Joseph W. Craft

Thank you, Cary, and good morning, everyone. I want to begin my comments by thanking the entire Alliance organization for their continued hard work and dedication. I am proud of all that has been accomplished through the first 3 quarters of the year as we are on track to achieve another record year, beating last year's full year's revenue and net income numbers. Our well-contracted coal order book enabled us to navigate an otherwise challenging operating environment during the 2023 quarter. Our coal segment achieved higher realized pricing per time sold relative to both the 2022 and sequential quarters, a theme that continues to favorably impact year-to-date results, particularly with regards to EBITDA and net income.
However, we did face some difficult mining conditions in Appalachia at all 3 mines during the 2023 quarter, which resulted in higher operating costs and fewer tons produced versus previous expectations. Mild weather experienced in the first half of the year combined with lower natural gas prices throughout the year have impacted coal consumption in 2023, preventing us from topping last year's record coal sales volumes. As we look to next year we have seen a recent increase in the natural gas forward curve as well as a jump in API 2 pricing due in large part to the conflict in the Middle East. At projected pricing levels, we believe that our export potential in 2024 will improve markedly as compared to the back half of 2023.
Our oil and gas royalty segment reported continued growth in the 2023 quarter resulting in record production volumes, underscoring the success of recent acquisitions in core parts of the prolific Permian Basin. Although average realized pricing per BOE during the 2023 quarter was lower compared to near record levels in the 2022 quarter, our royalty portfolio is well-positioned to provide significant cash flow via hedge-free exposure to commodity price and cost-free organic growth. We expect additional growth in production will lead to record production volumes in 2024 as we continue to invest in minerals.
The strong cash flow generation of our underlying businesses positions us to continue improving our balance sheet and pursue the highest and best uses for our capital. During the quarter, we paid our regular distribution, repurchased and redeemed a portion of our outstanding senior notes and announced 2 exciting investments made by our new ventures group.
The first was a $25 million investment in Ascend Elements, which is a U.S.-based manufacturer and recycler of sustainable engineered battery materials for EVs. The investment was part of their $460 million Series D funding round, which when combined with a $480 million DOE grant will help advance the construction of North America's first commercial scale manufacturing facility producing cathode materials for EV batteries located essentially in our backyard in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Beyond our initial contribution, we plan to evaluate additional partnership opportunities with Ascend to expand our investment in the battery recycling industry and support the critical materials infrastructure needed to facilitate the onshoring of U.S. battery manufacturing.
The second investment included an additional $25 million in Infinitum, a Texas-based developer and manufacturer of high efficiency electric motors as part of their ongoing Series E equity raise. If you recall, we originally invested Infinitum in April of 2022. And with today's announcement, our total investment in Infinitum is now $67 million, making us a meaningful investor in the company. We believe Infinitum's patented Aircore motor technology has significant market potential. And our technology division, Matrix, is actively exploring opportunities to collaborate with Infinitum and incorporate the technology into our current mining operations.
In closing, I am proud of ARLP's performance year-to-date, and encouraged by the opportunities in front of us. We remain focused on finishing the year strong and gearing up for what should be another successful year in 2024.
That concludes our prepared comments, and I'll now ask the operator to open the call for questions. Operator?

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our first question is coming from Nathan Martin from Benchmark Company.

Nathan Pierson Martin

Just maybe a quick clarification to start. Cary, you mentioned Appalachian cost per ton could be up 8% to 10% in the fourth quarter. Just want to confirm that's versus the 3Q '23 results, so that [54 84]. And you also said a minute ago that IB cost, the Illinois Basin cost should be flat. Was that also with the third quarter '23?

Cary P. Marshall

Yes, that's right, Nate.

Nathan Pierson Martin

Okay, perfect. Kind of moving on, I think when we talked last quarter, obviously the expectation was sales would outpace production in the second half to help draw down inventories, I think to around 0.5 million tons or so by the year end. Unfortunately that didn't really work out here in the third quarter because some of the items you guys mentioned, I think it's only about 100,000 ton draw. What do you need from a logistics standpoint to kind of get you to the high or the low end of your revised full year guidance? Are there any carryover effects from some of those 3Q items you guys mentioned, like the lock outages, customer maintenance, et cetera?

Joseph W. Craft

Yes, so when you look at the sales range, we show that our contracted position for 2023 is 35 million. That's what we are targeting to ship in the -- for the full year. There could be logistical impacts, it could drop that to the 34.5. The tons are sold, whatever would not be delivered would be really primarily driven by making sure that we have the proper transportation and deliveries, vessel loadings, et cetera, occurring during the fourth quarter. Whatever doesn't occur in the fourth quarter, we'll roll over into 2025. So part of our mix, when you get into sales price and you get into the volume, it does try to focus on what will be the specific contracts that are being served in the particular years. So when you think in terms of the pricing, it's really not from one quarter to the next, I mean the revenue's going to be basically the same, it's just a timing issue. Cary mentioned in his prepared remarks that there is potential that we could pick up some additional export ton sales in the fourth quarter. If that were to happen, those would be at a little lower price than what our contract tons would be rolled over into 2024. So that's the issue. So from a volume perspective, if we can ship what we want to ship and what we plan to ship, we will be in inventory levels near where we talked about last quarter, I believe. If for some reason we get delayed and we go to the 34.5, then that's going to push those inventory levels up. So it's a matter of logistics on shipping. I think from a production standpoint, our production impact for the quarter in both Mettiki and MC Mining is going to continue into the fourth quarter. So we've had some people trying to retain sufficient people. And our MC Mining has been a challenge for us. So we had to reduce a unit of production at MC Mining towards the back end of the last quarter. That's going to continue into the fourth quarter. And then at Mettiki, as Cary mentioned, the longwall is not expected to start until the end of November. So we'll pick up a little bit of tons with the longwall production, but still we are, our production is limiting our ability to ship some export tons coming out of those two operations.

Cary P. Marshall

I think the only other thing I would add to that, Nate, is when I made reference to the lock outages and the customer maintenance issues, those are flowing now, the customers that we were referring to in our comments are back online now. And so the tons there are flowing as well.

Nathan Pierson Martin

Very helpful guys. Appreciate that. And then maybe continue with the export theme for a second. You mentioned improving export coal demand based on the recent trends in the API 2 price as well as emerging opportunities in the market. Can you talk about what those emerging opportunities entail? And then second, you mentioned '24 export potential, that you should improve markedly versus '23. So how many export tons do you expect this year? And then how should we think about ARLP's export tonnage over the next few years?

Joseph W. Craft

So right now we're targeting 5.3 which is what we've got contracted. We could pick up another couple of vessels in 2023. So that number could go up a little bit. It's also possible that number could slide a little bit depending on vessels for this particular year. As we look the next year, as we said previously, we believe we have a strong domestic market share for right at 30 million tons. We do think, however, in 2024 that there's still continuing overhang of inventory at our utilities. And we expect that the market pricing for export's going to be better than the domestic market. So we may be a tad lower than the 29.7, maybe it's 28, don't know for sure. And whatever that would be, it would flow into the export market. As we think of our sales for 2024 right now, I think a conservative estimate is consistent with what we're doing in 2023. But we do have -- we believe we would have the potential based on what we're seeing in the export market right now to possibly expand that to 36 million if the export market opportunities do in fact occur as we're projecting. So, there could be that spread of maybe going as high as 7.5 million to 8 million tons in the export market next year. It's going to be depend between the domestic and export opportunities that are presented to us in 2024.

Nathan Pierson Martin

Got it, Joe. And then just maybe wrapping up with a question on the domestic side. I think you mentioned last quarter there were a number of customers out with RFPs looking to fill their books up for '24 and beyond, I think many for multi-year periods. You mentioned some of the issues we've had this year with the high utility stockpiles, low net gas prices, but it'd be great to get your updated thoughts on what you guys are seeing in the market and how that demand looks for the next couple years.

Joseph W. Craft

Yes, we are seeing a couple -- we're participating in a couple of solicitations right now for tonnage in the 2025 to 2028 time period. Again for 2024, there is some solicitations also. There is more volumes in the out years than it is in 2024. When we look at the tonnage we were able to book in the third quarter, we actually booked 1.1 million tons of opportunity, but it's mostly in 2023. And then that has allowed for some rollover into 2024 as we look at that position. So again we're very comfortable that 2025, the market reopens to where we will be at that 30 million ton level, at least on domestic sales. And we would like to expect that that's going to continue through the balance of this decade that we would be at that 30 million ton level domestically and feel that the contracts will definitely be there for us as we progress looking forward for the next -- until the end of the decade. And then the export market, we'll just have to read that and see if it's going to be in that 7 to 8 million ton level or slide back, slide it up. Just depends on whatever the market is going to
be at the time.

Operator

Next question is coming from Mark Reichman from NOBLE Capital Markets.

Mark La France Reichman

So just continuing that discussion on 2024. So I mean for 2023, from the last quarter, it looked like you picked up 500,000 tons in the export market, and for 2024 you picked up an additional 400,000 tons kind of split evenly between domestic and export. Now that's a little slower than where you were last year third quarter compared to the second quarter. So is this just a timing or do you think -- I mean, do you -- are you looking at it from the standpoint that, yes, this overhang it's slowing things down a little bit. It could weigh on domestic pricing, but you'll make some of that up in the export market, or do you feel like the domestically it's just kind of a timing that you would kind of at the very least be kind of even for -- with 2023 levels?

Joseph W. Craft

We think consumption in the U.S. domestic market for coal in '24 will be very comparable to '23. And we know that was impacted by natural gas prices. We are seeing natural gas prices rise compared to where it's been in 2023. So there could be some upside to that. But there is still the increased inventory that the utilities have to, they would like to work down. And maybe that's 20-day supply at both the Illinois Basin and Northern App. So we're not anticipating the increase in sales, as I just mentioned, to the domestic market. So we do believe we will be selling more tons in the export market in '24 than '23 as we look at our book of business today. So again we're looking at 35 million tons of sales this year, 35 million next year, possibly going to 36 depending on what the demand is for coal.

Mark La France Reichman

Okay. No, that's very helpful. And then also, this quarter I had not assumed any outside coal purchases during the quarter. And you had some in the second quarter. Do you expect any in the fourth quarter?

Joseph W. Craft

So those purchases were really caused by our longwall not producing in the third quarter. So when we look in the fourth quarter, Cary, do we -- I don't think we have very much in the fourth quarter.

Cary P. Marshall

Maybe just a modest amount. It's not very much at all Mark.

Mark La France Reichman

Okay. Great. And then just lastly on capital allocation. Joe, you did a very articulated kind of your capital allocation strategy on the last quarter call. But the company is finding some very promising investments outside its traditional businesses. So I mean, if you were to, wanting to increase, let's say, the amount of investments outside the traditional businesses, how are you thinking about claims on cash flow for 2024 being the debt repayment, the dividend or the distribution versus growth expenditures?

Joseph W. Craft

Yes. I think when we're -- to respond to that question, we have been evaluating opportunities to refinance some of the senior notes as opposed to paying them off. That would free that cash flow up. So there's about 4 different avenues we're evaluating. And we find that they're promising. It's more likely than not we'll be able to do that. So that's going to free up. So we're $285 million today, Cary?

Cary P. Marshall

That's right. Yes.

Joseph W. Craft

Yes. So assuming that we can refinance that $285 million, that's going to free up some capital that allows us to follow the path that I talked about last quarter on our capital allocations.

Operator

The next question is coming from David Marsh from Singular Research.

David Marsh

I just wanted to follow up actually on kind of where that last line of questioning was going with regard to the acquisitions outside of the coal space into some of the newer ventures. Could you just talk about kind of the long-term plan and thought process in terms of how large these external investments could grow? And obviously I think it's pretty exciting that the acquisition into the electric vehicle battery recycling space. Could you just talk about any other spaces that you're looking at outside of the traditional coal and oil and gas spaces that could be potentially on the horizon?

Joseph W. Craft

Yes. So I think we mentioned in our release, as well as in Cary's comments and mine as well that both of our investments and -- well, the investment in Ascend as well as the investment that we've made in Infinitum we believe not only are they investments in those companies, but we believe that they will provide strategic opportunities for us that we could invest. And it's a little premature to give the exact dollar amounts as to what that could be, but it could be sizable. So what we're looking for with those relationships are the ability to invest in businesses that we can bring online that would be sustainable for many years and that can generate cash flow that actually can be financeable as well. So that's our goal within those 2 investments. We have focused within our technology group at Matrix to focus on the battery space, and that battery space can be anything from what we're talking about with Ascend. It could be with battery recycling, it can also be in battery storage, whether it be for industrial, whether it be for commercial, whether it be for utility-grade battery storage that we think is necessary. There could be, in addition to the recycling other aspects of battery technology, we're looking at some manufacturing work that can apply to the transmission area and the build-out of the grid, utilizing our machine shops that we have within that are being managed by the Matrix group as well. We're also looking at Matrix and their products that they're developing. We've talked in the past about them growing their cash flow with innovative products that they are bringing to market. Specifically their IntelliZone, which is the product that we have now that has been providing the cash flow. That's being broadened internationally, and we believe that has growth potential, and we're booking or we are booking orders for 2024 in that specific area of Matrix. In addition, they've got OmniPro, which is -- we've talked about, that's also going to be rolling out in 2024, which is a collision avoidance camera type technology for the forklift industry. We think that within that technology company we have, there are a lot of exciting things that their R&D group are looking at that we think will be adding meaningfully as we look over the next 5 to 6 years. Meaningfully growing that particular segment. So hopefully it will be large enough to be a segment in 3 to 4 years if we can bring these things to market like we're currently anticipating. So those are some of the ideas that we have. And obviously we're continuing to believe in our minerals segment and continuing to want to invest in that so that that can continue to grow, as well as the other new venture concepts that I just outlined.

David Marsh

It's certainly very compelling for divesting away from the core business and making it a little bit more interesting with some potential upside kickers. So that's compelling. With regard to the distribution, which you guys continue to maintain very solid distribution, obviously, where the units are trading now, dividend yield is very attractive. Would the cash flow at this point in time and the outlook support possibly an increase in that distribution as we start to head into next year? Or given where the units are trading, is the Board perhaps evaluating maybe repurchasing some of the units?

Joseph W. Craft

I think that as we look to next year, we're still in our planning process. However, I've sort of given you some indication that we're looking at next year pretty much being a mirror of this year as far as where we are right now thinking that our cash flow would be, and it could. And so when we think of distribution, we have the capability to maintain or grow. I think that right now, we're focused on finishing out this year strong, and we are committed, as I've repeated the last 2 calls with our distribution at the level it is. This year, to be frank, we're a little disappointed that the market hasn't appreciated those by the unit price not reflecting to where we've got a yield. That's probably higher than it should be. In other words, our unit price should be higher than where it is. But the Board will -- once we finalize our plan, present that to them, we'll have a preliminary review with them in December, but the final plan will be approved in January, and we'll be in a position to better answer your question as to what the future distribution policy will be at our January call.

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our next question is coming from David Storms from Stonegate.

David Joseph Storms

Just wanted to go back, earlier in the call you had mentioned that logistics are going to be the big driver of what your shipped tons look like to close out the year. Are there any variables, any notable variables in logistics channels that you're keeping a particular eye on?

Joseph W. Craft

The primary is just our export shipments. So we do have inventory at the pier, but we're going to need to continue to shift coal from our mines to the piers. And we've had some low water in the Mississippi that has slowed some of the barge movements. So it's really just a matter of timing of barge availability to be able to ship our tons to be able to also match when the vessels come in and what the loading dates actually turn out to be. So that's the primary logistical issue that we'd be faced. I don't think with our domestic customers, there are any concerns about parts availability, water, et cetera, but it's more on the export side to where we could have some timing issues on vessel loadings.

David Joseph Storms

Understood. And then you also mentioned in the call just some challenges around labor and equipment in the quarter. Should we expect that, that will be all wrapped up before the end of fiscal year '24?

Joseph W. Craft

From an equipment standpoint, yes, that was isolated at basically both MC Mining and at Tunnel Ridge. Tunnel Ridge has already corrected itself. We've gotten the repairs. The delays are behind us. At MC Mining, we've had new deliveries for equipment to replace the older equipment that were delayed that caused some of the impact on production. And I think all that -- those items are expected to be delivered now as we speak. So we do believe by the end of the year, from an equipment standpoint, that will be behind us as far as headcount. Right now we're planning to run MC at 3 units. So that's still in the balance. So that still could be an issue for MC Mining. So that could be 1 unit of production. But at all other mines, we're expecting that we'll be fully staffed to be able to meet our production levels that we're able to do this year and continue into next year. We are actually seeing some improvement in the Illinois Basin. So we've done some reevaluation of our approach to try to recruit by opening our Henderson County mine, that's opened a new market for some workers that we're starting to see some increased applicant flow that's encouraging for our River View mine.

David Joseph Storms

That's great to hear. And then lastly, I would just love to get your thoughts on the domestic regulatory environment. Anything that you're watching with the upcoming election cycle or anything of that nature?

Joseph W. Craft

All right. From a regulatory standpoint, the biggest use related to our customers. I mentioned about that in the last quarter. Not a lot has progressed in that area. There's 8 different regulations that EPA has proposed. There's only one that's been finalized, and they're still out there. At the same time, what we've seen really starting from the last call through today, and I think it's going to continue is that we're starting to -- the industry is starting to value the need for reliability. And because there is a concern of reliability and what the impact of these regulations may have on reliability of electricity generation, that may have slowed down the process here. I don't know for -- I don't really know why we haven't seen much progress, not complaining. But it's still out there. It's still an issue. However, I think the demand that's needed has been a recognition that -- it's similar to what you look at where the administration is on oil, right? I mean, they want to make doggone sure that gasoline prices are reasonable to low. So they're going to try to encourage enough supply to come on the market in an election year. I would hope that they don't want to see blackouts and brownouts on the electric side in an election year either. So maybe things will delay, be delayed until after the election. It's hard to know. But they're still out there from EPA perspective at the same time. They're just artificial compliance dates. There's no reason why they have to be on the certain dates that they got in, proposed. And so we haven't seen the final. They've got comments. So we've got to wait and see what the final rules are to really be able to answer your question.

Operator

We reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Cary for any further or closing comments.

Cary P. Marshall

Thank you, operator, and to everyone on the call. We appreciate your time this morning as well and also your continued support and interest in Alliance. Our next call to discuss our fourth quarter 2023 financial and operating results is currently expected to occur in January. And we hope everyone will join us again at that time. This concludes our call for the day. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.