Revenue and Accounts Receivable (Tables)

3 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2023

Revenue from Contract with Customer [Abstract]

Schedule of Disaggregation of Revenue

The following tables disaggregate our revenue from contracts with customers by customer type and segment and provide a reconciliation to total operating revenues, including intersegment revenues, for the three months ended December 31, 2023 and 2022.

	Three Months Ended December 31, 2023				Three Months Ended December 31, 2022
	Distribution		Pipeline and Storage		Distribution		Pipeline and Storage
	(In thousands)
Gas sales revenues:
Residential	$	727,682	$	—	$	953,051	$	—
Commercial	277,253		—		388,667		—
Industrial	28,231		—		59,215		—
Public authority and other	14,584		—		22,826		—
Total gas sales revenues	1,047,750		—		1,423,759		—
Transportation revenues	33,767		215,305		32,162		195,252
Miscellaneous revenues	2,643		3,042		2,282		2,722
Revenues from contracts with customers	1,084,160		218,347		1,458,203		197,974
Alternative revenue program revenues	17,401		(7,178)		(18,322)		(11,345)
Other revenues	3,777		—		545		—
Total operating revenues	$	1,105,338	$	211,169	$	1,440,426	$	186,629

Schedule of Allowance for Credit Loss Activity

Rollforwards of our allowance for uncollectible accounts for the three months ended December 31, 2023 and 2022 are presented in the table below. The allowance excludes the gas cost portion of customers’ bills for approximately 88 percent of our customers as we have the ability to collect these gas costs through our gas cost recovery mechanisms in most of our jurisdictions.

In December 2023, the Mississippi Public Service Commission approved the recovery of uncollectible accounts through our purchased gas cost mechanism over a two-year period rather than through our annual filing mechanism over a one-year period. As a result of this decision, we recorded a $13.9 million reduction to bad debt expense during the first quarter of fiscal 2024. Of this amount, $9.7 million represents future recovery of customer receivables previously written off since April 2022 but not yet recovered through our rates. This amount increased our deferred gas cost regulatory asset. The remaining $4.2 million reduction represents a reversal of our allowance for uncollectible accounts for customer balances that have not yet been written off.

	Three Months Ended December 31, 2023
	(In thousands)
Beginning balance, September 30, 2023	$	40,840
Current period provisions	6,750
Write-offs charged against allowance	(8,757)
Recoveries of amounts previously written off	765
Mississippi recovery of uncollectible accounts	(4,192)
Ending balance, December 31, 2023	$	35,406

	Three Months Ended December 31, 2022
	(In thousands)
Beginning balance, September 30, 2022	$	49,993
Current period provisions	7,233
Write-offs charged against allowance	(10,421)
Recoveries of amounts previously written off	808
Ending balance, December 31, 2022	$	47,613