Good day, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the Unitil's Second Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Mr. Todd Diggins, Director of Finance. Sir, you may begin.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us to discuss Unitil Corporation's Second Quarter 2019 Financial Results. With me today are Tom Meissner, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; Christine Vaughan, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer; Larry Brock, Chief Accounting Officer and Controller; and Todd Black, Senior Vice President External Affairs and Customer Relations. We will discuss financial and other information about our second quarter results on this call. As we mentioned in the press release announcing the call, we have posted that information, including a presentation, to the Investors section of our website at www.unitil.com. We will refer to that information during this call. Before we start, as you can see on Slide 2, the comments made today about future operating results or future events are forward-looking statements under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those predicted. Statements made on this call should be considered together with cautionary statements and other information contained in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and other documents we have filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements speak only as of today, and we assume no duty to update them. With that said, I will now turn the call over to Tom.

Thank you, Todd, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. I'm going to begin on Slide 4, where today we announced net income of $4 million or $0.27 per share for the second quarter of 2019. This is an increase of $0.4 million or $0.03 per share over the second quarter of 2018. For the year-to-date period, net income was $30.5 million or $2.05 per share, an increase of 11.3% or $0.75 per share compared to 2018. As a reminder, in the first quarter, we announced the divestiture of our nonregulated business subsidiary, Usource. That sale generated a net gain of $9.8 million or $0.66 per share. Usource had historically contributed between $0.02 and $0.03 per share to earnings each quarter, so please keep this in mind as we review our results. Excluding this onetime gain, year-to-date net income is up $1.5 million or $0.09 per share compared to 2018, an increase of 7.8%. The increase in net income from our core utility operations is primarily attributed to higher sales margins. Turning to Slide 5. To meet our customers' growing and ever-changing energy needs, the company has developed a robust investment plan. Our capital spending over the next 3 years is forecast to be about 20% higher than the prior 3 years. This increased investment will be used in part to fund the company's gas expansion in infrastructure modernization. Historically, over the past 8 years, our net plant has averaged over 9% annual growth. And with our current investment plan, we should maintain that strong growth into the future. We're currently evaluating our future capital spending needs and we'll provide an update at our year-end earnings call. Moving onto Slide 6. As we've discussed before, our gas distribution system is expanding both within and contiguous to our existing service areas.…

Thanks, Tom. Good afternoon, everyone. Beginning on Slide 8, our natural gas sales margins for the quarter of 2019 were $23.3 million, an increase of $0.4 million over 2018. This increase was partially offset by the absence of a $1.2 million nonrecurring adjustment in connection with the rate case, which occurred in the second quarter of 2018. Year-to-date gas margin is $66.8 million, which is an increase of $4 million over 2018. The $4 million increase is a result of higher distribution rate of $3.8 million, higher therm sales of $1.4 million, offset by the $1.2 million 2018 adjustment. Natural gas therm sales have increased 2.2% year-to-date compared to 2018. The increase in gas therm sales was largely driven by customer growth. The customer -- the company estimates that weather-normalized gas therm sales, excluding decoupled sales, were up 5.5% in the first 2 quarters of '19 compared to the same period in 2018. As of June 2019, we are serving 1,455 more gas customers than at the same time in 2018. That's a 1.8% increase. Next on Slide 9, I'll discuss electric units and sales margin. Electric sales margins were $22.4 million in the second quarter, an increase of $0.1 million compared to the same period in 2018. Electric sales margins for the first half of 2019 were $45.5 million, an increase of $0.9 million. Margin was positively affected by higher distribution rates of $1.4 million, partially offset by lower sales as a result of lower average customer usage. Total electric kilowatt hour sales decreased 5.1% through the first half of 2019 compared to 2018. Again, this is largely a result of reduced usage per customer due to energy efficiency initiatives. Turning to Slide 10. We will forward the first half of 2018 net income through year-to-date 2019. And as…

Thank you [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Michael Gaugler with Janney Montgomery Scott.

I noticed in the deck and in our model, the electricity sales average customer usage is lower. Do you attribute that to weather or is it something else?

The electric is a part due to weather, part due to energy efficiency use and a part due to few customers in New Hampshire had a bit of a production differential, so they reduced the level of production in the second quarter.

For that to kind of carry -- on the commercial side, you look for that to carry through? Or is that like just a retooling phase for manufacturers?

Part of it to carry through and part of it to come back.

And I didn't hear you mention anything about -- anything on grid mod. Just wondering if there's any new developments there?

Mike, this is Tom. There really were no developments in the quarter, which is why we didn't comment on it.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude today's program, and you may all disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.