Ramaco Resources, Inc.

Good day, and welcome to Ramico Resources' third quarter of 2024 results conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode for the duration of the call. And should you need any assistance today, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. And to withdraw a question, please press star, then two. Also, please be aware that today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Jeremy Sussman, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. On behalf of Ramico Resources, I'd like to welcome all of you to our third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. With me this morning is Randy Atkins, our Chairman and CEO, Chris Blanchard, our EVP for Mine Planning and Development, and Jason Fanning, our Chief Commercial Officer. 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. I'd also like to remind you that you can find a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures that we plan to discuss today in our press release, which can be viewed on our website, www.ramicoresources.com. Lastly, I'd encourage everyone on this call to go onto our website and download today's investor presentation. With that said, let me introduce our chairman and CEO, Randy Atkins.

Thanks, Jeremy. Good morning to everyone, and thanks for joining the call. The third quarter was easily our strongest operational quarter this year. In a nutshell, we continue to focus on controlling what we can, and that is cash costs and volume growth. What we can't control is pricing. Despite a 13 percent decline in the Australian benchmark price this quarter, we seem to be the only public metallurgic coal group to have maintained essentially the same operating margins for both the second and third quarters. One large reason is that throughout this year, our mine costs have declined by over 25 percent. We went from a March high of $120 to a September low of only $93 per ton. Quarterly, these costs have dropped from 118 per ton in the first quarter to 102 tons this quarter. And we hope to actually improve on that in Q4. In addition to excellent cost control, we also had improved mine productivity as well as both record production and sales. Indeed, this was the first quarter in the company's history where we booked more than a million tons of quarterly sales. Unfortunately, the bigger story behind both Ramico and the entire met coal industry's results this quarter is the drop in met coal prices throughout 24. The decline is, of course, a direct result of China's overproduction of steel, which it has then exported or dumped into world markets. This has then resulted in world steel companies both cutting back on their own production and then reducing the price they're willing to pay for their met coal speed stocks. As a result, this quarter alone, we saw a $15 per ton sequential decline in U.S. met coal indices. Both the U.S. low vol and high vol indices fell by roughly 7% this quarter on average, and by roughly 32% since the start of the year. When we step back and assess it with our strong beat on cost, Price decline was the sole reason for our quarterly drop in EBITDA. As I mentioned earlier, our cash margins for the past two quarters have remained at $34 per ton, or about 25%, even in the face of declining prices. These margins have also remained well above most of our larger central Appalachian peers. Looking ahead, our operational results should continue to improve in the fourth quarter. We are projecting more growth, again, in both production and sales. This fourth quarter increase should provide a year-end run rate in excess of 5 million tons on sales, with normalized cash costs below $100 a ton. Importantly, in addition to our strong cost control, all of our main 2024 growth initiatives remained both on track and on budget. Here's a quick rundown. First, the high wall additions at our Elk Creek complex were fully in production as of September and should ultimately add roughly 600,000 tons on an annualized basis. These were in the RAM number three surface and high wall mine, as well as the third section at the Stone Coal Alma mine. All growth capex for these two mines is now behind us. Second, the prep plant at our Maven low wall complex was commissioned both on time and on budget in October. This will reduce our current crutching stock costs by approximately $40 per ton. Again, the vast majority of the growth capex associated with the Maven plant is also behind us. Third, before year-end, we will add the third section at the main Berwyn mine with roughly 300,000 additional annualized tons of low-vol production. The current challenging environment in the coal space, we are now experiencing a surge of incoming job applications to staff this new section, and next year we anticipate adding a fourth section, depending upon, of course, market conditions. I would also point out that the Berwyn mine has demonstrated it is among the lowest-cost low-ball mines in the country. Across the whole mine complex, we are now averaging mine costs in the $90 to $95 per ton range. And as I just noted, one silver lining to the continued decline in met coal pricing is that higher cost U.S. coal production is beginning to come offline and rationalize. MSHA data suggests that the third quarter U.S. met coal production fell by more than 8% sequentially. This would equate to a 6 million ton annual decline. And, of course, we went in the opposite direction in group production. Anecdotally, we have also heard about a number of recent mine or section closures in just the past few weeks. From our perspective, absent some meaningful immediate pricing improvement, we anticipate production will continue to fall further in the fourth quarter. These dislocations may create more opportunities for us as we move forward. We hope to position ourselves accordingly. Turning to the demand side, it's possible that there may be some future macro steps to temper the onslaught of cheap Chinese steel exports. There is currently serious discussion of tariffs in many world markets. Over time, they may boost steel and met coal pricing in our traditional markets. Similarly, we may see the Chinese government adopt more aggressive fiscal stimulus measures. Again, this might have a similar potential to improve pricing. None of this, however, is a quick fix. Turning to our sales book, I'm pleased at how our 2025 domestic and international contracting has progressed. Total sales commitments for next year are now up to 2.7 million tons. Of this, 1.6 million tons were sold mostly to North American customers at average fixed prices of approximately $152 per ton. Given the 30 percent drop this year on benchmark price levels, these fixed prices are only off 10 percent from last year. We have also not announced yet our 2025 reduction guidance, but our current level of sales puts us comfortably down the field at this point in time. And Jason will go into more detail on the sales front and his remarks in a moment. Our rare earth and critical minerals business continues to be a major unique opportunity for us. I'm pleased with the substantial progress our team continues to make. We are fortunate to now have assembled an array of experience groups involved in our rare earth testing, mine planning, and processing design. And on that front, working with Fluor, we are now in the advanced stages of completing our initial techno-economic report. We expect Florida to present their preliminary results to our Board in early December, and then we will communicate the same to our shareholders. We also have substantial additional ongoing testing that we expect to receive results on later in December, and we'll update our reporting after that as well. We continue to plan toward commencement of construction on a processing demonstration facility in mid to late 2025. We are also already in discussions with potential rare earth customers for offtake agreements for our first production. So I want to close by again pointing out that we expect to exit the year on a very strong note, even in the face of challenging pricing. We expect record sales and production, as well as cost reduction in the fourth quarter from where we were in this quarter. As we look ahead into 2025, We are also well positioned on our future coal sales and look forward to hopefully some stronger seasonal pricing as we start the year. In summary, we continue to transition into becoming an even larger low-cost met coal producer with an exciting future potential as also a critical mineral producer. So, with that, I'll turn the floor over to the rest of our team to discuss finances, operations, and markets. So, Jeremy, please start with a rundown on our financial metrics.