John D'Orazio
Operator
Well, good morning. I'm John D'Orazio, President and CEO of RGC Resources, Inc. Welcome, and thank you for joining us as we discuss RGC Resources Fourth Quarter 2019 Results. First, I would like to go over a few administrative items. [Operator Instructions]. After the presentation is completed, we will take questions. The link to today's presentation is available on the Investor & Financial Information page of our website at www.rgcresources.com. We begin the presentation with a quick reminder on forward-looking statements as shown on Slide 1. Moving on to Slide 2. Today, we plan to review key operational and financial highlights, our 2020 outlook and end with Q&A. As shown on Slide 3, the results for fiscal 2019 well exceeded the prior year as earnings per share increased 14% to $1.08. Our financial results will be discussed in more detail later in the presentation. As Slide 4 highlights, we invested $5.3 million in regulated utility in the fourth quarter, a 10% decrease compared to the same period last year. We spent approximately $3.4 million on infrastructure replacement, $0.8 million on customer growth and $1.1 million on other capital needs. The quarter-to-quarter change was primarily due to timing of several 2018 customer growth and system expansion projects, met an increase of more than $1.5 million in SAVE-eligible infrastructure renewal and replacements. As shown on Slide 5, our fiscal year capital spending decreased approximately $1.4 million from fiscal 2018, primarily related to several large system expansion projects that occurred during the second half of fiscal 2018. For Slide 6, we continue to experience steady customer growth. We added another 152 customers during the fourth quarter, bringing total customer additions in fiscal 2019 to 668, a 12% increase over 2018. As noted on Slide 7, total volumes for the fourth quarter 2019 increased approximately 7% compared to prior year. This was driven by a significant increase in the usage of our industrial customers, which increased approximately 8% compared to the same period in the prior year. Over on Slide 8. Despite 4% warmer weather, fiscal 2019 volumes remained flat compared to the prior year. Commercial industrial volumes followed the same trend as total volumes experienced a 1% growth compared to fiscal 2018. Now I'd like to introduce Paul Nester, Chief Financial Officer, to review our financial results.