Walter J. Scheller
Thanks, Brian. Hello, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join us today to discuss our second quarter 2025 results. After my remarks, Dale will review our results in additional detail, and then you'll have the opportunity to ask questions. I'm pleased that we delivered strong operational results, maintained positive cash margins and generated positive operating cash flows during the second quarter. These outcomes reflect the strength of our cost discipline, the flexibility of our variable cost structure and the resilience of our team in managing volatile market conditions. I'm also excited to announce the acceleration of the Blue Creek longwall startup to early first quarter 2026. During the second quarter, we achieved the first commercial sales of steelmaking coal from Blue Creek, which was 1 quarter ahead of schedule. We also achieved other critical milestones in the development of the mine that allowed us to accelerate the longwall start-up. More about this in a few moments. Our markets remained under significant pressure this quarter, extending the weakness that has been firmly set for the past several quarters. The drivers underlying the weakness are the same: excess Chinese steel exports; lackluster global steel demand; and well-supplied steelmaking coal market. First, exports of low-priced Chinese steel are up over 9% for the first 5 months of the year compared to 2024, which was already a record year for Chinese steel exports. Second, with the exception of India, forecasted global demand for steel has been revised downwards as a result of trade uncertainty and tepid global economic activity. And third, the seaborne steelmaking coal markets remained under pressure due to a strong supply, especially in the second-tier segment as demonstrated by strong Chinese domestic steelmaking coal production and a slowdown in Chinese imports. Pricing for our segment was also impacted by the continued resale of previously sold cargoes, as well as healthy inventory levels across most of the global supply chain. The continued market weakness, which I just described, resulted in average premium low-vol steelmaking coal index prices declining 24% compared to the second quarter last year and declining 33% year-over-year through June. Our primary index, the PLV FOB Australia stayed above the low point observed during the first quarter of 2025 and averaged $167 per short ton, which is nearly the same as the first quarter this year. Contrary to PLV FOB Australia pricing, the main second-tier indices, which are the Australian LV HCC and U.S. HVA price indices, both established their year-to-date low points in the second quarter and averaged $131 and $154 per short ton, respectively. The relative price of the LV HCC index price compared to the PLV index continues to be a major story with value significantly lower than historical values. The relative price for the second quarter averaged 78%, which was well below the 88% average for the past 3.5 years and reached a multiyear low point of 76% during the second quarter. In addition, the PLV CFR China recorded a new low price point near the end of June of $143 per short ton, while averaging $151 per short ton for the second quarter. The arbitrage between the Australian FOB and China CFR indices remained closed for almost the entire quarter on the backdrop of an extremely low Chinese domestic pricing. This fact, combined with the retaliatory tariff by China on U.S. imports made for sales from the U.S. into China uneconomical, and therefore, we've not sold any volume into China this year. We achieved a gross price realization of 80% for the second quarter, which was a function of relative index pricing, product mix, geography, tariffs and freight rates. This result was lower than our annual target range of 85% to 90%, primarily due to 3 things: First, the LV HCC index price relative to the PLV index price has widened, as I previously mentioned; second, we sold a higher mix of high vol A product versus premium low-vol product; and third, the higher high vol A volume has been sold primarily into the Pacific Basin on a CFR basis and net of freight costs. According to the World Steel Association monthly report, global pig iron production decreased by 1.3% for the first 6 months of 2025 as compared to the prior year period. Pig iron production in China, which is the world's largest production region, decreased by 0.8% for the same period. The rest of the world's pig iron production experienced a decline of 2.3% for the first 6 months of 2025. India remains a bright spot with a growth rate of 7.1% and is expected to continue growing with new blast furnace capacity expected to come online this year. Now let me turn to our second quarter results in detail. Our strong sales volume was driven by the first commercial sales from our Blue Creek mine occurring earlier than anticipated. Our second quarter sales volume was 2.2 million short tons compared to 2.1 million in last year's same quarter, representing a 6% increase. We sold 239,000 tons of Blue Creek development steelmaking coal during the second quarter, which is a quarter earlier than anticipated and already included in our annual volume guidance. The Blue Creek tons were contractual volumes sold primarily into Asia. Our sales by geography for the second quarter break down as follows: 52% into Asia; 37% into Europe; and 11% into South America. The second quarter marks the first time in our history where sales into Asia were greater than 50% of total sales volume and did not include any sales into China. Our spot volume was 4% for the second quarter of 2025, which is primarily sold into Europe. For the full year, our spot volume is expected to be approximately 15% or less of total sales volume. Production volume in the second quarter 2025 was 2.3 million short tons compared to 2.2 million in the same quarter of last year, representing a 6% increase. Our existing mines continue to perform well and the continuous mining units at our Blue Creek mine produced 348,000 short tons during the second quarter and drove the overall increase in production volume. Our coal inventory levels remained consistent at 1.1 million tons at the end of the second quarter compared to the end of the first quarter 2025. During the second quarter, we spent $94 million on CapEx and mine development. Of that amount, CapEx spending totaled $75 million. Mine development costs for Blue Creek project were $19 million during the second quarter and continue to be below budget as we focused on cost control. As we ramp-up operations toward the longwall start-up, we expect our Blue Creek mine development costs to increase in the second half of 2025. Apart from the $52 million in Blue Creek capital expenditures, we tightly managed our capital expenditures at the existing mines to $23 million. Now let me provide you with an exciting update on our transformational Blue Creek growth project, which is ahead of schedule and on budget. The project team continued to make excellent progress during the second quarter with overall development and achieved certain milestones earlier than planned. If you allow me a moment to give our team credit that is unheard of with large-scale projects in this industry. As a result of those achievements, we've accelerated the longwall start-up of Blue Creek to early first quarter 2026. As previously mentioned, we achieved another milestone in the development of Blue Creek by selling 239,000 tons of steelmaking coal during the second quarter. These were the first commercial sales from this project and we're also ahead of schedule. This marks a critical inflection point in the development of this premier asset, representing the beginning of a transition from capital investment to revenue generation. The development of the first longwall panel during the second quarter produced 348,000 short tons of steelmaking coal and remain on track to produce 1 million short tons for the full year 2025. We are pleased with the progress thus far in the development and our effective management of costs. We received the final delivery of the remaining longwall shields during the second quarter, which were already to be set up underground in the next few months. In addition, our recruiting and hiring efforts for this new mine continue to be on track. We also continue to make excellent progress as we completed the installation of the truck dump, rail loadout and module A of the preparation plant, which allowed us the ability to send the first train loads of steelmaking coal to the Port of Mobile for our first shipments to customers. We continue to ramp modules B and C at the preparation plant with the full commissioning expected in the fourth quarter of this year. We strategically invested another $52 million of capital expenditures in the second quarter and $107 million year-to-date in the Blue Creek development. That brings the total project capital expenditures to date to $823 million, which remains on budget. Our baseline total project estimate remains unchanged, ranging from $995 million to $1.075 billion. I'll now ask Dale to address our second quarter results in greater detail.