Ramaco Resources Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 12, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Ramaco continued an aggressive share repurchase program, buying back about 2.6 million shares for roughly $37 million so far this year, while ending Q1 with nearly $500 million in liquidity. Management said it will keep evaluating buybacks because it believes the stock remains undervalued.
  • Negative Sentiment: Core metallurgical coal results were pressured by weak pricing and higher fuel costs, with Q1 adjusted EBITDA at -$1.8 million and realized pricing down to $114 per ton from $122 a year ago. The company also said elevated diesel prices are adding about $4 per ton to mining costs versus earlier this year.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Even in a tough market, Ramaco kept cash costs at $98 per ton, its third straight quarter below $100, and maintained 2026 guidance. It also expects Q2 shipments of 900,000 to 1 million tons.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company expects its low-vol growth projects to drive future volumes, including the restarted Laurel Fork mine, a third section at Berwind, and a new Maven rail loadout that should cut trucking costs by about $20 per ton. Management said these projects could add roughly 100,000-200,000 tons of low-vol output in 2026 and about 0.5 million tons more in 2027.
  • Positive Sentiment: Ramaco made further progress on its Brook Mine rare earth and critical minerals plan, with Hatch and Weir studies due in late June and management saying the new carbochlorination flow sheet could materially improve revenue and free cash flow. The company is also pursuing potential offtake deals and non-dilutive financing, while reorganizing into separate entities to better reflect the value of its coal and critical mineral assets.
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Earnings Conference Call
Ramaco Resources Q1 2026
00:00 / 00:00

There are 12 speakers on the call.

Speaker 9

Good day, and welcome to the Ramaco Resources First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jeremy Sussman, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Thank you. On behalf of Ramaco Resources, I'd like to welcome all of you to our first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. With me this morning is Randy Atkins, our Chairman and CEO, Chris Blanchard, our EVP for Mine Planning and Development, Jason Fannin, our Chief Commercial Officer, and Mike Woloschuk, our EVP of 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 Ramaco's expectations concerning future events. These statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are outside of Ramaco'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.

Speaker 5

Except as required by law, Ramaco 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, www.ramacoresources.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.

Speaker 10

Thanks, Jeremy, and thanks to everyone for joining us this morning. I'm gonna lead off with our shareholder return and capital allocation strategy, because since the start of the year, we've bought back a significant amount of stock, and that has been for the first time. As we said in our release, thus far this year, we've repurchased about 2.6 million shares of our Class A common stock at an average price of about $14.50 per share, and that represents about 5% of our stock. Our stock currently continues to trade below levels of last year when we issued equity either directly in a stock issuance last summer or indirectly through our convertible notes last fall. We're also now generally trading on a forward basis in line with our met coal peers based on consensus estimates.

Speaker 10

As a dual-platform company, we're currently seeing very little value in our stock price that reflects our rare earth or other critical mineral assets. Given that backdrop, we're gonna continue to explore whether buying shares represents a prudent investment of our current cash capital. As of today, we've got about $63 million of additional buying power under the original $100 million authorization, which the board provided last year. We also ended the first quarter with about $490 million in liquidity, which was up about 310% year-over-year. Our balance sheet is giving us lots of options to simultaneously consider continued share repurchases, advancing efforts at our Brook Mine, or growth efforts for our low vol coals.

Speaker 10

In turning to the met coal business, we continued strong cost control in the same challenging market price conditions we've now endured for the past year. Our miss for this quarter has all been top line. This was the third consecutive quarter of cash costs, which were under $100 per ton. In the face of the rising diesel prices this year, we've managed to accomplish this cost discipline without cutting wages or benefits to our miners, which we regard as the most significant. I would note that on our mine cost, the conflict within Iran has had a related impact, of course, on oil pricing and has escalated the cost of all of our fuel products. We've seen rack pricing increase to as high as $5.45 a gallon across our operations, which is up from about $2.50 at the end of last year.

Speaker 10

Based on our historical purchases and usage of diesel and gasoline, on an annualized basis, Ramaco realizes about $1.50 per ton of cost increase for each $1 per gallon of diesel fuel increase. This impacts not only direct mine costs, but indirectly through third-party transportation costs for both our raw and clean coal. While we're expecting fuel prices to ultimately subside sometime in the second half, at current levels, the impact on our mining cost is approximately $4 per ton when compared to earlier this year in 2026. Despite our continued solid operational performance, coal markets remain challenged, both in general and especially on pricing. Once again, especially on high vol side. While high vol prices rose modestly in the first quarter of 2026, we still view current indices as unsustainably weak.

Speaker 10

One important point that I would like to note, however, is regarding future pricing. We are finally beginning to see some long-anticipated drops in production, both domestically and overseas. We are witnessing everything from bankruptcies, production cutbacks, distressed sale processes, and in all these cases, they involve both large public and private producers. By our estimates, almost 2 million tons came out of the domestic market in 2025. This year, we expect an additional roughly 3 million tons or more to follow. At some inflection point, these production cutbacks will create a supply imbalance, which will begin to impact pricing, we hope. Our growth plans relating to coal are all about the low vol markets. Last quarter, we restarted our Laurel Fork Mine and will be adding an additional 3rd section to our Berwind Mine this summer.

Speaker 10

At full production, these projects are expected to add about 100,000-200,000 tons of low vol in 2026 and about 0.5 million tons of production additionally in 2027. Our new rail loadout is under construction at our low vol Maven complex and is expected to be complete later this year. When it opens, we expect to save about $20 per ton on trucking costs. The load out, of course, gives us more options when we consider whether and when to start our Maven 1.5 million ton low vol deep mine project as market conditions dictate. We've also been a bit quiet for the past few months on our rare earth element and critical minerals front. However, we have not been idle. I expect that in the second half, we will reflect and announce a number of milestones.

Speaker 10

We have principally been waiting on receipt of the revised conceptual study from Hatch, which we expect in late June, as well as the technical geological report summary coming from Weir, which will follow. Both of these analyses are based on our new patent-pending carbochlorination processing technique. As we noted last quarter, our internal projections continue to estimate that this new flow sheet process should generate a material increase in incremental revenue and free cash flow. This is compared, of course, to our previously published projections by Fluor about a year ago using a different solvent extraction processing technique. With new independent analysis for the carbochlorination flow sheet coming in focused, we've ramped up efforts regarding potential offtake transactions and non-dilutive third-party financings. I will not get into specifics today, but we will make specific disclosures when those transactions are hopefully complete.

Speaker 10

Advanced discussions are continuing with both domestic and overseas groups, and these include both public and private counterparties. A further note, the subsequent more detailed preliminary feasibility study, also being prepared by Hatch, remains on track to be completed in late 2026. Today in Wyoming, our building structure to house the pilot plant seems to be able to be completed this summer, and the fabricated interior equipment will start installation this fall, with full pilot operations starting in 2027, all as previously announced. Last quarter, I also mentioned that we were exploring some reorganization options for Ramaco's overall corporate structure as we move further into our dual platform. This effort is largely in response to anticipating the startup of our critical mineral operations.

Speaker 10

We have now taken a number of concrete legal and accounting steps to move this forward and have formed separate corporate entities within a holding company structure currently under the parent Ramaco Resources. One new company will be called Ramaco Royalty. This will house all our mineral reserve infrastructure, intellectual property rights, and other related income-producing assets. This will include our fee-owned reserves of both metallurgical and thermal coals, as well as our rare earth and critical minerals. Similarly, this entity will own our infrastructure assets in the East, such as our prep plants and rail loadouts. In the West, it will own our pre-FEED infrastructure related to the Brook Mine processing facility. It will also include any possible rail infrastructure, as well as the critical mineral and storage facility we have been working on with Goldman Sachs.

Speaker 10

To our knowledge, this will be a unique collection of income-producing assets, especially those relating to rare earths, which will provide us some optionality in the future. The second company will be Ramaco Critical Mineral Resources. This will house the production and sales operations of our Western Brook Mine rare earth critical minerals and thermal coal mining. Think of this as mirroring the same form of our existing met coal development, production, and sales operation in the East, except it will be exclusively focused on our Western critical minerals. The third company will be Ramaco Refining. This will hold the carbochlorination separation facilities, which will be constructed to process the Brook Mine critical mineral feedstocks into oxides and MREC.

Speaker 10

This reorganization is being taken to both ultimately enhance shareholder value and better reflect the different and distinct forms of assets and operations that we both currently have and are developing for the future. Each of these operations have different operating, financial, and capital market profiles, even though for the time being, they will all operate under the holding company structure of our parent, Ramaco Resources. Hopefully, this structure will provide more operational and financial flexibility as we develop different and separate production, processing, and sales businesses in both the met coal as well as the critical mineral space. We expect to have the pieces in place for this reorganization in the second half of the year. We'll also talk about it further at that point.

Speaker 10

With that, I'd like to turn the floor back over to the rest of the team to discuss finances and operations and markets. First, I'll ask Mike Woloschuk, who heads our critical mineral efforts, to provide some updates on our rare earth progress. Mike?

Speaker 6

Well, thank you, Randy. In the Q1, we continued advancing the conceptual study for the carbochlorination flow sheet with Hatch. Our key engineering deliverables have been completed and issued in the quarter. The mineralized Brook Mine coal used as a key reagent in this process is estimated to be a significant contribution to rare earth element production as the enriched coal seams are targeted for this duty. We identified opportunities to increase chlorine recycling, and we have identified other opportunities that will be included in the final study report anticipated for late June. While we are continuing third-party metallurgical testing, we placed key analytical and equipment orders to fit out our internal geometallurgical laboratory at the iCAM facility. This will enable a higher volume of test work and assay results to be delivered with faster turnaround times compared to the external labs.

Speaker 6

We anticipate internal geometallurgical testing to ramp up in early Q2 to support the next phases of this project. In Q1, we completed drilling of 33 holes with over 9,300 feet of core. These drill programs include 27 infill drill holes and six water monitoring holes. We currently have four drill rigs on site, and we anticipate drilling to continue to year-end. In total, we now have drilled 174 holes and 35,000 feet of core since our program started. Pilot plant building construction activities included completion of the foundation systems to support the floor slab with the overall building expected to be complete late summer and early fall. Our coal storage facility construction is included, completion of the foundation, the stem walls, and lateral reinforced tension members. The overall structure is expected to be completed this month.

Speaker 6

Overall, we remain extremely excited about the Brook Mine opportunity with the carbochlorination flow sheet. We will, of course, be in a position to discuss more about that once we have receipt of the Hatch and Weir reports expected shortly. Our overall timeline remains the same as we have previously disclosed. In the second half of this year, we look forward to making meaningful progress on both completing the pilot plant build-out, along with the pre-feasibility study. I would like to now turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Jeremy Sussman.

Speaker 5

Thank you, Mike. Starting with the balance sheet, I'm pleased to note that our record year-end 2025 liquidity allowed us to opportunistically repurchase $37 million worth of shares since the beginning of this year. This effectively reduces our shares outstanding by 2.5 million shares. As Randy noted, as long as we believe that our stock remains substantially undervalued, we will continue to look to opportunistically repurchase shares to our advantage. We ended Q1 with one of the strongest balance sheets in the space, with almost $500 million in liquidity. In terms of first quarter performance, as Chris will discuss, operational results were again solid with cash costs per ton sold of $98. All of our primary peers have now reported Q1 results.

Speaker 5

I'm proud to note that our cash costs of $98 per ton continue to be in the first quartile of the U.S. cash cost curve among our Central Appalachian met coal peers. This figure is especially impressive considering the dual impact of higher diesel costs, coupled with the weather-related transportation issues that negatively impacted our overall sales figures by more than 50,000 tons in the first quarter. Q1 cash margins of $16 per ton fell from $24 per ton in the same period of 2025. This was due to lower realized prices of $114 per ton, compared to $122 per ton in Q1 of 2025. As Jason will discuss, domestic high vol markets remain weak.

Speaker 5

Despite Australian benchmark pricing improving $50 per ton year on year in Q1 of 2026, US high vol indices declined to $20 per ton during that same timeframe. Frankly, we view this trend as unsustainable given the level of losses we are seeing among higher cost producers. Our Q1 production fell modestly from the same period as last year, as we continue to exercise production discipline in the face of challenging market conditions. In terms of our financial results, Q1 adjusted EBITDA was -$1.8 million, compared to $10 million in Q1 of 2025. Class A EPS showed a $0.30 loss in Q1 versus a $0.19 loss in the same period of last year. Looking forward, we are reiterating all key 2026 operational guidance, including production, tons sold, and cash costs.

Speaker 5

In terms of 2Q 2026 guidance, we anticipate higher shipments between 900,000 and 1 million tons. We expect cash costs towards the higher end of the full year range for 2Q on the back of elevated fuel costs due to the Iranian conflict. As we look ahead, our strong balance sheet and first quartile cash cost position provide us with meaningful optionality to both invest in our coal and rare earth elements business, while also allowing us to continue to opportunistically repurchase shares. As of March 31st, we had over 1 million tons sitting in the inventory, which will provide us with a meaningful working capital tailwind should markets improve throughout the year as we anticipate. With that said, I'd now like to turn the call back to Chris Blanchard, our EVP for Mine Planning and Development.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Jeremy. Before jumping into some of our operational metrics and progress over the last few months, I wanted to recognize our coal miners for their significant improvements in safety and compliance in 2026 compared to the same period last year. While we still have much work to do towards an ultimate goal of zero incidents, 2026 year-to-date performance has improved by 250% compared to the same period in 2025, and is back on a trajectory of continuous improvement that we have had for most of our history. In these challenging market conditions, it does remind us that a safe mine is a productive mine, and productive mines tend to be lower cost as well. Turning to those performance metrics, we have been able to maintain acceptable cash costs at our operation despite headwinds on our operating supply costs.

Speaker 1

Specifically, the run-up in the cost of diesel fuel driven by the Iranian conflict has impacted first quarter costs negatively by approximately $1.50 per ton sold compared to where we otherwise would have been. While fuel prices have pulled back from peak levels, they do remain elevated compared to the beginning of the year, and we continue to monitor this closely. Also, on the supply side, raw tungsten pricing is up by approximately 350% in 2026 on Chinese export controls. This has led to nearly a 100% increase in the cost of our mining bits and tools, which particularly impacts our underground mines. We're continuing to work with our key suppliers to mitigate these cost increases and others whenever possible.

Speaker 1

Given the poor coal pricing environment on the high vol side of the business, we have moderated production from our Elk Creek Complex to both manage physical inventory and to not produce additional tons into a marginal market. We are continuing to monitor the market conditions and may make further reductions throughout the year if they are warranted. However, at our low vol operations, we continue to work to add new low-cost production and lower our existing operating costs there. At the Berwind Complex, the first of 2 new air shafts is nearing completion into our Berwind P4 mine. The second shaft will be excavated immediately following the first, and we expect both shafts online and in operation by late August.

Speaker 1

This ventilation upgrade will then allow us to ramp the Berwind mine with another full super section and push this mine's production up to 900,000 to 1 million clean tons annually. While this ventilation work is still ongoing, during April, we brought online our idled Laurel Fork low-wall mine. The ramp-up of this single-section mine is continuing and is on budget currently. Switching to our Maven low-wall complex, we have initiated the Norfolk Southern rail load-out project. All major materials are procured and excavation for the load-out belts is already underway. We expect the unit train load-out to be fully operational in the fourth quarter of 2026, fully eliminating all trucking logistics costs from our Maven mine and lowering projected cash costs in the rail car to the same low levels as the rest of Ramaco's mines.

Speaker 1

This should also allow the Maven product to move more easily into the domestic metallurgical coal markets as we contract for 2027. Work continues at Maven on permitting and initial development work for the future underground mines planned for this complex. Moving forward, we are continuing to focus on those items which we have some ability to control, namely volume and costs. We're positioning ourselves to quickly capitalize on market improvements or shortfalls by other producers. For a discussion of the coal and critical mineral markets, I would now like to shift the call to Jason Fannin, Chief Commercial Officer.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Chris. Good morning, everyone. Today, I'll discuss our Q1 sales results, provide an update on our 2026 met coal sales position and market outlook, and lastly, cover our Brook Mine critical minerals marketing efforts and progress. Regarding the seaborne metallurgical coal markets, I first want to address Q1 indices and pricing dynamics. Our realized pricing in Q1 was marginally lower quarter-over-quarter, despite benchmark indices broadly moving higher. The explanation is straightforward, and it comes down to two things: which geographies and indices our book was sold into and against, and a set of non-recurring operational headwinds. On the index side, although the PLV headline number rose 17% in Q1, the relevant benchmarks for the majority of our export tonnage increased only about 6% quarter-over-quarter.

Speaker 3

These were sales against the US high vol indices, which today are about 35% lower than the PLV index and remain heavily deviated from their historical relativities to PLV. Another 25% of our Q1 sales were domestic shipments of high volatile coal, with pricing, of course, down year-over-year about 8.5%. 55% of our Q1 exports went to Asia, which is the highest proportion in company history. PLV-linked business represent only about 15% of our overall Q1 volumes because a large PLV-linked shipment representing another 6% of overall Q1 volume slipped into early Q2 due to weather-related logistics backlogs. Increased shipments against PLV-linked contracts in Q2 should benefit export realizations versus Q1.

Speaker 3

On the operational side, severe weather disruptions to both CSX and Norfolk Southern rail networks in January and February impacted our ability to make timely planned coal deliveries, particularly some higher-priced domestic specialty orders, which slipped into Q2. Also for Q2, we expect increased overall shipment volumes with our Great Lakes business now fully flowing and the normalization of the rail and weather-related disruptions that impacted Q1 execution. On pricing for Q2, we expect to move about 70%-75% of committed volumes to the seaborne market, with about 25% of export tons priced off the PLV index. Another 25% on a fixed pricing basis and the remaining seaborne volumes roughly evenly split and priced against the US low vol and the US high vol indices, respectively.

Speaker 3

Turning to our overall 2026 sales position, we have now secured commitments for a total of 3.5 million tons, which represents about 90% of our planned annual production at the midpoint. Domestic customers account for 1.1 million tons at an average fixed price of $138 per ton. Export commitments total 2.4 million tons, comprised of 1 million tons at an average fixed price of $107 per ton and 1.4 million tons on index-linked pricing mechanisms. As of the end of Q1, we had shipped about 650,000 tons of our annual index-based business and had about 1.75 million tons remaining to price. As we look ahead to the second half of 2026, we are optimistic about an improved market environment for Met Coal.

Speaker 3

On the demand side, protectionist policies in the U.S. and Europe have lifted steel prices and increased hot metal output. While India's 2026 crude steel production is projected to increase 8%-9% year-over-year. In one of the most constructive developments for seaborne coking coal demand in some time, China's steel exports have fallen nearly 10% through April on a year-over-year basis. If that moderation proves durable, it will lend considerable support to global steel prices and blast furnace mill margins. On the supply side, we expect high vol coking coal production to continue to contract throughout the year, which should narrow the wide disparity between U.S. high vol indices and Australian indices. Randy and Jeremy have already pointed to a number of Appalachian and Australian producers who have either gone into bankruptcy, curtailed productions, or placed some sales for sale.

Speaker 3

As the year plays out, this expected supply contraction will have an impact. Specifically regarding Australia, we believe current PLV levels are not only sustainable but have further upside as the year goes on. This is set against the backdrop of limited capital investment, high royalty taxes, and continued production issues and interruptions alongside strengthening global steel markets. Moving to our Brook Mine, we continue to advance our critical minerals marketing program with increasing momentum. Our expanded marketing team is actively engaging potential customers and partners in the U.S. and overseas across the full Brook Mine product portfolio. We hope to announce various counterparty MOU transactions this coming quarter. As we generate additional lab scale and pilot scale material in 2027, we expect these MOU frameworks to evolve toward formal commercial agreements.

Speaker 3

With that, I'll turn it back over to the operator for the Q&A portion of the call. Operator?

Speaker 9

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Brian Lee of Goldman Sachs. Go ahead, please.

Speaker 11

Hey, guys, this is Tyler Bisson for Brian. Thanks for taking our questions. Appreciate all the color on the impact from the higher cost on the coal side. You know, as you think out for the rest of the year, presumably you are bringing back online some higher cost operations. How do you think about, you know, your cost trends in the back half of the year? Can you just kind of walk us through some of the puts and takes there?

Speaker 10

Chris, why don't you handle that? Brian, I mean, I think effectively what we're bringing back online at the Berwind Mine is not necessarily what I would describe as a high-cost operation. It's actually one of our better cost products. Chris, why don't you go into a little bit more granularity?

Speaker 1

Yeah. Obviously last year we did idle the Laurel Fork Mine, which is the one that we've restarted in April.

Speaker 1

It is only being restarted until the ventilation work I was describing is completed at the Berwind Mine. We're using it as a staging ground to hire the workforce that will then be transferred over to Berwind so that we don't have to experience the same ramp up in production and hiring at Berwind that we normally would if we waited till September to start that section. We would have that normal incremental, while you've got the lower production ramp up at Berwind, we're just choosing to take that in advance. It's a relatively small amount of tons that Laurel Fork will produce over April through August. Don't view that as impacting the cost probably more than $1 overall on the low-ball side of the business.

Speaker 1

Ultimately, when Berwind starts, that mine has historically been one of our lowest cost producers in the portfolio.

Speaker 11

Awesome. Super helpful. On the sales commitments, I know these represent, you know, about 90% of your production midpoint of guidance, but it's just 80% of the midpoint of your sales guidance. What gives you confidence that you can book these incremental volumes to meet your sales guidance for the year? I guess, again, what are some of the puts and takes here through the balance of the year?

Speaker 10

Sure. Jason, you wanna take that?

Speaker 3

Yeah, sure. Yes. Tyler, this is Jason. Yeah, certainly we're seeing demand start to pick up already here, and I think it's, you know, a lot of that's just on the back of the, you know, the various geographies, steel markets improving. You know, certainly Europe, we've seen some changes, more incremental demand there. You know, we're quite confident here in what we're seeing not coming out of China as far as the demand we're starting to see, into the Pacific, particularly, you know, we talked about the Maven load-out firing up. We've actually got our first cargo of Maven going seaborne this quarter, into the Pacific against PLV. You know, I think I'm, you know, both the high vol and the low vol sides there.

Speaker 1

Again, we're being prudent with the high vol, but we're seeing demand start to pick up. You know, we just got to be smart about the pricing.

Speaker 11

All right. Thank you. I'll turn it over.

Speaker 10

Thanks, Brian.

Speaker 9

The next question comes from Jeff Grampp of Northland Capital Markets. Go ahead please.

Speaker 4

Morning, all. Thanks for the time. I was curious as it relates to potential offtake agreements or MOUs at Brook. I know you guys can't get into the too much today, but curious if there's any particular products that are gaining more interest versus others that you think are more actionable in the near term. Thanks.

Speaker 10

Yeah. I, of course, as I said earlier, I don't wanna tempt fate and get into too much specifics, but I mean, I would say that the products in general that a number of our potential customers are focused on are gallium and scandium. We were actually relatively pleased by the interest that we've gotten on scandium since that's been a subject of some criticism of our portfolio in the past.

Speaker 4

Got it. Appreciate that. For my follow-up, you know, given the strong balance sheet that you guys have here, I'm wondering, you know, your thoughts on M&A and maybe even bifurcating that in terms of, you know, potential on the met coal side, given some of the kind of near-term distress, and then if there's anything on the critical minerals reserve side that might be interesting.

Speaker 10

Sure. As I've kind of quipped before, you know, on M&A, we're not too fond of the M, but we're happy to look at the A. You know, we've opportunistically, you know, as part of, frankly, our DNA, done acquisitions, particularly of reserves that we felt were able to be opportunistically acquired. We bought a large portfolio from Coronado here several months ago. We've done other purchases of similar note over the years. I think it's becoming a more target-rich environment if you will call it that. We are certainly out there looking. Again, if we see anything that seems to make sense, we'll pull the trigger.

Speaker 10

Again, assuming we can get it at an opportunistic price, and the market conditions today would seem to dictate that, there may be a few things that you could pick up, on an advantage basis.

Speaker 4

All right. Understood. Appreciate those comments. We'll stay tuned.

Speaker 10

Thank you.

Speaker 9

The next question comes from Davis Sunderland of Baird. Go ahead please.

Speaker 2

Hey, good morning, guys. Thank you very much for the time, and thank you for taking our questions. Maybe you 2 for me. First, I know earlier this year, you guys talked a bit about some backlogs at the national labs and some of the other third-party testing sites. I just wondered if these have improved, worsened, stayed the same, or any other thoughts you could provide on outlook for this for the balance of the year. Then I have 1 follow-up.

Speaker 10

Sure. Well, I'm gonna let Mike go into granular detail, but one rather important thing is we're now starting to onboard testing to our own facilities out at our research facility in Wyoming. I'm hopeful that, you know, as we get certainly more space out there, we will then be able to do a lot of the at least initial testing work ourselves out in Wyoming. Of course, once we get the pilot facility up and at 'em, then we'll be doing a great deal of testing. As far as third-party groups, Mike, why don't you comment on that?

Speaker 6

Look, it's still persisted as a challenge. I think there's a lot of activity happening in critical minerals domestically and the labs are full. You know, we identified this a couple of quarters ago and therefore, fitting out our own labs.

Speaker 10

Doing our own testing, and I think that'll alleviate some of the challenges that the entire industry is facing with regards to lab capacity.

Speaker 2

Super helpful, and thank you both for that. Maybe my second one, again, fully acknowledge that more details are later to come this year. Maybe for you, Randall Atkins, just wondering if you could talk a bit more about the strategy or the rationale maybe to break things down in this reorganization the way that you did, maybe why you're doing it by assets versus by products or, just any other thoughts on this specific methodology would be helpful. Thank you guys very much.

Speaker 10

Sure. You bet. I mean, as we started down this process of really having sort of a dual platform with two different critical minerals, you know, coal is now a critical mineral as well, of course. The rare earths and their adjacent critical minerals obviously are viewed in an entirely different light than the coal business. Needless to say, if you go back and look at publicly traded companies in the rare earth space, they traded at a slightly different multiple than coal companies. I think ultimately at some point it would make sense to be able to unlock the value that we have in our various assets so that they could be ultimately separately valued in the marketplace as opposed to being in sort of a more conglomerate structure.

Speaker 10

You know, growing up, I looked at a lot of conglomerates, and I remembered they were very complicated, as of course, for analysts to be able to follow because they're completely different businesses in many cases. Even though all of our business are somewhat mining related, certainly the processing aspects of the rare earth business are completely different than anything associated with the coal industry. The other thing, which is pretty unique, of course, is we, unlike a lot of other companies, have a pretty substantial amount of reserve assets both in the coal as well as in the rare earth space.

Speaker 10

I mean, we've got a huge reserve base out in Wyoming. There are, frankly, not very many entities out there that will be able to show sort of an income stream coming from unique assets like the coal and rare earth combined. We think at some point, although we trade now in sort of our B stock in similar fashion, we expect at some point to probably be able to sort of drop down many of the infrastructure assets that we've got in both the East and the West into this platform, and it could be a very compelling royalty play. That's kind of the thinking, certainly on that particular aspect of it. The refinery business, very different business, of course, trades at different multiples. It's more of a commoditized business.

Speaker 10

Certainly from a CapEx standpoint, that'll be the highest ticket of all of our development efforts. We won't have the numbers nailed down until we publish something independently from Hatch later next month. You can assume that a rare earth processing facility is a high-ticket capital expenditure. Then, of course, you know, the mining and sales aspects that we'll do out West will again be very similar in concept and conduct to what we do out East. I think we'll have an interesting blend of different entities. We don't have any specific plans at this point, you know, other than getting everything sort of set up and put into separate categories and separate entities.

Speaker 10

That then provides us the optionality to decide later on what is the most advantaged way to recognize value for our shareholders. I think, you know, we've got a number of different assets that I think could provide some really compelling value to our shareholders as we move forward.

Speaker 2

That's great. Thank you very much. I'll pass it on.

Speaker 9

The next question comes from Carlos de Alba of Morgan Stanley. Go ahead, please.

Operator

Yeah, thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. If you could maybe drill down a little bit more on the rationale to separate in the restructuring that you are doing, you know, to separate the Ramaco refining business for the Brook Mine critical mineral feedstocks and the Ramaco critical minerals, you know, given that presumably they are fairly integrated operations.

Speaker 10

Yeah. Great question, Carlos. I tried to take a stab at that in addressing the last comment. You know, again, the refining aspect of critical minerals, as you well know, is an entirely different breed of cat than the sort of processing aspect that relates to the coal business. I think kind of including and wrapping the refining together with the mining and sales, conceivably, is mixing two different type of operations, which again, could trade at different types of multiples if they were, you know, freestanding operations. I think, you know, providing a platform for rare earth sales and mining is gonna be one platform that I think will be pretty clean to understand.

Speaker 10

I think the Refining business sort of segregated into a separate entity provides us some different ways to look at both financing it, but also operating it. I think it gives us some options that we're now seriously pursuing on a number of different fronts, which I can't really get into.

Operator

Well, okay. We'll wait for further details, down the road then. Then maybe another one, is relating the thermal coal, mining, within the Brook Mine.

Operator

very important byproduct that will help the economics of the project. Can you give us any update?

Speaker 10

Yeah

Operator

on customer discussions and offtakes or MOUs for that thermal coal volume?

Speaker 10

Yes. We are now, and of course, we're happy to have Jason touch on that as well. We are discussing right now with a number of utility groups, potential offtakes. We're even exploring longer term, some possible avenues for being able to make on-site use of the thermal coal in some manners, which I won't get into right now. That could be interesting. I think, you know, as it relates to the actual mining, you know, we don't really wanna engage in full scale mining right now, even though we would be able, presumably to move a thermal product, because, you know, what we don't wanna do is have large stockpiles of, you know, critical mineral feedstock, which we won't be able to effectively process until we have our actually, of course, a commercial facility.

Speaker 10

You know, we're setting ourselves up to be able to have the thermal coal moved at sort of in sequence and in sync with our critical mineral processing and mining operations. As you well point out, needless to say, you know, our economics out there are interesting because, you know, what would typically be waste in a critical mineral operation, in our case, the byproduct, of course, is coal, and we're able to sell that at economics even based on current thermal prices, which would, in essence, pretty much pay for all the mining for all the products, inclusive of the critical minerals.

Operator

Great. Thank you very much.

Speaker 10

Thank you, Carlos.

Speaker 9

The next question comes from Nathan Martin of The Benchmark Company. Go ahead, please.

Speaker 7

Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone. Really just a clarification question to start. You guys previously called the expected mid-year report from Hatch a Preliminary Economic Assessment. Now seem to be referring to it as a revised conceptual study. Maybe no difference, but just wanted to make sure if there are any anticipated change in the data we should expect in that report.

Speaker 10

The sort of the short and long answer is that you can expect no change in what the data that will be developed in the report. It will have the same sort of commercial and technical feasibility that was developed when the Fluor report was put out last year under the solvent extraction technique. The change in nomenclature is candidly from a compliance standpoint to keep in regulatory formality with the S-K 1300, which the SEC has suggested that, you know, the way that these studies be described should be done as a conceptual study as opposed to the prior nomenclature, which was called a PEA.

Speaker 7

Okay. Got it, Randy. Appreciate that. Maybe Jason, a question for you. You gave us a lot of good detail, I think, around, you know, expected sales throughout the rest of the year. I might have missed this, but again, you guys mentioned the lower net back realizations on export sales into Asia in the first quarter caused by the elevated freight rates. What portion of your remaining sales do you expect to be sold on a CFR basis and, you know, could possibly impact freight rates as well if they remain higher?

Speaker 3

Yeah, Nate, this is Jason Fannin. Thanks. You know, we actually typically sell very little on CFR basis, but where we saw the impact, of course, going into the Pacific was on, you know, recognized freight differentials there versus the Australian shipments. It certainly did. You know, we had several good pricing mechanisms in Q1 set up, you know, in advance of the Iranian conflict. Once we started to see the impacts of that, you know, it was baked into the overall mechanism, and that's where we saw the hit. Certainly, you know, again, given the fact that we had one large shipment slip out of the very end of the quarter there was disappointing, you know, impact to this as well there.

Speaker 3

Typically, you know, also Q1 is our, you know, usually our lower, you know, domestic, out sales in terms of total volume out the door. All those things kinda came together there, you know, to end up the impact on that pricing.

Speaker 7

Okay. Then you mentioned domestic, Jason. I did see domestic tonnage remained at 1.1 million tons, but I think pricing was down about $4 versus last quarter. Anything specific you could talk about the drove that change? Then do you expect any additional domestic sales thus far with a little bit of open tonnage still out there?

Speaker 3

Yes, sir. On your first question here on the pricing change. Nothing's changed there, you know, in terms of the customers, the structures, all that sort of thing. You know, we're marking some certain fees differently than we had before just to get better apples-to-apples pricing comparisons within our book. That's the entirety of that change on that overall price on the domestic side. Yeah, on the, you know, pickup in the domestics, we have seen a couple points of interest, as you can suspect on the high vol side, just given from operations that have either already shut down or are curtailing or in the process of shutting down. Obviously, we view that as a positive sign.

Speaker 3

You know, Elk Creek has an excellent reputation in the domestic market, and we typically get one of the first phone calls when folks need a high vol, and we're seeing that already. We see that as very positive, certainly for the second half.

Speaker 7

All right. Very helpful. I'll pass it on. Appreciate the time, and best of luck.

Speaker 10

Thank you.

Speaker 9

Our next question comes from Lucas Pipes of B. Riley Securities. Go ahead, please.

Speaker 8

Thanks, operator. This is actually Nick on from B. Riley. First question was just, sorry if I missed this in the prepared remarks, but I wanted to ask if you could just provide a breakdown of CapEx or break out the met coal CapEx between sustaining and growth. Then on the growth side, you know, what's baked in today and what other levers do you have to ultimately increase low-vol exposure and just what that capital intensity looks like? Thanks.

Speaker 10

Jeremy, please take this.

Speaker 5

Hey, Nick. When we think of our CapEx guidance for the year, you know, it's pretty close to 50/50 in terms of, I'll call it maintenance on the coal front and then growth on both the coal and the rare earth and critical minerals front. You know, I'd use about $10-$11 a ton on the coal side, let's call it about $45 million of maintenance capital and then another $20 or so for, you know, our low-vol growth this year, which is obviously the 3rd section at Berwind and then the rail load out at Maven with, of course, the remaining for, you know, for rare earths.

Speaker 5

You know, on the growth side, I think as you noted, you know, our focus on the coal front is really on the low-vol side. You know, that's ultimately taking the Berwind mine up to 4 sections. Should we choose, we can go underground at the Maven complex, which would add up to another 1.5 million tons. All of this is market dependent. You know, we are starting to see some positive signs ahead and certainly as, you know, we move throughout the year and start budgeting for 2027, you know, these are obviously things we'll take a hard look at.

Speaker 10

Yeah. I think just to sort of add a coda to what Jeremy said, you know, Jason mentioned we've got one of our Maven shipments that's now going seaborne this quarter, which we think is important because to the extent we can establish the Maven brand overseas, that'll be an important market for, you know, volumes on low vol that are gonna be much higher than we've historically experienced. We view that very positively. You know, we are certainly in a liquidity position, of course, to initiate the Maven deep expansion just as soon as we think we've got a sufficient clarity on market signals that give us comfort that once we put it in, we're gonna have a strong market once we start actual full commercial production.

Speaker 8

Got it. Thanks for that, guys. Maybe just one more clarifying one. I think I heard 15% was PLV linked of met shipments this quarter. Where could that go in 2Q? Where should we expect that to settle, when Berwind, you know, kind of ramps up later this year?

Speaker 10

Jason, you wanna take that?

Speaker 3

Yeah, sure. Yeah, Nick, this Jason. Q2, right now we're projecting on, you know, basis what's committed, about 25% of exports. You know, basis PLV, I think that's maybe just slightly over 20% of overall volumes. Still with obviously, you know, a few tons out there still to place in Q2, which will look to that market. You know, in the back half, what I can say, you know, a few things. One, we inked a term high-vol deal very late in Q1 that just started against PLV. That'll flow through the entire year, we'll see the impact, you know, more of that in Q2 and then the back half. Both Randy and I both mentioned, you know, the Maven trial here we've got this quarter.

Speaker 3

We're, you know, hopeful that that leads to more business on that front. Also we're currently in negotiations, I can say, with one large term customer on PLV linked business to add additional cargoes in the second half. You know, based where we sit here today, I would expect it to increase. It's just hard to put a number on that right now.

Speaker 8

Got it. No, that's very helpful, Jason. I appreciate it. Just one more, if I could. Just when we think about the carbochlorination process, as you build IP around this, I mean, is the patent protection ultimately around something chemistry related, or is it the application to coal-hosted material? Just trying to get a sense for, you know, what you would ultimately protect against and just as some of your peers are exploring processing as well. Thanks.

Speaker 10

Sure, Nick. Yeah, I'll let Mike go into somewhat more detail, but suffice to say that our IP projections are both designed to be broad and all-encompassing. It would include all of the areas that you would just articulated. Anything that we can regard as trade secrets, you know, we will be protecting because I think, you know, what we're gonna have is a pretty unique process which may ultimately be able to be utilized, certainly not only with respect to our coals, but other coals and other coal-related products. It, if we get it perfected, it's a pretty good mousetrap.

Speaker 10

That's why, once again, when I commented that we're gonna have some very interesting things that we think are gonna be Sort of downloaded into our Ramaco Royalty entity, that includes the royalties and potential IP income that would flow from those, which I think over time could be a very impactful bit of income to us.

Speaker 8

Guys, appreciate the update and continued best of luck.

Speaker 10

Mike, do you wanna go into any more comment there on the IP side as it relates to more of the specifics on the processes themselves?

Speaker 6

Yeah. I would just add that you touched on a couple of things. Rare earth elements and critical minerals in coal and carbonaceous clays, definitely we wanna lock this technology up. The IP's also around the extraction and purification around some of those critical minerals. You know, the beauty of this deposit is we aren't purchasing a reagent. We have it there and it's mineralized. You know, if you had to purchase coal as a reagent or carbon for this reaction, we're producing it at a fraction of the cost, and we're generating a significant amount of our critical minerals from the coal itself. That's what the IP is around.

Speaker 8

Got it. Thank you for that, Mike. That's more clear. I appreciate it.

Speaker 9

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Randall Atkins, Chairman and CEO, for any closing remarks.

Speaker 10

Sure. Well, first of all, I of course wanna thank everyone for joining us today. As we commented earlier, we expect probably by the end of next month, certainly maybe just slipping into July, maybe for the Weir report, but we'll certainly receive something from both Hatch and Weir, which we regard as a pretty significant milestone. At that point, we are considering probably coming back into the market to have a separate report, which will be both disclosed in written form and we probably will consider also having somewhat of a separate and unique call, which we'll certainly be able to entertain questions from both analysts and shareholders on. We would expect that to happen sometime probably in July, would be my expectation.

Speaker 10

This would be before our Q2 earnings call, which we would expect to probably happen in early August. With that, I thank everybody again for being on the call today, and we'll look forward to our next catch up. Thank you very much.

Speaker 9

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

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