financial results conference call and webcast for the quarter-ended June 30, 2013. NorthWestern’s results have been released and the release is available on our website at www.northwesternenergy.com. We also filed our 10-Q after the market closed yesterday. Joining us on the call today are Bob Rowe, President and CEO; Brian Bird, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Kendall Kliewer, Vice President and Controller; John Hines, Vice President of Energy Supply and Mike Cashell, Vice President of Transmission. This presentation contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based upon our current expectations and speak only as of this date. Our actual results may differ materially and adversely from those expressed in our forward-looking statements as a result of various factors and uncertainties, including those listed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K, recent and forthcoming 10-Qs, recent Form 8-Ks and other filings with the SEC. We undertake no obligation to revise or publicly update our forward-looking statements for any reason. Following our presentation, those who are joining us by teleconference will be able to ask questions. A replay of today’s call will be available beginning at 6:30 Eastern Time through August 25, 2013. To access the replay dial 888-203-1112, then access code 1856638. Again that’s 888-203-1112, access code 1856638. A replay of today’s webcast will also be available on our website. I’ll now turn it over to President and CEO, Bob Rowe.

Thank you, Travis. As many of you know we move most of our Board around our service territories, so today we are at our Brookings in South Dakota office. Yesterday we had our Board meeting on the campus of South Dakota, State University. Last night we had a great community event and then this morning a meeting with our employees here in Brookings. On Tuesday we were about 150 miles Northwest from here in Aberdeen, South Dakota where we held a dedication and ribbon cutting for our new Aberdeen generating station, that’s our most recent energy supply addition in South Dakota and recognized the successful completion and effort put forth by many people both inside and outside the company. This is a 60 megawatt gas peaker came in to service on April 30th and has already been called upon several times to help meet heavy loads from the summer temperatures that we have been experiencing here and of course other parts of the country as well. Similarly just a few weeks earlier we held a dedication for our 40 megawatt wind facility in Judith Basin County in Montana. So we have lot of experience cutting ribbons over the last few weeks. That facility Spion Kop was completed and placed into commercial operation in December. On our last call in April we mentioned the capacity factor at Spion Kop was far exceeding our expectations but we also cautioned that winds typically do slow in the spring and summer months. However with spring behind us and already in the middle of the summer we are still blown away, are in that really terrible bind with a capacity factor of around 46%. We are confident that these two new adds along with our pending natural gas acquisition that we will discuss a bit more are going to be great addition to our gas and electric energy supply portfolios, and are going help us provide our customers clean cost effective and reliable energy for decades to come. I will provide an update on the pending natural gas transaction a little bit later. I know most of you have already read our Q and our release and as you saw we have experienced improvement in gross margin, operating income, net income as compared to the second quarter of last year, come back and cover out some more detail on some of operational details, but first I am going to turn things over to Brian to report on some of the progress on the earning side. Before I do that I do want to announce that our Board of Directors did declare a common stock dividend of $0.38 per share payable on September 30th to shareholders of record as of September 30. Brian?

Thanks Bob. As Bob mentioned we again are pleased with our financial results this quarter. It’s not always fun to be a CFO but a nice solid quarter like this certainly makes it more enjoyable. We reported consolidated net income of $14.3 million or $0.37 per diluted share for the quarter ended June 30, 2013 as compared with net income of $11.4 million or $0.31 per diluted share for the same quarter in 2012. The latest this quarter fell fairly, simple improvements in weather on a year-over-year basis and the addition of our growth projects and electric generation and gas production are the primary drivers for improved results. Provide a little more detail gross margin was $153.3 million or $5.1 million better than last year primarily due to the following; an increase in natural gas and electric retail volumes due primarily to colder and more typical spring weather, an increase in natural gas production margin primarily from the acquisition of the Bear Paw assets in the third quarter of 2012; an increase in electric transmission capacity revenues due largely to wholesale energy market pricing; margin contribution from Spion Kop placed in to service late in the fourth quarter of last year; lower [inaudible] related energy supply cost and although a relative low volume quarter for gas we did also start recognizing the benefit of the natural gas rate increase we were authorized to start collecting on April 1st. These improvements were partly offset by decrease in our demand side management or DSM loss revenues recovered through our supply trackers, lower DGGS revenue primarily due to an increase in our FERC related deferrals after last September’s initial decision from the FERC ALJ and lower revenues from operating expenses recovered in trackers primarily related to customer efficiency programs. On the expense side…

Thank you, Brian. As you have heard earnings drivers much of the benefit we are seeing year-over-year is the result of our energy supply additions. These projects provide great investment opportunities for our shareholders while guaranteeing or while providing our customers long term certainty and price stability. At the start of the call I mentioned I would come back and provide some more detail around our supply investments on the gas side we are referring to our most recent acquisition as Bear Paw South and is a reminder this is the transaction that we announced on May 28 to purchase 64.6 Bcf of proven and producing gas production in the Southern Bear Paw basin of North Central Montana. The $70 million purchase price also included an 82% interest in the Havre Pipeline Company. Havre Pipeline is a small regulated utility providing farm cap gas services but is primarily a gas gathering and transmission company for the Bear Paw basin. Although it’s a much smaller part of the overall transaction this piece of the transaction does require a limited waiver from the Montana Public Service Commission to allow NorthWestern to own and operate this regulated public utility as a subsidiary. The request for waiver was filed on June 21st, the deadline to intervene July 19th and the only party to do so was the Montana Consumer Council which of course would normally intervene in matters of this type. We hope to have the waiver approved during the third quarter and are targeting to close on the transaction early in the fourth quarter. Similar to the first two gas acquisitions that we made we are not seeking preapproval as a condition of closing instead upon closing we anticipate using the same bridging practice of using our natural gas tracker to recover expenses,…

Thank you. (Operator Instructions). And we have a question from Paul Ridzon from KeyBanc. Paul Ridzon – KeyBanc: Good afternoon, can you hear me?

Yes we can. Paul Ridzon – KeyBanc: So just had a question on Colstrip the $4.5 million Northwestern share, most of that will be capitalized, did I catch that right?

Yes. Paul Ridzon – KeyBanc: And then secondly just more color on what drove the expected tax rate down to the bottom of your previous range, is that’s just higher PTCs and capacity factor?

Yeah I think after evaluating taxes after the end of the year and certainly after we provided the guidance early this year we felt that we would be able to achieve the lower end of the range. Paul Ridzon – KeyBanc: Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. (Operator Instructions). And Brian Russo with Ladenburg Thalmann. Brian Russo – Ladenburg Thalmann: Hi good afternoon.

Hey Brian. Brian Russo – Ladenburg Thalmann: I just want to understand the guidance revision the $0.05 move up in the bottom and top of the range? It looks like $4.5 million lower depreciation yields, about $0.09 positive, then you had $0.02 of positive weather. So it looks like that’s being offset by the reduced transmission revenues associated with CS4 is that correct?

Brian that’s partially correct. The other component of that I mean remember that the two reasons why we are increasing is depreciation studies and the taxes, okay knowing that we are going to be at the bottom end of our range. The two takeaways if you will first was some expenses you might have noticed our operating, general, administrative expenses were one up $300,000. We do expect some expenses that we didn’t incur in the first half of the year, this slide the second half of the year catch up on certain things in the transmission and distribution side of our business, some plant operation cost that we expect to be in the second half of the year. So timing if you will of those expenses, one of the reason that would push down if you will any increase in our guidance and the item is we believe there is going to be an impact at the Colstrip 4 outage on our transmission revenues in the second half of the year. Brian Russo – Ladenburg Thalmann: Okay. And that outage is one time where the depreciation reduction and the tax rate is ongoing.

Correct. And the one thing I should also point out Brian in your $0.02, remember the $0.02 we since that was favorable to us we take that out of our earnings to get to our adjusted GAAP. So don’t take the $0.02 into our adjusted guidance. We try to take out the benefit of that weather, get to back to normal weather on a going forward basis, if that makes sense. Brian Russo – Ladenburg Thalmann: Right so your guidance excludes the $0.02 weather impact.

Correct. Brian Russo – Ladenburg Thalmann: Okay. Then is there any opportunity where you guys are contemplating raising the 50% target on you gas reserve ownership, something higher than that?

I think in that regard Bob mentioned in his prepared statements that we have a goal up to 50% but also considering if that continued support if you will that we could also procure some of that gas for our generating units, particularly the Dave Gates. Brian Russo – Ladenburg Thalmann: Right. So I guess the way we should look at any future acquisitions it could be more than that remaining 12% you need to get to 50% potentially?

Yeah, Brian we should also point out as any acquisitions might not just be perfectly to get us from that remaining percentage to 50% too right. And I think also we have mentioned that you have a declining curve on these assets too. So in order to maintain at 50% we need to continue to buy assets overtime. Brian Russo – Ladenburg Thalmann: Okay. Thank you very much.

(Operator Instructions). And at the moment we have no additional questions in the queue. I will go ahead and turn the floor back over to Bob Rowe for any additional remarks.

I better strike while the iron is hot. It was the shortest Q&A I think we have ever had thank you which clearly reflects well on the press release and the disclosures. So thank you all for your interest, look forward to visiting with you next quarter and in between.