Hallador Energy Co Q2 FY2021 Earnings Call

Good day, and welcome to the Hallador Energy Company Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Becky Palumbo of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to join us today. Yesterday afternoon, we filed our second quarter Form 10-Q and issued a press release containing certain financial metrics. Both documents are posted on our website. Today, we will discuss financial results and our perspective on market conditions and outlook. Following the prepared remarks, we will open up the call to your questions. As a reminder, some of our remarks today may include forward-looking statements that are subject to a variety of risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained in our filings from time to time with the SEC. While these forward-looking statements are based on information currently available, if one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize or if our underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those we projected or expected. In providing these remarks, we have no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise required by law to do so. With us today are Brent Bilsland, our President and CEO; and Larry Martin, our CFO. And with the required preliminaries out of the way, Larry can begin the financial overview.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm going to go over the review of our operating results. And before I do, I want to get a couple of definitions out of the way. We define free cash flow as net income plus deferred income taxes, depreciation, depletion and amortization, accretion on our reclamation obligation, changes in fair value of hedges and stock compensation, less maintenance CapEx and the effects of our equity method investments. We define adjusted EBITDA as earnings before income taxes, depreciation, amortization and interest plus stock compensation, our accretion on reclamation obligations and change in fair value of hedges, less the effects of our equity method investments in Hourglass Sands. Our net loss for the quarter was $3 million or $0.10 a share and net loss for the year-to-date is $4 million or $0.13 a share. We had free cash flow of $6.4 million for the quarter and $11.8 million year-to-date. Our adjusted EBITDA was $11.3 million for the second quarter, $22.7 million for the 6 months ended. We decreased our bank debt by $5.9 million for the quarter and by $7.6 million for the year. Our bank debt at June 30 was $130.1 million. Our net debt was $127.5 million. And our debt-to-EBITDA leverage ratio was 2.76x. I will now turn the call over to Brent Bilsland to talk about our operating results and the rest of the year.

Thank you. 2021 will be known as one of the most dramatic turnarounds for coal markets in decades. During the first quarter, cold weather brought power demand, but also weather-related shipment delays. Shipment delays experienced in the first quarter continued for several weeks into the second quarter to the point we slowed our coal production due to elevated inventories at the mines. Throughout the quarter, shipments improved and both our inventory levels as well as our customers' inventory levels declined. In July, we saw pricing significantly improve, and we were able to sell an additional 500,000 tons during the quarter. We are currently entering a period of time where if you can produce it, you can sell it. We are working diligently to increase production to our maximum output, but tight labor markets may delay the velocity at which we increase production. During Q2, shipments improved to a 5.6 million ton annualized pace from a 4.7 million annualized pace in the first quarter. We expect shipments in the last half of 2021 to run in excess of 7 million tons annualized pace. Thus, we expect to ship 1 million more tons in the last half of 2021 versus the first half, representing a 40% increase in shipments. Coal inventory was reduced by $1.7 million during the quarter as a result of the slowed production and increased shipments. Slow production did elevate Q2's production cost to $32.20 per ton, a $1.26 per ton increase over the second quarter of 2020. Oaktown's costs were up only slightly at $27.85 for Q2 of '21 versus $27.68 for Q2 of 2020. As Larry said, we generated $9.9 million of operating cash flow and paid down our bank debt by $5.9 million, increased shipments and an expected drawdown on our inventory later this year will generate strong cash flow, which we will use to continue to reduce our debt load. During the quarter, Hallador was able to reduce bank debt by $5.9 million and maintain $26.5 million in liquidity. Our leverage ratio decreased slightly to 2.76x at the end of the period. On July 23, we received a notification from our lender that the SBA approved our PPP loan forgiveness application for the entire PPP loan balance of $10 million, together with interest accrued thereon. The forgiveness of the PPP loan will be recognized during the company's third fiscal quarter ending September 30, as a reduction in liabilities and an increase in net income. Looking at the markets, gas prices have dramatically increased. And we talked previously that gas is a competitor to coal and in 2020 averaged $1.99, the lowest average in over 2 decades. As of April 27, we saw gas prices average $3.01. As of August, we've seen it improve even further to $3.70. We've witnessed the same increases in price in the export market. As of April 27, API 4, the Asian marker for the third quarter of 2021 was at $86 a ton. By August 2, the balance of the year shipments had improved to $130 per metric ton. Same for the API 2 marker, April 27, third quarter was $74 per metric ton. By August 2, balance of the year shipments had improved to $130 a ton. As we mentioned, this significant improvement in markets allowed us to add 500,000 contracted tons to our position during the quarter, and we expect to add tons later in the year for 2022 and beyond at significantly better pricing. The Hoosier transaction. On June 1, we announced we joined with Hoosier Energy Rural Electric Cooperative to develop up to 1,000 megawatts of renewable power. The new generation will be located near the Merom Coal Generation Station in Sullivan, Indiana, which Hoosier Energy expects to retire in May of '23. The plan calls for Hallador to develop approximately 200 megawatts of energy from solar and battery storage through power purchase agreements with Hoosier in 2025. Hallador will seek other customers to develop the remaining 800 megawatts of generation capacity at Merom in future years. We are excited about the opportunity of this platform as it provides our customers and ourselves the opportunity to transition to renewable power and for Hallador to make investments in the renewable space for decades to come. In the short run, there will be little financial activity from this platform until the Merom Coal Generation Station retires, which is not expected until 2023. In the long run, the Merom interconnection is capable of supporting up to $1 billion of solar investment, and we estimate an additional $2 billion of battery investment. Hallador plans to act as the developer of such projects and bring in equity sponsors to project finance these projects as they move forward. At our last quarterly call, we spent some time discussing how trading multiples of coal producers had declined from an enterprise value of 7.1x EBITDA in 2017 to roughly half of that multiple today, in large part because of investor angst over the trend towards the greening of the electric grid. And although we continue to believe this transition will take much longer than the 14 years politicians are targeting, we are thrilled to now have a renewable energy platform in which to invest our free cash flow for decades to come. Over time, Hallador's earnings will come from greener sources as the grid and our customers transition. Today, Hallador trades at an EV of less than 4x EBITDA, while ESG-related companies trade at enterprise values of over 50x EBITDA. So we see great potential in the value add for the shareholders of Hallador Energy, as investments in our renewable platform take root over the coming years. With that, I'll open up the call for questions.

Our first question comes from Ross Berger from Turnaround Capital.

I would like to know what your expected incremental EBITDA margins will be for the additional tons you're planning to sell in the second half. I've noticed that your margins have decreased due to lower production this quarter compared to the last quarter. Additionally, the market seems disappointed with the earnings, as the stock is down about 13% today. Could you provide some reassurance about the future outlook for EBITDA margins?

So with the production, we'll need to deliver the 3.5 million tons in the second half, our margin should return to the $10 to $12 range that we're used to getting when our sales are $6 million plus production.

Yes, I believe the third quarter will be excellent for us. We're seeing shipments at an annualized pace exceeding 7 million tons. This is due to running our production at full capacity as we hire more staff. An increase in tons leads to a decrease in our cost per ton, which in turn widens our margins. The market has noted headlines regarding price increases, but it's important to recognize that significant price movement occurred mainly in July, which falls in the third quarter. The first half of the second quarter saw slow shipments, which is why the improvement we've observed is so notable. As shipments have improved and inventory has decreased, we've seen a significant rise in shipments. Earlier in the year, we had higher inventory levels, which we were pleased about, anticipating price improvements and increased sales in the latter half of the year. The recent strength of sales has surpassed our expectations. Analyzing the second quarter alone, we experienced slow shipments under legacy contracts and reduced production because our inventory levels were high. As those inventory levels have dropped and shipments have improved, we began to ramp up production, and now we are operating at full capacity. If we can produce it, we can sell it, which is leading to a rise in pricing, some of which will be reflected in the latter half of this year and into next year.

Can you give us an idea of the price increases you're talking about per ton because I guess is it above the $40 that you're historically selling at over the past few quarters?

We have observed around 40% price appreciation since March, growing from the low 30s to the mid-40s for next year, and possibly even higher. The situation is evolving rapidly, making it challenging to accurately assess the extent of the price increase, which might be even greater. We are still trying to understand this with our customers, as we are in a unique phase; in my 17 years in this industry, this is only the third time I've witnessed something like this. The pricing has shown a significant upward trend. Export pricing was strong early in the year and continues to improve, but the domestic market did not respond until significantly in July. This is a relatively recent development. The market is starting to return to the coal sector. While there have been headlines about coal plant retirements, not much attention has been given to the production retirements. As the market begins to depend more on coal, it is relying on an industry that is much smaller than before. For instance, in Indiana, we estimate that 15 million tons of production that existed a year ago is no longer available. This reduction in supply is positive for achieving higher prices. We are trying to gauge how high and how rapidly this market will rise, as are many others in the industry.

Realize these large price increases that we are talking about are for 2022 and beyond because we hedge most of our tons and all of our tons except for a few hundred thousand tons were priced before we came into the top market in June and July.

Do you still benefit from the additional tons that you're selling? You should be able to make money at $40 if that's your hedge point. Are these additional tons you are selling hedged or unhedged?

I think what we're saying is, is that for 2021, we're pretty much sold out at this point and pricing is going to be pretty much in that $39 range is what we're going to average. We think that for 2022, we will see that average price move up into the 40s for all tons.

Closer to what the market is what you're saying? If the market is in the mid-40s, this 40% price appreciation that you're talking about in the market is something that you'll be able to achieve in 2022?

No. What we're saying is, if we've got 5 million tons sold for next year, we're trying to figure out are we going to produce 6.5 million, are we going to produce 7 million tons in 2022. That's going to be dependent upon labor. The market can support that demand. So our pricing is already set on 5 million tons. We're trying to figure out what the pricing is on the remaining 1.5 million to 2 million tons and how much higher that will move our average price.

The next question comes from Andrew Lo from Hallmark Investment Corp.

Could you provide some insight on the potential effects of technological advancements and carbon capture and sequestration? I noticed that the current infrastructure bill has allocated $10 billion for research in that area. Does this offer us any prospects for alleviating the impact of environmental considerations in the future?

Yes. I think it's very important for the U.S. government and all governments as they focus on reducing carbon, that really can't be done on a global scale without carbon capture because you've got China and India still building coal-fired power plants today, brand-new plants, some are under construction as we speak. We've seen in the last 3 years, the United States reduced coal-fired generation by 118 gigawatts, and you've seen the rest of the world build 121 gigawatts. So coal demand has gone up, not down from a global perspective. So in the United States, we're saying, well, gosh, we've got to put some money into carbon capture and figure this out to get the rest of the world to buy into this technology eventually. So we think you'll see several carbon capture projects in the United States. It's a little hard to say where. I think one of them, like Duke Energy's Edwardsport plant, would be a very good candidate for that, which is right in our backyard. But it's a little early to speculate on bills that haven't passed yet and what the exact ramifications of that are. But certainly, money towards carbon capture is helpful to the industry and could be very meaningful.

The next question comes from Lucas Pipes from B. Riley Securities.

This is actually Matt Key here asking a question for Lucas. Just a quick one for me today. Are you experiencing any cost inflation related to higher raw material prices or kind of increased labor costs? And so, how do you expect that to kind of impact your operations in the second half of 2021?

Yes, it's a good question. We have noticed some inflation in areas like roof bolts due to rising steel prices. However, we have not yet experienced this in labor costs, despite the challenges of hiring in a tight market. We are curious to see how things unfold, especially with additional federal unemployment funds expiring on September 6, unless there's an extension. We are observing that some young individuals who have been receiving these funds are starting to consider job interviews as the deadline approaches. We are noticing more activity from those who have been accepting these funds, realizing they need to get back into the job market. When it comes to inflationary pressure, it can be difficult to distinguish what will be permanent versus temporary. Factors such as reopening, transportation issues, and shortages contribute to the complexity. We don't believe steel prices will remain at current levels, so we don't anticipate this as a long-term price increase. Our goal is to hire more people without significantly raising our labor costs. We are trying to grow our workforce carefully to avoid making permanent changes to our cost structure. So far, most of the cost increases appear to be short-term, likely within a six-month timeframe. We'll assess whether this continues beyond that. We expect these costs to be outweighed by sales gains. As we've mentioned, we've experienced substantial price increases over the last four months, especially in the last 30 days, and we're looking to capitalize on that. I believe our cash flow in the latter half of the year will be significantly stronger than in the first half. We plan to use this improved cash flow to pay down debt, leading to notable deleveraging of our company. That is the trend you can expect from us in 2021.

There are no more questions in the queue. This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brent Bilsland for any closing remarks.

Well, I just want to thank everyone for taking the time to join our call today. And we look forward to a very strong back half of 2021. Thank you.

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