Robert Jornayvaz
Analyst · Stephens
Thank you, Matt, and good morning to everyone. Our second quarter results were highlighted by another quarter of higher potash prices and increased domestic demand for Trio, a great finish to the spring application season combined with another solid quarter from our water business to deliver cash flow from operations of over $24 million. This brings our first half cash flow from operations to $38.2 million, which is more than $30 million higher than the first half of 2017. Potash price increased 8% compared to the second quarter of last year. Strong global potash fundamentals led to another domestic price increase and we remain bullish on the overall potash market for the second half the year. For Trio, we saw strong demand during the quarter as favorable pricing against component nutrients drove an increase in the application of Trio to non-specialty crops. In June, we matched our competitor summer fill program, which reduced langbeinite pricing by $10 a ton for orders placed in late June, with shipments scheduled by the end of September. Following the order window pricing was increased $20 per-ton, and we expect to see the benefit of the higher pricing on Trio sales in the fourth quarter. While this net $10 increase compared to the second quarter continues to positive pricing momentum for Trio. We still view it as undervalued when compared to other fertilizers and its nutrient components. We saw another quarter of solid water demand and cash flow with $4.5 million in water deliveries and an additional $3.8 million in cash received from a long-term water commitment. We saw a slight decrease in deliveries compared to the first quarter and attribute this mostly to the variable timing of oil and gas completion activities and the lack of frac crews in the region as you've read in many Wall Street Journal reports. In the first half of 2018, we have received $13.4 million of cash for water and as of June 30, we had $5.4 million in accounts receivable related to water on our balance sheet. Moving forward and in response to numerous investor and analyst requests for cash clarity, we are modifying our water guidance calculation and language to focus on cash and expect to receive $25 million to $35 million in cash relating to water in 2018. This amount includes $15 million in cash that we expect to receive under a long-term water commitment, but a portion of that is accounted for as deferred revenue until the underlying water is delivered. When we first gave guidance on water sales, we didn't expect a significant timing difference between cash flow i.e. sales and water deliveries. As we started discussing last quarter and the investment community we're focused on cash received and believe this is a much more accurate reflection of how we track our water business. The Northern portion of the Delaware Basin continues to see growth in drilling activity and drilled, but uncompleted wells are what we call in the industry DUCs. During the second quarter as the rig count and DUCs around our mine increases we believe this underlies a long-term potential of our water cash flow stream. As a reminder we have a diverse set of surface and underground water rides, both of which operate under multiple permits, not unlike other natural resources the use of water in New Mexico can sometimes be a contagious issue and some of our rights have been protested by two irrigation groups and a stream group and some others. These protests cost nothing so far. We are working with the parties to resolve these issues and continue to believe that our legal position with respect to the validity of our water rides is solid based on supportive legal opinions, third party documents and permits and filings in the state of New Mexico. We’re able to deliver water during the protest period and the protest process has no impact on water sales during the first half of 2018, nor do we believe it will affect our guidance for the full year. Oil fuel services in trucking continue to develop as our team of geologists, engineers and operators have succeeded in expanding our footprint, through sales calls, educational seminars and industry conferences. We are taking more meetings than ever as we pivot to a company with a dedicated sales team that can educate operators on the value of KCL in certain formations, while also providing the product, trucking and mixing services. Our trucking fleet is now licensed to deliver brine, building on a byproduct market which has generated record sales of $450,000 during the second quarter, an 85% increase compared to the first quarter of 2018. Salt sales remain consistent with prior year as we continue to evaluate options to maximize the potential of our HB Salt. The majority of which currently goes to our tailing spot. During the last three months we continue to make significant progress in the organic certification of our products, with our Moab potash facility joining our East Trio facility in meeting the standards defined by the Organic Materials Review Institute or OMRI. Continued growth in the organic space as highlighted for example by Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods and its stated go of making organic food affordable for everyone has the potential to dramatically change the organic market. In the United States as one of the few OMRI listed potash fertilizers and the only OMRI listed langbeinite that fertilizer in the market today. We have built a dedicated sales staff to capitalize on this growing market. We recently conducted wind scale testing of lithium recovery process with a third party testing facility and the preliminary results were encouraging regarding the profitable extraction of lithium from our wind over brine. We expect a full report in the next few weeks as we began to evaluate larger scale testing and look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter. I’ll now turn the call over to Joseph, who will discuss our financial results and the outlook.