Revenue and Accounts Receivable

3 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2024

Revenue from Contract with Customer [Abstract]

Revenue and Accounts Receivable

Revenue and Accounts Receivable

Revenue

Our revenue recognition policy is fully described in Note 2 to the consolidated financial statements in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2024. 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, 2024 and 2023.

	Three Months Ended December 31, 2024				Three Months Ended December 31, 2023
	Distribution		Pipeline and Storage		Distribution		Pipeline and Storage
	(In thousands)
Gas sales revenues:
Residential	$	693,050	$	—	$	727,682	$	—
Commercial	266,054		—		277,253		—
Industrial	26,321		—		28,231		—
Public authority and other	12,881		—		14,584		—
Total gas sales revenues	998,306		—		1,047,750		—
Transportation revenues	36,727		266,029		33,767		215,305
Miscellaneous revenues	3,022		2,664		2,643		3,042
Revenues from contracts with customers	1,038,055		268,693		1,084,160		218,347
Alternative revenue program revenues	67,336		(13,303)		17,401		(7,178)
Other revenues	3,944		—		3,777		—
Total operating revenues	$	1,109,335	$	255,390	$	1,105,338	$	211,169

We have alternative revenue programs in each of our segments. In our distribution segment, we have weather-normalization adjustment mechanisms that serve to mitigate the effects of weather on our revenue. In our pipeline and storage segment, APT has a regulatory mechanism that requires that we share with its tariffed customers 75% of the difference between the total non-tariffed revenues earned during a test period and a revenue benchmark established by the RRC. Other revenues includes AEK revenues (see Note 9 to the condensed consolidated financial statements) and other miscellaneous revenues.

Accounts receivable and allowance for uncollectible accounts

Accounts receivable arise from natural gas sales to residential, commercial, industrial, public authority, and other customers. Our accounts receivable balance includes unbilled amounts which represent a customer’s consumption of gas from the date of the last cycle billing through the last day of the month. Our policy related to the accounting for our accounts receivable and allowance for uncollectible accounts is fully described in Note 2 to the consolidated financial statements in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2024. During the three months ended December 31, 2024, there were no material changes to this policy. Rollforwards of our allowance for uncollectible accounts for the three months ended December 31, 2024 and 2023 are presented in the table below. The allowance excludes the gas cost portion of customers’ bills for approximately 89 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, 2024
	(In thousands)
Beginning balance, September 30, 2024	$	37,056
Current period provisions	8,623
Write-offs charged against allowance	(7,447)
Recoveries of amounts previously written off	934
Ending balance, December 31, 2024	$	39,166

	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