Ramaco Resources, Inc. (METC) Q4 2025 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good day, and welcome to the Ramaco Resources Fourth 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 Fourth 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 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 also 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. First, I want to thank everybody for being with us this morning. We had another extremely busy quarter on our critical mineral front out West and indeed the best quarter in years on our met coal operations. Given the great job our coal ops team did in maintaining cost control in '25, I'm going to start on that front. This quarter, we achieved the lowest cost we've seen since the fourth quarter of '21. At our Elk Creek complex, cost averaged just $80 a ton. Quarterly costs and margins were the strongest of all our Central App peers. We're also proud that in this difficult market environment, we have not cut wages or benefits for our mine workers. We believe Ramaco is a best-in-class employer, and we continue to attract the top mining talent in our industry. Reflecting our strong workforce, productivity in the fourth quarter was also the strongest we've had last year. Quarterly cash margins of $24 a ton were tied with our first quarter margins as the strongest of '25. This is despite a 17% decline in high-vol met coal indices during that period. As we look to where we're headed in '26, we are initiating our annual met coal guidance, which was published in our release. We are now poised to grow total sales for the sixth year in a row while lowering overall cash cost for the third year in a row. We cannot control pricing, of course, but we are proud to compare our cost against any non-long-haul peer in our space. As a result, if benchmark prices hold at current levels or even improve, we expect strong overall earnings growth in '26 versus '25. On met coal sales, we've now committed to roughly 80% of our '26 production at the midpoint of guidance. Jason will go into the specifics on our sales metrics, but we achieved both strong domestic and export pricing. On overall met coal markets, we've begun to see some clarity on what we hope is going to be a meaningful rebound this year in index pricing. The potential triggers are both supply constraints in Australia and some stronger Indian demand after a slow buildup. Australian premium low-vol indexes have increased to roughly $240 per ton and by more than $40 a ton from the fourth quarter. Average low-vol and high-vol indices are also up almost 10% today compared to the fourth quarter. As a result of all this market clarity, we are now either accelerating or initiating some of our low-vol growth projects at our Berwind and Maben complexes, and moving them from '27 into '26, which we had previously deferred. These projects are expected to add about 0.5 million tons of production in '27 and between 100,000 to 200,000 tons of additional production in '26. They will also add about $20 million in growth CapEx this year and have very strong paybacks. On high-vol markets, we are currently seeing a crowded field of new projects from several of our peers. They're all fiercely competing for Asian export business and have created lots of pricing pressure with current high-vol index prices lagging well below historic relativities. We, however, have been able to secure recent high-vol sales into Asia at meaningful premiums because of our low vol -- pardon me, low sulfur character of our coals. It's our expectation, given market conditions, that published U.S. index pricing will eventually adjust. Now I'd like to move to our rare earth and critical mineral business. We're excited about the new proprietary technology breakthrough from our internal team who has developed something called carbochlorination for purposes of separation and extraction from coal. Recall that we recently brought on board, two of the most senior members of Fluor's critical mineral team that had spearheaded the work on our original preliminary economic assessment or PEA. We have referred in our earnings release to some of the details of this novel form of flowsheet. This carbochlorination process provides a fundamental derisking of a previous complicated and costly separation and extraction process in a number of respects. It reduces the overall capital and operating costs. It improves overall product recoveries and yields. It will ultimately increase our cash flow. It creates a higher-value product slate. It uses a proven technique, which has already been deployed in the titanium industry. And from a marketing perspective, it reduces the project's reliance on scandium as the main product driver, although we still feel scandium is an important future use for our rare earths. We are now working with our independent consultant Hatch to validate these estimates and expect to publish a revised PEA with third-party economics by the middle of the year. Despite being a coal company, we have a good deal of technology focus in our DNA. We have been exploring, as many of you know, new uses of carbon in coal and indeed rare earths for over a decade, both on our own and with the Department of Energy's National Labs. We currently have an impressive basket of intellectual property, which includes over 70 patents pending applications, exclusive license agreements and trademarks. Indeed, we have now already filed robust patent and trade secret protections around this novel flowsheet process and related technologies. We believe this will ensure that Ramaco and our Brook Mine will be the only unconventional source of rare earths and critical minerals that will be able to use this novel proprietary process. As I said, our internal analysis shows that this flowsheet results in increased cash flow and a reduction in both capital investment and operating costs. These preliminary figures compare very favorably to the already strong original economics that were in both Fluor's original PEA last July as well as the upsized development case from my last shareholder letter in September. The new flowsheet also shows markedly increased separation recoveries and yields and a higher overall value product slate. Specifically, it changes the proportions of individual production levels of the overall basket of products. We now anticipate that the largest percentage of production will come from the combination of high-purity gallium, high-purity alumina as well as high-purity quartz. These all target the semiconductor industries and are very high-value products. As mentioned, we also anticipate that this approach will reduce the overall percentage of scandium production. We continue to think that scandium use will prove to be a very important developing market. However, the current appetite for high-purity gallium and its related alumina and quartz in the semiconductor industry is both proven and rapidly expanding. We hope the Brook Mine will be an important and meaningful resource for this critical industry. Finally, another important benefit to the new product slate is that the flowsheet route will allow us to forgo the costly solvent extraction process. We now expect to sell our rare earth production as a mixed rare earth carbonate or what's called MREC to third-party metals and magnet processors at strong pricing. MREC will now be a smaller percentage of our overall production. And this will also now eliminate the significant CapEx expenditure and the ongoing operating reagent expense associated with the former solvent extraction technique. New flowsheet modifications will modestly increase the time line for completion of our preliminary feasibility study from Hatch. However, on a project that could well exceed $1 billion in capital investment, we would prefer to get it right before we build. We are continuing construction of our pilot plant testing facility in Wyoming, which should be complete this summer. We will begin moving our internal chemical and metallurgic testing operations into that building when it opens. We will defer construction of the internal processing infrastructure at the pilot until we finalize the flowsheet testing from Hatch. As we've said, the internal equipment is being designed and optimized at the Zeton, Inc. fabrication operations in Ontario. We now expect full pilot operations to start in 2027. On our downstream critical minerals front, the Trump administration recently announced an initiative to establish international price floors for critical minerals. We remain confident that the U.S. government is committed to ensuring the development of a robust domestic supply chain and we will take further steps in this area. We also continue to pursue procurement, funding and development opportunities with both governmental and strategic stakeholders. We expect the new direction and information we've just announced today with this new flowsheet approach will inform a good deal of these discussions as we progress. We were also recently gratified to see the administration's discussion about the creation of a domestic rare earth stockpile program called Project Vault. This program dovetails with our previously announced critical mineral stockpiling terminal at the Brook Mine, which we are pursuing with Goldman Sachs. There should be more information on that in the near future. We are also now exploring some reorganization options for Ramaco's overall corporate structure as we move further into our dual platform operations. We hope to announce more clarity on that in the coming months. We expect to set up separate corporate entities within a holding company structure to better reflect the different forms of assets and operations that we both now have and are developing for the future. We hope this structure will provide more operational and financial flexibility as we develop two different and separate businesses in the met coal and separately in the rare earth critical minerals space. All of this, of course, will be designed to enhance shareholder value. Again, we will provide more color about that as we roll it out. Lastly, I would note that our balance sheet is now in the strongest position that has been in our history. This is despite some challenging recent years in the met coal markets. As you know, we raised roughly $1 billion in capital in the second half of 2025. We also ended the fourth quarter with record liquidity above $520 million, up more than 275% year-over-year. We expect this additional funding will allow us to more rapidly move forward with our transition to a dual platform critical minerals company. Now I would first like Mike Woloschuk, who leads our critical mineral business, to share some further thoughts and details on our rare earth progress. I'll then turn the floor back to our team to discuss finances, coal operations and markets. Mike?

Thank you, Randy. As you highlighted, we have some exciting updates to report on flowsheet development. We completed an expanded suite of testing of Brook Mine composite samples at multiple external metallurgical facilities. These include chemical and mineralogical analysis, ore physical properties, chemical mineral extraction and purification testing. This expanded test program also included initial testing of the carbochlorination flowsheet. Commercial carbochlorination is a high-temperature industrial process using carbon source, such as coal, and chlorine to convert metal oxides into volatile metal chlorides and water-soluble chlorides. This is the dominant technology used for nearly all titanium manufacturing today. And from our test work completed to date, including the mineralogical analysis and metallurgical response of the critical minerals, initial testing of carbochlorination indicates the Brook Mine responds favorably to our proprietary process. In this flowsheet, the valuable volatilized critical minerals from the Brook Mine include gallium, germanium, aluminum and silica. Initial tests show virtually all of the gallium was volatilized, and this is a significant recovery bump from the previous flowsheet. We also achieved high extraction of aluminum chloride, a portion of which can be recovered to produce high-purity alumina. Germanium and silica are also volatilized under our intended operating conditions. These volatile vapor phase chlorides will be condensed, separated and purified from the crude chloride mixture. This flowsheet allows us to produce higher purity gallium, which is sold at a premium. We will also generate additional revenue from the HPA and high-purity quartz, both high-value products used for semiconductor, renewable energy and other advanced applications. Our carbonaceous plays contain abundant amounts of kaolinite, which is the source for high-purity alumina and high-purity quartz. Effectively, we are now able to generate revenue from GaN, something no hard rock rare earth project is able to do. Scandium and the suite of the rare earth elements are converted to chlorides in the residue. They remain in the solids after the reaction and similar to table salt, they will dissolve in water, which is a much better option than leaching in large amounts of caustics and acids. We intend to selectively remove scandium and produce scandium oxide and simplify the balance of the rare earth portion of the flowsheet to produce mixed rare earth carbonate or the MREC product, as Randy mentioned. Separation of rare earths into oxides is both technically complex and capital intensive. Production of MREC is a flowsheet simplification that will reduce the capital and operating costs associated with rare earth solvent extraction, separation and finishing. The two main reagents in carbochlorination are carbon and chlorine. So a coal deposit has all the carbon we need and it is not a reagent we have to purchase. Most of the chlorine is recycled by decomposition of nonrevenue-generating mineral chlorides, simplifying the bulk reagent logistics associated with the hydrometallurgical flowsheet option. Our focus going forward is to complete more test work to determine optimum conditions for the carbochlorination reactor and downstream testing on solubilizing the rare earth chloride residues to selectively extract scandium and produce the MREC. We will also conduct separation and purification testing on the crude chloride circuits to define the flowsheet necessary to achieve the various gallium purities. The testing plan for high-purity alumina and high-purity quartz is analogous to gallium. Ramaco filed provisional patents on the carbochlorination process to recover rare earths and other critical minerals from coal and carbonaceous clay deposits. And we feel this is a significant competitive advantage over other flowsheets being considered for critical mineral hosted coal deposits. In parallel to the test work program, we have engaged a specialist consultant with experience in alumina carbochlorination to generate a thermodynamic simulation of the carbochlorination circuit and to provide design inputs for the updated preliminary economic analysis. We are engaging Hatch to complete a PEA, and this is anticipated to be completed midyear, followed by a pre-feasibility study by year-end. With the flowsheet pivot, we paused the detailed design of the downstream pilot plant modules at Zeton until we generate a new basic engineering package for carbochlorination. This is anticipated in Q3 2026. However, we anticipate Zeton's continued involvement since they have experienced piloting similar unit operations. We also anticipate conducting on-site testing, both at the existing iCAM Research Center as well as the new pilot plant building now under construction. We expect the pilot shell to be complete later this summer. Switching to an update on geology. We completed the fall drill program, which included both infill and step-out drill holes. We are nearing completion of an initial fence drill program, which will inform drill density necessary to increase geological confidence to support selective mining. We have additional fence programs planned and are increasing the number of drill rigs to complete this program this summer. We hope to have sufficient geological data from our drill programs to move to reserve status from inferred up to indicated rather by year-end, in line with the completion of the Hatch pre-feasibility study. As mentioned, we are building our internal laboratory to conduct internal assay and metallurgical testing to mitigate lengthy external lab turnaround times. We have two ICPMS machines, and we have equipment at site already that will be used for the carbochlorination reaction. We anticipate hiring technical and analytical staff to ramp up in-house geometallurgical testing. I would now like to turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Jeremy Sussman.

Thank you, Mike. Starting with the balance sheet. I'm pleased to note that we had record liquidity of $521 million at the end of the year. This is the strongest level of liquidity that we've ever had. Liquidity was up over 275% compared to the same period of 2024, and we ended the quarter with a net debt position of $11 million. I want to touch upon the extraordinary financial transformation to our balance sheet that we achieved in the second half of 2025. First, in July and August, we raised $65 million in unsecured notes. Second, in August, we raised $200 million in new equity through an underwriting by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Third, in November, working again with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and a larger underwriting syndicate, we raised $345 million in 6-year unsecured convertible notes with a 0% coupon. Then in December, we increased our revolving credit facility led by KeyBanc to $500 million, inclusive of $150 million accordion feature. In terms of fourth quarter performance, as Randy noted, operational results were again extremely solid with cash cost per ton sold of $92. This continues to put Ramaco in the first quartile of the U.S. cash cost curve. Q4 also represented the company's strongest quarter in terms of cash cost per ton sold in 4 years. Fourth quarter cash margins of $24 per ton equaled those of the first quarter as the strongest of 2025 despite the U.S. high-vol metallurgical coal indices having fallen 17% during that time. Our Q4 production fell modestly from Q3 to 892,000 tons, which was the result of the typical Thanksgiving and Christmas miner vacations, as well as our continued focus on value over volume. We'd rather leave production in the ground versus selling it at a loss into the spot market. Thankfully, our strong balance sheet, including our record liquidity position, allows us this flexibility. Should markets continue to improve, 2026 can provide a very meaningful working capital tailwind on the inventory front, especially in the back half of this year. While metallurgical coal price indices declined throughout Q4, they're now up meaningfully from the bottom. Unfortunately, however, U.S. high-vol indices fell another 4% in Q4 versus Q3. But despite the continued fall in index pricing, we managed to print Q4 financial results that exceeded Q3 financial results as cash costs fell $5 per ton sequentially, compared to realized pricing that fell just $4 per ton sequentially. To get into specifics, Q4 adjusted EBITDA was $9 million compared to $8 million in Q3. Class A EPS showed a $0.22 loss in Q4 versus a $0.25 loss in Q3. I would note that these fourth quarter results exclude a onetime nonrecurring expense incurred in connection with the structuring of a strategic critical minerals terminal at our Brook Mine. All of our primary peers have either reported Q4 results or preannounced results. I'm proud to note that our cash costs of $92 per ton and cash margins of $24 per ton were easily the best-in-class among our Central Appalachian met coal peers in Q4. Looking forward, we're initiating 2026 guidance. Full year 2026 production is now anticipated to come in at 3.7 million to 4.1 million tons, an increase at the midpoint versus 3.8 million tons in 2025. Full year 2026 sales are anticipated to come in at 4.1 million to 4.5 million tons, an increase versus 3.8 million tons in 2025. Our guidance tables lay out a number of other 2026 expectations such as CapEx, SG&A, DD&A, interest income, tax rate and idle costs. While you can find the specifics in our earnings release, I want to touch on two areas. First, we anticipate net interest income in 2026 versus net interest expense in 2025 as a result of our large cash balance. Second, we anticipate CapEx of $85 million to $90 million, up from $64 million in 2025. This includes spending on maintenance capital on our metallurgical coal mines of roughly $10 to $11 per ton, approximately $20 million of growth capital at the Berwind and Maben complexes, and roughly $20 million for our rare earth elements and critical minerals business. We anticipate first quarter of 2026 shipments to be 800,000 to 950,000 tons due to normal seasonality with the Great Lakes, which were, of course, closed for most of the first quarter. We expect cash costs towards the high end of the annual range for Q1 on the back of lower ratable shipments. As I look ahead, I'm incredibly optimistic about 2026. First, we have by far the best balance sheet and liquidity in our history. Second, our cash costs and margins are among the best in Central Appalachia. Third, coal markets appear to be improving in large part due to pricing having reached unsustainable levels from a cost curve perspective in the second half of 2025. Lastly, we're making meaningful progress on our rare earth elements and critical minerals path towards commercialization. I would now like to turn the call over to Chris Blanchard, our EVP for Mine Planning and Development.

Thanks, Jeremy, and also to everyone who joined us today. It's always preferable to share our operational results when we have been successful in controlling those things like costs and volumes, which are in our control. Across all of Ramaco's operating complexes, I want to give recognition to all of our miners and support staff who focused on the fundamentals all year to help us drive down costs across the board and to complete the year with our best quarterly performance since 2021. These successes are continuing as we begin '26. Productivity levels remain high relative to our internal forecasts, particularly at our flagship Elk Creek complex. However, while the mines continue to operate at budgeted levels or above, logistics bottlenecks with both of our railroad partners as a result of the extreme temperatures and snow in late January did cause delayed shipments in January and so far in February. These were primarily due to the difficulties in moving and unloading coal to the peers and ports, and the subsequent backlog of loaded trains with insufficient empty cars cycling back to all producers for several weeks. While we built clean inventory due to these events, no production had to be curtailed. However, the impact of the interruption in rail equipment cycling cascaded and continues to be worked through. As Randy mentioned, the high-vol markets remain oversupplied and ultra-competitive. Fortunately, our Elk Creek product has some quality advantages over some of the incremental high-vol producers who tend to be of a lower metallurgical rank and have higher sulfur contents. To take further advantage of that, we are transitioning a portion of Elk Creek's production into even lower sulfur areas of our reserve to better meet our customers' needs. As mentioned earlier, we've also kept our wages and benefit packages for our workforce constant even in the declining market over the last couple of years, and we are taking opportunities to strengthen our workforce with some of the most talented miners available in Southern West Virginia and Virginia. On the low-vol side of the company, we're seeing meaningful improvement in market dynamics and limited excess supply of high-quality, low-volatile coals. Accordingly, our Board of Directors has approved pulling forward approximately $20 million of planned growth capital from 2027 into 2026 at our Berwind and at our Maben complexes. First, we will begin to ramp low-volatile coal production at Berwind mine approximately one year ahead of schedule. The timing of the full build-out will be dictated by the completion of two additional air shafts into the coal mine. Work has been ongoing on these projects since late 2025 and will be completed during this summer. Once the ventilation system is in place, a full section will be added to the mine at an annual expected production rate of 350,000 tons per year. While the Berwind mine will not be running at this full rate until the third quarter, we will bring on some interim low-vol production during the second quarter at our Laurel Fork mine, utilizing the same equipment capital and workforce. Combined, we project an additional 150,000 approximate clean tons of production during '26. Secondly, at the Maben complex, we are now moving forward with the construction of the flood load batch weigh loadout system at our Maben processing plant. Once operational, this will allow us to ship our premium Maben product to our domestic and international customers without adding approximately $20 per ton of additional logistics trucking cost, which have negatively impacted this operation. We believe that having the fully operational loadout will potentially allow us more opportunities to purchase and ship other high-quality low-vol coal that would be advantaged by loading at Maben. Work has commenced on the loadout project already, and we are projecting it being operational and loading its first train in the middle of the fourth quarter of '26. The completion of the loadout will make the development of the underground portion of the Maben property much more advantaged, and we will continue to evaluate the full bowl -- build-out of the underground mines at Maben at that time and let the market conditions guide the timing of that investment and expansion. Finally, to briefly turn to some of the mine and construction updates in Wyoming at the Brook Mine. During the fourth quarter, we expanded the Brook Mine pit to excavate additional thermal coal for an upcoming trial with a regional customer. During this mining, we also segregated several hundred additional tons of rare earth element and critical mineral ore from two different enriched strata zones for continued optimization testing. Construction has also begun on the ore storage facility on the Brook Mine itself, which will function as a staging area for mine products prior to being sent to outside labs and ultimately to our own on-site pilot facility, which Mike mentioned is also starting foundation work and will be under roof later this summer. Detailed design engineering is also underway for all of the electrical transmission to site and the substation to power our future commercial processing facilities. In closing, with the security and liquidity from all the transformational financial transactions that were consummated during the second half of '26, we find ourselves with the flexibility to modify our operational portfolio to quickly take advantage of the strengthening low-vol met markets, while also continuing the development of the Brook Mine at full speed as well. To discuss both the coal and the critical market -- critical minerals markets in detail, I'd like to now turn the call over to our Chief Commercial Officer, Jason Fannin.

Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. Today, I'll share our views on the steel and coking coal markets, provide an update on our 2026 met coal sales position and then discuss the progression of our marketing strategy at Brook following our recent flow sheet breakthrough. We continue to see global steel markets increasingly shaped by policy rather than supply-demand dynamics. China exported a record amount of steel in 2025, even as domestic crude steel production declined. That divergence between export growth and domestic contraction is unlikely to persist. Export licensing measures and rising political pressure suggests that Chinese steel exports could decline meaningfully this year, which would lend considerable support to global steel prices and in turn, provide uplift to coking coal prices. European steel production appears to be stabilizing and prices are already reacting to tighter import controls, rising nearly 20% since early Q4 2025. One of the world's largest steelmakers has predicted a year-over-year increase in European steel production of approximately 6 million to 8 million tons, reflecting improved mill margins amid a more constructive policy backdrop. North America, trade enforcement continues to support domestic pricing. U.S. steel prices remain among the highest globally with spot pricing nearing $1,000 per ton for the first time since mid-2023. India remains the primary coking coal demand growth engine. Blast furnace production increased 17% year-over-year in 2025 and blast furnace steelmaking capacity continues to expand aggressively. Discussions between U.S. and Indian officials regarding increased U.S. met coal imports could lead to a potential removal of the import tax on U.S. met coal into India, which in turn could increase U.S. imports above 2025's 9.5 million tons. Seaborne metallurgical coal markets began 2026 with an already tight Australian premium coking coal supply, further exacerbated by extreme weather events, with Australian premium low-vol pricing sitting just below $240 per ton today, up nearly 20% from Q4. U.S. East Coast indices are approximately $196 per ton for low-vol, $159 for high-vol A and $149 for high-vol B. This volatility underscores how thin the spot market truly is. Seaborne hard coking coal supply is roughly 180 million tons annually, with less than 5% of that typically available on spot. That structural thinness magnifies short-term supply disruptions. That said, the development of significant long-wall high-vol production capacity in the U.S. has intensified competition in both domestic and export markets. As a result, U.S. high-vol pricing continues to stubbornly lag historical relativities to Australian PLV. We, therefore, continue to focus our growth efforts on our low-vol portfolio, where the supply-demand balance remains tighter and pricing durability appears stronger. The new railroad out at Maben, once operational, will materially improve logistics economics and provide access to additional customers for this premium Central App low-volatile coal. Turning to our 2026 sales position. We have secured commitments for 3.1 million tons. North American customers account for 1.1 million tons at an average fixed price of $142 per ton. In addition, 2 million export tons are committed at index-linked pricing. Turning to our Brook Mine progress. Our carbochlorination-based flowsheet should substantially strengthen and derisk our product mix and revenue basket. We are now placing greater weight on high-purity gallium, high-purity alumina and high-purity quartz, with a modestly reduced emphasis on scandium applications, although scandium does remain an important part of the Brook Mine portfolio. High purity gallium metal, if achieved at scale, positions Ramaco directly within the strategic semiconductor material supply chain. In parallel, we now intend to market our magnetic rare earths, which represent a smaller portion of our overall revenue basket, primarily as a mixed rare earth carbonate or MREC. These flowsheet enhancements, combined with our elevated gallium focus, materially expand our addressable market. We are in active dialogue with several companies and a wide variety of potential customers regarding potential offtake and partnership structures. As we advance pilot operations and generate lab scale and pilot scale material, we expect these discussions to evolve into formal commercial frameworks. Finally, we continue coordinated engagement with defense primes and governmental stakeholders. The broader policy backdrop, including potential domestic stockpile initiatives and price support mechanisms, reinforces the strategic relevance of the Brook Mine, as well as the strategic critical minerals terminal, which we announced last year. For the terminal, our location with a dry climate and a site adjacent to both the Class 1 railroad mainline and the major interstate highway puts Ramaco in a unique position to serve the U.S.' stockpiling needs. To conclude, these are exciting times for the company. On met coal, we entered 2026 with a strong and largely committed sales book, improving low-vol pricing dynamics and a disciplined growth strategy focused squarely on higher-return segments. We believe our cost position, product quality and logistics flexibility leave us well positioned as markets rebalanced. On critical minerals, our flowsheet direction represents a meaningful step forward. It should enhance product quality, lower capital intensity and sharpen our commercial focus toward high-purity gallium and strategic MREC partnerships. With that, I'll turn it back to the operator for the Q&A portion of the call. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Ben Kallo with Baird.

Thanks for all the detailed information. A lot to go through. Maybe first, so you had a lot of changes at Brook Mine and the process and technology. I'm just -- I guess my question is, how did you guys decide to go this route? I know that you guys have been working at this for a long time. And so from the outside, it looks a little abrupt, but I'm sure that this is a thoughtful process. So just if you could explain that. And then the second question, just sort of following up on that is, as you make these changes, I know you've been in discussions with for offtake agreements and with the government. And does that change the timing of any of that?

I'll let Mike take the first part of that question.

Yes, sure. We had anticipated that this might be a flowsheet option some time ago, but hadn't completed the necessary test work to understand the magnitude. Granted there's some delays in completion of a PFS with this flowsheet change, the expected impacts on the economics are significant. So we were, I guess, delighted to see that almost all of the gallium went to -- gallium chloride, which is the ability to produce a higher purity gallium product, comes at a significant premium. So we feel like for a long mine life project such as the Brook Mine with potentially a 100-year mine life that this is a material improvement to the economics. Yes, last flowsheet, no issues with it. But again, the step change in improvements justified the change in our view.

Yes. And I think, Ben, to the second part of your question, we have kept our discussions in relative real-time in terms of different procurement and finance options. And honestly, the pivot to probably a more gallium-centric product slate is an improvement and enhances our discussions candidly because in a number of respects, first of all, we sort of derisked the process. The carbochlorination is, of course, a proven technique that's been used with titanium. So it's not as if this is a novel first-time approach given the fact that we've got a novel feedstock to start with. But secondly, of course, as been noted before, we think scandium is going to be a very important part of the whole kaleidoscope of different types of rare earth usage moving forward. It's mainly going to be used for lightweighting and obviously for some electronic storage. But it's a market that is a bit more in the future that's evolving. The gallium market for semiconductors is not only apparent today, but it's growing rapidly given sort of the electrification of the entire economy and of course, the AI business. So we are finding a high level of receptivity, both with strategics as well as with the government in terms of a pivot toward more gallium and perhaps a lesser emphasis on scandium. So I hope that kind of generally addresses your question.

Our next question comes from Douglas Ormond with Discovery Capital.

I'm just making sure I caught that in the initial comments. It sounds like the engineering enhancements would lead to materially increased value relative to the September shareholder letter, which had the $5 billion NPV and not just the floor PEA, when we think about a launching off point for what the new flowsheet will provide. Are we thinking about that correctly?

Mike?

Yes. I think we're looking at the increased production, obviously, from the new product suite, the potential higher purity and what that translates into in terms of throughput, that's a conversation we're going to have. But the basket price, if you will, has materially increased because of these products. We've been -- our internal estimates, we've been, I would say, conservative in terms of what we're looking at for purity for both high-purity alumina and high-purity quartz. We've taken 4N type purities in our projections. But if you look at gallium at 6N, it comes at 3x the price of 4N. And similarly with high-purity quartz, if you produce a 5N versus a 4N, it's 3x the price. So these are the things that we want to test going forward. The ability to produce those products, understand what the recoveries are, there's a whole lot of upside here, and we already see a significant increase on basket price.

Our next question comes from Carlos De Alba from Morgan Stanley.

Just I wanted to maybe get a clarification on the new flowsheet, because I think I just heard that this is not a novel approach, that has been used in titanium. But if that is the case, then would you mind please explain just for our benefit, what is the fundamental technology breakthrough then that you have achieved with this processing? And then what is the level of confidence on the new approach? Can you maybe talk about the independent laboratories that have done initial testing on this new flowsheet method? And you can share the names and if there is any documentation that you will share with the market.

Sure. I think it comes back to geology. And because this deposit has gallium, germanium, also the mineralogy. So we've published that the clays are aluminosilicate clays. This carbochlorination process basically breaks those clays and allows us the ability to produce those products. So high-purity quartz, high-purity alumina. And I think, obviously, the rare earths stay in the residue. So you'll find that there's been publications about carbochlorination in rare earths. And you've mentioned the titanium industry. This hasn't been done before in the way that we are viewing the flowsheet. So we have some IP around it. We talked about patent pending applications, exactly how we're doing it, the operating conditions, the temperatures, the residence times, how we separate these products is proprietary. I would say, that it's -- we were even surprised by the results. We've been public in our disclosure about the labs that we've been using, ElementUSA. We've engaged a consultant, Kingston Process Metallurgy, who has carbochlorination experience in the alumina industry. So we're working with them on the simulations. I'm very confident about this. The other benefit is we've significantly derisked the bulk reagent requirements for Hydromet. So we aren't importing large train loads of reagents in this process. The fact that we're a coal deposit, the reagent is right there for us to take. And chlorine is simply regenerated in this flowsheet as they do in the titanium industry. So most of the chlorine that we require will be recycled. We will be more, I suppose, our operating costs, which were 70% of the processing cost for reagents previously, will now be -- we'll see electricity consumption go up, but that's certainly more favorable having operating costs tied to electricity in a place like Wyoming.

And may I just follow-up on the gallium aspect of the new flowsheet. I understand that -- how -- do you have any information that you can share on the economics and the cost advantage that maybe this new approach will have relative, for example, of extracting gallium from red mud refining operations? Our understanding from other companies more on the aluminum supply chain is that it's not very profitable for them to extract the gallium. So yes, I wonder if you have any color that you can share with us.

Yes, you nailed it. I think that's been one of the challenges of extracting gallium from other sources, the red muds, residues from zinc projects. Gallium is volatile as a chloride. And so that's why this process works. We -- as I mentioned, we saw almost all of the gallium go into the off-gas, which will then be condensed as a crude product and separated from the other chlorides. So what that translates into is a double-digit increase in gallium recovery and then compounded by the ability to produce higher purity products. This flowsheet is probably the only one that's going to be a primary producer of gallium that can really compete with the purities required for semiconductor industry. So we're excited by that.

Our next question comes from Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs.

I guess maybe following up on the prior line of questioning. The REE basket, I think it's the price you're outlining on Slide 12 went up to $500 and change from your prior view of $300 and change. I know maybe it's too premature to give us all the nitty-gritty specifics, but can you give us a sense of what's embedded in there? I think previously, you had been talking about scandium roughly 60% of the value of Brook Mine deposit, assuming $37.50 per kg pricing. You're saying there's a modest decline in that. Can you kind of give us a sense of what's changing in terms of mix of scandium on the value of the deposit and then price, if any change there? And then where kind of gallium sits in the context of the new flowsheet versus the prior views?

Yes. I'm glad you noticed that. That basket value, if you will, had some assumptions that we would be able to capture 5% of the high-purity alumina market at a 4N purity, and that didn't include any high-purity quartz in that analysis. So we think there's even upside with those numbers when we start putting high-purity quartz in the equation and higher purity products. So I think truly that number could get better from what we've published. But we want to finish the PEA in order to get confirmation on the numbers and particularly on the costs, which we've mentioned is going to be midyear. To give you an idea of the basket, but we anticipate that gallium depending on -- and we're working with our internal marketing team, could challenge scandium in terms of equivalent production. But we anticipate scandium is going to be somewhere perhaps less than $40. We did see a double-digit increase in scandium recovery as well, right? So it still maintains a significant portion of the revenue, but gallium is going to grow probably into the 30s. And the HPA and HPQ is something that's going to be a significant contributor to this project as well. So -- and the final point on that, of course, HPA and HPQ don't translate into the TREO grades at all. So that's why we want to be talking about basket price.

Brian, to your point, that the dollar per ton figure is up more than 50% previous to what we had previously disclosed. So kind of going back to, I think, an earlier question, I mean, the bottom line is our internal projections certainly show material increases in incremental revenue and free cash flow versus what we've previously disclosed. And obviously, now that's what we're working with a third-party to validate.

Okay. No, that's helpful color. I appreciate that, guys. And then maybe just a question on timing. I appreciate that the change in the flowsheet pushes out a little bit of the timing in terms of the pilot and the demonstration facilities. It seems like it's about a year delayed. How should we think about that in the context of how you're budgeting for timing of Brook Mine ultimately coming online? I think most people had, including ourselves, sort of a 2028 start-up time frame for that deposit coming online. Is that still valid? Or should we be thinking it's a year behind schedule like the pilot?

Yes. Look, I mean, that's obviously -- we're projecting a few quarters of delay because of this change. So that does push out the overall project schedule similarly. So that's kind of what we're anticipating is the overall schedule will push out as well. So yes.

Our next question comes from Alex Fuhrman with Lucid Capital Markets.

Congratulations on all of the progress you made last year. I wanted to ask about the revised flowsheet and the decision to sell rare earth as a mixed product now. Curious kind of where you see that product going. Heavy rare earth separation capacity today is virtually nonexistent in North America. Do you anticipate that there will be some separation capacity in the future by the time that you have your MREC product to sell? Or actually, are there maybe applications for mixed rare earth products?

Alex, this is Jason. I'll speak to that. Yes, I'd say taking one step back, a lot will depend on what the TREO is on that MREC. And of course, that will depend somewhat as this flowsheet further develops. And the other separation processes that Mike and his team are working on. Yes, I mean, as you mentioned in the States, most of the separators are pilot scale or developing. There are obviously some, I'd say, in allied countries overseas. We're in contact with nearly all these folks now. And certainly in the last several weeks, we've seen a big emphasis from the government here in the U.S. on that part of the supply chain. They recognize the same as we do and you do that it's a potential bottleneck today. I think given the time line that Mike just described and how quickly we see this developing and as well as the conversations we've had with some of those parties, I think we feel confident that the capacity will be there when we're going to need it.

Our next question comes from Matthew Key with Texas Capital.

Staying on Brook, I just was wondering if you wanted to do the rare earth separation down the road, could you eventually pursue that there? And like -- or are the economics just not there to kind of justify the incremental process and versus just doing a mixed rare earth carbonate?

Sure. I think you're on to that. I mean with the additional revenue generators for this project, the rare earth side of it becomes less. So we're looking at 15% of the overall project revenue basket with rare earths. So it doesn't make sense to pursue a complicated -- and it's technically challenging to separate all of these rare earths into products and build the solvent extraction plant to do so. We're better off selling the product to someone else and the change in flowsheet is really what's driving that strategy. We're trying to simplify the back end where it's a smaller portion of our overall revenue, reducing the CapEx and potentially the schedule and operating costs associated with it, so.

Got it. That's helpful. And I guess I'll ask one on the met side, too. You mentioned that the rail load out could facilitate the eventual development of deep mining at Maben. How soon could a project come online once you make that go-forward decision? And in terms of capital investment of a project like that, could you maybe provide a ballpark in terms of just getting that across the finish line once you make that go ahead?

So the deep mines are largely permitted already at the Maben complex. So once we decide to move forward, it's mostly relatively small construction lead time and acquiring equipment. So somewhere between 6 and 8 months lead time from deciding to move forward on the underground to actually having first production. So it certainly could be a '27 event if the market supported that. And I think the way I would frame it for you is each underground section of equipment plus the development is between face-ups and facilities and equipment is probably about $12 million to $15 million. So in our long-term, medium-term plans, we project Maben as being about 1.5 million tons per year. So to add an extra 1 million tons is probably in $60 million to $70 million total CapEx development.

But that's rolled out over...

Over an extended period of the build-out.

Yes.

Our next question comes from Jeff Grampp with Northland Capital Markets.

I was curious with this -- with the change in the flowsheet and some of the timing being pushed back a bit, can you touch on your ability to qualify product for customers in the near term here? Or is that something that would really ramp up more significantly once the pilot plant is online?

Sure. I think the objective of the pilot plant was exactly that to produce a sufficient quantity for product testing. But we are looking at ways to produce sufficient volumes, particularly for HPA and HPQ at bench scale because we may be able to do that. That's something that we're anticipating that we might be able to do some product testing on two of those before even piloting.

Got it. Okay, great. And for my follow-up on the met coal side, it seems like there's potentially some upside to coal sales this year. I know you guys aren't guiding to that yet. But given the positive commentary you guys have on the macro, what might you guys need to see to feel good about pushing some more product out into the market?

Well, I'll let Jason provide the granular detail, Jeff. But the reality is we've got some unpriced index tons out there right now. So if we see upward market movement, we're going to be able to ride that wave. But Jason, go ahead and pick up on the other.

Sure. Okay. Yes. On the low-vol side here in the States, obviously, we're seeing that already, and that's why we're advancing bringing these tons forward both at Berwind and then bringing the load out forward there at Maben. Obviously, it's still lagging. The PLV, the U.S. low-vol is by more than the freight differential. I think you'll see that gap close as the year goes forward here. Obviously, high-vol is tough. Q4 was tough. One Southern App producer came up to full production on a new project and one Northern App producer brought a project back online fully in Q4. So a lot of competition we saw in Q4. Here in the States, we're already seeing supply side changes. We've got a neighbor there at Elk Creek that come April will fully wind down. Some of that's due to the export market they face. Some of that's due to -- we've all faced lower domestic pricing this year versus last year. And we've seen some smaller neighbors there in Central App as well that have either wound down or winding down now too. So I think you'll see those relativities on the high-vol start to creep back up closer to historical relativities, which will -- to Randy's comment, obviously, the biggest part of our met portfolio is Elk Creek, is high-vol. So those moves up, have a big impact on us as we go forward here.

And Jeff, I'd just add, we mentioned in the release the ability to sell almost 5 million tons. Just to be clear, that's without any incremental CapEx. We've built up a fair amount of inventory on the back of our kind of disciplined approach to sales last year. So just to be clear, that's -- I want to make sure that everyone is aware that's not with any incremental CapEx.

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

This is Soundarya on behalf of Nick Giles from B. Riley. I just wanted to check on the -- like with the solvent extraction coming out of the flowsheet, directionally how CapEx might trend relative to that prior $1.1 billion estimate? Even if it's just an order of magnitude, how much reduction can we see?

Look, I think we want to get the numbers from the PEA to look at what the CapEx is. It's hard to compare exactly these two flowsheets. For sure, we pull out some CapEx on the back end. We also shrink some of the purification because the crude product separation is a small part of the circuit. Carbochlorination is really where the CapEx is going to be. So I would say that we still want to do those numbers and crunch those numbers and Hatch is going to give us what that looks like at the completion of the PEA.

Got it. And then just one more follow-up. So now that the policy environment around critical minerals is quite favorable, how are you guys thinking about going behind DPA Title III or DOE loan programs as a part of financing? And has there been any conversations around this?

Well, I think as we've said before, we are in conversation with various government groups. I'm not going to get into specifics about which programs that we're pursuing. But again, the fact that we're now somewhat pivoting to a slate of products, which I think the government is acutely interested in, which is the gallium for semiconductors I think will provide a little bit of wind in our sail in terms of those conversations.

Our next question comes from Nathan Martin with The Benchmark Company.

Maybe sticking with the coal side now. You gave some 1Q guidance there. Does that incorporate the impacts from the Arctic weather Chris mentioned earlier? And then how should we think about the cadence of shipments in 2Q through 4Q as the weather warms up and you guys catch up there?

Nick, this is Jason. I'll take that one. Yes, the Q1 numbers that Jeremy gave earlier do, in fact, take into account the slowdown we saw there in shipments in late January, early February. We've seen that improve greatly here over the last few weeks, but we're still working through the backlog there on the shipment side. As far as cadence goes, obviously with the lake starting back up, getting out of the winter season, Q2, we're looking at about 1 million tons, Q3, Q4, about 1 million, 2 million ton each.

Okay. Great, Jason. Appreciate that color. Maybe also while I have you, talk about the relativities between premium low-vol and high-vol. Should we expect, I guess, the first quarter coking coal realizations to be pressured given that wide discount we've seen most of the quarter so far? And then maybe any thoughts on what the percentage versus benchmark could ultimately look like for the year?

Yes. I'd say on the second one -- to your second question there, that's a tough one. I've been doing this almost 30 years, and I'm always wrong. So I hate to even wager a guess. I do think it will improve from where we're at Q4. And I'm seeing some supply side discipline in this quarter on spot that's out there. I think we'll see that improve again. There -- our neighbor, I mentioned earlier, that's 2 million tons a year coming offline. And we've seen some other smaller ones come offline around us in Appalachia. I think the higher cost guys just can't compete are going to go away. And I think the lower-cost guys that are left will have that discipline. It will start to shrink that relativity. But I think it will take some time for the markets to rebalance around the incremental high-vol that's coming out of the U.S. now.

Okay. Got it. That's fair. And then maybe just one more, if I could. The domestic tonnage of 1.1 million tons, obviously priced above the public guidance of the peers you guys mentioned. Can we maybe get some color on the quality mix of those tons? And then a little bit lower both on an absolute and percentage basis compared to what you guys have done in the last few years. So maybe a little information around that shift if there is some.

Yes. One thing I'd point out around the last couple of years is there were some carryover volumes, I'd say, '23 to '24, '24 to '25 that was in that tonnage number. On a deal-to-deal basis, I'd say we're less than 10% down on contracted tons from year-to-year in that number, given that carryover in previous years. And on the mix, obviously as Chris and Randy both mentioned, our lower sulfur side, there's a limited amount of -- on the domestic, obviously, foundry business. We support both those plants pretty heavily. So with that lower overall number, there's a little bit more of an impact from those sales.

Yes, Nate, mix will be similar. It's about, call it, 15-plus percent low-vol and the rest high-vol domestically. One of the reasons we're moving forward with the rail load out at Maben is that's a very, very good domestic potential, but it's logistically challenged right now. So we think that will play nicely into the mix next year.

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

Great. Well, I just want to thank everyone for being on the line today, and we look forward to catching up here in the next quarter. Thank you.

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