Core Natural Resources, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Core Natural Resources, Inc. Third Quarter Earnings Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, November 6, 2025. I would now like to turn the conference over to Dec Sloan, Senior Vice President of Strategy. Please go ahead.

Good morning from Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. Before we begin, let me remind you that certain statements made during this call, including statements relating to our expected future business and financial performance, may be considered forward-looking statements according to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain. These uncertainties, which are described in more detail in the annual and quarterly reports, that we filed with the SEC may cause our actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as may be required by law. I'd also like to remind you that you can find a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures that we plan to discuss this morning at the end of our press release, a copy of which we have posted in the investor section of our website, at corenaturalresources.com. Also participating on this morning's call will be Jimmy Brock, our Chairman and CEO, Mitesh Thakkar, our President and CFO, and Bob Braithwaite, our Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales. After some formal remarks from Jimmy and Mitesh, we will be happy to take questions. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Jimmy. Jimmy?

Thank you, Dick, and good morning, everyone. I am pleased to report that Core Natural Resources had a solid performance in the third quarter, despite some operational headwinds. During Q3-25, we once again generated free cash flow despite weak commodity prices, deployed cash toward our share buyback program, secured 26 million tons of future business, and nearly finalized plans with MSHA to recover and reposition the longwall equipment at the Lear South Mines. Furthermore, we received the first tranche of insurance recovery for the Lear South fire mitigation efforts. I am also excited to announce that we have verified the presence of noteworthy levels of rare earth elements and critical minerals at our flagship operations in both the eastern and western United States. Now, let me dive a little deeper into our operational results. Coal production within the high-CV thermal segment came in at 7.6 million tons in Q3-25 compared to 8 million tons in the prior quarter. During the quarter, our high-CV thermal segment reported realized coal revenue of $59.78 per ton and cash costs of $40.53 per ton. Segment cash costs were slightly elevated compared to Q2-25 due in part to operational challenges we faced at the West Elk Mine as it transitioned to a new seam within the reserves. We believe these initial challenges will continue partly through Q4-25. However, the B Seam at the West Elk Mine will allow us to take advantage of a much thicker coal seam and better quality characteristics, which will ultimately drive more favorable productivity, realizations, and cash costs. During the quarter, the Pennsylvania mining complex outperformed versus expectations, which partially offset the challenges at West Elk. Moving forward to Q4, we expect one to two long wall moves at the Pennsylvania mining complex, depending on its level of outperformance relative to our guidance level for the rest of the year. Let's move on to the metallurgical segment. Coal production within the segment came in at 2.3 million tons in Q3-25 compared to 2.4 million tons in Q2-25. During the quarter, our metallurgical segment reported realized coke and coal revenue of $112.94 per ton and $101.60 per ton across the segment as a whole when factoring in the 372,000 tons of thermal byproduct sales. Cash costs for the quarter came in at $94.18 per ton. Additionally, the metallurgical segment incurred $18 million of costs associated with the Lear South fire and auto-related expenses, offset by $19 million of advance payments on the Lear South insurance claim. Although the cash margins are depressed compared to recent years, I am very proud of the core team's ability to manage and continually work toward reducing costs through this market downturn and to continue to realize positive cash operating margins. Now let me provide a brief update on the Lear South mine. After we temporarily resealed the mine in July, we have further advanced our continuous mining sections. At the same time, we have continued to work with the federal and state agencies for reentry plans that will involve recovering, repositioning, and restarting the longwall system. As we approached our entry date in October, the government shutdown resulted in the unavailability of MSHA personnel needed for the reentry efforts, and we have been in a holding pattern ever since. Our operating team remains confident that the longwall equipment is largely unaffected and that the mine is ready for reentry into the Longwall section as soon as the MSHA personnel are available to participate in the process. Now to the Powder River Basin segment. Coal production within the segment came in at 12.9 million tons in Q3-25 compared to 12.6 million tons in Q2-25. During the quarter, our PRB segment reported realized coal revenue of $14.09 per ton and cash cost of $13.04 per ton. Both were lower compared to the prior quarter, mostly due to the federal royalty rate reduction in conjunction with provisions in many of CORE's existing contracts requiring that cost savings associated with certain policy-related changes be passed along to the customer. From a consolidated perspective, despite operational headwinds, Uncertainty surrounding the timing of reentry at Lear South and weak benchmark prices, we still return more than 60% of our Q325 free cash flow to shareholders. We deployed $19 million towards share repurchases and an additional $5 million to dividends. In addition, we announced this morning that the Board of Directors have declared a $0.10 per share dividend payable on December 15th to stockholders of record on November 28th. From a year-to-date perspective, we have returned $218 million to our shareholders, or approximately 100% of our free cash flow generation through our robust capital return program. As stated in prior quarters, CORE will continue to follow a measured approach to shareholder returns by targeting around 75% of our free cash flow to be utilized primarily for share buybacks, as well as a small sustaining dividend, leaving the potential to flex that percentage up depending upon market conditions. With that, let me now turn to a topic that could provide potential future optionality for core, rare earth elements, and critical minerals. Over the last several months, We have completed exploration and sampling at our PRB mines and eastern operations to analyze the concentrations of critical minerals within our reserves. We are intrigued by our findings across both our PRB mines and eastern operations. The result in the PRB demonstrated elevated ash basis concentration of certain rare earth elements and critical minerals, particularly at the top and bottom of the coal seam. In the east, While measured ash basis concentrations were somewhat less elevated than in the PRB operations, the very large flow rates at the PMC, LIHR, and LIHR South operations could offer unique opportunities for further upgrading. As a result of these findings, we are engaging with several subject matter experts to explore feasibility in advance of potentially launching an RFP process. Now, let me touch on some of the early operational successes we've had in integrating our two legacy companies and creating a stronger core natural resources. We've executed several best practices across the operations, such as implementing more standardized production schedules to optimize our runtime and labor expense, sharing equipment and resources for special projects such as long-run moves, and leveraging our scale with suppliers to secure discounts on equipment and services. We continue to leverage our strong logistical network and diverse quality characteristics to create value uplift opportunities for our products through product blending. These are just a few examples of the merger-related synergies that positively impact our bottom line, and while we are confident in our ability to create value across the market cycle, and to capitalize in a very substantial way when the market turns. Our focus for the fourth quarter is to execute operationally. We are prepared and ready to breach the seals at Lear South as soon as IMSA personnel are available. We have a solid plan in place and expect to have the wall up and running before year-end. However, certain aspects of the timing are out of our control. We remain in close contact with state and federal agencies. At West Elk, we continue to work through the transitions to the B-Seam and are optimistic about the operational benefits that we will realize from this thicker coal seam. We expect these efforts during the fourth quarter will set us up for a performance step change in 2026. Due to our low-cost asset base, advanced logistics network, and diverse product quality, We are uniquely positioned to generate strong cash flow and shareholder value in all parts of the commodity cycle. Now let me turn the call over to Matesh to provide the marketing and financial update.