CONSOL Energy Inc. Common Stock

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 Nathan Tucker, Director of Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Welcome to Consol Energy's fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2023 earnings conference call. Any forward-looking statements or comments we make about future events are subject to risks, certain of which we have outlined in our press release and in our SEC filings and are considered forward-looking statements within the meaning section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. We do not undertake any obligations of updating any forward-looking statements for future events or otherwise. We will also be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures, which are defined and reconciled to comparable GAAP financial measures in our 2023 fourth quarter and full-year press release furnished to the SEC on Form 8K, which is also posted on our website. Additionally, we expect to file our 10K for the year ended December 31st 2023 with the SEC this Friday, February 9th. You can find additional information regarding the company on our website, www.consolidate.com, which also includes a supplemental slide deck that was posted this morning. On the call with me today are Jimmy Brock, our Chief Executive Officer, Mitesh Chakar, our President and Chief Financial Officer, and Bob Braithwaite, our Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales. In his prepared remarks, Jimmy will provide a recap of our full year 2023 achievements and a detailed discussion of our operations. The test will then provide an update on our marketing and financial progress and introduce our 2024 guidance. In his closing comments, Jimmy will recap our capital allocation progress and lay out our key priorities for 2024. There will be a Q&A session following our prepared remarks in which Bob will also participate. With that, let me turn it over to Jimmy.

Thank you, Nate. Good morning, everyone. Consol Energy followed multiple record-setting achievements in 2022 by surpassing many of those same metrics in 2023. With respect to our operations, CEIX achieved record throughput tonnage and revenue as the Consol Marine Terminal and the Pennsylvania Mining Complex achieved record average realized coal revenue per ton sold on an annual basis. From a full-year financial perspective, CEIX achieved record net income, EPS, adjusted EBITDA, and most importantly, record free cash flow generation. We took advantage of our strong free cash flow to advance some of our key strategic initiatives in 2023, including achieving our debt reduction goals, returning meaningful capital to our shareholders, and enhancing our liquidity through cash generation. and upsized revolving credit facility. Now let's discuss our operational performance in detail. On the safety front, our Bailey Preparation Plant and Consol Marine Terminal each had zero employee recordable incidents during the full year of 2023. Our coal operations finished the year with a total recordable incident rate approximately 33% below the national average for underground coal mines. Coal production at the Pennsylvania mining complex came in at 6.6 million tons in Q4-23, an improvement compared to 6.1 million tons in the prior year period. Production improved in Q4-23 compared to Q4-22 due to the availability of the fifth longwall in 2023 versus only four long walls running in 2022. As such, The PAMC ended the year with an annual production of 26.1 million tons, marking its third consecutive year of production growth and its first time surpassing 26 million tons since 2019. On the cost front, our PAMC average cash cost of coal sold per ton for Q4-23 was $36.28 compared to $34.89 in Q4-22. mostly due to continued inflationary pressures on supplies, maintenance, and contractor labor at our operations. However, our Q4 23 cash cost of coal sold was more than $2 per ton lower compared to Q3 23, mainly due to the incremental production tons in the fourth quarter. On a sequential basis, Q4 23 also benefited from having zero longwall moves. Looking ahead, Simply due to the timing of our mining, we expect three planned longwall moves to occur at the PMC in the first quarter of 2024. However, after Q124, we expect to have only one longwall move for the remainder of the year, which is planned for the third quarter. Moving on to Ipman. During the fourth quarter of 2023, the complex sales performance improved to 159,000 tons of coal including third-party tons, compared to 123,000 tons in Q3 of 23. This brought our full-year 2023 results for Ipman to 316,000 tons of production and 515,000 tons of Ipman and third-party coal sales in aggregate. During the fourth quarter, all three operating sections continued to mine additional height for mains development. which requires cutting additional rock and slows mining rates. Furthermore, we continue to be impacted by equipment delivery issues and higher employee turnover at Ipman in Q4-23. Once we have completed our long-term mains development this year, we will operate the mining sections in targeted blocks of coal reserves. This is expected to lead to more efficient mining heights and improved production rates. As such, We expect to increase our sales tonnage in 2024, which is reflected in our guidance for the Ipman Mining Complex. Moving to the Consol Marine Terminal. We achieved a throughput volume of 4.7 million tons during Q4 23 compared to 3.6 million tons in the prior year quarter. Terminal revenues for Q4 came in at 25.4 million and CMT operating cash costs were $6.8 million. For 2023, the terminal achieved multiple operational and financial records. CMT finished the year with 19 million throughput tons, surpassing the previous annual throughput record of 14.3 million tons set in 2017. Terminal revenue for 2023 surpassed $100 million for the first time. finishing at $106.2 million. The Consol Marine Terminal finished 2023 with adjusted EBITDA of $80.3 million, by far the highest level in its history. Also, keep in mind that this was all achieved without any employee recordable safety incidents during the year. With that, let me turn the call over to Mattes to provide the marketing and financial updates.