Kevin Akers
President and Chief Executive Officer at Atmos Energy
Thank you, Dan, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today and your interest in Atmos Energy. Yesterday, we reported year-to-date fiscal 2023 net income of $630 million or $4.40 per diluted share. As you will hear from Chris, results were in line with our expectations and positions us for another successful fiscal year. This performance continues to reflect the commitment, dedication, focus and effort of all 4,800 Atmos Energy employees to successfully modernize our natural gas distribution, transmission and storage systems while safely providing reliable natural gas service to our 3.4 million customers and 1,400 communities across our eight states.
We also narrowed our fiscal 2023 earnings per share guidance to a range of $6 to $6.10. We continue to experience strong customer growth, driven by robust employment trends in Texas. For the 12 months ended March 31, we added 65,000 new customers across the company with nearly 49,000 of those new customers located in Texas. And according to the Texas Workforce Commission, the state continued its streak of record employment in March, adding 664,000 jobs since January of 2022 to reach a series high civilian labor force of 14.9 million people.
Industrial demand for natural gas in our service territory also remained strong. During the second quarter, we added 18 new industrial customers with an anticipated annual load of approximately six Bcf once they are fully operational. Fiscal year-to-date we've added 30 new industrial customers with an anticipated annual load of approximately 15 Bcf once they are fully operational. On a volumetric basis, that 15 Bcf of anticipated industrial load is equal to adding approximately 275,000 residential customers.
To support that growth that I just summarized, we continue to enhance the safety, reliability, versatility and supply diversification of our system. For example, in our Atmos Pipeline Texas division, our team completed the injection of working gas into Bethel cavern 1B, our third salt-dome cavern. This third cavern provides additional support to APT's operations and the local distribution companies behind APT system as well as adds over six Bcf of new working gas capacity. Work continues on Phase three of our Line S-2 project, which will replace 67 miles of 14-inch pipeline with 36-inch pipeline.
And as a reminder, this project brings supply from the Haynesville and Cotton Valley shale plays to the east side of the growing Metroplex. The final phase of this project is anticipated to be in service late 2024. Later this calendar year, we expect to complete the remaining five miles of the 22-mile project that will install a 36-inch pipeline connecting to the southern end of APT system with a 42-inch Permian highway line that runs from Waha to Katy. This new line will support the forecasted growth and increased supply diversity to the north of Austin in both Williamson and Travis Counties in Texas.
Atmos Energy's comprehensive environmental strategy is focused on reducing our Scope 1, two and three emissions and environmental impact from our operations in the following five key focus areas: operations, fleet, facilities, gas supply and customers. In the area of operations through our system modernization efforts, we are on track to place 800 to 1,000 miles of pipe this fiscal year and between 20,000 and 30,000 steel service lines. And in the gas supply area during the first six months of fiscal 2023, we added another RNG facility that will transport renewable natural gas across our system.
We now have seven flowing RNG facilities directly connected to our system. Additionally, we've executed interconnect agreements with three additional RNG projects expected to begin flowing in calendar year 2023. Once these projects are fully operational, we anticipate to have eight to nine Bcf of RNG flowing across our system annually. Finally, we are evaluating nearly 30 additional opportunities to connect RNG facilities to our system. As I mentioned on previous calls, we are partnering with Habitat for Humanity in each of our eight states to build Zero Net Energy homes for families in need.
Zero Net Energy Homes use high-efficiency natural gas appliances, rooftop solar panels an installation to produce more energy than they consume at an affordable cost. During the first six months of fiscal 2023, we completed two homes: one in Owensboro, Kentucky and one in Jackson, Mississippi. All eight homes have achieved home energy rating system, or HERS, scores of less than 0, which means the homes produce more energy than they consume.
These Zero Net Energy Homes demonstrate the value and vital role that natural gas plays in helping customers reduce their carbon footprint in an affordable manner. Providing these families with a natural gas home that is environmentally friendly and cost efficient is just one of the ways Atmos Energy, fuel of safe and thriving communities. Our customer service organization and technology support team continue to innovate and look for ways to improve our customer service and offer convenient channels for customers to communicate with us and to make payments.
For example, we see continuous growth in our electronic bill delivery channels with nearly 52% of customers enrolled in eBill, and approximately 85% of customers pay electronically with over 33% of them enrolled in recurring auto draft, which is 10% higher than industry average. We are also fueling safe and thriving communities through our continued outreach efforts to energy assistance agencies and customers. During the first six months of the fiscal year, our customer advocacy team and customer support agents helped over 35,000 customers who received over $14 million in funding a system.
The dedication and focus of our employees was recently recognized in an American Customer Satisfaction Index energy utility study conducted between January and December of last year. According to the recently released study, Atmos Energy finished in first place, leading all energy utility providers with the highest customer satisfaction score. We believe our focus, dedication and effort, combined with executing our proven investment, regulatory and financing strategy positions us well to safely deliver reliable efficient and abundant natural gas to homes, businesses and the industry to fuel our energy needs now and in the future.
I will now turn the call over to Chris for his update.
