Good morning and welcome to the Northwest Natural Gas Third Quarter 2013 Teleconference. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. (Operator Instructions) After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. (Operator Instructions) Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Bob Hess. Please go ahead sir.

Thank you, Dennis. And apologize for the late start. We had technical difficulties. Good morning everybody and welcome to our third quarter earnings call. As a reminder, some of the things that will be said this morning contain forward-looking statements. They are based on management’s assumptions, which may or may not come true, and you should refer to the language at the end of our news release for the appropriate cautionary statements and also our SEC filings for additional information. We do expect to file our 10-Q later today. As previously mentioned, this teleconference is being recorded and will be available on our website following the call. Please note that these conference calls are designed for financial community. If you’re an individual investor and have questions, please contact me directly at 503-220-2388, media can contact Kim Heiting directly at 503-220-2366. Speaking this morning are Gregg Kantor, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Steve Feltz, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Gregg and Steve have some opening remarks and then will be available to answer your questions. As always joining us today are other members of our executive team, who can help answer your questions. With that, let me turn you over to Gregg.

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us for our third quarter earnings call. I will start with a brief overview of the period. And then turn it over to Steve to cover the financial details before I wrap up with a look forward. Our performance in the third quarter was on target. We continued to see positive gains from our gas reserves investment, the customer growth increased to just over 1.1%. The sub-tick in customer additions coincided with economic news that reflects continues really to reflect a slow but steady recovery. In the quarter, Portland’s unemployment was down for the fifth consecutive month and down nearly 1% year-over-year with an outstanding at 7.3%. The region experienced a year-over-year employment gain of 28,700 jobs, its large since before the recession. In fact Portland’s labor market expanded by 2.8% in the past 12 months, well ahead of the U.S. average of 1.6%. All of these are really very positive signs that our local economy is moving in the right direction. Turning to third quarter performance, we continued to see an increase in utility margin resulting from two changes coming out of last year’s rate case that were designed to smooth out the seasonality of our earnings, one relating to our decoupling adjustment and the other to an increase in our fixed monthly customer charge. Beginning in November all the timing impact associated with those rate structure changes were completely flow through. So that going forward, we won’t see big differences in revenue from these items in our quarterly comparison. Also in the period, we made progress on several regulatory items, last week, we received approval of our annual purchase gas adjustment, which included a 0.8% increase to Oregon residential rate and about a 1.5% increase to Washington residential rate. In Oregon, the…

Thank you, Gregg and good morning everyone. Before I start, I would like to apologize that the sound of my voice is not consistent as I’m dealing with a seasonal cold and cough. Good news is we are getting into the cold season for gas utility that’s good news. But in terms of the call, I hope to make do my best to make sure it’s not too distracting. As I report on results for the quarter, please remember that a significant portion of our business is seasonal and financial results are lower in the third quarter of the year due to the impact of warmer weather on customer’s natural gas heating. For the third quarter of 2013, our net loss was $8 million or $0.31 per share, as compared to $11 million or $0.41 per share last year. The improvement was partly driven by higher utility margins from customer growth and our continuing investments in gas reserve. In addition, this year’s third quarter benefited from positive timing difference and a non-recurring income tax charge taken in the third quarter last year [indiscernible] from decisions in the 2012 rate case. As Gregg mentioned, starting this month, November, the timing differences we have been reporting for the last three quarters will no longer have an impact on year-over-year results. Turning now to a more complete discussion of our third quarter, the utility generated a net loss of $9.6 million in the quarter, down from $12.2 million last year. The improvement included margin increases of $4.7 million and an income tax benefit increases of $2.7 million related to the non-recurring charge. Partially offsetting these increases were higher O&M expenses and higher interest cost. Regarding the margin increase, as discussed in previous quarters we saw favorable timing differences this quarter totaling $5.3 million…

Thanks Steve, amazingly you did not cough during any of that presentation. Let me finish with a brief update on a few of our growth opportunities. As you know, we’ve been working on evaluating the viability of a Mist storage expansion project to support PGE’s gas fired plants at Port Westward. The concept for this expansion is to use Mist’s storage capacity to provide a flexible and reliable on-demand yield source for PGE’s gas fired generation that is being, that they are building to backup their wind resources. Since our last call, we continued working through engineering details that would be used in an EPC contract bid. Once that work is complete, we will be reviewing those costs with PGE to determine whether to proceed with the project. As I have mentioned before, the project would require the development of new storage wells, a compressor station and additional pipeline facility. While we’re cautiously optimistic about the expansion moving forward, there is a great deal of work left to do, we hope to know whether the project will proceed before the end of the second quarter of next year. During our last conference call, I mentioned that we had filed a tariff with the Oregon Commission to provide high pressure gas service for CNG vehicle refueling. If approved that tariff would allow us to offer this service to fleet owners interested in the cost and environmental benefits of natural gas. Last week, there was a public meeting at the Oregon Commission to discuss the tariff and it was decided that a hearing would be scheduled on the matter in the coming week. While a decision when the tariff is still pending, we were really pleased with the level of support that was voiced from local businesses and organizations at the public meeting. And I can also tell you that as the incoming American Gas Association Chair, I’m hearing from gas utility CEOs and many others from across the country about, a very high level of optimism and positive momentum for CNG vehicles. Frankly, whether we are talking about the use of natural gas in homes and businesses, or in fleets and marine vessel, from a price and environmental perspective, our product has never been better positioned. Exciting to contemplate what might lay ahead given the opportunities for natural gas further a number of our nation’s economic and environmental comparatives. With that, let me stop and open it up for questions.

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) The first question comes from Spencer Joyce from Hilliard Lyons. Please go ahead. Spencer Joyce – Hilliard Lyons: Good morning guys. Thanks for taking my call.

Good morning, Spencer. Spencer Joyce – Hilliard Lyons: Just one quick question for you, on the charge that we had in Q3 last year, was that $2.7 million after tax and I’m showing that to be about $0.11, are both of those right, so if we think about this year, we would see or that $0.30 would be about a good comp there, is that right?

Well, first of, yes. The 2.7 million wasn’t after tax. It was a tax write-down. So it was potentially before an after tax but it was an after tax impact and it was $0.10 per share. Spencer Joyce – Hilliard Lyons: Okay. Great. Bob, I’ll probably give you a call here later but that’s all I have right off the bed. Thanks.

All right. Thanks Spencer.

(Operator Instructions) We show no further questions at this time. So I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.

Well, I know this is a busy day for calls and ETI meetings and everything else. So if you do come up with some questions, feel free to give us a call, connect with Bob. Beyond that thank you, again, for tuning in today and we look forward to further conversation.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.