Ramaco Resources, Inc. (METC) Q2 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to the Ramaco Resources Second Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jeremy Sussman, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you. On behalf of Ramaco Resources, I'd like to welcome all of you to our second quarter 2025 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 the newest member of our Executive Committee, 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, and 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 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 on to our website and download today's investor presentation. With that said, let me introduce our Chairman and CEO, Randy Atkins.

Thank you, Jeremy. I want to first thank everyone for being with us this morning. We had an exceptionally busy quarter. I'll begin with the very recent, very positive events surrounding our Brook Mine critical mineral and rare earth business in Wyoming. The release of the summary of Fluor's preliminary economic analysis and an historic ribbon cutting at the Brook Mine in July have both garnered a great deal of attention. These two events reinforce the concept that Ramaco has now embarked on transitioning to become a dual platform company unlike any in the United States. Our operations now embrace production of not only met coal, but also rare earths and critical minerals and their refinement ultimately to oxides. This transition has also resulted in a fundamental reset in our share price as the market has begun to view us in this new light. The Brook Mine is unique, both as a geologic mineral proposition, but also unique in our country's larger strategic quest to claim back, frankly, its own security. We hope and believe that this mine will produce a large and vital domestic supply of rare earth and critical minerals in the face of dominance by a [indiscernible] foreign nation state. Specifically, the Brook's distinctive geology facilitates not only a lower-cost REE production, but also a lower cost ultimate processing and refinement. The rare earth mine also combines with our met coal profile to create a unique growth story, combining two vital forms of now critical minerals. We will soon explore expanding our rare earth mine production profile to enlarge the annual production rate to a multiple of its currently permitted 2.5 million tons per annum. We will similarly look to expand the oxide processing capacity to a larger level as well. At the same time, we will be exploring and developing the remaining roughly 11,000 acres or 2/3 of our reserve base to determine both the size and geological character of this massive deposit. Weir has now defined the TREO base at 1.7 million tons on the roughly 4,500 permitted acres. We expect this new exploration will substantially expand the known size of our reserve. As to the mine groundbreaking ceremony 2 weeks ago, I want to thank again all of the dignitaries for taking part in the opening of the country's first new rare earth mine in more than 70 years. The group was led by Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, the entire Wyoming U.S. Congressional delegation, as well as Wyoming's Governor, Mark Gordon. As I shared at the ceremony, with both the deposit size of over 1.7 million tons of rare earth oxide, and importantly with the only domestic slate of five of the seven recently banned rare earths from China, this mine has the potential to become an important bulwark to the supply chain challenge posed by China. This will be America's mine. Its production, refinement and sales will be on American soil. I will not dwell on the background of our critical mineral business other than to say we have been working on developing the Brook Mine since 2012, and with a particular focus on rare earths now for almost 6 years. The mine is fully permitted. We began full-scale mine operations this June. We expect to begin pilot plant operations to take our ore to oxide this fall. And we will use our pilot operations to optimize the processing techniques for roughly about 9 months, which will then assist in the design engineering for our full commercial oxide facility. We hope to transition to construction of the full commercial facility by late next year. And dependent upon some potential acceleration on timing, we would expect to be in commercial oxide production and sales by 2028 or hopefully sooner. Over the past 6 years plus, we have continued work on this unique opportunity with a combination of assistance from NETL as well as other third parties such as Weir and Fluor. In early June, I had the honor to personally meet with Secretary, Wright in Washington to brief him on the project. Given the critical importance of the mine to national security, he encouraged us to explore how the government and in particular, the Department of Energy could assist in accelerating and expanding both the timing as well as the production rate of the mine. Since the Brook Mine is the first and largest new mine and processing facility in the U.S., the federal government is now engaging with several agencies to assist Ramaco in moving this project forward. To this end, for 3 days this week at the regional NETL headquarters in Oregon, we held an all-hands meeting of Ramaco's entire rare earth team with more than 20 Department of Energy personnel. These scientists and technicians were from NETL as well as the Lawrence Livermore Lab and Idaho National Lab. Mike Woloschuk, who is there with me for the entire time, will be speaking along that in a moment. The DOE's objective for the Brook Mine is to provide the full capacity of the National Lab's comprehensive testing and research capabilities to accelerate our entire mining and process development process. This is somewhat unprecedented. The DOE will provide their wide-ranging resources to essentially become Ramaco's partner in all testing and critical path development of the exploration, processing, refinement and ultimate production of materials and metals at the Brook Mine. There will be more to discuss on that collaboration as we proceed further in the months ahead. We are also now involved with the administration's National Energy Dominance Council on a variety of fronts. This council acts as the White House's coordinating arm to advance critical mineral development across multiple federal cabinet offices and agencies. We're now engaged with the council to advance discussions between Ramaco and several federal agencies, including the Department of Energy, of course, the Department of Defense, the Department of Interior and the National Security Agency. Again, as those engagement proceeds, we will disclose specifics in due course. We are also now beginning to receive inquiries and meet with potential rare earth and critical mineral customers. We expect samples of various elements and oxides to be available for customer trials as we advance the pilot process. Jason Fannin will be speaking a bit later on the marketing and sales process that we are beginning to conduct. We are also broadening our bench of rare earth personnel and are actively hiring individuals with experience in both rare earth geology and processing. These operations will be conducted under the direction of Mike Woloschuk, our EVP of Critical Minerals, who, as many of you know, recently joined us after serving as the Global Head of Fluor's Critical Mineral Operations. In sum, we are rapidly taking steps to develop our REEs into a commercial business. We are also being provided strong encouragement and support from the Trump administration in this regard. During the pilot phase, we expect to better define the size of the capital investment as we optimize the processing flow sheet in advance further. Fluor has, of course, provided a preliminary CapEx estimate subject to a broad contingency. That figure will be refined as we proceed through the design, engineering and procurement phase. As I said earlier, we will be studying how we can enlarge both the scope of the mining production level as well as processing capacity to achieve a much larger scale to the project to meet an obvious U.S. demand. We ultimately expect that investment capital for the new business will come from a variety of sources. This will include, of course, the internal use of Ramaco's own financial and balance sheet capabilities, but it may also include potential governmental and private customer assistance in various forms, including possible direct investment, long-term procurement, advanced payments and other contractual arrangements. As with any project of this size and scope, we will proceed with funding that is backed by conventional third-party purchase and throughput commitments. We will not disclose any discussions involving potential investments or financings at this time. Turning to our met coal business. The past quarter again underscored how quickly the landscape can shift. Met coal benchmark prices dropped roughly 25% year-on-year this past quarter. After bottoming in early June, the Chinese domestic coking coal prices staged somewhat of a textbook V-shaped recovery, driven less by headline production bans and more by a combination of deliberate softening in demand -- pardon me, in supply as well as targeted safety and environmental checks that slowed output. Even with the sharp pullback we saw this week, prices are still materially above the June, July lows. Beijing's clear signal seems to be that it intends to rein in chronic domestic oversupply, which we hope lends some durability to the recent gains. The other moving parts of the met coal pricing equation are lining up in a similar fashion. Indian steelmakers remain solidly profitable, underpinning steady raw material demand. Australian exports out of Queensland have yet to fully normalize after weather and operational setbacks earlier in the year. U.S. met coal producers have reduced production as pricing realizations are, in many cases, now below mine costs. Taken together, we see a healthier balance developing in the second half, albeit not yet a straight line. Against that backdrop, we continue to focus on what we can control, and that is driving down mine costs and lifting productivity. Chris and Jeremy will speak to those points in a moment. This quarter also marks our second consecutive production record. Our mine cost dropped again this quarter by $5 to $103 from $108 in the second quarter of '24, and we expect to drive them further down in the back half of the year. Nevertheless, the weak spot export pricing still outpaces our efficiency and mine cost gains. As a result, we are trimming full year sales guidance slightly simply to be prudent. To be clear, the adjustment is purely price driven. We will not place tonnage into an oversupplied spot market at negative margins. In short, in the met space, even while price volatility remains, we are cautiously optimistic that pricing will improve as we move through the back half of the year. This is going to be through a combination of firmer Chinese fundamentals, a resilient Indian demand and constrained or even declining Australian and U.S. supply. So to wrap up on a highly positive note, the bottom line is that we are rapidly moving forward with the multiyear process of transitioning Ramaco into becoming the only U.S. dual platform in both rare earths as well as the metallurgic coal space. We have a very unique business model and a unique and highly promising growth trajectory in both business lines. I feel strongly we will serve both our shareholders and our nation well as the years evolve. So with that, I'd like to turn the floor back over to the rest of our team to discuss finances, operations and markets. But first, I would like Mike Woloschuk, who leads our Critical Minerals business, to share some further thoughts on rare earths. So Mike, if you would continue.

Thank you, Randy. I first want to say how exciting it is for me to be part of the Ramaco team. As Randy mentioned, I previously held the role of Global Head of Critical Minerals for Fluor, where I was involved in numerous rare earth and critical minerals development projects across the world. I've personally been working on the Brook Mine project since Q4 last year and decided to join Ramaco because I believe this project is the most promising rare earth project in North America. The Brook Mine project is unique across the landscape of rare earth projects, and this company is committed to advancing the Brook Mine into production. The advantages and opportunities associated with the Brook Mine development, first, the mine is already permitted, and we commenced mining in June. So that significantly reduces the development time line of the project. Secondly, the Brook Mine deposit contains high-value critical minerals co-mingled in coal. And unlike the hard rock deposits, this ore is soft and simplifying the front end of the processing plant. It does not contain meaningful levels of radioactivity, which are typically associated with rare earths found in hard rock deposits. And thirdly, the high-value critical minerals and lower value of low-value rare earths means that the basket value of this project is boosted for the ore quality, if you will, compared to peer projects. As reported in the disclosed summary of the Fluor PEA, our recoveries are also comparatively high. So our recovered value in dollars per ton of TREO is more than 20x compared to traditional light rare earth centric mines. Fourth, this project has excellent access to infrastructure with the I-90 and the main rail line intersecting the property. Again, this reduces the capital investment and development time line for the project. And lastly, since the critical minerals are co-mingled in coal and because we intend to sell thermal coal, which is not mineralized, we expect that this will offset the mining costs of these critical minerals. Looking ahead, my main focus is working to accelerate the time line to reach commercial production. As Randy intended, we plan to rapidly construct our pilot facility so that we can begin pilot operations this fall to take our ore to oxide product. This will allow potential customers to test our products for quality control. Whether it be the Department of Defense or a defense contractor or any other potential customer, any agreed-upon long-term offtake will be subject to meeting certainly quality specifications. So we view the acceleration of the pilot plant as the crucial next step on the path to commercialization. Additionally, this month, we are commencing the next phase of the commercial plant design as the flow sheet remains on the critical path. Ultimately, as noted in our earnings release, we remain on track for commercial oxide production in 2027, which has been pulled forward from the 2028 for the summary PEA. All this week, as Randy mentioned, the Ramaco technical team has been in meetings with the Department of Energy Labs. These meetings were attended by National Energy Technology Lab, Oak Ridge National Lab, the Idaho National Lab and Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Each of these labs brings technical expertise to this project from geological definition that will help us better define the other 2/3 of this deposit, which is yet to be explored to flow sheet improvement ideas and to battery quality specifications that are going to help us to detail our flow sheet. The comment made by several Department of Energy employees that were attending these meetings was that everyone in the DOE lab wants to be working on this project. So we have existing agreements in place to immediately continue work, and we have 70 tons of ore at the Brook Mine site that are in super sacks ready to ship to these labs, and we expect that will happen next week. With that said, I would like to turn the call over now to our Chief Commercial Officer, Jason Fannin.

Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everyone. Today, I'll share our views on the coking coal and steel markets as well as our sales outlook and wrap up with a discussion of marketing initiatives on the rare earths and critical minerals front. Global coking coal markets continue to weaken from a pricing standpoint during Q2 with last quarter's index averages down approximately 8% since the start of Q1 and down 5% quarter-over-quarter. To start Q3, during July, we saw Chinese coking coal prices surge 38%, with futures hitting a 7-month high as safety and environmental inspections across important mining regions, forced mine and wash plant outages, tightening inland inventories. While we've seen sharp price swings on Chinese exchanges this week, the broader signal from Beijing is unambiguous. Policymakers are intent on addressing persistent oversupply. Their posture should provide underlying support for prices and increase the likelihood that recent gains will have some staying power. At the end of July, the Australian Premium Low Vol Index was $183.20 per ton, up from the low of $166 in late March and from $172 in mid-July. U.S. East Coast index values were $174 per ton for Low Vol, $156.50 per ton for High-Vol A, and $147.50 per ton for High-Vol B. SGX forward pricing also moved higher in late July with Q3 and Q4 PLV now priced at $185 and $193, respectively. While we treat forward markets with healthy skepticism, Chinese policy pivots like those in 2016 and 2020, have historically marked turning points, which have resulted in sustained recoveries. While risks remain, the worst may be behind us. As we enter the third quarter, we remain optimistic about improving fundamental market conditions, supported by rising finished steel prices in China and India and iron ore prices holding below $100 per ton amid growing supply. These trends should bolster steel mill profitability and support increased met coal pricing. That said, persistent strength in Chinese steel exports and unresolved overcapacity concerns continue to pose risks. It remains unclear how policymakers will address these structural challenges, leaving some uncertainty on the horizon. In Europe, we remain cautiously optimistic about the outlook for improved market conditions. Existing safeguard quotas and phased rollout of the EU's carbon border adjustment mechanism are expected to provide a progressively firmer floor against low-cost steel imports. Germany's proposed EUR 500 billion off-budget fund alongside continued European Commission-backed stimulus efforts should help provide infrastructure machinery demand as monetary conditions ease and ECB rate cuts take hold. As a result, we expect EU apparent steel consumption to bottom early next year and rebound by 3% to 4% in 2026, helping to restore steel mill margins and support Atlantic Basin metallurgical coal demand. In the near term, however, conditions remain difficult and further capacity rationalization across the European steel sector appears likely. In the U.S. and Canada, our domestic end users continue to take shipments at a steady pace, in line with our expectations and contractual commitments. Notably, finished steel prices in the U.S. remain the highest globally, nearly double prevailing Asian seaborne levels, and we expect our domestic partners will continue to enjoy significantly higher steel prices going forward. Building on this favorable backdrop, we are now in the domestic negotiating season with several buyers issuing RFPs. While we won't discuss specifics today, our focus remains on enhancing the value of our sales portfolio, and we are actively engaged in that effort. Turning to our 2025 sales book. At the start of the third quarter, we had secured commitments for 3.9 million tons. North American buyers account for 1.6 million tons at an average fixed price of $152 per ton, and first half seaborne shipments of 1.3 million tons achieved an average fixed price of $109 per ton. In total, our fixed price book for 2025 stands at 2.9 million tons at a blended price of $133 per ton with an additional 1 million export tons under index-linked arrangements for delivery throughout the back half of the year. The majority of our few remaining uncommitted tons align with planned Q4 production, providing us the flexibility to strategically layer in additional sales at favorable pricing. Given ongoing market headwinds, we are optimizing our production plan to minimize lower-margin spot sales and prioritize the highest return opportunities. This disciplined approach allows us to protect margins, capitalize on the most optimal sales and maintain reliable supply for our long-term customers. Turning now to our rare earth and critical minerals operation. We're accelerating development of our Brook Mine deposit in Sheridan, Wyoming. We've completed end-to-end supply chain mapping for our highest value materials and are actively collaborating with major U.S. buyers, including defense suppliers to align on operating time lines, product and volume projections, qualification protocols and downstream applications. This proactive engagement ensures we meet stringent demand criteria while positioning us as a reliable domestic supplier in this strategic sector, laying the groundwork for future offtake agreements as we continue to fast track the build-out of our pilot processing plant and the later scale-up of our commercial facility. With that said, I would now like to turn the call over to our EVP for Mine Planning and Development, Chris Blanchard, to discuss operations.

Thanks, Jason. And as always, thank you to everyone joining us this morning. Although we had another strong operational quarter, this was, of course, coupled with the continued decline in the metallurgical coal indices and led to a slight compression in our operating margins that Jeremy will describe in more detail. That said, I'm extremely proud of the operations team for having first half 2025 cash cost per ton sold that came in just over $100 per ton. This puts us squarely in the first quartile of the U.S. cash cost curve. During the second quarter, we temporarily idled the single section Eagle mine where coal thicknesses and processing recovery made the mine marginal in these market conditions. The mine remains open and is being held in care and maintenance and can be restarted virtually immediately when market conditions warrant. On an even more positive note, our Berwind mine's two sections have now returned to full productivity, helped by the completion of a new air shaft in mid-May. We have seen the cost from this complex decline to their historically lower levels. The combination of the changes at Elk Creek on volume and the improvement in productivity at Berwind allowed us to close the quarter with June costs coming in, in the low $90 per ton range for the month on an overall company basis. We expect to continue to operate at these steady-state cost levels throughout the balance of '25, although I would remind everyone that the third and fourth quarters do have the traditional holiday shutdown periods. The bulk of our major met capital projects were completed during the second quarter, and we expect capital expenditures in the East to decline to essentially maintenance levels for the second half of the year. We are, of course, looking at further ways to optimize our production portfolio and we'll take any opportunities to exercise further volume and cost discipline. We simply won't deploy the human or financial capital to force additional tons into weaker markets. Pivoting to the West and the critical mineral operations, we activated the Brook Mine in June in advance of our mine opening ceremonies on July 11. Our initial mining area encountered extremely favorable conditions as far as coal thicknesses, mining ratio and importantly, confirmed the softness and friability of the rock and coal seams and the relative mining advantage we will have for this project. I'm happy to report that the mine opening and the initial mining stage were brought in under budget, ahead of schedule and most importantly, without any injuries or environmental or regulatory issues. As was released earlier this week, the Brook Mine has just received its 5-year renewal of its mining permit, and we are excited to move forward with the next stages of this project. During our initial mining this summer, we successfully mined enough co-mingled rare earth critical minerals and coal ore to support our bench and pilot testing for the next 12 months in addition to the 70 tons that will ship next week to the national labs. As Mike mentioned, as we move into the pilot stages of testing, we will start these bulk tests and optimizations off-site initially at third-party labs in advance of the completion of our own lab and pilot testing facilities on site at Brook. With the backdrop of our continued solid operational results in the East and all the potential that our critical mineral business holds, I'd now like to turn the call over to Jeremy for a deeper dive into the financials for the quarter.

Thank you, Chris. As noted, second quarter 2025 operational results were again solid with cash cost per ton sold of $103, which continues to put Ramaco in the first quartile of the U.S. cash cost curve. Cash cost per ton sold would have been $101 excluding the now idled Eagle mine. Even with higher costs at Eagle, both Q2 and year-to-date cash costs at Elk Creek are in the low 90s per ton range, making it among the lowest cost high-vol complexes in the country. In addition, for the second straight quarter, we achieved a record level of quarterly production. This led to Q2 tons sold of $1.1 million versus $900,000 in Q1. Unfortunately, metallurgical coal price indices have continued to decline. U.S. indices fell another 5% in Q2 versus Q1 and more than 20% year-over-year. This caused a year-on-year decline in earnings despite the operating achievements. To get into specifics, Q2 adjusted EBITDA was $9 million compared to $10 million in Q1. Q2's net loss of $14 million compared to Q1's net loss of $9 million. Class A EPS showed a $0.29 loss in Q2 versus a $0.19 loss in Q1. While none of our primary peers have yet reported Q2 results, we suspect that our $20 per ton cash margins this quarter will be among the highest of our peer group. As a reminder, our Q1 cash margins of $24 per ton were the highest among our peer group then. Looking forward, we're making a few tweaks to our 2025 operational guidance given current market conditions. Specifically, we're optimizing our overall production and sales. We're reducing selective production to limit potential lower-priced spot sales, especially into Asia. At current prices, this should provide a net benefit to free cash flow. As a result, full year 2025 production is now anticipated to come in at the low end of the previous 3.9 million to 4.3 million ton range. Full year 2025 sales are now anticipated to come in at the low end of the previous 4.1 million to 4.5 million ton range. Now moving to our balance sheet. Our liquidity of more than $87 million on June 30 was up over 22% year-on-year. At the same time, our overall credit metrics remain strong with net debt to adjusted EBITDA of a little over 1x on a trailing 12-month basis. Earlier this month or last month, we announced the redemption of the $35 million 2026 senior notes at 9% as well as the issuance of $57 million of 2030 senior notes at 8.25% plus a potential $8 million shoe. This increase in liquidity is, of course, not reflected in our June 30 cash figures. However, as of July 31, our liquidity stood at $105 million. Now turning to our rare earth elements and the critical minerals business. I'm very pleased with the results of the recently released summary preliminary economic analysis from Fluor. The results of the summary PEA outlined a pretax net present value using an 8% discount rate of $1.2 billion with an IRR of 38% with a total initial capital cost estimate of $473 million before contingency. The summary PEA shows steady-state EBITDA of $143 million by 2029 and more than $130 million of EBITDA by 2028. Now given the multiples on rare earth names, needless to say, we're incredibly excited about the potential of this business. Given the combination of the summary PEA results, coupled with the tenor of our discussion with both the U.S. government and potential private industry customers, we are doing what we can to accelerate the pilot plant development. As such, we're increasing 2025 SG&A guidance from $36 million to $40 million to $39 million to $43 million. Bottom line is that despite the challenging market conditions, our metallurgical coal operations remain firmly in the first quartile of the U.S. cost curve. When coupled with our liquidity levels and strong balance sheet, Ramaco is well positioned to both withstand any continued near-term coal market weakness while also continuing to accelerate the development of our rare earth and critical minerals business. With that said, I'd now like to turn the call back to the operator for any questions from those on the line.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Nathan Martin with the Benchmark Company.

Maybe just starting on the met coal side in the East. I fully appreciate leaving the higher cost production in the ground at these prices. But I was wondering if we could get a little more color on any anticipated impact on quality mix. Also it would be helpful to kind of get your thoughts on expected mix between domestic and export sales in 3Q, 4Q, just given the much more favorable fixed domestic price.

Thanks, Nate. This is Jason. Yes, I mean, as far as any quality impacts, obviously, we take that under heavy consideration when we're looking at any of these changes that we made. So we expect absolutely none to the portfolio we have today. I think in the back half, your question there on the sales mix. We're roughly 2/3 seaborne, 1/3 domestic, relatively similar to the mix there in Q1, Q2.

Yes, Nate, we're a little bit more domestic in Q2 than Q1, but overall in that kind of 1/3 on average, maybe we'll be a little closer to 35%, but somewhere in that range.

Okay. Appreciate it, guys. And then just with the 2.5% production tax credit you mentioned in your release for met coal starting on January 1. Could you put any estimates around what you think your savings could be there?

Yes. No, we're certainly excited for that inclusion in the big beautiful bill. And I'd say, Nate, obviously, we're still kind of working through the dynamics. But I'd say in that kind of $15 million a year range on EBITDA is our best estimate, obviously, plus or minus a little bit.

Perfect. That's helpful, Jeremy. And then shifting over to the West on the Brook Mine. There's a report out yesterday, I think, to describe the recent meeting of White House officials with the sampling of rare earth companies and tech giants in attendance. I'm not sure if Ramaco was part of that meeting, but I think the takeaway was that the administration could be looking to expand its price support for domestic critical mineral and rare earth production. So it'd just be great to get your thoughts there and whether or not Ramaco has been having these kind of conversations with the administration around the possibilities of providing a price floor for any of the critical minerals you guys expect to produce.

Sure. Nate, this is Randy. So I think, first off, we're not going to comment on any specific discussions we're having with the government, although we are having discussions, as I outlined in my remarks. I do think the general approach that the government is using, obviously, the MP Materials deal is somewhat of a template is an important one. I've argued that because of the fact that you've got a nation state that's trying to essentially eliminate any other production of rare earths around the world. Unfortunately, you probably got to have the government step in to help support private industry in that respect. And that's in a variety of means. Obviously, the market is not a free market because the Chinese manipulate both pricing and production. So you have to establish some degree of a level playing field. That probably comes in a number of ways, many of which, of course, we touched on with the MP deal. I've advocated for some time that we probably need a national critical mineral strategic reserve sort of like we have a national petroleum reserve. That's something that obviously the government is aware of and I think is perhaps considering. And I think as far as encouraging and accelerating production in the U.S., forms of throughput agreements and price supports are obviously important factors there because, once again, you've got the Chinese trying to undercut any pricing to eliminate future production from anybody but themselves. So we're encouraged by the direction that the government is taking, and we expect to continue our sort of alignment with the government and continue those discussions.

Appreciate those thoughts, Randy. And then maybe just shifting to the PEA. As I'm sure you're aware, I think one of the areas of focus many investors have had related to the price deck assumptions there. I believe you said you guys relied on some industry long-term forecast amongst other things. But clearly, these things can and will vary widely. So I guess more specifically, it would be great to get your thoughts around scandium as that seems to represent the largest portion of your forecast revenue. How did you guys arrive at that price? How comfortable are you with your assumption there? And then additionally, the 65 million ton per year of estimated sales, at least based on my understanding, likely exceeds the current U.S. demand for that product. So how would you potentially kind of balance the supply with demand to keep the price at the level that remains economic for production, as you alluded to?

Sure. Good question. So I'm going to let Mike handle the first part, and then I'll let Jeremy also speak to the price deck we use. So Mike, do you want to go in and touch on that as far as scandium and the general pricing approach that we took?

Yes. Thanks, Randy. We had this conversation, in fact, in Albany with the national labs this week. And the conversation is that the demand for scandium would be higher if there was a Western source of scandium. And right now, scandium is sourced mainly from China, and that limits its adoption into places where we feel long term that there is going to be supply. We had reports from EY. They conducted a study a few years ago that is suggesting scandium demand is growing -- potentially grow to 450 tons a year by 2030 and possibly over 1,000 tons a year. So we have several sources, government sources and marketing studies conducted that would suggest if we can produce scandium in the U.S., there will be a market for it.

I guess what I'd add, Nate, too, in terms of the price decks really across the board. So first of all, this is 3 years out. So this is not pricing as of today. Second of all, these are Western pricing. Obviously, at the time, going back to the NdPr pricing we were using, it was significantly higher than spot. And then, of course, MP signed an offtake deal pretty close to what was being used in the price deck. Third is we've looked at sort of where prices have been historically. And certainly, there have been periods where scandium has been significantly higher than the price that we use, and that's certainly true for all of the MVPs. And then last but not least, as Randy said, we've had incomings from customers. So again, we're not going to share the specifics of that, but we certainly have a good feel of what they're willing to pay over the -- for a long-term secured domestic supply.

Yes. And just anecdotally, to kind of add to what Jeremy just said, we had a major defense contractor that we've been in discussions with and their comment to us was, look, if you could have a guaranteed secured domestic supply of a specific type of rare earth, the market would be 6x what it is today. Again, that's one customer, but I think it's a major customer. And is certainly indicative of the fact that all the market right now is pretty much completely skewed by the Chinese trying to manipulate pricing to make sure nobody does get into the market. You've got -- I think Asian Metals is the main index that most people kind of look at. That's published out of Singapore. It's -- the publishing is owned by two state-owned Chinese companies that are controlled by the [ Communist ] party over there. So I'm not sure that their prices are necessarily accurate. But again, into a larger comment that this is the kind of business that you're dealing with right now, which is why I think to a certain extent that the government's involvement is going to be positive.

Our next question comes from Nick Giles with B. Riley Securities.

I think Nate asked it well, but I wanted to follow up. Can you just talk us through what you see as the most important growth drivers in the scandium market? Or maybe said differently, Mike, if I heard you correctly, there could be demand created if there was a Western source. And so I just wanted to make sure I understand kind of all of the end market exposure there as admittedly, I'm less familiar.

Sure. I think the obvious end user for scandium is the airline industry. And some estimates suggest that Boeing and Airbus alone could use up to 100 tons a year, 150 tons a year. Scandium, aluminum alloys are lighter weight, and they certainly benefit aircraft. The NPV of an airplane is quite high when you use these alloys. And again, they haven't been using them because of the supply constraints. I think there's other applications in the automotive industry in things like heat exchangers. So adoption in several places, alloys that need lighter. So I would say the aerospace is the dominant industry that we would target, but there's certainly -- the automotive industry is the next one.

And I guess just on that, I'm just trying to put the pieces together here in the sense that prices were lower, and it appears like there were no supply constraints in the global market, but I guess it might have to do with the source of that supply. So what do you think have been the key constraints? Is it really that just the airlines want to use a Western source? I'm just trying to match the two.

Yes, that's what we're hearing. Long-term certainty of supply is -- that's not a Chinese supply source. And so they haven't been using the scandium alloys because of fear that at some point, it could be cut off.

Okay. Understood. And one last one on the coal side. One for Jason. Jason, the revenue per ton came in flat to higher quarter-over-quarter. So want to commend you for that in this tough market. But curious to hear how you would describe realizations into Asia today. I mean, where are netbacks shaking out if you tried to move a spot vessel? Understand you only have so many uncommitted tons, but I would appreciate your perspective.

Yes. Thanks, Nick. Yes, certainly, obviously, in Jeremy's comments, we pointed out that we're -- some of the reductions we've made in guidance do point to the fact that we'll stay out of the spot market in Asia, obviously, for that reason, in particular, versus the Atlantic pricing. Obviously, there's freight impacts. and then just a more saturated market there for many different reasons. As to pricing today, it's certainly, I would say, sub-$100 back to the mines, and that goes to Randy's point earlier, too, that the folks that are still required to participate in that or having to move tons there are most definitely underwater on their cash costs.

Yes. I mean the thing I guess I'd add is we are more than 95% committed at the midpoint of production guidance. So candidly, we're not really in the spot market right now. It's not to say that a long-term good customer isn't looking for a hold here or there at close to the index without much discount. We'll do those types of deals. But again, we've made the decision to reduce selective production because, as Randy said, we're just not going to sell at a loss right now. Operator, we'll turn it back to you.

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

We again thank everyone for joining us this morning. We look forward to catching up with you after the next quarter. It should be an interesting quarter for us as well. Take care.

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