NACCO Industries, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the NACO Industries third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session, and 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, October 31st, 2024. I would now like to turn the conference over to our investor relations. Mrs. Christina Kometko, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our third quarter 2024 earnings call. Thank you for joining us this morning. I'm Christina Kometko, and I'm responsible for investor relations at NACO. Joining me today are J.C. Butler, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Elizabeth Lovman, Senior Vice President and Controller. Yesterday we published our 2024 third quarter results and filed our 10-Q. This information is available on our website. Today's call is also being webcast. The webcast will be on our website later this afternoon and available for approximately 12 months. Our remarks that follow, including answers to your questions, contain forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to several risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, from those expressed in the forward-looking statements made here today. These risks include, among others, matters that we've described in our earnings release, 10-Q, and other SEC filings. We may not update these forward-looking statements until our next quarterly earnings conference call. We'll also be discussing non-GAAP information that we believe is useful in evaluating the company's operating performance. Reconciliations for these non-GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release and on our website. With the formalities out of the way, I'll turn the call over to JC for some opening remarks. JC?

Thank you, Christine. Good morning to those listening. Our 2024 third quarter was another strong quarter for us. It was very much helped along by the $13.6 million of business interruption insurance income we recorded at Mississippi Lignite Mining Company in relation to a boiler outage at the customer's power plant It reduced customer demand from mid-December 2023 until the end of July. However, even without the insurance recovery, I'm pleased to say our results were very strong, specifically in our coal mining and minerals management segments. Excluding the insurance, our consolidated operating profit increased over 197% from last year's third quarter loss. Christy will provide more detail about our third quarter income and an overview of our outlook after my remarks on the operations. I'll start with the positive operational news on our coal mining segment, which delivered the biggest year-over-year improvement for the third quarter. As you might have surmised from my previous insurance recovery comment, the Red Hills Power Plant completed the repairs to the damaged boiler during the quarter. That said, the resolution of this issue was only a small factor in the coal mining segment's improved results. Coal mining revenues declined primarily due to fewer deliveries at the Red Hills Power Plant as compared with 2023 when the plant was operational for an entire quarter. Despite this lower customer demand, Mississippi Lignite Mining Company's Red Hills mine operated more efficiently this quarter than a year ago. In 2023, we were still finalizing the move to a new mine area and contending with difficult mining conditions related both to the move and to weather. We're now established in this new mine area and mining conditions have improved. This contributed significantly to the improved results at this mine for the quarter. And I'd also like to note the improved earnings on our unconsolidated coal mining operations. I mentioned last quarter the temporary price concessions put in place at Falkirk to help facilitate Rainbow Energy's acquisition of Coal Creek Station ended in May. Our third quarter results reflect a full quarter of the higher pricing, which contributed to the increase in our coal mining segment results. At Minerals Management, I'm pleased to report that the investments we've been making in new mineral assets are delivering benefits. Third quarter 2024 operating profit for this segment increased over last year, largely due to higher production volumes from the assets acquired in late 2023. We are very pleased with the work done by the Catapult Mineral Partners team, which oversees this segment. They've expanded our portfolio of mineral interests, and we are more diversified in terms of our oil-gas mix, a wider range of operations, a greater geographic footprint, and various stages of mineral development, ranging from producing wells to undeveloped mineral interests. Catapult team continues to review additional investment opportunities. Shifting to the North American mining segment, first let me say we are thankful that all of our Florida employees are safe and the impact to our operations from the recent hurricanes was not substantial. The significant rain in Florida, as well as planned customer outages, did affect our third quarter deliveries. Despite this lower customer demand and excluding the effect of reimbursable costs, North American mining's revenues still increased 24% year over year due to favorable pricing and delivery mix at the limestone quarries. Looking at North American mining's operating results, last quarter I mentioned that we had begun mining phosphate for a new customer in Florida. This customer temporarily ceased operations in the third quarter as it works through business challenges. Where hopefully these challenges can be resolved, we established a $900,000 reserve against their receivable. Primarily as a result of this charge, North American mining generated a modest operating loss in the 2024 third quarter compared with a prior year operating profit. I'd also like to note that Lithium Americas continues to make progress on the Thacker Pass project. Earlier this week, they announced the closing of a significant loan from the Department of Energy which will help finance the construction of the Packer Pass lithium project in Northern Nevada. We're thrilled that our customer has reached this important milestone and what this latest development means for this project. We continue to support the project by assisting with certain construction services. And in addition, in the fourth quarter of 2024, we and Lithium Americas agreed to expand the scope of our work to include transportation of clay tailings once lithium production commences. Phase one lithium production is estimated to begin in 2027. Finally, moving to mitigation resources of North America, results for this business continue to fluctuate based on the mix of outstanding projects. However, this team continues to execute existing mitigation and reclamation projects and build on the substantial foundation it has established over the past several years. Based on current expectations for new projects, as well as timing of permit approvals and mitigation credit releases, this part of our business anticipates achieving a full year profit in 2025. As this business matures, we believe it can provide solid rates of return on capital employed. Overall, I continue to be very optimistic about our business. I have a lot of confidence in our trajectory and the team. and I'm pleased with the way all of these businesses continue to advance their strategies, including efforts to protect our coal mining business. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Christy to cover our quarterly results and outlook in more detail. Christy?

Thank you, JC. I'll start with some high-level comments about our consolidated third quarter financial results, then I'll discuss the results at our individual segments. At the consolidated level, we reported operating profit of $19.7 million, and net income of $15.6 million, which equated to $2.14 per share. For last year's third quarter, we reported an operating loss of $6.3 million and a net loss of $3.8 million, or a loss of $0.51 per share. EBITDA increased to $25.7 million from $400,000 in 2023. As JC mentioned, These financial results include insurance recovery income of $13.6 million recorded in our coal mining segment results. Looking at our coal mining segment, that segment reported operating profit of $19.9 million and generated segment adjusted EBITDA of $22.1 million. This compares to an operating loss of $4.7 million and close to breakeven segment adjusted EBITDA in 2023. JC generally discussed the reasons for the higher coal mining segment results. I would note that in addition to the favorable MLMC results and higher Falkirk pricing, improved results at Coteau, another one of our unconsolidated mines, also contributed to the profit improvement. Since JC already provided the primary drivers of the minerals management and North American mining results, I will just mention the financial numbers. Minerals management's third quarter revenues of 2024 revenues of $8.8 million increased 54% from 5.7 million a year ago. Operating profit improved to 6.2 million, up 71% compared to 3.6 million in the 2023 third quarter. North American mining reported an operating loss of approximately half a million dollars versus profit of $900,000 in 2023. Segment adjusted EBITDA was $2.2 million and down approximately $700,000 from last year. Looking forward, we expect our coal mining segment operating profit to increase in both the 2024 fourth quarter and full year compared with both of the prior year periods. This improvement occurs with or without the $60.8 million impairment charge that was taken in fourth quarter 2023. Higher segment adjusted EBITDA, which excludes the impairment charge, is also projected for both periods. These anticipated increases are primarily due to higher earnings at the unconsolidated coal mining operations and an expected improvement in results at Mississippi Lignite Mining Company due to an increase in the index-based sales price partly offset by a reduction in customer demand. The projected increase in fourth quarter 2024 earnings at the unconsolidated coal mining operations is driven primarily by an expectation for increased customer requirements, as well as the higher per ton management fee at Falkirk. Turning to North American mining, we expect both the 2024 fourth quarter and full year operating profit and segment adjusted EBITDA to increase year over year. Fourth quarter results are also anticipated to improve over this past quarter. These improvements are mainly due to mutually advantageous limestone contract amendments and a scope of work expansion with another customer that took effect earlier this year. Finally, at Minerals Management, we expect operating profit and segment adjusted EBITDA to decrease in the 2024 fourth quarter and full year compared with the prior year periods, excluding the fourth quarter 2023 impairment charge of $5.1 million as well as the $4.5 million gain on sale recognized in the 2024 second quarter, which affects the full-year comparison. These declines are primarily driven by current market expectations for natural gas and oil prices, as well as development and production assumptions on currently owned reserves. As we've mentioned, our fourth quarter 2023 results included a pre-tax impairment charge totaling $65.9 million. My upcoming comments about our anticipated consolidated results exclude the effect of this charge. Overall, we expect fourth quarter and full-year 2024 consolidated operating profit and adjusted EBITDA to increase significantly year-over-year. These improvements are primarily due to the anticipated increases in profitability at coal mining from improved results at Mississippi Lignite Mining Company, Falkirk, and Cato. North American mining's growth and profit improvement initiatives are expected to contribute to the improved earnings. Full year 2024 net income is expected to increase significantly over 2023. Looking toward 2025, the companies' businesses provide critical inputs for electricity generation, construction and development, and the production of industrial minerals and chemicals. Increasing demand for electricity, onshoring, and current federal policies are creating favorable macroeconomic trends within these industries. We anticipate solid customer demand at our coal mining operations in 2025 and will benefit from the absence of temporary price concessions at Falkirk. However, cost inflation is anticipated to affect Mississippi Lignite Mining Company's 2025 results. North American mining expects to build on its current 2024 momentum to deliver further improved results in 2025. Benefits from new and amended contracts and new business expansion opportunities are expected to generate improved 2025 results on expectations for comparable year-over-year customer demand. Mineral management's current high-quality diversified portfolio provides a strong foundation of well-positioned assets that are expected to continue to deliver solid financial results. However, given current trends in oil and natural gas prices and projected volumes, we anticipate a moderate production decline in 2025. In addition, we are taking actions to terminate our defined benefit pension plan, which will eliminate future volatility from changes in the pension obligation. Once complete, obligations under the terminated plan will be transferred to a third-party insurance provider. Although the plan is currently overfunded, NACO is anticipating a non-cash settlement charge in 2025 upon termination. Before I turn the call over to questions, let me close with some information about our balance sheet and cash flow. We ended the quarter with consolidated cash of approximately $63 million and debt of $70 million. During the third quarter, we also purchased approximately 68,000 shares for $2 million under an existing share repurchase program. We amended our revolving credit facility during Q3 to increase the revolving credit commitments to $200 million and extend the maturity to September 2028. Availability under the revolver was approximately $131 million at September 30th, 2024. We expect cash flow before financing activities to be a use of cash for the full year 2024. We will now turn to any questions you may have.

Thank you.

If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, please press star 1 to ask the question, and we'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Dogways from ESW Investment. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning.

Morning, Doug.

Morning, Doug.

Hey, so I guess starting with the Potash customer, what happens when a customer is facing financial difficulties? Do you stop doing work, and then what happens to the equipment and so on?

Well, I mean, generally, it completely depends on the situation, right? We're going to handle any of these specifically to the circumstances. If it's a place where we can pull people away so that we're not incurring costs, if it's a contract where we're actually paying the costs, And, you know, we'll pull our employees away, we'll reduce costs, do what we need to do, secure equipment if it's our equipment, you know, button things up. You know, in other situations, you know, it might be that, you know, a customer is paying all the costs and, you know, we'll make an assessment about the situation there as well. So it's really, it's very, very, very situation specific and contract specific.

That makes sense. Are you able to say how many tons that contract is?

No. I will also tell you that one of the things that I've been thinking about anyway is as we start to diversify into more and more different kinds of minerals within the North American mining segment is tons really a useful statistic. While when it's predominantly limestone makes sense, as you start mixing in other things like potash and lithium and other things that we'd like to mine in the future, it becomes a less meaningful number.

Okay. And by the way, I think I misspoke. I think I described it as potash, but it's phosphate, right?

Sorry, sorry, phosphate. Yeah, you have me doing it too.

I planted that in your head. So, okay. And I guess you don't want to characterize whether this is a contract where the customer is covering the cost.

I mean, look, we took a charge that we thought, I mean, you know how accounting works, right? If you've got any concerns at all, you need to take a charge. I think our statement was we're hopeful that this is going to get resolved here in the next, you know, couple quarters and that these guys are going to be moving forward. So, you know, that's our position as we stand here right now. We're obviously staying very close to it. They're being very transparent with us and we feel confident we feel overall pretty good about the situation and where it's headed. But, you know, we're not in control and we're a service provider and we're going to have to see how this plays out.

Okay. And then the 10Q mentioned that the decline in tonnage for the quarter still on North American mining was largely due to rain and customer maintenance issues. Would you expect that tonnage to kind of bounce back to the levels in the second quarter, in the fourth quarter, and going forward?

Yeah, so normally I think we would. The big wild card is, you know, a substantial amount of our operations, although not all, are in Florida. And in particular, we've got a number of quarries where we operate in central Florida. The one-two punch of the two hurricanes coming through there, both Helene and Milton, um have you know really slowed down operations in that part of florida and it's for a number of reasons in some instances uh there are quarries that are just flooded out and it's you know impossible for them to get to work until the water recedes in other instances um typical what typically happens in florida after a hurricane is you know we've all seen the uh Pictures in the newspaper and videos online or on television, there's just piles of debris and mattresses and sofas and trees and all sorts of stuff everywhere. A lot of the aggregates that we mine and deliver to our customers are then hauled away from the customer side by independent truckers. After a hurricane, a lot of truckers go to work for FEMA and the state and other organizations that are hard work trying to get things cleaned up. In addition, a lot of the construction projects where some of these aggregates were going, those things slow down as well. For a while, there's a diversion of the people that put aggregates to work while they're cleaning up for the hurricane. That varies based on the hurricane and the location and all that. Typically, I'm not saying this is exactly what's going to happen here, but typically then after a period of time when things start to return to normal, normal demand picks up for the construction projects or other activities that are underway using aggregates, but there tends to be a little bit of an additional bump because municipalities and the state are in there fixing roads and bridges and beaches and other things that require aggregates. So, you know, it's hard to say exactly how that's going to play out quarter to quarter. But I wanted to give you a flavor for how the dynamics work in Florida, typically after hurricanes.

Yeah, that's helpful. And that brings me to another question, which is, you know, when in a normal period on a typical aggregate mine, are Are you mining to your capacity, or are you mining to the customer's targeted volume?

Yeah, it's all customer-targeted volume.

Right.

I would say the only time it goes the other way is if we're at capacity with the equipment that's there, which in some cases we own and in some cases they own.

Uh-huh. Okay.

But it's – yes, it's – based on their demand. We sometimes describe that as customer requirements.

Right. And I assume there's a fair bit of fixed cost leverage, right? Because you've got to have the people there and you've got to have the equipment there. So I assume your costs are relatively fixed, and then if the demand spikes, that's a lot more incremental margin. Is that the right way to think about it?

Well, it's very contract-specific. There are some instances where the customer owns the drag line, pays all of our costs, and we receive a service fee. And there are some contracts where we own the drag line and pay all of our costs and provide the work at a fee that covers our costs and capital. We have another contract structure that's a bit in the middle of that. where we own the equipment, but the customer gives us a fixed monthly payment related to the capital that we have invested, and we get a fixed payment related to the fixed costs that we incur, and then the service part of it operates on the margin. So there's a range of contract structures that exist in this business. I see. Your question is about leveraging. It's really about leveraging. And regardless of who uses, who owns the equipment, who pays the fixed costs, you know, all of these businesses are, you know, it's a quarry with a fixed amount of minerals and customers invested in them. They have their processing plant. We or they have the mining equipment. So for both sides, it's really a volume game.

Right. No, that makes sense. And does what you're describing have anything to do with how you categorize the businesses as consolidated and unconsolidated in that division, or is that totally a separate issue?

That is a great question for Liz Lovman.

That is. That goes into it. Really, the variable interest entity accounting relies on control. And so we evaluate each contract individually, and based on the merits of that contract, we determine if it's consolidated or unconsolidated.

I see. So in situations where you don't own the equipment and you're more of a service provider, that would be more likely to be unconsolidated, is that right? Correct. Okay. Okay, great. If you try to expand that business outside of Florida, are there other people who do the same thing you do? I'm curious if there would ever be M&A opportunities to accelerate your diversification.

We actually are expanding pretty rapidly out of Florida. We've got operations in Texas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Virginia. and, you know, and continue to expand and, you know, the lithium mine up in Northern Nevada. So we continue to expand the footprint of this business, you know, pretty aggressively. We operate, we have relationships with, gosh, I don't know how many, but a significant number of the top 10 aggregates producers in the country. And we're operating under a model that says, you know, they're experts at their aggregates business. They know how to assess their customer base and size it and sell it and all those things. And we're experts in mining, which is not their core expertise. So we're leveraging those complementary skill sets and the relationships we have both with current and other customers in order to expand this as much as we can out of the states. you know, more diversification gives us less exposure to hurricanes, certainly, but it's also just good for the business.

Right. So you see an opportunity to, with those relationships you have to kind of, like if we just took like a Martin Marietta, I mean, where they're obviously have a national footprint where you could start working with them in other states.

Yep, absolutely.

Yeah.

And, you know, we have done so with, I mean, I'm not going to list the customers, but we have done that with a number of customers.

Okay. Makes sense. I guess moving to the mineral management, I think there's a certain amount of optimism around gas prices next year. If that plays out, would that change your forecast or your expectation in terms of production volume? Is that very much a price-dependent

item? Sure. The higher prices will always affect output, but I think the biggest impact for us would actually just be from the price effect. We're always aware that that's great for our minerals management business given the significant amount of natural gas reserves that we own, but it's also good for our coal business because it makes the coal generating assets, more competitive events, natural gas power generation.

Right. Do you, have you ever thought, or do you have the ability to sell forward gas? I know you're not taking physical possession of it, but is there, you know, just as a financial kind of hedge?

So the hedging strategies that we have looked at, one wouldn't meet hedge accounting standards. requirements that we'd like to have. The other is that hedging has a cost. Everybody's always focused on the benefits of hedging, but hedging has a cost. And because we are operating our business, we own these minerals and we're buying minerals really with cash. We don't have debt. We don't have You know, we're not a yield like some of the companies out there. We're not funded by a private equity firm. We don't have to incur the cost of the hedges and, you know, can just roll along with the prices as it moves. And over the long term, we think that's going to be more profitable. We think if there are short term pressures on us or short We think if we had short-term pressures, you know, hedging can make sense because you've got to be assured of the timing of those income streams. But in our situation, we think we can avoid the cost of hedging and a little long-term we'll benefit from that.

Okay. And then moving on to the coal, my impression from the 10K is that those are all multi-decade, particularly just focusing more on the unconsolidated assets. that those are multi-decade reserves. But I guess, is that right? And would you want to kind of put a general number on what the reserve life is of those unconsolidated assets?

There's a lot of reserves there. Liz, I don't know what's disclosed in the technical parts of any of our documents, but there is lots of coal reserves in the unconsolidated coal mines.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay.

All right. If you look in the 10K, we have some, you know, detail included that we update each year in the front section of the 10K.

Okay. I'll look at it.

I would tell you that the consolidated mines are in North Dakota. And I can tell you that the coal reserves in North Dakota are vast. Plenty of coal reserves that are probably go beyond what is described in our disclosures, because my guess that's tied to the permit area. So as you, you know, as you expand the permit area, there's more reserves there.

Okay. All right. Well, thanks. That's all I have for today and appreciate the time as always and talk to you next quarter.

Doug, we appreciate your questions. It's great to see somebody digging into the business that's got an interest in what we're doing and where, We're happy to take your questions on the call.

Again, please press star one to ask the question. If there are no questions at this time, please continue.

Okay. And with that, we'll conclude our Q&A session. I'd like to provide a few reminders. A replay of our call will be available later this morning. We'll also post a transcript on our website when it becomes available. If you do have any questions, please reach out to me. You can reach me at the phone number on the press release. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. And now I'll turn it back to our operator to conclude the call.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You can listen to the replay by dialing plus 1-888-660-6345 and enter the passcode 4988. Thank you, everyone. You may now disconnect.