Ramaco Resources, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Ramico Resources third quarter 2025 results conference call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should you need assistance, 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 a touch tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to 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 third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. With me this morning is Randy Atkins, our Chairman and CEO, Chris Blanchard, our EVP for Mine Planning and Development, and Mike Wolachuk, our EVP for Critical Mineral Operations. 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 at 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. First, I want to thank everyone for being with us this morning. Again, we've got a lot to unpack today. We had another exceptionally busy quarter on the rare earth front and somewhat of a continuation of last quarter's results on Metcoal. Since our rare earth transition has grabbed most of the attention, we will start there. Both myself and later Mike Woloszek, our head of critical minerals, are going to go through a number of updates on various developments since our last call. After our July groundbreaking with Secretary of Energy Wright, we have moved to rapidly capitalize on this momentum. to de-risk our future execution as we move forward on this unique corporate transformation. Here is a short breakdown of where we are headed as we build out this vertically integrated and mound-mouth critical minerals platform. First, of course, we start with our large deposit. That is what, frankly, provides us all the optionality. We believe we will have the largest upstream production platform in the US for heavy magnetic rare earths, as well as the three critical minerals we possess, which are gallium, germanium, and scandium. On the midstream front, following an optimization at our pilot plant, which is now under construction, we intend to build a large commercial oxide separation and processing facility. It will be large enough to have refining capacity for not only our own coal-based feedstock, but also to hopefully process third-party feedstock, should that be an attractive accretive proposition. This is the concept of developing somewhat of a regional or perhaps even national processing hub. We intend to try and keep optionality on the size of the plant, dependent, of course, on market dynamics as we get further along. And lastly, On our downstream operations, we just announced that we intend to establish a national strategic stockpile and terminal for rare earths and critical minerals at our Brook Mine. We're calling it the Strategic Critical Minerals Terminal. We plan to develop this in collaboration with a leading commodity structuring and financial advisor, who we will be announcing shortly. We feel that being a significant or even dominant factor in each component of the rarest supply chain will position Ramico as the most comprehensive, vertically integrated upstream, midstream, and downstream producer of critical minerals in the United States. In terms of advancing this platform, as you know, in August we raised $200 million in a common stock placement. We now have a record level of liquidity and of course will require even more as we move forward. In September, we announced plans to increase the base size of the Brook Mine by two and a half times to a level of approximately 5 million tons. We would provide increased feedstock for a greater level of annual oxide production of more than 3,400 tons per year. I'd also point out that depending on ultimate market demand, we have the operational and technical capacity, subject to normal approvals, to again upsize this production level to an even higher level of at least 8 million tons of annual coal production. That would then produce, by our estimate, roughly 5,000 tons of oxide production. As detailed in my shareholder letter in September, We're currently estimating that at the 5 million ton coal base production level, that in the first year of commercial oxide production, which we now estimated in 2028, our rare earth platform could generate more than $500 million of EBITDA. It could also have a projected NPV of more than 5 billion. These are, of course, projections, but show the magnitude of the project. I'll note that these estimates, though, were arrived at deploying the same price deck that was used in the summary of Fluor's preliminary economic analysis report in July. And candidly, they were prepared and reviewed by the same person, who is Mike Wolacek, who, of course, has now joined us along with another senior member from Fluor. Obviously, as we move forward with design, engineering, and optimization, we will refine these numbers along with current market prices and other figures. Since July, given market conditions, we have seen Western offtake deals for substantially higher prices than what was the case in the floor report. There is now a clear decoupling of Western price realizations, which were in the past tied to Chinese published prices. There is going to be a premium for reliable Western supply lines. This is becoming more apparent by the day and is caused by Chinese export restrictions. As you have read, it now appears Trump and President Xi may have kicked the can down for a year on enforcement of China's new REE restrictions. But the overhang of Chinese control is not going away. Like it or not, we are in a full long-term mineral war with China. This is especially true for scandium, where the Department of War's Defense Logistics Agency recently signed an offtake to purchase scandium at more than $6.2 million a ton. That pricing is two-thirds higher than the $3.7 million level used in both the floor report and my shareholder letter. There are similar upward adjustments across the board for several of the other oxides we will produce. But to focus on scandium for a moment, although Mike will also discuss in more detail later, it is of particular interest given our large future production level. It is called the forgotten rare earth. The US is 100% import reliant on scandium. We have no stockpile, no recycling capability, nor current production capacity. It is used in lightweighting autos and planes, solid oxide fuel cells, semiconductors, 6G wireless for drones, satellite communications, and other defense capabilities. Global production is very scarce, with a small global market of frankly under 50 million tons per annum. We will produce almost 180 million tons per annum. And it's estimated that scandium alloys in the auto sector alone would require over 1,000 tons per annum, which is frankly not currently available. In line with that, from recent discussions with potential scandium oxide off-takers, we expect almost price-insensitive demand to exceed the Brookmines' projected annual production. The mineral, as I said, is critical to lightweighting of cars and planes, as well as technologies used in a variety of military applications. It is just simply not available for these types of uses to make long-term planning possible. for a mineral which is now under complete Chinese control. Its demand growth is exceptionally strong. And as I said, there has been no ability outside of China to develop any meaningful, reliable Western supply. We will be well positioned to provide that meaningful supply in Scandia. Looking forward, in order to support the expansion of our rare earth operations, we plan to actively engage with federal and state officials to expand the existing approved Brook Mine Permit. It now covers roughly 4,500 acres, and we expect to expand it to ultimately include most of our nearly 6,000 acres of control. Since our groundbreaking in July, we've now mined about 125,000 tons of coal and material, which frankly provides us with enough ore feedstock to operate the pilot plant for a considerable period. We expect to intermittently mine additional coal once we start the pilot operations, as well as mine for possible sale of coal to third-party local utility customers. Chris Blanchard will speak more on our mining in a moment. As far as our midstream operations, our commercial oxide processing facility will be engineered and designed to have the optionality to increase its capacity to accommodate production of higher levels of oxide. As I said, we are doing this not only to accommodate our own increased capacity, but also for the possibility that we might want to do some form of third-party merchant processing. But before advancing to a full-scale commercial plant, we will of course work to de-risk this complex execution. by the design, testing, and optimization of various separation and refining processes at our pilot plant, which, as I said, is now under construction outside Sheridan. Our goal is to appropriately size, design, and execute on the plant development, focusing on controlling both capital costs as well as future operational expenses of the plant. We broke ground on the pilot last week and expect to begin initial operations in 26. Mike will be discussing this further in much detail. In the interim, to accelerate the pilot process, the plant components are currently being designed, engineered, and tested on a shakedown basis at a facility in Canada owned by a company called Zeton. Zeton is the world's largest pilot plant design and fabrication company. Most of this testing will also be coordinated with Hatch Limited, which is also Canadian, and then is preparing our feasibility analysis. Our commercial processing plant will focus on refining a number of rare earths and critical minerals, including, of course, our heavy magnetic rare earths like terbium and dysprosium, and critical minerals like gallium, scandium, and germanium. All of these have been banned by China from export to the U.S., In some cases, we will be the sole U.S. producer of these oxides, and in many, we will also be the largest or dominant producer in the country. We are now taking steps to accelerate the engineering and planning for the commercial oxide facility. We hope to begin the engineering and procurement work on this plant next spring. Our goal is to initiate site work and initial construction on the facility in late 26 or early 27. This would of course be subject to normal issues of availability and timing of equipment and related purchasing. Our record liquidity levels, however, should help us be in a position to pre-purchase some of this equipment to help expedite the process and fast track it as best we can. We appreciate the execution risk associated with any new development. Indeed, the DNA of our whole operation since this company was founded is to build projects from scratch on budget and on time. I'd point out that since Ramico was formed, we have deployed in excess of a half billion dollars in capital on greenfield development projects. We have already hired both in-house and externally an exceedingly talented and experienced group of professionals to help guide our execution in this area. We will be hiring many more as we move forward. And we will continue to refine the project size and design, as I said, to bring the project in with the greatest levels of cost control we can develop, both on the CapEx spend as well as on the future operating costs. Given the importance of this project, frankly, to our country, we will have a lot of help. We will continue to work with our longtime partners at the Department of Energy's national labs to deploy some very novel science and technology to achieve, hopefully, some important technical results. And, of course, as we have always said, we will only move forward with actual construction of the full commercial facility once we have a sufficient level of long-term offtake contracts in place. And on that front, we are very encouraged with procurement discussions that we continue to have. I would point out that since the Chinese embargo and export controls were announced, there has been a market decoupling away from China. As we get feedback from counterparties, there will probably not be a future point where any customer in the West is going to feel comfortable with China as a reliable long-term supplier. This has direct implications for us. both in terms of customer demand as well as long-term pricing. Going forward, historic prices quoted from China will now be dramatically different than prices from a reliable Western supplier, which is what we intend to be. Also, as I mentioned last week, we announced that our board had approved creating the U.S.' 's first and currently only strategic critical mineral terminal and stockpile at the Brook Mine. For Ramico, this operation will create a fee-based terminal services business. This is going to leverage not only our own production, but our existing logistical and infrastructure advantages of being located on our own vertically integrated Brook Mine site. We anticipate no commodity price exposure on the terminal and will receive predictable revenue streams. For our customers, the terminal will provide a secure, auditable storage of strategic rare earths without capital outlay or operational burden. The terminal will have a rapid deployment capability and provide domestic supply chain resilience. Our strategic advisor will assist in the development and execution of offtake agreements with both private and public customers. as well as on the development of the financial contracting and operational implementation of the terminal. We will be speaking more about this as our plans progress. Now I'd like to move to our metallurgical business. The overall met markets still remain challenged. The reason is the same as we have highlighted basically all year. China continues to flood cheap steel into world markets with the impact of depressing both prices and production worldwide. Jeremy is going to discuss markets in more detail in a moment. As we've talked about on previous calls, we made what seems like a very logical decision to refuse to sell tons at a loss into an oversaturated market. We're fortunate that we now have the strongest liquidity position we have ever had, which allows us the flexibility to take this posture. As a result, we are again modestly trimming production guidance, despite the fact that our mines continue to produce extremely well and with solid lower mine costs. It is about as straightforward as the fact that we intend to match our production with demand. And to be clear, this guidance reduction is solely caused by weak production pricing conditions in export spot markets. It's not because of high mine cost. Indeed, we are one of the only U.S. met coal producers with cash costs now below $100 per ton, with our third quarter cash costs coming in at about $97 a ton. I'd point out that starting in Q4, our costs are currently even below that figure. We are now, of course, also currently in discussion with North American steel mills for the annual 2026 domestic contracts. We'll talk about that more in a moment, but the negotiations are still taking place with, frankly, reality checks on both sides. No producer should have to sell to steel companies at loss-making prices. We are certainly not going to. We will talk about those negotiations more, frankly, when they are complete. And consistent with what we have already said, until markets begin to improve, we will keep future growth capex at our met mines at minimal levels. We intend instead to focus on the rapid commercialization of our rare earth elements and critical minerals business. Yet, we're always going to keep an eye out on opportunistic low-cost asset acquisitions in the met space as they might present themselves. Our view is to try and position Ramico's met business for longer term growth on an advantage financial basis when the situation might present itself. So I'm going to wrap up on a very positive note. The bottom line is that we are in the best liquidity position we have ever been in as a company. And we're now moving rapidly along a multi-year path to transition Ramico into becoming the only U.S. dual critical mineral platform in both Rare Earths and Metco. The task ahead is large, but we intend to rise to the occasion. We are going to approach the transition with the same sense of capital, financial, and operational discipline that we have shown to date. And as we move forward, I strongly feel we will serve both our shareholders and our nations well for the years to come. With that, I'd like to turn the floor back to the rest of our team to discuss finances, operations, and markets. And first, I would like Mike Woloszak, who leads our critical mineral business, to share some further thoughts on our rare earth business. Mike?