Ramaco Resources, Inc.

Today's conference is scheduled to begin shortly. Please continue to standby. Thank you for your patience. Thank you. Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ramako Resources Incorporated Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Jeremy Sussman, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you. On behalf of Ramico Resources, I'd like to welcome all of you to our second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. With me this morning is Randy Atkins, our chairman and CEO, and Chris Blanchard, our COO. Before we start, I'd like to share our normal cautionary statement. Certain items discussed on today's call constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements represent Ramico's expectations concerning future events. These statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are outside of Ramico's control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and except as required by law, Ramico does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Lastly, I'd encourage everyone on this call to go onto our website, ramicoresources.com, and download today's investor presentation under the events calendar. With that said, let me introduce our Chairman and CEO, Randy Atkins.

Thanks, Jeremy. As always, I want to thank everyone for joining us today to discuss our second quarter results. There is a line in an old song by Paul Simon which says, when something goes right, it's apt to confuse me. And in the three months since our last call, we have gone through a pleasant series of things going right. I'd like to provide a few highlights. First, we have now printed two very strong quarter design rows. driven by some terrific cost metrics and an improving overall met coal market. We concluded a first half with $30 million of EBITDA, which is frankly higher than we had internally budgeted for the entire year back in last December. The balance of 2021 seems on track for more strength and hopefully a record performance. Our second quarter production of 550,000 tons at our Elk Creek complex was also a record. The first half production of almost 1.1 million tons puts us on track to perhaps exceed even nameplate capacity at Elk Creek of 2.1 million tons, and that's even allowing for Q3 and Q4 vacations. Sales have certainly been strong. The U.S. low-ball benchmark pricing has rather dramatically increased by over $50 since Q1. We've continued to see the general world economy improve. Steel companies, both domestically and abroad, are enjoying record pricing and the highest capacity utilization since 2008. In the second quarter, we sold almost 700,000 tons, making it a quarterly record by almost 30%. This puts us at about 1.1 million tons sold through the first half, which is about 40% ahead of last year. At Elk Creek, we have held first half costs at $61 a ton, and for all our operations, at $65 a ton. As a result of these outstanding operational and marketing results, for the second time this year, we are again increasing guidance on production and sales, and reducing guidance on cost and CapEx. Both are set forth in our release. Our margins on our most recent sales are now running in excess of $70 a ton. We still have over 400,000 tons of dry powder remaining to place in the second half of the year, hopefully with these same strong margins or above. As we feel, the MET markets will still have more room to run. Iron ore and copper made their moves early in the cycle. We think met coal is now playing catch up and may indeed turn out to have longer legs. This is especially given the unique supply constraints in the coal sector from lack of capital. So bottom line, if the met markets continue with their current strength, which we expect, then we anticipate having our strongest year of free cash flow. As we have said repeatedly, we try to manage for cash and, of course, for liquidity. Indeed, as you know, we have one of the cleanest balance sheets and liability profiles in our industry, as well as a very strong liquidity position. After the end of the second quarter, we took some additional steps to improve that liquidity by floating an unsecured bond offering where we raised almost $35 million. We are proud that this was the first unsecured debt deal in the coal space in over four years, and we'd like to give a tip of the cap to all of our underwriters. This additional liquidity gives us some optionality to explore ideas to add near-term production, either organically or through outside development projects. As I said, we see the MET markets as having some legs. We think you may see a strong multi-year market, and we would like to be able to take advantage of that with some additional near-term, low-cost production. Having said that, we intend to exercise a good deal of discipline in how we approach looking at both the market and any new production opportunities. Our industry, unfortunately, has a long reputation of when the market shows some strength, we throw money at indiscriminately adding more tons, even when that might not be particularly prudent. We intend not to do that at Ramico. Further, I think the capital markets will keep too much production of Zubrids in check this cycle. We always will try to keep liabilities, our balance sheet, and liquidity in the forefront as we analyze any options. And we hope to be able to discuss some ideas further with you over the coming months. I also want to mention two matters which occurred post-quarter end. While they were both not entirely unexpected, they do add a sense of additional positive momentum as we continue to build out the year. First, we've won a very decisive $33 million plus costs jury victory in litigation against Chubb Insurance. This grew from Chubb's denial of coverage for damages stemming from the collapse of a coal storage silo at Elk Creek in late 2018. Although court decisions are always subject to possible appeal, we feel very confident in our positions. We look forward to having the decision finalized. Additionally, late last week we heard from the SBA that our Paycheck Protection Program loan of $8.4 million, which we secured last year, had been formally forgiven. Although we had treated the loan in this manner since last year, it is comforting to also have this finalized as well. To close, I want to touch briefly on matters near and dear to our shareholders. of which Ramico's management team is certainly in that camp. We have seen our stock rise by 200% over the last 12 months and by about 130% year-to-date. This is certainly very gratifying, and we hope for continued strength in price over the coming months. But also, as we grow and begin to reach close to our production goals, we will begin later this year to explore with our board what may become our dividend policies. A growth company such as Ramico always has a rather tricky balancing act. We need to fund growth and production, and we also need to balance that growth against making sure we have enough sustainable free cash flow to fund a reliable and growing dividend. As a company, we hope we are at a point later this year to explore this, again, not in the not-too-distant future. Now, before I turn the floor over to Jeremy and Chris to delve into finances and operations in more detail, I would just like to reiterate how proud I am to our whole Ramico family on what has been a very strong first half that's been produced. With some continued operational execution and a bit of wind in our sails for the market, I hope we will continue, as that song goes, to have some things go right for the balance of what I hope will be our strongest year. And with that, I'd like to now turn the floor back to Jeremy to discuss our financial results.