Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to NACCO Industries Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Christina Kmetko, Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our 2023 second quarter earnings call. Thank you for joining us this morning. I'm Christina Kmetko, and I'm responsible for Investor Relations at NACCO Industries. Joining me today are J.C. Butler, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Elizabeth Loveman, Senior Vice President and Controller. Yesterday, we published our second quarter 2023 results and filed our 10-Q. This information is available on our website. Today's call is also being webcast. The webcast will be on our website later this afternoon and available for approximately 12 months. Our remarks that follow, including answers to your questions, contain forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to several risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements made here today. These risks include, among others, matters that we've described in our earnings release, 10-Q and other SEC filings. We may not update these forward-looking statements until our next quarterly earnings conference call. We'll also be discussing non-GAAP information that we believe is useful in evaluating the company's operating performance. Reconciliations for these non-GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release and on our website. With the formalities out of the way, I'll turn the call over to J.C. for some opening remarks. J.C.?

Thank you, Christy, and good morning, everyone. Christy will go into more detail about our second quarter earnings and provide an overview of our outlook in a minute. But first, let me provide a few thoughts on the quarter and our future expectations. It's clear that our second quarter 2023 results were much lower than last year, but that was as expected and discussed last quarter as well as at year-end. So the decline shouldn't come as a surprise. A significant portion of the decrease was because 2022 results included $30.9 million of pretax income received from the termination of Falkirk's contract with Great River Energy. The absence of these 2022 termination payments, however, was not the only reason for our earnings decrease. I'll discuss our results business by business. First, on our North American Mining segment, operating profit increased substantially year-over-year and over the first quarter of 2023. The aggregates mining part of this segment struggled during 2022. I mentioned in the last quarter that we were implementing changes to drive improved future financial results, and it's encouraging to see these improvements. That said, we are still early in this process, and it is too soon to judge the full effect of these initiatives. But this is a good start. We still want to see profit improvements incurring on a constant basis, but I'm optimistic North American Mining can build upon this momentum. The decrease in Caddo Creek reclamation income is partly offsetting the improvement in results at North American Mining aggregates business. We are no longer recognizing reclamation income at Caddo Creek because we purchased the membership interest at the Marshall Mine in March 2023, where Caddo Creek had been performing mine reclamation work. We are considering development of a utility-scale solar project at this location. Wrapping up…

Thank you, J.C. I'll start with some high-level comments on our consolidated second quarter financial results and then add detail on our individual segments. On a consolidated basis, income before tax decreased to $3.3 million from $45.1 million in the prior year. Consolidated net income decreased to $2.5 million or $0.34 per share compared with net income of $37.2 million or $5.07 per share last year. EBITDA decreased to $9.2 million from $21 million in 2022. These decreases were primarily due to significantly lower Coal Mining and Minerals Management earnings, and as J.C. discussed, the absence of the 2022 contract termination settlement. These lower results were partly offset by the improvements in Mitigation Resources and North American Mining's earnings as well as lower unallocated employee-related expenses and higher other investment income. The Coal Mining second quarter 2023 operating profit and segment adjusted EBITDA decreased significantly compared with the second quarter 2022, primarily due to the substantial decrease in Mississippi Lignite Mining Company results as well as lower earnings at the unconsolidated operations. These declines were partly offset by lower employee-related costs. A decrease in Mississippi Lignite Mining Company results was driven by a significant increase in the cost per ton sold due to the inefficiencies and additional costs incurred to establish the new mine area J.C. mentioned, a $1.8 million write-down of on-site coal inventory to net realizable value also contributed to the significant increase in the cost per ton. A number of factors contributed to the lower earnings of unconsolidated operations compared with 2022. Coteau earnings decreased due to lower volumes and pricing, Falkirk earnings declined due to lower customer requirements and a decrease in the per ton management fee and Sabine earnings decreased because coal deliveries ceased on March 31 and mine reclamation activities commenced on April 1.…

Thank you very much. I'll close with just a few reminders. A replay of our call will be available later this morning. We'll also post a transcript on the Investor Relations website when it becomes available. If you do have any questions, please reach out to me. You can reach me at the phone number on the press release. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day, and I'll turn the call to Josh to conclude the call.

Thank you. A digital recording of this conference will be available for replay in approximately 2 hours. The recording may be accessed until August 10, 2023 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. To access the recording, please dial 1-800 770-2030. Again, that's 1-800 770-2030 and enter the conference ID number to join the replay. Thank you very much. This does conclude today's call. You may now disconnect.+