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Earnings Call: Q1 2022

May 3, 2022

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the CONSOL Energy first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Nathan Tucker, Director of Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Nathan Tucker
Director of Finance and Investor Relations, CONSOL Energy Inc.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to CONSOL Energy's first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Any forward-looking statements or comments we make about future expectations are subject to some risks, certain of which we have outlined in our press release and in our SEC filings and are considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. We do not undertake any obligation of updating any forward-looking statements for future events or otherwise. We will also be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures, which are defined and reconciled to comparable GAAP financial measures in our press release and furnished to the SEC on Form 8-K, which is also posted on our website. Additionally, we filed our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2022 with the SEC this morning.

You can find additional information regarding the company on our website, www.consolenergy.com, which includes a supplemental slide deck that was posted this morning. On the call with me today are Jimmy Brock, our Chief Executive Officer, Mitesh Thakkar, our Chief Financial Officer, Dan Connell, our Senior Vice President of Strategy, and Bob Braithwaite, our Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales. In his prepared remarks, Jimmy will provide a recap of our key achievements during the first quarter of 2022 and specific insights on operations and sales. Mitesh will then provide an update on our liability management initiatives, financial performance, and 2022 guidance. In his closing comments, Jimmy will lay out our key priorities for the remainder of 2022. After their prepared remarks, there will be a Q&A session in which Dan and Bob will also participate.

With that, let me turn it over to our CEO, Jimmy Brock.

Jimmy Brock
CEO, CONSOL Energy Inc.

Thank you, Nate, and good morning, everyone. CONSOL Energy achieved very strong operational and financial performances in the first quarter of 2022 across all of our key business segments. The Pennsylvania Mining Complex shipped 6.5 million tons from its four available long walls in Q1 of 2022 and achieved the highest quarterly average coal revenue per ton sold since becoming an independent public company in 2017. After adjusting for the effects of settlements of commodity derivative instruments, we achieved a net realized sales price of nearly $60 per ton. Additionally, in the quarter, we increased our PAMC contracted position by approximately 5 million tons for 2023. The CONSOL Marine Terminal shipped 3.6 million tons in the quarter, generating its highest ever quarterly terminal revenue and adjusted EBITDA.

Financially, CEIX achieved a Q1 2022 adjusted EBITDA of $169 million and generated nearly $120 million in free cash flow. On the growth and diversification front, our Itmann project continues to progress as expected and remains on track for an expected startup in the second half of 2022. Given the strong market backdrop, we are very eager to complete this project and place our high-quality, low-vol met product into the marketplace. Let's now discuss our operational performance in more detail. Coal production at the Pennsylvania Mining Complex came in at 6.4 million tons in Q1 2022, an impressive accomplishment considering we produce from just four of our five long walls, as our fifth wall is still in development mode after pulling back in 2020.

Additionally, we benefited from moving past the operational challenges we encountered in the second half of 2021, and railroad performance steadily improved during the first quarter of 2022 as our transportation partners continued to increase their staffing levels. As a result, productivity at the PAMC in Q1 2022, measured as tons per employee hour, improved by 9% compared to Q4 2021, and we accomplished this while achieving a total recordable incident rate at the Pennsylvania Mining Complex of 0.52, our lowest at the PAMC since 1989 when the Bailey Mine was the only active operation. On the cost front, our PAMC average cash cost of coal sold per ton for Q1 2022 was $29.91, despite incurring ongoing development costs associated with the fifth long wall and continued inflationary pressures on goods and services.

The development of the fifth long wall continues to progress as expected and will enhance our production optionality once completed later this year. The CONSOL Marine Terminal had a throughput volume of 3.6 million tons during Q1 2022, compared to 4.1 million tons in the prior year period. Despite lower throughput volumes, terminal revenue for the quarter came in at $21.4 million, a significant increase over $18.2 million in Q1 2021, as the throughput rate per ton was substantially improved due to increased export demand and commodity pricing strength. CMT operating cash cost came in at $5.9 million for the quarter, compared to $5.3 million in Q1 2021. This resulted in CMT adjusted EBITDA of $14.5 million in Q1 2022, compared to $12 million in the prior year period.

Lastly, on the operations side, our Itmann project continued to progress as expected and on track in the quarter, with preparation plant commissioning and scale up to full run rate production expected during the second half of 2022. Relocation of the existing prep plant to the Itmann site is proceeding on schedule. Disassembly of the existing plant is complete and roughly 80% of the structure and equipment have been transported to the Itmann site. The main plant building foundations are complete with structural steel erections, plant circuitry installation, and new rail siding and mainline construction activities well underway. Additionally, we have continued to build out our workforce and mining equipment fleet in preparation for full production ramp-up. The Itmann mine produced approximately 44,000 tons of low-vol metallurgical coal on a clean coal equivalent basis and sold 19,000 tons in Q1 of 2022.

We have continued our marketing efforts to introduce Itmann to both domestic and international customers, and it has been well-received. As such, the Itmann product is scheduled for its first export shipment through our CONSOL Marine Terminal in the second quarter, and we are engaged in discussions regarding domestic trials of the product as well. We remain very optimistic that there will be strong and sustained demand for this product, both domestically and internationally. On the marketing front, the demand for our product remained elevated in the first quarter of 2022 due to the ongoing supply tightness across the energy landscape and improvements in the commodity markets as a whole.

As such, we sold 6.5 million tons at an average realized coal revenue per ton of $59.60 in Q1 2022, compared to 6.9 million tons at $41.39 in the year ago period. Looking across the broader coal market, we expect coal demand to remain robust domestically as well as internationally due to tight supply. As such, we have witnessed elevated commodity prices across the board. Domestically, Henry Hub natural gas spot prices averaged $4.67 per million BTU, and PJM West day-ahead power prices averaged approximately $56 per megawatt hour in the quarter, which are some of the highest quarterly levels we've seen since becoming a standalone public company. Internationally, prices have continued their upward trend, with the API2 prices averaging $234 per ton during Q1 of 2022.

Although API2 prices have been elevated, they have remained extremely volatile, propped up by the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. We saw API2 prices bounce from the mid-100s in late February to over $400 per ton by early March. While we saw a retreat from those highs at the end of the first quarter, pricing has remained elevated due to increasing ban on Russian energy. Most recently, the European Union announced a ban on Russian coal imports, and it is expected that this dynamic, coupled with supply constraints, will extend the duration of the current market tightness as the UK looks to secure alternative energy supplies. Additionally, in the export market, we are excited to announce that we sold our first cargo into Turkey during the first quarter. In the midst of this market strength, we secured additional sales contracts.

We remain nearly fully contracted for 2022 and have 16.3 million tons contracted for 2023. Let me pass the call over to Mitesh Thakkar to provide an update on our financial performance in the quarter.

Mitesh Thakkar
CFO, CONSOL Energy Inc.

Thank you, Jimmy, and good morning, everyone. First, let me provide a quick update on the ongoing progress we have made on our key financial priorities. We have continued to take advantage of strong market fundamentals to accelerate our stated financial goals of maximizing free cash flow, reducing total debt, and boosting liquidity. First, it starts with maximizing our free cash flow generation. In 1Q22, we generated $118 million of free cash flow, which is 63% of our full year 2021 level. Strong market or not, we have consistently generated positive free cash flow in each year. Since the start of 2018, we have generated more than $700 million in free cash flow. This has been the driving force behind our financial execution. Second, we continue to make strides on our overall debt reduction goal.

In 1Q22, we made total debt payments and repurchases of approximately $39 million, which included $25 million of open market repurchases of our outstanding second lien notes. We have now made total debt repayments of more than $500 million since the beginning of 2018. While we are certainly pleased with our debt reduction efforts, there is some more work to do on this front, and we plan to use ongoing strength in the commodity markets to rightsize our balance sheet and provide additional financial flexibility in the coming quarters.

As such, I'm pleased to announce that we made a $25 million discretionary payment on our Term Loan B at the end of April that is not reflected in our first quarter results. Third, our cash balance increased by more than $70 million during 1Q22, bringing our total unrestricted cash and cash equivalents to $223 million at the end of March 2022. When accounting for our restricted cash of $46 million, our total cash balance sat at $269 million at quarter end. Fourth, we ended 1Q22 with a liquidity position of $459 million.

In the short term, while we prioritize completing our Itmann development spending, we expect to balance faster debt reduction with liquidity preservation as we look to refinance and right size our $400 million revolving credit facility maturing in 1Q23. Lastly, we reduced our net leverage ratio to just under 1x at the end of 1Q22. We are extremely excited by our progress, but also understand that as earnings improve, leverage ratios and strong commodity markets may not perfectly align with long-term mid-cycle debt reduction targets. To that extent, we expect to continue down the path of significant and accelerated debt reduction to a goal of approximately $300-$350 million of total debt, the majority of which consists of tax-exempt bonds and equipment financing.

In summary, over the last 24 months, we have demonstrated an utmost sense of urgency on liability risk mitigation efforts. I'm very pleased to note that since becoming public, through the combined efforts of the entire CONSOL team, we have never been in such a strong financial position based on leverage and liquidity as we are today. Furthermore, our revenue visibility and outlook remain very strong for the next 12-24 months given the commodity backdrop that Jimmy touched upon. With that, let me recap our first quarter financial results. We have seen significant volatility in the API2 market and its impacts on coal pricing in the first quarter of 2022. As you would expect, this has also impacted our net income.

In the first quarter of 2022, we recorded an additional $102 million of unrealized mark-to-market loss on commodity derivatives associated with our remaining API2 hedges for the balance of 2022, as well as $86 million in losses on the settlement of API2 hedges that concluded during the quarter. As we progress through the year, we expect that the volatility associated with these hedges will decline as settlements occur both on the physical and financial sides. The good news is we settled approximately 40% of our 2022 hedges in the first quarter, so our quarterly hedge volume exposure will be meaningfully reduced for the balance of the year compared to Q1. This morning we reported a very strong first quarter 2022 financial performance.

While the previously discussed unrealized mark-to-market loss on commodity derivatives drove a net loss of $4.5 million in the quarter, excluding these unrealized losses and the associated income tax effect would yield a net income of $72 million. Furthermore, adjusted EBITDA came in at $169.2 million, and we generated $118 million of free cash flow, primarily driven by $148.2 million of cash flow from operations and capital expenditures of $36.6 million. Now let me provide you with our updated outlook for 2022. For the PAMC, we are pleased to announce that due to a strong 1Q to 2Q performance and improved outlook, we are raising our expected average realized coal revenue guidance to a range of $58-$61 per ton, net of settlements of commodity derivatives.

Our updated guidance assumes PJM West day-ahead power forwards of $54 per MWh at the midpoint for 2Q through 4Q. For every $1 per MWh change in PJM West power prices, we estimate the weighted average realization across our entire portfolio for the full year of 2022 would change by approximately $0.12 per ton at the midpoint price. Additionally, for the PAMC, we are reaffirming our 2022 sales volume range of 23-25 million tons as the operations ran very well in the first quarter and transportation bottlenecks have gradually improved since the end of 2021. We are reaffirming our PAMC cash cost of coal sold guidance of $29-$31 per ton.

While ongoing inflationary pressures continue to create an upward push, our team has done a good job of managing our costs, and we were able to keep our 1Q22 cash cost slightly below the midpoint of our guidance range. However, given the challenges created by the current inflationary environment, this will clearly be a key focus for us to monitor and mitigate as we progress through the rest of 2022. For Itmann, our preparation plan project is progressing as expected, and we are reaffirming our guidance of a second half 2022 startup and our production guidance of 300-500,000 tons on a clean coal equivalent basis for 2022. We are working diligently to ensure the preparation plan starts as soon as possible.

We are encouraged by the progress and believe there is a potential to begin processing coal at some point in the third quarter of 2022. Finally, we are reaffirming our CEIX capital expenditure guidance range of $162 million-$195 million. This includes a modest increase in anticipated capital expenditures on our Itmann project to keep it on an accelerated schedule in the current labor and supply chain environment, offset by modest reductions in other business segments. While we are pleased with how 2022 is shaping up for us financially, we firmly believe that the future could be even brighter. As Jimmy mentioned, we are currently building a very strong book of business for 2023 and beyond, and we remain confident in achieving higher sales volumes from both the PAMC and from Itmann next year.

Furthermore, with our ongoing debt reduction trajectory, we expect to have lower debt servicing costs despite a rising interest rate environment. While changes in commodity prices are always a wild card, we expect that our financial flexibility and cash flow generation will be tremendous drivers of shareholder value creation in 2023 and beyond. With that, let me turn it back to Jimmy to touch on our key priorities for the rest of 2022.

Jimmy Brock
CEO, CONSOL Energy Inc.

Thank you, Mitesh. Our goals for the remainder of 2022 are fairly simple. First, we want to continue to take advantage of the ongoing strength in the coal markets to maximize our free cash flow generation. This entails maintaining the right priorities at our operations. We're always focused on our cash cost, and we will certainly do everything we can to mitigate inflationary pressures as much as possible. However, regardless of cost pressures, we will do what is needed to maintain our standards and ensure that we're running safely, compliantly, and efficiently. Second, from a sales perspective, we will remain opportunistic in our marketing strategy, balancing revenue visibility with market optionality as we continue to layer in additional business for 2023 and beyond. Third, we will continue to focus on strengthening our balance sheet and liquidity.

This has been an ongoing theme for us, but it is important from multiple standpoints. We obviously want to reduce our long-term total debt levels to better line up with reduced access to capital. From a strategic standpoint, less fixed cost in the business allows us the flexibility to be more selective and patient in our marketing strategy. The good news is that due to our strong Q1 2022 free cash flow generation and expectations for the rest of 2022, we are optimistic that we can accelerate this goal moving forward. Fourth, we are fully committed to executing our growth and diversification goals, the most immediate of which are getting our Itmann project up and running and restarting our fifth longwall at the PAMC as quickly as possible. Both are on target and both to add revenue growth and diversification.

The Itmann mine will give us an entirely new, low-vol met product stream, and the fifth longwall at the PAMC has lower sulfur, which will increase the potential for crossover met sales as well. Finally, we expect to be in a strong position to return capital to our shareholders in short order. In the near term, we are committed to finishing our capital investment and developing the Itmann project in optimizing our balance sheet priorities. With continued coal market strength and free cash flow generation, we expect to be in a position to do all of the above in the coming quarters. We have begun analyzing shareholder return options and have already started engaging with our shareholders around structural preferences. Stay tuned.

Before handing the call over, I'm pleased to announce that our 2021 corporate sustainability report will be released shortly, which will be our fifth since becoming an independent public company in 2017. Over the past 4+ years, we have worked diligently to evolve and fundamentally change the trajectory of our business with a focus on diversification and ESG responsibility. For example, we recently became one of the first coal companies to publicly commit to reducing our carbon footprint with a goal of a 50% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 2026 compared to 2019 baseline levels and net zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2040. We also are committed to diversifying our company and board of directors, and we have already committed to adding an ethnically diverse board member with the qualified skill sets.

We continue to make positive strides on our ESG goals and targets, and we're excited to share our progress in more detail once our report is released later this month. With that, I will now hand the call back over to Nate for further instructions.

Nathan Tucker
Director of Finance and Investor Relations, CONSOL Energy Inc.

Thank you, Jimmy. We will now move to the Q&A session of our call. At this time, I'd like to ask our operator to please provide the instructions to our callers.

Operator

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star then one on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speaker phone, we ask that you please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Today's first question comes from Lucas Pipes at B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

Lucas Pipes
Managing Director, B. Riley Securities

Thank you very much and good morning, everyone, and a nice start to the year. Just a few questions, mostly on the pricing side, and I wanna start with 2023. You put some additional tons to bed, and I wondered, could you share the mix between export and domestic of the tons that you sold since three months ago? Could you share the pricing, the netback, respectively on both the export and domestic tons? Thank you very much.

Bob Braithwaite
Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales, CONSOL Energy Inc.

Sure. Good morning, Lucas. This is Bob. If you recall last quarter, we said we had 11.4 million tons sold. The breakdown there was 7.4 domestic, of which 1.5 was related to power prices and 4 million tons of exports. If you recall, we said the pricing on those tons were slightly lower than our 2022 guidance at the time, so call it low fifties. Today, we have about 10.8 million tons of the 16.3 are domestic and 5.5 are export.

You know, based on where power and API2 futures are, you know, the average pricing on the total 16.3 million tons is in the mid-$60s. You know, good news for us is we certainly have a healthy contracted position for 2023, you know, being that we're not even halfway through 2022. Furthermore, you know, our plan today would be to run 5 long walls next year, which would imply that we've approximately call it, you know, 10 million tons, maybe even a little bit more left to sell for next year. You know, sitting here today based on where API2 futures are, I will tell you that I would expect majority of the additional volumes that we sell for next year will be into the export market.

As you can see where those prices, you know, basically net back today, every ton that we sell going forward, you know, again, my expectation is it will only improve our current average price for next year.

Lucas Pipes
Managing Director, B. Riley Securities

Very, very helpful. If I understand it right, you have about 10 million tons left to sell, and the majority of that will go export. If I were to say 8 million tons, if I were to assume that in my model, 8 million tons or so, going export of the ones you've left open, how would you walk me back to the net back? You're selling some into India, some into Europe. There's API4, API2. Rail rates have reportedly been rising. Can you help me kind of reconcile what we see on our screen in terms of API2, API4 prices to your net backs on 2023 forward year?

Bob Braithwaite
Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales, CONSOL Energy Inc.

Yeah. As you know, we're not really providing full pricing guidance for next year, but to kinda help you here, you know, I think we will have a mixture of tons into India and also tons into Europe next year. If you look at API2 prices today, you know, they call it $210, rough numbers for Cal 2023. You know, your net back to Bailey at that point in time is, call it, close to mid-100s. Call it 150, for sake of this discussion. And then obviously into India, it's more priced off the petcoke price. CFR India petcoke pricing today is, call it, mid-200s, which, you know, is slightly lower than what the API2 price would yield back. We'll obviously be subject to what the petcoke price is at that time.

You know, again, my expectations are that every time we sell moving forward, we'll continue to improve our 2023 pricing portfolio.

Lucas Pipes
Managing Director, B. Riley Securities

Very helpful. Thank you very much for that. Two more questions on unrelated topics. First, I do wanna turn to the natural gas market. We're back above $8 today on the Henry Hub. From a kind of industry perspective, what, if any, capacity is left domestically for gas to coal switching?

Bob Braithwaite
Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales, CONSOL Energy Inc.

Well, you know, here's what I can tell you, Lucas. You know, inventories across every utility we serve today, you know, are extremely low. I will tell you that pretty much every utility we serve are in the single digits at the end of April, which, you know, typically this is when utilities build inventory in preparation for summer. You know, I'll tell you that there are probably two main reasons why I will tell you coal burn is not higher on a percentage basis to date. One, you know, you've heard from many is that there are several lanes where logistics has been quite a bit of a challenge. I'll also tell you that, you know, many utilities are just simply under bought. I don't think anybody anticipated these gas prices getting to $8.

You know, we now have a handful of customers out looking for spot coal for the balance of this year. You probably saw this morning, Southern Company, one customer that we have in our portfolio, is out looking for additional volumes in 2022. You know, we've seen a handful of customers out looking for spot coal for the balance of this year. You know, I just don't think it's there. If you happen to have some spot coal to sell, well, now you're likely competing, you know, versus what the current export price is, which would be another challenge in itself for these domestic utilities. I don't know if there's much, you know, switching that can happen for the balance of the year.

I think it's mainly just because there's just lack of coal available, and inventories remain significantly low.

Lucas Pipes
Managing Director, B. Riley Securities

Very helpful.

Bob Braithwaite
Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales, CONSOL Energy Inc.

Which will only help us in 2023, obviously.

Lucas Pipes
Managing Director, B. Riley Securities

Mm-hmm. Really appreciate that perspective. Thank you. Last question. Jimmy, you mentioned starting discussions around shareholder return frameworks. A two-part question. One, when do you think is the right time to be more concrete with investors about how you've settled that debate? Then two, is there a front runner today? Some of your peers have payout as a % of discretionary cash flow that's received very positive reception from the market. How do you look at a framework for returning capital to shareholders? Thank you.

Jimmy Brock
CEO, CONSOL Energy Inc.

Well, on the first part, Lucas, on the timing of it, as Mitesh stated in his remarks, we're near the timing. You know, we've said that we would like to get somewhere near that 1 leverage ratio that we're approaching. Secondly, we wanna finish the capital project that we have at Itmann. We know what we have remaining there. We have started, you know, some shareholder engagements, reaching out as far as the structural preference. What I would like to see is something, you know, that's not that subjective, that we would have some sort of formulaic value where it's X% of free cash flow goes to whether it's share repurchases or share dividends. You know, we're still engaging with shareholders on that. There's lots of different ways to look at it.

I mean, for some people, it's tax structures, it's other things to consider. I will tell you, as Mitesh Thakkar said in his remarks, we are very near to that point, and that's why we wanna start preparing for it. We think that, you know, it could be coming, as Mitesh Thakkar said, early in the quarter this year. We obviously wanna finish the capital project at Edmond to date. We know where we stand there. It's going very well. I would say pretty quickly would be the answer on that. Then the second part, you know, looking at the structure of it, we want to have, you know, some of our shareholder engagement on that.

Again, I would certainly like to have some sort of formulaic style in place to where if it's X% of free cash flows that we return to the shareholders in whatever mechanism that it may be. That's our thought process today. We have more work to do on that and more engagement to do, but I would think we would have answers for that, concrete answers shortly.

Lucas Pipes
Managing Director, B. Riley Securities

Really appreciate that, Jimmy and team. Continue. Best of luck. Thank you.

Bob Braithwaite
Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales, CONSOL Energy Inc.

Thanks, Lucas.

Jimmy Brock
CEO, CONSOL Energy Inc.

Thank you, Lucas.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star then one. Today's next question comes from Nathan Martin at Benchmark. Please go ahead.

Nathan Martin
Equity Research Analyst, The Benchmark Company

Hey, good morning, guys. Congrats on the quarter, and thanks for taking my questions. I think Lucas kinda touched on 2023 pricing. Maybe I'll take a step here to 2022. You know, nice to see full year pricing guidance this year increased. You guys mentioned before, confirmed today, essentially it's fully contracted for 2022. So maybe can you talk about what's driving the increase in the range? Is it PJM West tons, you know, additional exports maybe? What do you think gets you to the high end of that range or the low end of the range? Maybe somewhat related, do you think there's a good chance you can hit the high end of your sales guidance, and how would that affect pricing as well? Thanks.

Bob Braithwaite
Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales, CONSOL Energy Inc.

Good morning, Nate. It's Bob. Yeah, I would say most of the improvement to date has been the power price that has improved our overall sales price for the quarter and for the new year guidance. If you recall, in the first quarter, we suggested that for every dollar above $41.33, we had a 17-cent improvement. You know, first quarter was $55.58. The new updated was $54.03 that we provided for the April through December. Call it $2 and change is related to power price. The balance is related to a couple export deals that we secured, which we expect to deliver later this year.

Now when you look at the forwards today, you know, you could suggest that there's still meaningful upside, and, you know, there certainly is should the forwards remain at these elevated levels. You know, the only caution I give is that the way our power contract is structured, it is based on tons consumed, not necessarily delivered. There could be a bit of a disconnect between the actual price we receive versus where the power forwards are. This works both ways, you know, up or down. You know, at the end of the day, I think what you're trying to get at, yeah, there's certainly opportunity for us to improve on our 2022 pricing, should these current forward power prices hold.

Nathan Martin
Equity Research Analyst, The Benchmark Company

Very helpful, Bob. Appreciate that. Bob, you also just mentioned, you know, the expectation at this point is to run that fifth long wall next year, kind of all out given the current market and what you guys are seeing in the future here. Any update maybe on the timing of that fifth long wall? I think, Jimmy, you mentioned before, you know, likely December, maybe the earliest being late November. Any way to pull that forward at all anymore, just given the demand out there? Thanks.

Jimmy Brock
CEO, CONSOL Energy Inc.

Yeah, that's a very good question, Nate, and that's something we're certainly looking at. I will tell you, we have made a little bit of progress on the timing there, but it still looks like it's gonna be, you know, late in Q4 of this year. There's only so much that we can do as far as the development, you know, goes. This is a longer panel as we talked about before, but the operation team is fully engaged in that. They understand the importance. You know, the market is there now for those incremental tons. As Bob talked about, even we could provide some of these customers that's really needing coal for the balance of 2022. If we could get that long wall up and running faster, we certainly want to do that.

Right now it looks like, you know, we'll have at least a month of production in 2022 off of that long wall. When you get, you know, halfway down a panel, there's still a lot of uncertainties left to get it out there. We're not ready at this time to commit to a date that'll be sooner. Rest assured that our entire operation team is well aware of how important it is to get it started as quickly as possible, safely.

Nathan Martin
Equity Research Analyst, The Benchmark Company

That sounds good, Jimmy. Thank you for that update. Maybe just shifting gears a little bit to CMT. You know, you mentioned highest ever quarterly revenue and EBITDA. You know, is that something you guys see kind of as repeatable given the strength in the market? Maybe as we look ahead to next year, just talk about your optionality there again, to refresh us with as far as, you know, how many export tons that you guys could possibly move through that terminal. I don't think you have any long-term agreements. Just any color there would be great, too. Thank you.

Jimmy Brock
CEO, CONSOL Energy Inc.

Yeah, I'll take the first part of that, and obviously we have Dan with us, so we'll let him hop in on the second part. I will say that the terminal remains one of our critical assets, and we are looking for ways that we can move more throughput volumes through there. Obviously, where the met pricing is today and everything, we have opportunities for third-party coal to get through. It's not as simple as many would think of just, you know, adding the coal. We have some blending capabilities, storage issues that we have there. We are looking at all options for the CONSOL Marine Terminal, and there's a lot that we can do there, and Dan and his team are fully aware of it and staying on top of that.

We think that terminal is gonna be very well utilized for the next few years. Dan, you have anything you wanna add to that?

Dan Connell
Senior Vice President of Strategy, CONSOL Energy Inc.

No, I would just say, Nate, maybe, you know, nearer term, looking ahead to the upcoming quarter, obviously in Q1, we achieved the record revenue and EBITDA numbers without achieving a record throughput volume. You know, looking at Q2, I would say we have a strong book of business, so we'd expect to be similar to or above where we were in Q1 on throughput, and the markets continue to be strong, and support our pricing at CMT. I do think we have a combination of volume and market factors in our favor here and should lead to the ability to see a repeat performance at CMT going forward.

Nathan Martin
Equity Research Analyst, The Benchmark Company

Great to hear, Dan. Jimmy, thanks for your comments as well. I'll leave it there. Thank you guys for your time and best of luck.

Jimmy Brock
CEO, CONSOL Energy Inc.

Thank you.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to the management team for any final remarks.

Nathan Tucker
Director of Finance and Investor Relations, CONSOL Energy Inc.

Thank you. We appreciate everyone's time this morning, and thank you for your interest in and support of CEIX. We hope we addressed your questions this morning, and we look forward to our next quarter earnings call. Thanks, everybody.

Operator

Thank you, sir. This concludes today's conference call. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.

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