CNX Resources Corporation (CNX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to the CNX Resources 2025 Fourth Quarter Q&A Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tyler Lewis, Senior Vice President of Finance and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everybody. Welcome to CNX's Fourth Quarter Q&A Conference Call. Today, we will be answering questions related to our fourth quarter results. This morning, we posted to our Investor Relations website an updated slide presentation and detailed fourth quarter earnings release data such as quarterly E&P data, financial statements and non-GAAP reconciliations, which can be found in the document titled 4Q 2025 Earnings Results and Supplemental Information of CNX Resources. Also, we posted to our Investor Relations website our prepared remarks for the quarter, which we hope everyone had a chance to read before the call as the call today will be used for Q&A. With me today for Q&A are Alan Shepard, our President and Chief Executive Officer; Everett Good, our Chief Financial Officer; and Navneet Behl, our Chief Operating Officer. Please note that the company's remarks made during this call, including answers to questions, include forward-looking statements, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, and our actual results may differ materially as a result of many factors. A discussion of risks and uncertainties related to those factors and CNX's business is contained in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and in the release issued today. Before we get into Q&A, I'm going to turn it over to Alan for a couple of comments related to the recent cold weather events. Alan?

Thanks, Tyler, and good morning, everyone. We normally don't provide opening remarks on these calls, but I'd be remiss today if I didn't take a moment to acknowledge the hard work and incredible efforts of not just our CNX team, but of all the men and women of the natural gas industry who are working to keep the heat and lights on across America during this extraordinary cold weather event we are experiencing. Speaking on behalf of myself, everyone in the room with me and all of our fellow citizens who are staying warm today. Thank you for everything you've done, everything you will continue to do in the days, weeks and years ahead. With that being said, operator, can you please now open the line for questions?

[Operator Instructions] The first question today comes from Jacob Roberts with TPH.

We wanted to ask about the commentary on the front half weighted capital and TIL program and how we should be thinking about that translating to a flat production profile across the year. Just wondering if you can provide any more granularity on how you're thinking about the TIL schedule quarter-to-quarter.

Yes. Thanks, Jacob. This is Everett. You can generally think about the first half CapEx being about 60% of the year's total. And then from a production basis, it's pretty flat throughout the year. But the weighting of that capital to the first half gives us some flexibility in the second half of the year to potentially accelerate frac activity if conditions warrant.

Okay. Great. That's helpful. And turning to the RMG business line, we're curious to how you view the outlook on the AEC pricing. And is there a pathway to getting that back to the $65 million or $75 million annual run rate? And in terms of the 45Z outlook, is it fair to assume that the $20 million or kind of grossed up $30 million, is that also firmly tied to the methane stream in terms of the volume being relatively steady going forward?

Yes. So thanks for the questions there. Let's start with the PA Tier 1 rec market. So that market has been pretty stable since, call it, spring of last year. With the Trump administration coming in, it softened a little bit. I think longer-term outlook for that market, the prices you're seeing now are basically what you need to underwrite sort of new solar and wind activity in the PJM markets. So for -- for value per megawatt hour to increase there, you're going to need to see some of the step-ups in the required percent of contribution to the grid from renewables. So that's sort of the long-term bull case as those standards tighten, you should see pricing move up. But in the near term, it's sort of settled into the marginal cost of bringing on new renewable supply. On 45Z, yes, I think the way to think about that is at current production levels, we're able to generate on a run rate basis, about $30 million a year with the initial proposed guidance. And we'll see what the final guidance looks like when it comes out if there's any adjustments to that.

The next question comes from Leo Mariani with ROTH.

I was hoping you could talk about the Utica program here in 2026. I'm only seeing kind of 3 turn-in lines, probably a little bit lower than I expected. It seems like the company has been very excited about the Utica and made some good progress. So it just seemed like maybe it was a little smaller program this year. So just trying to reconcile that, but maybe some of this is just timing where maybe some of the 26 wells are coming on next year.

Yes. I think it's the latter, Leo. I appreciate the question. I mean it's really nothing to indicate the underlying kind of belief in the Utica or anything like that. It's just we have a lot of TILs from last year coming online. We have some Southwest PA inventory that we want to harvest that's really economic. And then we're going to continue in the last half of the year back at it reps at the wellhead on the Utica. So I don't know, Nav has got anything to add, but nothing to read into on sort of the TIL timing there.

Yes. Leo, I can add, we are really confident of our deep Utica program right now. And as Alan mentioned, this is just a timing issue, nothing else. In fact, we'll be teething about 5 Utica laterals this year. So it's just a function of timing on when we complete it.

Okay. That's very helpful for sure. And then, Alan, you kind of went up the call talking about weather here. Just wanted to get a sense, are you guys expecting some disruptions to the operations or the volumes here in the first quarter? Obviously, it sounds like your team is doing a great job, but I just wanted to get a sense if you think there's some impact here.

No, we're not. So our team has been preparing for the last weeks heading into this event. They've done a tremendous job keeping the field running. The numbers that we put out today include any expected disruptions. So nothing on that front.

Okay. That's helpful for sure. And then just lastly, on your new tech business. I wanted to get a sense if there's any update in terms of how some of the other businesses are progressing like AutoSep on the service side. And I know you guys have also discussed kind of some CNG, LNG ambitions over time.

Yes. On the AutoSep, I think as we mentioned before, we fully internalized, adopted that technology. We use it on our flowbacks, provide tremendous cost savings, environmental and safety benefits. We are the sort of non-op on that. We've outsourced that to an OFS company who's continuing to roll that out across the Appalachia here. Everything we're seeing is it's starting to be adopted, and we think '26 might be an uptick year for that, but nothing contributing yet materially to the financial bottom line. When it does, we'll provide guidance on that. As far as the other businesses, the tech still exists for those businesses, but just nothing material to update on those right now.

The next question comes from Michael Scialla with Stephens.

You guys said in your prepared remarks, you expect to be responsive to any material changes in gas prices this year. Everett, you mentioned you'd consider adding a frac crew in the second half of '26. I wanted to see, is that built into the CapEx guidance range, that $20 million variance for this year? Or any more detail you can provide there would suggest what CapEx could do in the -- for the full year?

Yes. Michael, yes, any uptick in activity is not included in our base ranges. What we're seeing right now in terms of pricing after you get beyond the February contract where falls off pretty significantly in terms of the strip. So we're not seeing the price activity yet, though kind of incentivize us to add frac activity in the second half of '26.

Yes. Just to add on, we're not going to chase sort of spot activity. When we talk about adding, it would be some sort of long-term call associated with new infrastructure, new power plants, something like that, that would really get the '27, '28, '29 strip moving. We're not going to try to jump around to catch a month of pricing.

And then I just want to see if you could add any color on the 3 deep Utica wells you turned in line for the quarter. I realize it's early days, but anything you can say there in terms of cost or production?

I think everything is generally aligned Nav, I don't know anything to add?

Yes. On -- like our team has been like really working on the drilling cost. And like we had guided, like our average Utica cost is about $1,700 per foot. So that's on the cost. And second, on the performance, these wells are in line with our expected performance. And we are pretty confident. And now we are into the spacing evaluation. So we have like 2 spacing tests going on now. One is 1,300-foot spacing and then second is 1,500-foot spacing. And as we get more results from these tests, we'll be getting that information out.

Next question comes from Kalei Akamine with Bank of America.

For my first question, I want to ask about coal mine methane volumes, kind of a modest downtick year-over-year, maybe 0.5 B off 17.5 from last year. Can you kind of help us understand the activity set behind the volumes, how that may compare to last year? And how many years of visibility you have looking forward?

Yes. The way to think about it, those volumes are really the primary driver is the underlying mining activity at that particular mine. Our expectation is that we're sort of in that range moving forward, assuming that mine continues to operate. That life of mine is 20-plus years, it's a metallurgical mine in Virginia, if you're familiar with it. So really, any sort of wiggle you see in volumes is just a sort of function of the pace of their longwall and what needs to be gas.

For my second question, can you just remind us on the hedging strategy? When do you guys expect to be done with 2027?

Yes. Yes, Kalei, I can take that. So for '27, I mean, we're -- as we approach that year, we look to be approximately 80% hedged. '27 is a really good year for us. Right now, we have kind of a weighted average NYMEX price of about $4. So we target that level around there based on what we can get in the basis markets as well. So at $4 kind of swaps, the business performs really, really well at that level.

And we're 60% hedged already on that.

Yes, we're a little over 60% hedged on that.

Yes. So we'll dig into the rest of that book throughout the year. Given we're already 60% hedged, we can be a little more opportunistic on putting those on. But as Everett mentioned, we'll be at our 80% sort of number heading into that year.

The next question comes from Jeff Bellman with Daniel Energy Partners.

I had 2 questions. First one, I appreciate the comments around not chasing a front-month gas price or a near price. But maybe just to expand on it, can you frame maybe a little bit more of kind of what you want to see? You mentioned a '27 strip, '28 strip. Is this something where you want to get through the winter, kind of see where storage levels end in terms of kind of timing on any kind of increase in activity? Just maybe a little bit more on kind of how you're thinking about level setting from maintenance to maybe something higher?

Yes. So maybe break it into 2 parts. I think if you think long term, right, we've been in maintenance of production, give or take, for the last 6 years, and that's really a function of just the constraints up here in Appalachia, the unwillingness for regulators to allow additional pipelines to get gas to where it could go. And then some of the projects you are seeing for potential in-basin demand, they're sort of longer lead projects with the new power and AI demand. We're hopeful on those, but they're still a few years out. So there's no reason to build those volumes just yet. In terms of jumping up or down 5% in any given year, to make that decision as part of your planning cycle, you want to be able to have pretty good visibility that the prices aren't going to slip away from you by the time to bring the volumes on. So you'd want to hedge off that if you were going to increase production. And then you're just always trying to manage your TIL count and your DUC count to give you a little bit of flexibility. But that's all just sort of short-term tactics as opposed to sort of the longer-term strategy, which we'd like to see, which is actual increasing on the demand side.

Great. Yes. So a follow-up question on that. Can you just speak more broadly on incremental takeaway? I get it on the greenfield difficulties, but I'm hearing more and more, there's smaller projects, brownfield expansions, moving gas west out of Pennsylvania into Ohio, kind of some of the bigger data center growth. Just any thoughts on how everybody is doing in terms of kind of pushing a little bit more gas west and south?

Yes. A lot of the low-hanging fruit on those Western bound projects was taken up last decade. I mean there are some proposed on the table that gets you back sort of to the Midwest area, right, the Leb kind of area. But those haven't been greenlit yet. I mean, the cost of some of those projects is just a little bit challenging just yet. I think everyone is sort of waiting to see sort of what the final outlook is here on AI demand, right? You need kind of those guys to make their decisions and then we'll be right behind them with the fuel supply to support all that. But yes, there's some cats and dogs out there, but nothing material to kind of move anybody off maintenance production in my view.

The next question comes from Betty Jiang with Barclays.

I have a question on the 2026 activity of going to do the 3 wells in Marcellus in CPA and 3 wells in Utica. Bit surprised just with the Marcellus activity. What's your expectation for the Marcellus productivity in that region?

Yes. So the way to think about that, that's kind of our stacked pay development, right? So we're going first with the Utica and then you're just thinking about putting incremental laterals above that on the Marcellus. I think you're in the sort of just shy of 2.0 range, right, with the high 1s on those wells.

And back to your core Southwest PA Marcellus, where you're focusing most of your activity. Could you just remind us what is your like latest inventory runway in that area if you maintain at the 2026 level?

Yes. So I think we'll put out the updated acreage counts at the end of Q1. But generally, we're in the, call it, 40,000 to 50,000 acres sort of remaining. So we'll get you towards the end of the decade.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Tyler Lewis for any closing remarks.

Great. Thank you for joining us, everyone, this morning. Please feel free to reach out if anyone has any additional questions. Otherwise, we look forward to speaking with everyone again next quarter. Thank you.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you.

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