Good morning, my name is Dustin and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Xcel Energy Fourth Quarter 2006 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions). I will now turn the call over to Mr. Paul Johnson, Managing Director of Investor Relation. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, and welcome to Xcel Energy's 2006 year-end conference call. My name is Paul Johnson, Managing Director of Investor Relations. With me today is Ben Fowke, Vice President and CFO for Xcel Energy. We also have several others in the room available to answer your questions. Today, we planned to cover our year-end results, our regulatory progress, and some new projects that represent the expansion of our Build the Core strategy. I also want to point out that there are slides that are available on our web page that follow the presentation. Some of the comments that we make will contain forward-looking information. Significant factors that could cause results to differ from those anticipated are described in our earnings release and Xcel Energy’s filings with the SEC Commission. With that, I'll turn it over to Ben Fowke.Ben Fowke: Well, thanks, Paul, and welcome everyone. I'm pleased to report that 2006 earnings from continuing operations came in at the top of our guidance range at $1.35 per share as compared to the $1.20 per share for 2005. Total earnings for 2006 which include the impact of discontinued operations were $1.36 per share compared with a $1.23 per share for 2005. In 2006, we had $0.01 of earnings from discontinued operations due to a true-up of reserves for cost estimates for various asset sales. While in 2005, we had $0.03 of earnings from discontinued operations for tax benefits related to the divestiture of NRG. Our earnings from continuing operations increased by $0.15 per share for the year largely due to higher electric retail margins, which increased earnings by $0.33 per share, higher natural gas margins which increased earnings by about $0.04 per share and other items that together increased earnings by about $0.01 per share. These positive factors were partially offset…

(Operator Instructions). Your first question will come from the line of Charles Fishman with A.G. Edwards.

Good morning. If I take the last capital expenditure forecast, which was about 1.5 billion per year, I think, '08 through 2010. Can I just elaborate this new -- these new investment projects? I mean, obviously assuming they're approved, roughly during at that time period?

Yeah, well remember -- we can, Charles. Remember the Sherco upgrade in environmental retrofitting, the construction will go through 2012. So you've got to take it a little further out.

Okay. Now, I guess obviously that's my next question, as far as the financing, are you still thinking equity-wise, just the drip is all you're going to need?

Yeah, at this point, Charles, we haven't changed our financing plans. We obviously have to continue to assess and monitor that going forward, but while these projects are significant capital investments and they will drive earnings. When you do remodeling you'll see that they start to come on as some of our other capital expenditures start to wind-down from the MERP and Comanche 3 project. And they also come with I think very good recovery mechanism, so no change at this point.

Yeah. On the wind project, what is the advantage for doing a BOT-type structure versus just -- it's just a bit higher for you to eventually have ownership in the wind instead of just power [technical difficulty]

Of resource. The fact that we haven't own in the past, I think just probably a number of reasons, but we certainly want to change that going forward and rebalance.

Okay. And the reasons in the past have been more your own as opposed to regulatory?

I think it's probably just been because it hasn't, until recently, been a significant part of the portfolio and it certainly looks like it's going to be a much more significant part of the portfolio going forward. And we think it's important we have an ownership element there.

Okay.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Coviello with Duquesne Capital.

Hi, Jeff.

Jeff, your line is open, please proceed.

Operator, we might be having some problems with the sound quality.

(Operator Instructions). And at this time there are no further questions.

Okay. I apologize for the participants on the call if we've had sound quality issues. Hopefully that's not the case, but I think there might be some issues. I want to thank everybody for participating on our call this morning. If you have any follow-up questions, Paul Johnson will be available to take your calls. Look forward to working with all of you, as we look towards another great year in '07. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude the Xcel Energy fourth quarter 2006 earnings call. You may now disconnect.