Alpha Metallurgical Resources, Inc.AMRNYSE
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Operator: Greetings. Welcome to the Alpha Metallurgical Resources Third Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Emily O'Quinn, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Communications. You may now begin.
Emily O'Quinn: Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. Before we get started, let me remind you that during our prepared remarks, our comments regarding anticipated business and financial performance contain forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from those discussed. For more information regarding forward-looking statements and some of the factors that can affect them, please refer to the company's third quarter 2025 earnings release and the associated SEC filing. Please also see these documents for information about our use of non-GAAP measures and their reconciliation to GAAP measures. Participating on the call today are Alpha's Chief Executive Officer, Andy Eidson; and our President and Chief Operating Officer, Jason Whitehead. Also participating on the call are Todd Munsey, our Chief Financial Officer; and Dan Horn, our Chief Commercial Officer. With that, I will turn the call over to Andy.
Charles Eidson: Thanks, Emily, and good morning, everyone. This morning, we announced our financial results for the third quarter, which include adjusted EBITDA of $41.7 million and 3.9 million tons shipped. It was another good quarter for our team. Similar to Q2, the highlight of the period is the outstanding performance on cost of coal sales. For the second quarter, we missed a sub-$100 level by only $0.07. In Q3, we were able to shave almost another $3 off the prior quarter level, coming in at $97.27 per ton. We're proud to have posted the best cost of coal sales performance for the company since 2021 and back-to-back quarters. Our focus remains on finishing the year strong by continuing to safely keep costs in line. Our cost discipline is especially important as we continue navigating the current stage of the market cycle and as metallurgical coal indexes reflect softness in the market environment. Broadly, the indexes [ hog on ] current levels for several months with oscillated pockets of volatility. The underlying economic conditions informing steel demand around the globe remain vulnerable to uncertainty and lackluster economic growth expectations. Against this backdrop, we're in the process of planning for 2026, putting together budgets and anticipating what we believe could be another challenging year for the coal industry. At the same time, we remain in discussions with our North American customers about domestic sales commitments for next year. With those conversations and budget planning still in progress, we're not quite yet ready to issue guidance for 2026. Once domestic negotiations conclude and we have greater visibility into the coming year, we will share additional information about our expectations and guidance. Until then, we will keep working hard to manage costs, operate safely and effectively and finish 2025 on a strong note. I'll now turn the call over to Todd for additional information on our third quarter financial results.
Todd Munsey: Thanks, Andy. Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter was $41.7 million, down from $46.1 million in the second quarter. We sold 3.9 million tons in Q3, same amount as in Q2. Met segment realizations decreased quarter-over-quarter and average realization of $114.94 in the third quarter, down from $119.43 in Q2. Export met tons priced against Atlantic indices and other pricing mechanisms in the third quarter realized $107.25 per ton, while export coal priced on Australian indices realized $106.39 per ton. These results are compared to realizations of $113.82 per ton and $109.75, respectively, in the second quarter. The realization of our metallurgical sales in Q3 was a total weighted-average of $117.62 per ton, down from $122.84 per ton in Q2. Realizations in the incidental thermal portion of the met segment increased to $81.64 per ton in Q3 as compared to $78.01 per ton in the second quarter. Cost of coal sales for our met segment decreased to $97.27 per ton in the third quarter, down from $100.06 per ton in Q2. SG&A, excluding noncash stock compensation and nonrecurring items increased to $13.2 million for the third quarter as compared to $11.9 million in the second quarter. CapEx For the quarter was $25.1 million, down $34.6 million in Q2. Moving to the balance sheet and cash flows. As of September 30, 2025, we had $408.5 million in unrestricted cash and $49.4 million in short-term investments as compared to $449 million of unrestricted cash as of June 30. We had $185.5 million in unused availability under our ABL at the end of the third quarter, partially offset by a minimum required liquidity of $75 million. As of the end of September, Alpha has total liquidity of $568.5 million, up from $556.9 million at the end of June. Cash provided by operating activities was $50.6 million in Q3, down from $53.2 million in the second quarter. As of September 30, our ABL facility had no borrowings and $39.5 million of letters of credit outstanding. With additional visibility into remaining payments for the year, we are lowering our capital contributions to equity affiliates guidance to a range of $35 million to $41 million, down from the prior range of $44 million to $54 million. In terms of our committed position for 2025, at the midpoint of guidance, 85% of our metallurgical tonnage in the met segment is committed and priced at an average price of $122.57. Another 13% of our met tonnage for the year is committed, but not yet priced. The thermal byproduct portion of the met segment is fully committed and priced at the midpoint of guidance at an average price of $80.27. I will now turn the call over to Jason to provide an update on operations.
Jason Whitehead: Thanks, Todd, and good morning, everyone. Last quarter, I spoke to the cost reduction efforts carried out in Q2 being twofold, a 10% increase over Q1 in tons per man hour that lowered labor and other fixed costs. And the team is achieving these efficiency gains while reducing supply and maintenance expenses. I'm pleased to report on the operations team's continued success in managing costs and increasing tons per man hour again by another 2%. Q3 marks the second quarter in a row of record quarterly cost performance since 2021 at $97.27 per ton. In addition to the very positive cost performance by operations in the quarter, I'm pleased to report strong progress on our new new Low Vol mine, Kingston Wildcat. The slope development is complete and has intercepted the coal seam. We are now in development production, working our way toward the areas where we will install ventilation shafts and dewatering shafts. While we plan to short tag this coal, this raw coal to our Mammoth facility to leverage our existing preparation plant. We've also been working hard at building out the supporting infrastructures of the Wildcat mine like [ building ], loading and offloading infrastructure to help move the coal where it needs to go. Development production will continue through the rest of the year, and we expect to ramp up to a full annual run rate of roughly 1 million tons sometime within the 2026 calendar year. Lastly, I'd like to congratulate our Virginia teams on some recent outstanding safety and environmental achievements. First, the Virginia Department of Energy Coal Mine Safety Awards, and those were awarded to Paramont Contura, Deep Mine 41, the McClure Preparation Plant, both 88 strip and 88 strips High Vol miner, the long branch surface mine in High Vol miner and our Three Forks High Vol miner. On the environmental side, the met Coal Producers Association awarded our Toms Creek preparation plant, the Best Active Prep Plant Award, and our [ Stone coal mine ] was awarded Best Reclaimed Underground Mine. Congrats again to all those involved in the safe and hard work that's behind these accomplishments. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Dan for some details on the market.
Daniel Horn: Thanks, Jason. Good morning, everyone. As steel demand remains subdued, metallurgical coal markets experienced slight fluctuations during the third quarter but have been largely range bound over the prior 6-month period. The global economic outlook continues to be clouded with uncertainties surrounding policy changes, geopolitical unrest, tariffs and ongoing trade negotiations and shifting trade policies. Future steel demand and metallurgical pricing will also be impacted by these factors. Of the 4 indices that Alpha closely monitors, the Australian Premium Low Vol Index represented the most significant move during the quarter an increase of 9.6%. The Australian PLV Index rose from $173.50 per metric ton on July 1 to $190.20 per metric ton on September 30. The U.S. East Coast Low Vol Index increased from $174 per metric ton at the beginning of the quarter to $177 per metric ton a quarter close. The East Coast High-Vol A Index fell from $159 per metric ton in July to $152.50 per metric ton at the end of September. And finally, the U.S. East Coast High Vol B Index decreased from $147 per metric ton to $144.50 per metric ton at quarter end. Since the quarter closed, all 3 U.S. indices have either remained flat or trended downward while the Australian PLV has increased to $196.50 as of November 4. U.S. East Coast Low Vol Index was $177.50 while High-Vol A and High-Vol B indices measured $150 and $140 per ton, respectively, as of the same date. In the seaborne thermal market, the API 2 index was $107.95 per metric ton as of July 1, and decreased to $95.40 per metric ton on September 30. Since then, the API 2 has increased to $100.70 per metric ton as of November 4. Turning to logistics. We have been working alongside officials at CSX and to understand the implications of a train derailment that occurred on October 25. While the train was not carrying Alpha's cargo, the derailment occurred on an important rail line used to access Dominion Terminal Associates where the majority of our exports originate. Our team members have notified customers of potential for impacts depending on how quickly the railroad can reinstate service. In the meantime, we continue to fulfill shipments from our stockpile at DTA, and we're actively investigating alternative opportunities that could help keep our coal moving on its way to customers if the outage would extend for a prolonged period of time. We remain in close contact with the railroad and their teams and we look forward to the rail line being fully operational in the coming days. Lastly, we are still engaged in discussions about the sale of coal to North American customers in 2026. Given the ongoing nature of these negotiations, I do not have any additional details about the volume or pricing that will make up Alpha's domestic sales book for next year. However, after these negotiations conclude, we will share more information about our domestic commitments and guidance expectations for the coming year, as we typically do. Operator, we are now ready to open the call for questions.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] My first question comes from Nick Giles with B. Riley Securities.
Nick Giles: Andy, Jason, you and the team have done a really impressive job of cutting costs during this down cycle. And we know there will be a modest incremental benefit from 45x in the new year. But my question is, ultimately, how should we think about the sustainability of some of these cuts? There's always sales-sensitive components on the way up. But just would appreciate any additional perspective on how productivity could shift if prices really start to move here?
Charles Eidson: Nick, this is Andy. I'll let Jason have the bulk of this one. But I mean, generally speaking, you're right, there's going to be some volatility quarter-to-quarter, obviously going into Q4 when you have vacation periods, that usually creates a little bit of chaos around cost and production. But I mean, that's usually baked into expectation. But I would just pause for a moment to again congratulate the operations team. Jason and his crew have done an amazing job over the past several quarters, continually ratcheting those costs down while maintaining our safe production mantra, which is above all important to us. So exceptional work there. Jason, any comments on...
Jason Whitehead: No, I mean, that's right, Andy. I will say that I think -- well, number one, there's always -- we always run a risk of unforeseen geologic problems that could occur, whether it's us or any of our competitors. But generally speaking, I think the mines are in a better place than they were maybe earlier in the year. We had planned development projects that were going on that are now behind us. So we still -- we have the problems with vacation shutdowns and things like that, that we always see in the fourth quarter. But we're hopeful to all offset a lot of that because the mines are just performing better, but it was planned that way.
Nick Giles: Got it. My next question was, I understand that you are unable to offer much additional color on next year's domestic contracts. But if we were to look back at prior years, is there any precedent that could inform us on how much you may flex those volumes? Or are there any year-over-year changes where domestic contracts were changed in excess of 1 million tons?
Daniel Horn: Yes, Nick, this is Dan. Every year is different. I don't know. A lot of it is in the our customers. They are -- the steel industry in North America is not running at full capacity or at least the blast furnace segment. so coking coal demand will go with the hot metal production. It's a little erratic. We talk to our customers, the steel pricing is good, but the volumes aren't quite there. The automotive sector in particular. So the demand could -- will shift because of that. I would guess it's going to be similar to last year. You have some new supply entrants in the market on the supply side that might try to take some market share. And again, this is nothing new, this happens every year. So I can't really comment on a 1 million-ton swing, that seems like a lot. But until we're through the negotiations, I really can't say any more than that.
Charles Eidson: Yes. And I would say, generally speaking, I'm looking at Dan to either nod or kick me under the table if I got this wrong. But if you look back at our history, going back to, I guess, post-merger in 2019, we've been as low as low 3s and as high as 4 and change in that time period. So I think that's kind of the band that we will stay range-bound in and then the details will come out as we put those together, there could be smaller piece of the business that come in closer to the end of the year. But hopefully, in the next couple, 3 weeks, we'll have -- we'll have more information to share on the bulk of what the book will look like.
Nick Giles: Understood. And then maybe 1 more, if I could. Some of your years have come out and talked about rare earth opportunities. This has mostly occurred in the PRB, but it seems like there could be some opportunities to process some waste material at prep plants, things of that nature. Is this just something you've looked into at all? Or is it really less relevant just given your operations are centralized in the East?
Charles Eidson: Yes. I mean rares, it is the it's the shiny object at the moment. It's kind of the wild west as far as project announcement and evaluations. We actually have done work going back to 2014, looking at some of these items. And it's been kind of a scattershot approach over the past decade. We've not really done a lot with it. But I mean we are spending some time and a little bit of money, a very little bit of money looking at these opportunities. There are some areas we've probably got as far as in the hundreds of areas to be sampled. I mean, we're not under any illusion that any of this is going to drive any material economic impact simply because, again, we just don't know what we don't know. But it is good to take an inventory of what we have and then also know what we don't have. So we'll spend some -- spend a little bit of time on that in the next couple of quarters and see what we have. But again, we're pretty happy mining metallurgical coal and if something else pops up, that will be great, but that's really not our strategic intent at this moment.
Operator: Our next question comes from Nathan Martin with the Benchmark Company.
Nathan Martin: Congrats as well on the continued cost per ton progress there. Maybe first 1 for Dan. Dan, you talked about the derailment on CSX's line. Is there an ETA for the full reopening of that line? And then how much more inventory do you guys have left on the ground at DTA to serve customer contracts?
Daniel Horn: Yes. Well, actually, the good news is we learned this morning that the first trains have moved through that area. So we expect this to be a relatively short duration. There's a whole lot of empty railcars on one side of the derailment and a whole lot of loaded coal cars on the other side. So it will take some amount of time to get some fluidity on the system there. We have coal on the ground. We were able to continue loading vessels, move some things around. We're the only shipper that could ship out of all 3 of the Hampton Roads coal terminals. So we took advantage of that, and our team did a nice job. So it's -- as far as the inventory number, we had sufficient tons to load the customers that we had to and just kind of kept things moving along.
Nathan Martin: Okay. Perfect. Good to hear. Maybe just coming back real quickly to the domestic negotiations. Again, I appreciate those are ongoing. Just curious, if fixed-price contracts can't be agreed upon on the normal, call it, 3 million to 4 million tons you guys just highlighted, would things just move to spot negotiations at that point? Just trying to think about a situation where -- this has dragged on that long, meaning the negotiations with the domestic customers. Just would be curious for your thoughts.
Daniel Horn: Yes. Generally, Nate, the domestic customers all want to do fixed price 1-year contracts. So there's not a lot of spot activity in that market. So not I -- spot activity usually only occurs when there's an interruption at a mine or perhaps a ramp-up that they didn't foresee in coke production. But generally, it's fixed price and the volumes are pretty well known across the board.
Nathan Martin: Got it. Yes. I mean, just to clarify, I think you said, Dan, I've just never seen it drag out this long. So I was just curious. But it sounds like that regardless, you'll get some fixed price contracts done at some point.
Daniel Horn: Yes, agreed. It took -- I've been doing this a long time. We sort of started the process in July and now it's November. That is -- in my experience, it's a long time. But there's -- the steel industry has got some uncertainty to some new acquisitions and some of the steel plants around the U.S. have been idled I think. so it's -- I think our customers have their hands full, too.
Nathan Martin: Got it. Maybe just 1 final question. pricing is getting a bit of a lift recently as you guys highlighted, but market conditions do remain largely challenged. We also expect new met coal supply or some restart of supply to potentially come online, I guess, over the next few quarters here. So how does Alpha kind of expect to navigate these market conditions going forward?
Daniel Horn: Well, new mines come online and old mines go offline. It's not new. So we'll navigate it. We're watching it closely. We like to think we're the supplier of choice for a lot of the customers. We we do what we do pretty well, and we'll have to deal with the market forces as they are, but we're not afraid of the competition.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Matthew [ Kline with Bank Texas Capital ].
Unknown Analyst: One of the big teams in the met coal market has been -- that spread between the U.S. East Coast, High Vol A, High Vol B versus the Australian benchmark. I was wondering if you could provide any color on the major factors drive in that spread and whether you would expect it to continue into 2026?
Daniel Horn: Yes, Matt, this is Dan. I know a lot of people focus on that spread. I don't necessarily find it particularly relevant. We don't -- we track them both, but the relativities between the 2 are driven by obviously supply and demand. So the Aussie production has been okay this year, not great. I don't really know how to answer that. We don't track that relativity exactly. Obviously, if you have excess supply, it will put pressure on the indices. What we're more hoping for and expecting is some increase in demand in '26, perhaps in Europe or some other markets. And that will affect the spread, too. We see a little more demand. Asia is -- a lot of the PLV that's mined in Australia goes to markets like India and the increasing demand in India should pull on that supply pretty hard. And Hopefully, that will improve the indices as well.
Unknown Analyst: Got it. And I was wondering if you could provide any color on CapEx expectations in 2026. Any major growth capital or carryover capital that we should be thinking about into next year?
Charles Eidson: No. I mean we're not quite ready to delve into '26 yet. I think numbers are pretty well. They've stopped moving. But the only project that we have ongoing is, as Jason was giving an update on Kingston Wildcat mine, which we began to work on last year. There will be some additional capital spend next year to wrap that up. And I think we've talked about that publicly. The total project was roughly $80-ish million and half of that was spent this year. There'll probably be another $40 million-ish to wrap that project up next year to get it up to full production. But everything else will probably be kind of a standard course, but we'll get those more precise numbers out to you hopefully in the coming weeks.
Operator: Oyou're next question is from Nick Giles with B. Riley Securities.
Nick Giles: Just looking at your cash balance, you have $400 million today, a pretty nice cushion there. Just wanted to ask about how you're thinking about M&A opportunities. I think back to the tuck-in of [ Maxxim Rebuild ]. So curious if there's opportunities in your supply chain and then just how you're looking at some of the smaller operations out there, whether those are becoming more and less attractive?
Charles Eidson: Yes. I mean we have to we have to obviously tread carefully and soberly. Job 1 is always, as we've said for years, protect a franchise, maintain this as much of a cash cushion as we can during these more difficult markets, which we do think is going to be -- continue to be a protracted situation through next year, at least it feels like. We are interested in things like maximum manufacturing, maximum transportation. These things that bring more control and cost reduction in-house. Those are a little bit more challenging to track down because they have to make sense and there have to be synergies where we're not just picking up something that we don't necessarily know how to do. But there are opportunities out there, and we continue to look at those and evaluate those. M&A right now, pretty tough in this landscape because again, cash burns a consideration. Are the assets burning cash and how do you view accretion from a -- whether it's EBITDA net income or cash flow, how do you evaluate and view those in this kind of a market? It's pretty tough. There are some opportunities, some small ones that will kick around, but it's really hard to imagine much at this very second. That's hugely material and executable.
Nick Giles: I appreciate that. And 1 more and I promise I'll let you go. I just wanted to ask about safety procedures in this current environment. I mean you never get as much credit when it's good and you certainly do when it's bad. So in this government shutdown, it seems like MSHA is also shut down. So how are you approaching safety? And is this MSHA shutdown really having any impact on your operations?
Charles Eidson: Well, I would say this about MSHA, the shutdown, portions of MSHA shut down. The enforcement is still quite active. October, in particular, we've had a lot of MSHA activity at the mine. So they're still very much engaged. So from that perspective, we're not -- we're seeing no impact from, I guess, less enforcement and less monitoring of safety. And naturally, that MSHA transactions don't drive our safety performance. We drive our safety performance. And we've had a couple of blips early in the quarter of safety performance that we weren't terribly pleased with. The team has really responded and recovered. September was the best safety month we've had this year and maybe, gosh, going back years, it was an excellent month. October has been very good as well. So again, outside forces don't drive our safety, we do, and I think we're in a really good spot right now.
Operator: We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call over to Andy Eidson for closing remarks.
Charles Eidson: Well, thanks again, everyone, for joining us today. We appreciate your interest in Alpha, and we hope you all have a great rest of the day.
Operator: This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.