Warrior Met Coal, Inc. (NYSE:HCC) Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call August 2, 2023 4:30 PM ET

Company Participants

Walt Scheller - Chief Executive Officer

Dale Boyles - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Lucas Pipes - B. Riley Securities

Nathan Martin - Benchmark

Alex Hacking - Citi

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Keith, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Warrior Second Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. All lines been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded and will be available on the company's website.

Before we begin, I have been asked to note that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from those discussed. For more information regarding forward-looking statements, please refer to the company's press release and SEC filings.

I have also been asked to note that the company has posted reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures discussed during this call in the tables accompanying the company's earnings press release located on the Investors section of the company's website at www.warriormetcoal.com. In addition to the earnings release, the company has posted a brief supplemental slide presentation to the Investors section at its website at www.warriormetcoal.com.

Here today to discuss the company's results are Mr. Walt Scheller, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Dale Boyles, Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Scheller, you may begin your remarks.

Walt Scheller

Thanks, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join us today to discuss our second quarter 2023 results. After my remarks, Dale will review our results and additional detail, and then you'll have the opportunity to ask questions.

We were pleased to deliver another strong quarter, in which we were able to leverage our operational excellence to grow sales and production volumes by 15% over last year's second quarter, which as you may remember, set record highs for several metrics, including coal pricing.

The big change to note from a year ago at this time is that hard coking coal pricing is 46% lower, which resulted in a decreased average net realized selling price for our premium coal in the second quarter of 48%.

In contrast to this softening during the quarter, we saw a positive improvement in the performance of our logistics partners, including continued progress in logistic upgrades at the McDuffie terminal. Most importantly, the significant overhaul to ship loader number one belt structure discussed last quarter, which was out of service, most of the second quarter, has now been completed.