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spk08: Greetings and welcome to Alpha Metallurgical Resources Third Quarter 2022 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. 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 begin.
spk00: 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 2022 earnings release and the associated SEC filing. Please also see those documents for information about our use of non-GAAP measures and their reconciliation to GAAP measures. Participating on the call today are Alpha's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, David Stetson, President, Andy Edson, Todd Muncy, our Chief Financial Officer, Jason Whitehead, our Chief Operating Officer, and Dan Horn, our Chief Commercial Officer. With that, I'll turn the call over to David.
spk02: Thanks, Emily, and good morning, everyone. Today, we're pleased to report another strong quarter thanks to the dedication and excellence of the Alpha team. Today also marks my final earnings call as CEO before turning over the reins to Andy Edson at the end of the year. At that time, I will transition to the role of executive chairman, which will allow me to continue to work with the management team as well as the board on strategic initiatives. We're excited to have Todd Muncy joining us today in his new role of chief financial officer. The coal industry has certainly been on an interesting journey these past 18 months. And that has been true whether you produce thermal or metallurgical coal. As a metallurgical coal producer during this period, we've seen highs in pricing that no one could have imagined or predicted. The markets have experienced geopolitical events, supply and capital constraints, and most recently, challenging economic conditions and issues here in the United States as well as abroad. Through this tumultuous time, Alpha has remained disciplined. and focused on our core fundamentals, and it is this discipline and focus that has made Alpha a leader in the coal industry. It wasn't long ago that $300 million of EBITDA on a quarter would have been considered a pipe dream, so Alpha is very proud of this quarter's performance and over $14 of earnings per share that we have reported today. As Todd will discuss with you shortly, and from the press release we issued this morning, In a quarter, we sold approximately 44% of our exported MET production into markets that are priced on Australian indices, which resulted in realizations of $161 per ton. As 65% of our production is shipped into the export markets, our revenues and realizations are based on multiple variables, including the timing of vessels departing, quality and rank of the coal being shipped, destinations for our products, and the corresponding indices for those destinations. Todd and Dan will provide you with much more detail on this topic, but those same Australian indices that average $250 per metric ton in the third quarter are currently reflecting $300 in the recent time. Each year, our team has robust conversations and discussions on how much of our diverse product offerings we will allocate into domestic versus international markets. We examined multiple variables from qualities and ranks of our coal anticipated for the 2023 timeframe, economic conditions, demand through the markets in which we participate, and logistic and transportation costs. Based on those assessments, we announced in September that we committed approximately 4.5 million tons of metallurgical coal for shipment into the domestic markets for the upcoming calendar year 2023. Today, we released the average pricing of those domestic tons, which came in at $192.72. We are also building out the export side of our business and completing our budget for presentation to the board in coming weeks. And we will be providing 2023 guidance after input and approval from our board. With strong markets this year, our primary goal was to eliminate our long-term debt and provide alpha with stability for years to come. However, I was thrilled that we had the ability to not only pay down our debt, but to successfully execute on our capital return program. At the end of October, Alpha has bought back over $450 million worth of common stock, exhausting more than three-quarters of the board's prior $600 million share repurchase authorization. Todd's going to provide you with more granular details, but as of October the 31st, Our balance of common shares outstanding was approximately 15.9 million shares. We continue to believe that our shares are undervalued by the markets. In this past week, our board increased the program by another $400 million, bringing the total authorization to $1 billion. Additionally, the board declared a one-time special dividend of $5 per share be paid on January the 3rd, 2023. to holders of record on January the 15th, 2022. This is in addition to the increased fixed dividend in the amount of 41.8 cents per share. As I've said many times before, our goals have been clear, to pay off our long-term debt, increase our cash balances, and meaningfully return capital to shareholders. I remain proud of the collective efforts of the Alpha team to deliver on these objectives. With that, I will turn the call over to Andy.
spk05: Thanks, David. Good morning, everyone. As David mentioned, today's call marks another step in the leadership transition efforts we described last quarter. Instead of sharing the financial details of our quarter with you this morning like I usually do, I have the honor of introducing Todd Muncy, who will be handling these duties going forward. Todd was named Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer on August 9th. He's already shown himself to be more than up to the task. I'm excited for this audience to get to know Todd better, but as a very brief reminder of his biography, he's been a key member of leadership here at Alpha for quite some time, having served the company as senior VP and controller since 2016, and prior to that in a number of high-level roles in our tax and accounting departments after getting a start at PricewaterhouseCoopers. As I said last quarter, I have great confidence in Todd, and he will serve Alpha well in this expanded role. With that, I will turn it over to Todd for a discussion of our financial statements.
spk03: Thanks for the introduction, Andy. I'm excited to be serving in this position, and I look forward to getting to know our investors better over the coming months. As we look to our third quarter results, the Alpha team put together another very solid quarter of performance with adjusted EBITDA of $295 million in Q3. While this is down as expected from the record levels achieved in the second quarter, it's still a very strong quarter from a historical perspective. We sold 4.1 million tons in the second quarter, with 3.9 million tons coming from our met segment and 200,000 tons coming from the all other category. Due to indices falling from their all time highs earlier in 2022, our third quarter realizations dropped on a quarter over quarter basis. Realizations on total export met tons for the quarter came in at an average of $187.84 per ton, down from second quarter's average export realization of $337.38 per ton. Export tons priced against Atlantic indices and other pricing mechanisms in the third quarter realized $208 per ton, while export coal priced on Australian indices realized $161.58, a quarter-over-quarter reduction largely resulting from lower priced volumes into Asia. Our third quarter realization for our metallurgical sales was a total weighted average of $191.17 per ton, down from $304 per ton in Q2. Third quarter realizations in the incidental thermal portion of the MET segment averaged $119.69 per ton. In comparison, the incidental thermal realization within the MET segment for the second quarter was $68.75 per ton. Realizations in the all other category were $109.27 per ton for the third quarter, up from $61.41 in Q2 as a result of the improved pricing environment for thermal coal. Our met segment cost of coal sales decreased to $104.86 per ton in the third quarter, down from $111.36 per ton in Q2. The primary drivers of the decrease in cost were royalties and severance taxes, which were lower in Q3 as a result of lower realized sales prices. Cost of coal sales in the All Other category increased to $67.48 per ton in the third quarter, up from $49.90 in the second quarter. The higher costs in the All Other category are attributable to higher sales-related costs for thermal coal, resulting from an improved pricing environment, as well as the impacts of late-stage mining at our slab camp mine. SG&A, excluding non-cash stock comp and non-recurring items, decreased to $13.6 million in the third quarter as compared to $16.8 million in the second quarter. CapEx in the third quarter was $33.3 million, down from $41.9 million in the prior quarter. Due to supply chain challenges and contractor labor constraints for some of our 2022 CAPEX projects, we are running below the annual guidance range as of the end of Q3. We expect to make up lost ground during the fourth quarter, but it is possible that some of these planned 2022 expenditures may roll into the following calendar year. When we release 2023 guidance, we will provide some additional color on our CAPEX projections. Moving to the balance sheet and cash flows as of September 30th, 2022, we had $404.4 million in unrestricted cash up from $161.7 million at the end of the second quarter. Alpha had $91.1 million in unused availability on our ABL at the end of both the third quarter and Q2. Total liquidity nearly doubled quarter over quarter from $252.8 million at the end of June up to $495.5 million at the end of September. This amount is net of our $196.3 million in share repurchases during the quarter. Due to the elimination of Alpha's term loan debt earlier in the year, our 2022 cash interest expense is trending toward the lower end of our established guidance range of $18 to $22 million. Cash provided by operating activities increased again quarter over quarter, producing a new record high of $497 million in the third quarter. Alpha has generated $1.29 billion in cash from operating activities in the first three quarters of the year. As of September 30th, our ABL facility had no borrowings and $63.9 million of letters of credit outstanding, the same level as the previous quarter. As we move into the final months of the year, we are fully committed in both our MET segment and the all other category. 87% of our metallurgical tonnage in our MET segment is committed and priced at the midpoint of guidance at an average price of $243.30. Another 13% of our 2022 MET tonnage at the midpoint is committed but not yet priced. The thermal byproduct portion of the MET segment is fully committed and priced at an average price of $97 and 43 cents, and we are fully committed and priced for 2022 in our All Other category with an average price of $77.69. Focusing next on capital return, Alpha's Board has declared a cash dividend of 41.8 cents per share, an increase from prior quarter's 39.2 cents per share, which will become payable on January 3rd for holders of record as of December 15th. In addition, the Board declared a one-time special dividend of $5 per share to be paid on January 3rd for holders of record as of December 15th. In terms of share buybacks, we announced that the Board increased the repurchase authorization to $1 billion, up from the prior $600 million authorization. We have continued to buy back shares of our common stock, and within the third quarter alone, we repurchased 1.4 million shares at a cost of $196 million. As of October 31st, we have spent approximately $452 million to acquire 3.1 million shares of Alpha's common stock at a weighted average price of $144.12 per share. The outstanding share count has been reduced by roughly 14% from the time the program began. As of October 31st, 2022, we had approximately 15.9 million shares of common stock outstanding. I will now turn the call over to Jason for some details on our operational performance.
spk04: Thank you, Todd, and good morning, everyone. Our operations teams had another positive quarter of performance. especially given the challenging landscape we're all experiencing related to labor, supply chain, and inflationary pressures we've discussed on recent calls. While these factors still persist, I'm proud to say our teams continue to work diligently to overcome these obstacles. At the same time, our teams turned in another strong performance on the safety and environmental fronts. On prior earnings calls, we've discussed our ongoing work on our 15-year mining plan. ensuring we are prepared to maintain our diverse product offerings and the ability to keep current or improved volume outputs. We also announced the first cuts of coal from our new mid-ball Glen Allen Tunnel deep mine, which was part of that 15-year plan. Production continues to go well there, as well as at our entire portfolio of mines. We are focused on continuing to produce safely and efficiently and to finish out 2022 strong. Another key and critical component to executing on this 15-year plan is maintaining our fleet of production equipment. In light of supply chain shortages we've already spoken to and increased demand from other operators and other industries, I'm very proud of our team for executing on our equipment rebuild schedules this year, with roughly 25% of our underground production fleet turning over through the rebuild processes. With respect to underground equipment rebuilds, we have similar expectations for calendar 2023. Although surface equipment has a much higher life expectancy than underground, in 2022, we have initiated and we're nearing completion of the first year of our six-year plan to replace many of our surface haul trucks, and we purchased two new hydraulic excavators that are expected to go into production in the first half of 2023. Once our budget is completed for the coming year, we will discuss in more detail our plans for production and development. As Todd mentioned earlier, our teams have run into contract labor and supply chain challenges with some of the plan upgrades we announced within our project CapEx for 2022. While we continue to forge ahead on these projects, it is reasonable to expect that we may need the early months of next year to bring them to completion. Again, I commend our teams for the ability to keep things running smoothly in the face of these delays. I'll now hand the call over to Dan for some additional information on the markets and our sales efforts.
spk01: Thanks, Jason, and good morning everyone. As you know, the broader global marketplace is experiencing some headwinds. Continued recessionary pressure, weakening economic conditions, the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, and the intensifying European energy crisis are all shaping the landscape. Coal markets are being influenced by these factors, and the indices soften within the quarter but have solidified or even increased in recent weeks. In short, pricing volatility continues in the face of macroeconomic uncertainty. Taking a specific look at metallurgical price movements during the third quarter, The Australian premium lowball index dropped from $302 per metric ton on July 1 to $270.50 at the end of September. The U.S. East Coast lowball index declined from $315 per metric ton at the start of the quarter to $270 per metric ton on September 30. On highball, the U.S. East Coast highball A index moved from $325 per metric ton down to $287 per metric ton at quarter close. U.S. East Coast High Vol B fell from $317.50 per metric ton to $284 over the course of the third quarter. The pricing movements for High Vol A and B have largely leveled off in recent weeks to hover at or near their quarter close level. For Atlantic Low Vol and the Aussie Low Vol, both have increased off the quarter close levels to $302 and $320.50, respectively, in recent days. The most common question in met markets today is related to the impact that global market headwinds may have on our customers' steel production in the near term. In its periodic review of macroeconomic factors affecting the steel industry, the World Steel Association issued revisions in October to its short-range outlook for 2022 and 2023. The WSA forecasts a contraction in steel demand of 2.3% for full year 2022. The Association now projects a recovery of 1% for steel demand next year, 2023, which represents a downward revision from its previous estimates. The group attributed the altered outlook to deteriorating economic conditions over the course of this year, 2022, including persistent inflation and rising interest rates globally alongside Russia's invasion of Ukraine and China's economic deceleration. The WSA cited infrastructure demand as the expected catalyst for slight increases in global 2023 steel demand, contingent on the impact of tightening monetary policies, falling consumer confidence, and further inflation risk. However, metallurgical coal supply remains tight across the globe due to significant underinvestment over the last several years and the lack of incremental tonnage scheduled to come online in the immediate term. Turning to the thermal coal market, the volatility in the seaborne thermal coal market, largely a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its effects in Europe, continued through the third quarter, with the API2 index at $328.95 per metric ton on July 1 and declining to $312 per metric ton as of September 30. In the weeks following the quarter close, the API2 fell back below pricing for metallurgical coal qualities, which has historically been the norm. As a comparison point, the Central App Index for 12,500 BTU coal on the CSX has been around $175 per short ton in recent days. As we discussed last quarter, we have opportunistically sold a small amount of high-volume met coal into the thermal markets, and we will continue to consider this as opportunities and pricing arbitrage allow. However, we remain focused on servicing our metallurgical customers, and we expect tonnage falling into this crossover category would continue to be relatively small for us, likely in the few hundred thousand ton range. Before I close, I will provide a quick comment on rail performance, as this has been a topic of interest and discussion over the last several calls. We continue to be in close contact with our rail partners. and the performance over the last several months has remained positive. We appreciate all that they have done and are continuing to do to address their labor and operating challenges. Of course, we join the rest of the industry in watching whether the railroads will resolve their union negotiations and avoid a strike later this month. If a strike does occur, however, we urge Congress to quickly respond to avoid the detrimental effects that this would bring not only to the coal industry but to the entire U.S. economy. As we look ahead to 2023, David mentioned our domestic commitments of 4.5 million tons at an average price of $192.27. We are pleased with this business and look forward to building on this firm foundation for next year. With our budgeting process nearing completion, we hope to have more details to share with you in the coming weeks about Alpha's projections for 2023 and our expected sales volumes. For now, I will simply reiterate that we continue to have positive conversations with our customers about future commitments, and demand for our products remains strong. I am personally optimistic about Alpha's outlook for next year, and I look forward to discussing our projections in more detail on a future call. And with that, operator, we are now ready to open the call for questions.
spk08: Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Lucas Pipes with B Reilly Securities. Please proceed with your question.
spk09: Thank you very much, Operator, and good morning, everyone. My first question is on the mix. In Q3, the thermal contribution within the MET segment was a bit higher than I expected. I was just wondering if you could provide a little bit more color on that. Was that you taking advantage opportunistically of the strength in the thermal markets? MET markets were a little weaker during the third quarter, so some of your peers built inventories or shipped fewer tons. Did you respond to the market there, or was it just operationally Q3 has higher maintenance and such that maybe also contributed to this? So interested in your perspective on that. And then going forward, you just mentioned in the prepared remarks you would expect just a few hundred thousand tons of crossover going forward. But if you could maybe elaborate on the mix and thermal contribution, I would appreciate your comment. Thank you very much.
spk01: Hey, Lucas. This is Dan. I mean, broadly speaking, yeah, we did, we're a little bit opportunistic in Q3. We did some thermal exports to take advantage of pricing. But overall, I think we're, you know, we're more or less where we thought we'd be. I wouldn't say it was a big increase. But, you know, in other words, at the same time, maybe some of the seabourns was up a bit. Maybe we were down on the domestic front. And going forward, you know, the several hundred thousand number reflects just a view of the coal qualities that we think might have some interest in the thermal market. Generally speaking, we're talking about weaker highballs, highball B type coals, higher sulfur coals. So we don't have any specific plans for those tons, but we just wanted to give a rough estimate of what we think it could look like for you, because we figured you might ask.
spk09: I appreciate the color. Thank you very much for that. That's helpful. A few quick follow-up questions. On the domestic sales front for 2023, should we assume that that business is by and large concluded for alpha, or might there be more sales into the domestic market beyond what you already announced? Thank you very much for your color on that.
spk01: There still could be a few more sales, but I think it's safe to say, by and large, it's winding down. Most of the coal that we're aware of has been purchased for 2023.
spk09: Very helpful. Thank you. And then last one, great announcements on the capital return front. That's really impressive, and I want to congratulate you and the entire team on what the company has been able to accomplish there. There has been a little bit more talk about M&A more recently and wondered if you could maybe share your thoughts on that topic, to what extent alpha might have any interest there or not or remains committed to just capital returns. Thank you very much for your color.
spk02: Thanks, Lucas. This is David. We have a strong commitment to our capital return program. the board authorizing a billion dollars of authorization for share repurchase. We've already spent over $500 million into that program, and that's where our commitment is. On the M&A side, you know, we just saw the news this week that the Coronado Peabody discussions were off. So as I've said previously, I think I can go back, Lucas, to 2016 at the CPORT conference when I was asked that question. I don't think my answer's changed since then. You really haven't seen a lot of M&A from our perspective. Any type of M&A activity for us would probably just be bolt-ons to us or other acquisitions that we would deem to be strategic. That does not necessarily have to mean into coal reserves. It could be things that also assist us in the supply chain in other manners. Right now, our focus and dedication is to the share return program. We've got our debt paid off. We've been extremely clear. We appreciate the confidence that the shareholders have had in the company. And the billion-dollar share return program on share repurchases reflects our appreciation to our shareholders for their confidence, and that's where our priorities lie at this point in time.
spk09: Thank you very much, David, for your perspective. And, David, to you and, you know, all the best going forward. I hope you get to enjoy it a bit. And I know you won't be far from the coal field. So best of luck going forward.
spk02: Thanks, Luke. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you.
spk08: Our next question is from Len Vitenza with Cowan. Please proceed with your question.
spk06: Hey, good morning, everyone. This is Jonathan for Lance. I'd like to start off with just learning a little bit more about how the lockdowns in China are impacting medical pricing from your perspective and how they are impacting AMR's revenue, profitability margins, as well as its financial 23 outlook.
spk01: Well, this is Dan. take a stab at that. I guess, first of all, China has not not been historically a natural market for office calls, we, we went from zero shipments in 2019, to a lot of shipments over a million tons in 2020. And we're back or 2021. I'm sorry, and now we're back to near zero. So, you know, I always joke, anyone that has a strategic plan for China, You just can't have it in the US coal industry. So we don't view China as strategic. We view it as more opportunistic. So our focus has been moving our 15 million tons of met coal into our natural markets, which include much of Asia, but not China, as well as Europe, South America, and North America. So the long answer there is it hasn't impacted us directly. Certainly the market price, you can argue, The Australian coal that used to go to China had to go somewhere else, but it's found markets at quite good pricing here over the last year. I think that answers your question.
spk06: Yes, it does. Then turning to India, I know that this is an important country for Alpha. Can you speak a little bit about the dynamics in the country? Presumably it's doing well, but just want to know what you're seeing into the fourth quarter and are you getting good traction with new companies? I know you have very strong relationships that expand decades, but just want to know about new companies there.
spk01: Certainly, we see India as a growth market for us. You're correct that the steel industry is performing a little better in India than it is in many of our other markets. But I don't want to get too granular here. But we supply coal to several important customers in India. And all of them, from our view, are experienced. Again, probably a little higher steel production rates than we see in other countries at the moment.
spk06: Okay, so I guess we can assume that's doing well. And in terms of the new customers in India, like is that tracking well? Or is the strong relationship with prior customers is really the main focus?
spk01: Some of both. You know, we're always – We take care of our current customers first, and we're always looking for a new customer as well. So I would answer that question by saying some of both.
spk06: Okay. And last one for me. Can you speak a little bit more on the expenses for Triton and handling it? How are they tracking the fourth quarter? And following up on that, Just given the company's current cost structure, like what would be a range at least of the company's breakeven medical price?
spk05: Hey, Jonathan, this is Andy. I'm sorry. Could you repeat the first part? I thought I heard expansion, but I think you broke up a little bit.
spk06: Sure. Just wanted to get a little more color on how freight and handling is tracking in the fourth quarter so far.
spk05: Okay, so transportation costs. Yeah, I mean, we can't really say too much about the quantum of the cost. That's all confidential in our contracts. I mean, things are pretty static right now as they've been for a while. So the cost kind of is what it is. And as Dan mentioned in his remarks, performance from the railroads has been, from our perspective, really quite solid. Obviously, there are a couple of hiccups here and there, but they've done a really nice job of getting things back on track and really not too much more to add on that perspective. You had the second part to your question?
spk06: Right. Just given the current cost structure for the company, what would be a good range to have for the company's break-even met cold price?
spk05: Oh, yeah. I mean, we can't really guide to that. We're still working on budget materials. Again, certain aspects of our cost structure are confidential, whether it's freight and handling or other portions that we generally don't talk about. But again, as we do every year when we issue our guidance, which hopefully will be not too far in the future, we'll give everyone every number that they need to get down to bottom line numbers, except for your price deck. You've got to pick your own price deck, but we'll give you everything else. So just stay tuned in that regard.
spk06: Okay, okay, thank you. And if I may, and I'll get back into the back of the line after this question, but I know there's no CAPEX guidance for 2023 yet, but, you know, when we look at 2022, is that a good base to build into 23, or is that maybe a little bit too high?
spk05: Well, again, we're not giving guidance on that yet, so I'm not going to give you guidance when I say I'm not going to give you guidance. We want to wait until we get the numbers all nailed down. and then we'll have something that we can all chat about here shortly. Sounds good. Thank you so much. Congrats on the quarter.
spk08: Our next question comes from Nathan Martin with the Benchmark Company. Please proceed with your question.
spk07: Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll start maybe on the cash flow side. Cash flow up four over a quarter to that record $497 million you guys called out. It looks like the driver was a big positive swing of working cap. Maybe we could just get a little more color there and then maybe an idea of what to kind of expect in the fourth quarter. Thanks.
spk03: Yeah, I can start on that one. This is Todd. There was some working capital movement contributing to the operating cash flow in the fourth quarter, about $200 million roughly. I think where receivables are now, they're trending where we think they should be fairly stable given pricing. I mean, it's hard to estimate working capital movement, but we don't expect, given the leveling off in prices that we've had, a repeat performance of that in Q4. So I think that's sort of the way we're thinking about that in Q4.
spk07: That's great, Todd. I appreciate it, and good to hear from you. And maybe also on the cash return side, congratulations there, again, raising the quarterly dividend, increasing the share buyback, and paying what I think was your first special dividend in quite some time. I'm just curious, has there been any discussion of a more maybe formulaic approach to shareholder returns that some of your peers have started? Also, are there any minimum cash or liquidity levels that we should keep in mind when considering what future returns could look like? Thanks.
spk02: Yeah, Nate, good to talk to you. Let me take the back piece of that. In my last earnings call, I forgot whether it was Andy or myself, but From our view on it, and it can vary from time to time, we put our cash reserves that we like to see in the 250 to 300 range. So that's kind of where we like to see on our books. This time we obviously were at 400 million on our books of cash. But that's generally the range. I can tell you on our share return program, our shareholders have been very appreciative of our share repurchase programs. We continue to believe that our stock is undervalued. When I always internally look at the, when we look at what comes out in the public streets, they've had us at 17 million shares when we're sitting there going, but we're at 15.9. So we believe our stock is woefully undervalued. And so therefore our focus, and as you can tell from the board, we're doing a billion dollars into the share repurchase program. That should give everybody a strong feeling of where our heart is at this point in time. We were appreciative of our shareholders, so we did the one-time $5. But it's very clear when we announce a billion-dollar for share return program, that is setting our priorities as a company. So we're thrilled that we were able to do that, and our shareholders are appreciative of it.
spk07: Thank you for those comments, David. I mean, any discussion of a more formulaic approach? Again, as you succinctly just said, I mean, the clear preference has been share buybacks. I think maybe the special this quarter was something some hadn't considered. So, I mean, maybe looking forward, if you have excess cash again, you know, like you do this quarter, would a special be something to consider again? Just any other thoughts?
spk02: Well, we haven't established any kind of – I saw some of our colleagues in the industry have done that. We have not. We like the ability of the board to have discretion. But, again, at this point in time, I would say our focus is on the share repurchase, and that's where our focus is going to be. Things change as time goes on, but right now that's our priority, and I don't see us deviating from that anytime soon.
spk07: Got it. Appreciate that. And then maybe just a final follow-up for Dan. Appreciate the update on the transportation side, rail specifically. How are things running at the port? Just curious on that end of things. And then anything you guys can do to prepare for a potential railroad strike?
spk01: Well, the ports are running very well. We're hitting our numbers at DTA. quite well. We're very pleased with DTA's performance. So the challenge has been getting the coal from the mines to the ports. And as we pointed out, that's been improving quite a bit as the year went on. So no real issues there to speak of, Nate. With regard to a strike, we're in the same boat as other producers are. We certainly don't want to see one. We've We ship as much coal as we can when it's appropriate to the piers anyway. We'd rather have the inventory at the piers than we would at the mines, so that's kind of normal course of business for us.
spk07: Makes sense, Dan. I appreciate that. I'll leave it there. Very, very helpful, guys. Thank you for the time. David, best of luck as you move on to the next phase, and best of luck to you guys as you wrap up the year.
spk02: Thanks very much.
spk05: Thanks, Nate.
spk08: Our next question is from Lucas Pipes with B Reilly Securities. Please proceed with your question.
spk09: Thank you very much for taking my follow-up. It's on the cost side. Just wanted to get your perspective on how inputs are trending here. Are unit costs for parts still going up or have they flatlined? Are they going down? Unit costs for steel, roof bolts, et cetera. Is that Is that starting to come down with steel prices having trended lower over the summer? I would appreciate your perspective on that. And then on labor, how tight is the labor market today? Where are you, if any, seeing any bottlenecks? Thank you for your call.
spk05: Hey, Lucas. It's Randy. I'll hit a couple of those at a high level, and then I'll ask Jason to pop in and give you better answers than I'm giving you. I think generally speaking, and we're still going through the budget as we mentioned, but this inflationary pressure is real and it's continuing, and so we are seeing increased costs across our input. It may have slowed down a tad, but it's still much more than we're used to in a typical year, particularly going through the budgeting cycle. So whether it's cost of rubber for belts or steel for roof bolts or any other piece of equipment out there, We are continuing to see some increase in there. And then on the labor side, I'll go ahead and kick it over to Jason for his comments on how the labor market is playing out right now.
spk04: Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Andy. Andy's right. I mean, the inflationary pressures have continued. But I would say that, you know, there is some probably moderate flattening of the curve, you know, in real time. You commented on steel pricing, and that's true. Those things are falling off. Um, you know, diesel, diesel's in short supply. Fortunately, you know, a large percentage of our, our diesel fuel has been hedged. So, you know, we feel like we've built a little bit of security around that. Uh, on the labor front, uh, it's kind of a bit of the same. It's still very, very competitive. Uh, but we have seen, you know, turnover decreasing, you know, relative to months early in the year. Uh, still, still a very tight labor market, but, um, mild to moderate improvement, I guess.
spk09: Thank you very much for your perspective, and best of luck. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Luke.
spk08: We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call over to David Stetson for closing comments.
spk02: Thank you very much. Thanks, everyone, for getting on the call today with us. Another strong quarter by Alpha. We're very pleased with it, and Everybody have a wonderful rest of their week. Thank you.
spk08: This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.
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