Greetings. Welcome to the Alpha Metallurgical Resources third quarter 2026 results conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Emily O'Quinn, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Communications. You may begin.
Thank you, Rob. Good morning, everyone. Before we get started, let me remind you that during our prepared remarks, our comments regarding anticipated business and financial performance contain forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from those discussed. For more information regarding forward-looking statements and some of the factors that can affect them, please refer to the company's third quarter 2026 earnings release and the associated SEC filing. Please also see those documents for information about our use of non-GAAP measures and their reconciliation to GAAP measures. On the call today, I am joined by Alpha's Chief Executive Officer, Andy Eidson, and Chief Financial Officer, Todd Munsey, who will provide prepared remarks. Also participating on the call are our President and Chief Operating Officer, Jason Whitehead, and our Chief Commercial Officer, Dan Horn. Following the prepared remarks, we will be available to answer questions.
With that, I will turn the call over to Andy.
Thanks, Emily, and good morning, everyone. Today, we released our definitive third quarter financial results, which include adjusted EBITDA of $29.4 million and 3.9 million tons shipped. Our third quarter volumes improved compared to the first two quarters of the year, which were 3.6 million tons and 3.5 million tons respectively. Cost pressures continue to influence our financial results, and we remain committed to managing these cost challenges and continually evaluating the portfolio against the needs of the metallurgical coal market. Speaking of the market, we have completed our annual budgeting process that culminates in the operational guidance expectations we issue today. I will let Todd cover those in detail, but it is important to note that our 2027 guidance reflects current expectations for the coming calendar year, which includes our analysis of potential financial impacts and 2027 terminal capabilities at DTA in Newport News.
Following the storm-related damage that occurred in June, DTA management has worked diligently to keep operations moving and collaborate with the various parties about potential go-forward plans. As a result of these conversations, DTA believes the stacker reclaimer, referred to as SR1, will need to be replaced as opposed to repaired. They've been in close contact with DTA's insurance provider about covering the replacement cost, as well as potentially certain other expenses incurred due to the damage. As such, it's important to note that we do not anticipate significant capital outlays in association with the stacker reclaimer replacement process. As far as timing is concerned, a total replacement of the stacker reclaimer would be a fully custom build, requiring specialized design, engineering, construction, and installation. Such work will likely require a lengthy timeline, with current estimates in the two-year ballpark.
This is why we've worked so hard to establish a logistical framework that minimizes the disruption to our sales and logistics processes, and allows us to keep coal moving to our customers while DTA addresses the damaged stacker reclaimer. This includes a plan to also utilize our throughput capacity at other Hampton Roads terminal in addition to DTA. As evidenced by our more normalized third quarter shipment volumes, we're optimistic about our ability to move all the tons we need to in 2027 and beyond. As we look to next year, our guidance includes 3.5 million tons that we plan to sell to domestic customers in 2027, at an average price of $135.48 per ton. We're pleased to announce the results of the domestic negotiations, which are fixed-price annual contracts.
Each year's negotiation is a little different depending on the market backdrop and a variety of factors. For example, high vol made up a greater proportion of our 2027 domestic quality mix than in 2026, which influences the average price achieved for the total domestic book. All in all, we're pleased with these commitments. We look forward to building the rest of our 2027 sales around opportunities in the seaboard market. As usual, our teams are doing great work throughout the Alpha organization, and several operations have received recognition for their efforts. On the environmental front, our Paramount team in Virginia was recently honored with three Excellence in Mining Awards from the Metallurgical Coal Producers Association. Virginia Energy also awarded them with three safety awards at their recent ceremony.
Both of Alpha's mine rescue teams continue stacking wins as well, including first and second place finishes across many categories of competition in the National Mine Rescue Contest that was held in August. We're extremely proud of our Paramount team that earned the top honor of National Grand Champion this year with a perfect score for the competition. These miners continually train, practice, and challenge themselves so they're prepared to respond when their skills are needed. Congratulations to all those team members. I'll now turn the call over to Todd for a review of our financial results for the third quarter.
Thanks, Andy. Good morning, everyone. Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter was $29.4 million, up from $25.6 million in the second quarter. We sold 3.9 million tons in Q3, up from 3.5 million tons in Q2. Met segment realizations increased quarter-over-quarter, with an average realization of $121.09 in the third quarter, compared to $118.71 in the second quarter. Export met tons priced against Atlantic indices and other pricing mechanisms in the third quarter realized $107.03 per ton, while export coal priced on the Australian indices realized $150.46 per ton. These results are compared to realizations of $109.08 per ton and $143.82 per ton, respectively, in the second quarter.
The realization for our metallurgical sales in the third quarter was a total weighted average of $124.52 per ton, roughly flat against the second quarter average of $124.30 per ton. Realizations in the incidental thermal portion of the met segment were also essentially flat quarter-over-quarter at $79.44 per ton in Q3, compared to $79.36 per ton in Q2. Cost of coal sales for our met segment increased to $106.93 per ton in the third quarter, up from $103.07 per ton in the second quarter. SG&A, excluding non-cash stock compensation and non-recurring items, increased to $15 million in the third quarter, compared to $13.7 million in the second quarter.
Moving to the balance sheet and cash flows, as of September 30th, we had $334.1 million in cash and cash equivalents, as compared to $338.5 million of cash and short-term investments as of June 30th. We had $184.3 million in unused availability under our ABL at the end of the third quarter, partially offset by a minimum required liquidity of $75 million. As of the end of September, Alpha had total liquidity of $443.4 million, down slightly from $447.8 million at the end of June. CapEx for the third quarter was $33.8 million, down from $45.1 million in Q2. Cash provided by operating activities was $46.9 million in the third quarter, up from $39.9 million in the second quarter. As of September 30th, our ABL facility had no borrowings and $40.7 million of letters of credit outstanding.
Looking ahead, we issued 2027 operational guidance this morning. For sales volumes, we expect to ship between 13.1 million and 14.1 million metallurgical tons, as well as another 1.2 million tons to 1.6 million tons of incidental thermal coal, bringing total 2027 shipment expectations to a range of 14.3 million tons to 15.7 million tons for the year. For 2027 cost of coal sales, we are guiding to a range of $104 per ton -$110 per ton. Selling general administrative costs are expected to be between $53 million and $59 million in 2027, excluding non-recurring expenses and non-cash stock compensation. Idle expense is expected to be between $25 million and $33 million. We anticipate 2027 net cash interest income of between $2 million and $4 million, and depreciation, depletion, and amortization of $148 million-$162 million.
Capital expenditures, including carryover, development, and maintenance capital, are expected to be in the range of $145 million-$165 million. Contributions to equity affiliates are expected to be in the range of $28 million-$37 million, which include cash contributions for DTA. Lastly, we are projecting a 2027 cash tax rate of between 0% and 5%. In terms of our committed position for 2026, at the midpoint of guidance, 87% of our metallurgical tonnage in the met segment is committed and priced at an average price of $126.69 per ton. Another 12% of our met tonnage for the year is committed, but not yet priced. The thermal byproduct portion of the met segment is fully committed and priced at the midpoint of guidance at an average price of $76.06 per ton.
Coal markets remain subject to uncertainty and volatility resulting from geopolitical conflicts and global economic conditions. Improving indicators in manufacturing conditions across key Alpha markets suggest that economic conditions are stable, with almost all in growth territory. While global steel demand remains weak, supply-related factors such as mine closure announcements temporarily influenced metallurgical coal indices to rise toward the end of the third quarter, with further volatility continuing after the quarter close. The Australian Premium Low Vol Index increased from $244 per metric ton on July 1st to $272.10 per metric ton on September 30th. The U.S. East Coast Low Vol Index rose from $190 per metric ton at the beginning of the quarter to $210 per metric ton by the end of September.
The U.S. East Coast High Vol A Index increased from $157 per metric ton at the start of the quarter to $195 per metric ton at the quarter's close. The U.S. East Coast High Vol B Index rose from $147 per metric ton to $170 per metric ton at the end of the quarter. Since then, the Australian Premium Low Vol Index has decreased from $272.10 per metric ton to $262.20 per metric ton as of November 5th , representing a drop of roughly 4% since quarter close. U.S. East Coast Low Vol is unchanged from quarter close at $210 per ton. U.S. East Coast High Vol A has declined about 3% to $190 per ton, while High Vol B has risen slightly to $174.50 per ton as of November 5th.
In the seaborne thermal market, the API2 index was $115.50 per metric ton at the beginning of July and increased to $141.40 per metric ton at the end of September. Since then, the API2 index has moved down to $136.30 per metric ton as of November 5th. With that, operator, we are now ready to open the call for questions.
Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from George Eadie with UBS. Your line is now live.
Yeah, good morning, team. Thanks for the update today. Can I ask on the cost front, cash costs only 2% higher year-on-year at midpoint, even if I adjust for marginally higher midpoint sales volumes. Can you maybe just talk through what goes into that and sort of potential cost sensitivities to things like diesel? I guess it sort of seems like a very low year-on-year cost increase given a lot in this sector are talking about a lot of input and broader sort of cost pressures. Thank you.
Hey, George. This is Andy. Appreciate the question. We are actually pretty pleased with where our cost guidance is coming out for next year, although it is up a bit. We have really seen the vast majority of the input cost impacts have already found their way into the system for us. So again, we would hope that there would be some relief on the diesel side. Hopefully, that situation gets resolved sometime in the near future, and even then, it will take a while to work its way through the system. But we are not saying that the input cost increases have flatlined, but the rate of increase has tailed back quite a bit. Once you bake in the impact of the diesel and all the oil adjuncts, I think currently our run rate is pretty well reflective of that.
Next year, we do not see a material amount of increase from there.
What diesel price did you assume in guidance for 2027, Andy?
Off the top of my head, I do not know. I think it was low- to mid-fives on a per-gallon cost.
No, and then, like, what is the sensitivity if you were to sort of estimate ballpark per ton on your cash cost guidance? If that went back to sort of, say, mid-threes, what is the potential reduction in cash cost?
Well, I will leave you to do the math on that, but we do run in the low 20 million gallons of diesel across all operations. So, 20 million gallons to 22 million gallons. So you could figure what the sensitivity is on that across all the tons.
Okay. Yeah, that's perfect. No, thank you. Just one more, sort of getting back to the 16 million ton per annum levels, can you talk through how that looks and if DTA being down for the two-year ballpark you guys flagged is a constraint? Or I guess another way of asking was if markets got a lot stronger next year, could you push beyond that 15.7 million tons upper end, do you think? Or what is the constraining limit to higher volumes for you guys at the moment?
Yeah, I mean, DTA obviously will be a constraint. Our sales and logistics teams have done a really nice job, as I mentioned in the prepared comments. They've done a nice job of finding flexibility and optionality with other export terminal access. So, there will be a point in which we can't expand any further. I'm not going to throw out a number for that because, again, the team is pretty creative in finding new paths to get tons where we need them to go. But I think we're comfortable with our current run rate. I don't think there's a huge amount of upside to that. We're going to need the terminals to operate well. We're going to need the railroads to perform well to hit all of our numbers the way we want to. But I think we're going to be able to get there.
It's not going to look that different year-over-year, compared to 2026. From a quality perspective, it's going to look a little bit different because, again, I think we are moving around, and as has been our plan, we are shifting, as a lot of other folks are. We've been working on a multi-year plan to shift more of our production from higher-ranked coals, from the low vol and mid vol, and a little bit less on the high vol side. So that'll continue to develop. But I think logistically, all of that fits pretty well into what we've got planned for 2027.
All right. That's helpful. Thanks, guys. Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Nick Giles with B. Riley Securities. Your line is now live.
Yeah, thanks, operator. Good morning, guys. It was good to hear that there's more high vol coal in the domestic mix, which I assume leaves more low vol coals to send into the seaborne market. So I was wondering if you could just quantify that mix shift, maybe how many incremental tons of low vol would you be able to send export next year? Thank you.
Yeah, good morning, Nick. I'll throw that one over to Dan. That one's definitely, he's got the numbers at his fingertips there.
Thanks, Andy, and hey, Nick. Let's start by saying that the high vol that moved into the domestic market, that is coal that is, let's say, a little lower value coal, and that was reflected in the overall comments that we had there and the pricing. As we ramp- up the low vol mine, our new Wildcat mine, it is kind of dynamic. You cannot really compare our portfolio in 2026 to what it is going to look like in 2027. As Wildcat ramps- up, we will have more low vol available. Broadly speaking, at this moment, that is all available for the seaborne market, but we have had a lot of interest in the domestic market too, as it ramps- up.
I will not give you a number, but it is several hundred thousand tons at least that would be available to go seaborne easily, as well as our usual mix of high vol and quite a bit of medium vol, which is always sought after.
Got it. Okay. No, thanks for that, Dan. I mean, any sense for how much of that would be PLV linked, or I guess, kind of what do the commercial discussions look like today in terms of getting more tons sold on a PLV basis?
Yeah, I do not have I will say this. There is quite a bit of interest from customers that we would sell against the Aussie indices, but I cannot quantify that. The Wildcat coal is a premium coal that will achieve a premium to a lot of other U.S. low vols, we think. So, whether we sell it against an Aussie index or very strongly against a U.S. East Coast index, I mean, we are happy. We focus on the net return, not just the index.
Makes sense. I appreciate that. Maybe just shifting gears to the stacker reclaimer. It's good to hear that you feel like that's fully covered from an insurance perspective. But how should we think about the timing of those insurance reimbursements versus any capital outlays that may be required? Or said differently, is there a scenario where you might have to invest in the new stacker reclaimer and kind of wait a few quarters for the insurance reimbursements to come in?
Yeah, I think it's probably a little too early to comment on that one, Nick. I don't expect there to be too much of a sequencing problem from that respect, certainly not a multi-quarter type of reimbursement gap. Obviously, you may have a few weeks or a few months, but we're pretty pleased with how our insurance or how DTA's insurance carriers responded thus far. They've been very helpful and constructive in helping us move along this process relatively quickly. So, yeah, I don't expect an impact, but again, it's probably too early in the process to be making too many prognostications there.
Okay. No, fair enough, Andy. Maybe just one last one for me on the capital allocation front. Would just be good to get an update on what you're seeing among your kind of smaller peers in Central App. Are there any opportunities out there to pick up some tons at a discount, or have you heard any rumblings of kind of more capacity that's come offline?
Really not in a position to comment on any of those folks. I mean, they'll have to speak for themselves. As we've always taken the position, we look at anything and everything. We want things to be a good strategic fit. If things are available, we want it to be either, well, not either, but a combination of geographically synergistic, quality synergistic, and accretive from a financial standpoint. And those boxes, all three boxes are kind of hard to check right now when you look around the chessboard. But there are some things out there that we can look at. But again, we're really focused on managing our own portfolio, particularly in markets like this, making sure that we're optimizing our outcomes and optimizing both the productivity and the profitability of the portfolio.
Okay. Well, guys, I appreciate the update and continued best of luck.
Thanks, Nick.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our next question comes from Nathan Martin with StoneX. Your line is now live.
Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone. I had a question on DTA as well. I mean, just given the fact that you said the repair replacement timeline could be extended into a year or two, just curious, do you see any opportunity to improve logistics or lower transportation or port costs in the meantime?
In the meantime, before we get to a repaired DTA, probably not. I mean, that's more of a focus on just getting the tons moved where we can as best we can. On the other side of DTA and during the repair, could there be some opportunities? Yeah, I mean, anytime you're looking at older equipment that's going to have to be replaced for any reason, you hope to find some opportunities to improve things, whether it's from a throughput capacity standpoint or from a cost reduction. That will That's for future conversations as we actually get into the nuts and bolts of mechanically fixing and replacing the SR1.
All right. Understood, Andy. Appreciate that. Then maybe looking at CapEx for 2027, guidance felt roughly flat year-over-year. I noticed an updated slide in your deck with kind of the breakdown there, but if you can provide a little more detail around the development projects you plan to spend capital on in 2027, because I see that kind of ticked up a little bit there.
Yeah, some of that is related to existing operations. We do have some refuse impoundment needs in Virginia that will obviously extend the life and help with managing the waste cost at the McClure prep plant where Deep Mine 41 is handled. That's obviously something that we're very focused on. Likewise, some potential work at the Kepler prep plant, where Road Fork 52 reports. Road Fork 52, Deep Mine 41 definitely being at the top of our list as far as the portfolio mines that we have. Any other development, we're looking at other, or kind of our next projects, which are a little bit longer dated, two, three years out.
Just doing a little bit of prospective work there, not necessarily committing to a project, but making sure things are moving to the extent where if we want to pursue a project, we're not losing any time. Not a whole lot to report on that just yet.
All right. Appreciate that. Then maybe a final question for Dan. Dan, how should we think about the quality mix of what you guys have left to sell here for 2026? I think you're roughly 80% committed in price at the midpoint of guidance. So seemingly a few tons left to put to bed. How should we think about that as we head to the end of the year?
Yeah, Nate, probably the typical blend, maybe a little heavier with the low vol as Wildcat ramps- up, we're producing a little more of that. So, I don't think probably the same roughly blend. Still a fair half high vol maybe, and maybe the rest mid and low, something like that.
All right, great.
But again, with low going forward, I'm sorry, going forward, more low. Our plan is, and it will happen, that we're going to have more low vol in our mix and more medium vol as we go forward. That's certainly the plan, and we'll have less high vol. But the rest of the year is pretty well known. It's right in front of us.
All right. Understood. Appreciate the time. Good luck in the fourth quarter.
Thank you.
Thanks, Nate.
We have reached the end of the question- and- answer session. I would now turn the call over to Andy Eidson for closing remarks.
Well, thanks everyone for dialing into the call and checking in online. We appreciate your interest in Alpha, and we hope you all have a great weekend.
This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.