Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Unitil Corporation's first quarter 2013 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to turn the conference over to your host for today, Mr. David Chong, Director of Finance.

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us to discuss Unitil Corporation's first quarter 2013 financial results. With me today are Bob Schoenberger, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; Mark Collin, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer; Tom Meissner, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer; and Larry Bach, Chief Accounting Officer and Controller. We will discuss financial and other information about our first quarter on this call. As we mentioned in the press release announcing the call, we have posted that information, including a presentation to the investor section of our website at www.unitil.com. We will refer to that information during this call. Before we start, please note that comments made on this conference call may contain statements that are commonly referred to as forward-looking statements, which are mainly pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include statements regarding the company's financial condition, results of operations, capital expenditures and other expenses, regulatory environment and strategy, and market opportunities and other plans and objectives. In some cases forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as may, will, should, estimate, expect or belief, the negative of such terms or other comparable terminology. These forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but involve risks and uncertainties and the company's actual results could differ materially. Those risks and uncertainties including those listed or referred to on Slide 1 of the presentation and those detailed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including the company's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2012. Forward-looking statements speak only as of date they are made. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. With that said, I'll now turn the call over to Bob.

Thanks David. And I'd also like to thank everyone for joining us this afternoon. I'll begin by discussing the highlights of our past quarter. You can turn to Slide 4 of the presentation. Today we announced net income of $10.8 million for the first quarter of 2013, an increase of $1.8 million or 20% over the first quarter of 2012. A strong first quarter financial result reflect the combination of colder winter weather in 2013 compared to last year, and the positive effect of gas and electric distribution base rate increases and customer growth. We are executing on our core strategies to continue to grow our business, including the rapid expansion of the natural gas distribution system to serve the increasing demand for natural gas by our customers. Base rate case fillings to bridge the gap between our loud and earned returns on the increasing level of investment we are making in our utilities, and Usource, our non-regulated subsidiary. We believe that the combination of our growth strategies offers our shareholders a rare investment opportunity for growth, while at the same time having confidence in the income generated by our above industry-average dividend yield. We have a unique opportunity to double on of the size of gas business in the next few years. Let me spent a minute describing this opportunity. On Slide 5 which shows, the price of energy of natural gas versus other competing fuel sources, such as home heating oil. Natural gas prices continue to be favorable driven largely by the plentiful availability of shale gas plays across the U.S. We estimate that by switching to natural gas from fuel oil, our customers here in New England can reduce their cost by about half or $1,500 annually. On a larger scale this means that for every 1,000…

Thanks Bob. Good afternoon, everyone. As Bob stated earlier, net income increased by $1.8 million or 20% for this first quarter of 2013. On a per share basis, earnings were $0.79 for the first quarter of 2013 compared to $0.83 in the first quarter of 2012. Earnings per share in the first quarter of 2013 reflect a higher number of average shares outstanding period-over-period, from the $70 million common stock offering we completed in May of 2012. Results were positively affected by the combination of cold and winter weather in 2013 compared to last year, lower borrowing cost, the positive effect of distribution base rate increases and customer growth. Turing to Slide 10. Natural gas sales margins increased $3.2 million or 12% in the first quarter of 2013. Results for the first quarter of the year were driven primarily by higher therm unit sales and higher distribution base rates. Therm sales of natural gas increased by 12% in the first quarter of 2013, reflecting the effect of colder, winter weather and customer growth. Based on weather data collected in the company service areas, there were 10% more heating degree days in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the same period in 2012. Excluding the effect of weather on the change of sales year-over-year, weather normalized gas therm sales are estimated to be 7% higher in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the same period in 2012, reflecting a healthy customer growth rate. Despite the significant colder weather this year compared to prior year, heating degree days were still below normal by about 4%, which we estimate negatively impacted earnings by about $0.03 per share. Now, turning to Slide 11 where we highlight our electric business sales and margin. Electric sales margins increased $2.3 million or 14% in the…

And we'll take our first question comes from Liam Burke with Janney Capital.

Could you talk a little bit about, I mean you haven't talked where there is a lot of incentive for local governments or environmental purposes, and just general goodwill to encourage the use of natural gas versus other fuels. Could you give us some detail on any willingness of governments to partner with you in any type of projects to speed up the deployment of natural gas facilities?

Liam, it's a good question. I think it depends on which jurisdiction you're talking about. In the case of Maine, Maine is kind of a special state, and quite frankly I call it the wild, wild west right now, because they are basically encouraging distribution companies to get out and put pipe in the ground everywhere they can as quickly as they can. We obviously tend to do things in an economic way and we think we have an aggressive program now. The state is very happy with what we're doing. The state is not willing to put its credit to find an encouraging faster gas penetration in Maine. Some of the local communities have talked about forming their own municipal to do that or helping a private company, but none of those have come to fruition yet. In New Hampshire, we've had discussions with some of the local communities, and I'd say we're going to know more by the end of this year, since we're working on a couple of what we think are fairly innovative ways to aggregate customers to make projects that otherwise would not be economic, become economic. And Massachusetts has a fairly high penetration rate relative to the other two states. And again, other than the environmental side of the business, we haven't seen any real discussion of incentives.

And on Usource, percentage wise you saw fairly healthy year-over-year growth rate. Are you comfortable with the growth trajectory they are considering? It does contribute a fair amount of nice margin to the business.

Yes. I think you're going to see that trend continue over this year and our goal over time is to achieve a 10% to 15% growth rate. So I am comfortable with it.

And we'll take our next question from Shelby Tucker with RBC Capital Markets.

I guess a couple of questions. I know you formed UES for storm recovery to be effective May 1. That is separate from the annual rate adjustments that you have ongoing at the UES, is that correct?

The May 1 filing for Unitil Energy that is our annual tracker. So that what we file for May 1 for Unitil Energy is our periodic or annual tracker that we'll have one this year and then another one next year.

So that's under the 2012 storm cost, that's a $2.3 million that you've filed on March 14.

Yes. That's actually on top of, and to your point Shelby that's on top of our step increase.

So this is actually an additional one. And then what is the process, because I see you're looking for invitation by May 1. What steps you set here to go through, given the short timeframe here?

Basically, we've already met and had a hearing before the commission on these matters. So the next step is just to have the commission issue an order and allow us to put it in our tariff, and we don't expect any issue with that at this time.

And then, I saw on your 10-Q that there was a gas explosion at Pittsburg. If you could just maybe elaborate on what happened there?

Why don't we have Tom, our Chief Operating Office fill us on that real quick.

At this point, no official cause has been released in that explosion. So I can only speak to what we actually found in terms of facts. But the night of the explosion, we've been experiencing cold weather here in New England, which effects the depths of the frost on the ground. And upon responding to that scenes, the one thing that our investigators did find immediately was a crack made in the street in front of that location. So that's what we found. The official cause is still under investigation that could be some months before they actually release the official findings from that investigation. But we did in fact find a cracked main that was a result of the frost on the ground at that time.

And I guess investigations are done both of the MDP, but also AAG.

Thus far the investigation is really limited to the Mass Department of Public Utilities. They are the only ones that have been a party to it so far. We have answered Discovery in that and the next step is the cast-iron pipe that was involved that was actually sent to an outside metallurgical firm for testing and both ourselves, our investigators in the department will be witnessing those tests in the next couple of weeks.

And then my last question, I guess for Mark, as far as a bump-up in accounts receivable from about $46 million to $61 million, just any color there or it is just more seasonal issue?

Part of its, obviously, the sales performance that we just discussed in the first quarter were up quite a bit. So from just, a sale to retail customers, there is increase in accounts receivable related to that increase and margin increase in sales. In addition, accounts receivable also does include receivables related to third-party gas marketers that we provide certain services to during the winter period. And that can peak out in the winter period. And so about half of the increase in receivables is not related to retail customers, but is related to third-party gas marketers. And typically duration of those receivables is 30 days or less. And in fact, the large portion of that receivable has already been paid or brought down today as a result of gas marketers paying their portion.

I guess, and one last question, maybe for, Bob, on Usource. Are we seeing continued growth in the forward book? We are seeing some of that. I guess that being reflected in revenues growing too, although, the book seems to be growing faster than revenues. At what point do you start seeing maybe an acceleration in the revenue growth, given the size of the forward book?

I want to make sure I understand your question, could you give it to me one more time.

Sure. If I look at fourth quarter of last year, I think the forward book for Usource was somewhere around $8.2 million or so.

Right.

$9 million or $9.3 million, one quarter later, which obviously is as a testament to what you'd be talking about the ability to signing more customers. But the actual revenue increase you're seeing year-over-year is more modest, I think $200,000 or $400,000 somewhere around there. At what point you started seeing the actual revenue reflecting with the progress you're making in the forward book.

You'll start seeing that this year, I believe. And again, that forward book is revenue that will be recognized in future periods over the next five years, but primarily the next two. So over the next couple of years, you will see that really starting to impact the topline performance, as well as I expected the forward book, going forward will continue to grow at a fairly rapid rate as well.

So you think this year we're kind of starting the quarter, I mean, we're seeing some progress, but you should see the main acceleration of that in the following three quarters.

Yes. I think I've said before in previous calls, on the fourth quarter call that over the last few years it's been fairly flat revenue year-over-year. This is a year I think we've begin to resume our targeted growth rate.

And if there is no further questions, I will turn it back over to David for closing remarks.

Right. Thank you very much for joining us for our first quarter. If you have any follow-up questions, you can reach me in the office. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation. And you may now disconnect. Have a wonderful day.