Alliance Resource Partners - Q2 2023
July 31, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Greetings. Welcome to Alliance Resource Partners, L.P. second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Cary Marshall, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Thank you. You may begin.
Cary Marshall (SVP and CFO)
Thank you, operator, and welcome everyone. Earlier this morning, Alliance Resource Partners released its second quarter 2023 financial and operating results, and we will now discuss those results, as well as our perspective on current market conditions and outlook for 2023. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the call to answer your questions.
Before beginning, a reminder that some of our remarks today may include forward-looking statements subject to a variety of risks, uncertainties, and assumptions contained in our filings from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and are also reflected in this morning's press release. While these forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to us, 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, the partnership has no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, unless required by law to do so. Finally, we will also be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. Definitions and reconciliations of the differences between these non-GAAP financial measures and the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are contained at the end of ARLP's press release, which has been posted on our website and furnished to the SEC on Form 8-K. With the required preliminaries out of the way, I will begin with a review of our results for the second quarter, then turn the call over to Joe Craft, our Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, for his comments.
Our strong performance in the 2023 quarter included consolidated revenues of $641.8 million, which were up 3.5% versus the prior year period. The year-over-year improvement was driven primarily by higher coal sales price per ton, which was up 5.7% versus the 2022 quarter and continues to reflect the positive impacts of our contracted order book. On a sequential basis, total coal sales price per ton was down 7.9% or $5.41 per ton. This was primarily due to approximately 500,000 higher-priced 2022 carryover tons shipped in the sequential quarter at our Tunnel Ridge Mine in Appalachian.
In our royalty segment, total royalties were $50 million, down 8.3% year-over-year and down 2.1% sequentially, as lower realized oil and gas commodity pricing was partially offset by increases in coal royalty revenue per ton. Specifically, oil and gas royalties average realized sales prices declined 40.2% per BOE versus the 2022 quarter, as NYMEX WTI benchmark pricing peaked during June 2022. Sequentially, oil and gas royalties average sales prices were 4.7% lower per BOE. Coal royalty revenue per ton increased 17.4% versus the 2022 quarter and 5.5% sequentially.
As it relates to volume, coal production increased 5.8% to 9.4 million tons compared to the 2022 quarter, while coal sales volumes decreased 0.3% to 8.9 million tons, resulting in a build in coal inventories of 500,000 tons during the 2023 quarter. Compared to the sequential quarter, coal sales volumes increased 5.1% due to higher sales volumes in Appalachian. There were no longwall moves at our Tunnel Ridge Mine in Appalachian this quarter, whereas we had two moves in the sequential quarter. Coal royalty tons sold declined 2.8% year-over-year.
Oil and gas royalty volumes were 40.6% higher on a BOE basis due to increased drilling and completion activities on our net acreage and the acquisition of oil and gas mineral interests from Jase and Belvedere during the second half of 2022. Turning to costs, segment adjusted EBITDA expense per ton sold for our coal operations was $37.85, an increase of 7.8% versus the 2022 quarter, primarily due to higher labor-re-related expenses, higher maintenance costs, as well as the impacts of increased sales-related expenses due to higher sales price realizations. These costs were partially offset by lower materials and supplies expenses during the 2023 quarter. On a sequential basis, costs per ton were 4.6% lower, primarily on the strength of the additional Appalachian volumes from our lower-cost Tunnel Ridge Mine.
2023 quarter net income and EBITDA increased 3.8% and 1%, respectively, over the 2022 quarter, primarily due to higher price realizations in coal, which more than offset lower realized prices in oil and gas royalties, along with the inflationary pressures I previously described. Now turning to our balance sheet and cash flow. Alliance had another strong quarter of cash generation with $153.5 million of free cash flow before growth investments in the 2023 quarter, an increase of 88.7% year-over-year and 9.7% versus the sequential quarter. Our total and net leverage ratios were 0.4 and 0.14 times, respectively, total debt to trailing 12 months adjusted EBITDA.
Total liquidity of $717.2 million remains strong at quarter end, which included approximately $284.9 million of cash on the balance sheet. Our robust cash-generating power is affording us many options to attractively deploy capital. During the 2023 quarter, we paid our quarterly distribution of $0.70 per unit, equating to an annualized rate of $2.80 per unit that we expect to maintain throughout the year. This distribution level is unchanged sequentially and up 75% year-over-year. Additionally, we remain committed to prudently managing the outstanding balance of our senior notes due May 2025. During the 2023 quarter, we repurchased $34.2 million of senior notes, and in July 2023, we redeemed another $50 million of senior notes at par.
As a result, we ended July with $289.2 million in aggregate principal remaining on the $400 million original issuance. We intend to execute additional purchases and redemptions at par of the senior notes with available cash flows over the next several quarters. As we turn to our updated full year 2023 guidance detailed in this morning's release, I'd like to spend a few minutes discussing the current state of our markets. As we mentioned earlier in the year, the mild winter and slower start to summer reduced overall demand for both coal and natural gas in the United States during the first half of 2023. Natural gas prices declined sequentially and remain significantly below the year ago quarter. Lower natural gas prices affected coal burns due to more competitive gas-fired dispatch options for our customers, particularly during spring shoulder demand season.
Since the end of the 2023 quarter, we have seen a turn in weather patterns, with historically high temperatures blanketing much of the U.S. and portions of Europe. A hot summer doesn't necessarily dramatically impact coal burns in the near term, as our customers' units typically run baseload during summer peak demand. It can highlight the vulnerability of the grid when demand is high and renewable sources are unable to adequately respond. Furthermore, if hot weather persists into the fall, it can change normal burn schedules and accelerate coal consumption, reducing inventories heading into winter. Overall, based upon the strength of our year-to-date results, our contracted committed tons, and a relentless focus on cost control, we remain optimistic 2023 will be another record year for ARLP.
As we updated our 2023 full year guidance ranges, the mild market conditions I just described caused some movement in contract deliveries and shifted the mix between export and domestic markets. We now anticipate ARLP's overall coal sales volumes in 2023 to be in a range of 35.5 million-36 million tons, down from the previous range of 36 million-38 million tons. Illinois Basin volumes have been adjusted to reflect lower volumes at our Gibson and River View operations, while our Appalachian volume guidance reflects an extended longwall move at our Mettiki Mine. Our committed tonnage for full year 2023 is 34.5 million tons at the end of the quarter, or 96%-97% of our anticipated sales tons. Of that total, 4.8 million tons are currently committed to export markets.
The balance of unsold tonnage levels is expected to be supplied in the export markets, primarily from our lowest cost operations, thereby still generating attractive margins. Sales pricing for the year is anticipated to be slightly lower than at the time of our last update. We've chosen to modestly adjust the top end of our range for average coal price realizations down by $1, to a new range of $65-$66 per ton, versus $65-$67 per ton previously. On the cost side, solid execution from our operations team allows us to improve our outlook for segment adjusted EBITDA expense per ton by $1 to a new range of $38-$41 per ton.
Within Appalachian, we do anticipate higher costs in the back half of the year due to the extended longwall move at Mettiki in the third quarter, as well as a normal longwall move scheduled for our Tunnel Ridge Mine in the fourth quarter. In our oil and gas royalty segment, we are reiterating our volume guidance ranges for the full year 2023. We also made a number of adjustments to our outlook, including lower DD&A, a $10 million improvement in SG&A, and a slight reduction in total capital expenditures. With that, I will turn the call over to Joe for comments on the market and his outlook for ARLP. Joe?
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
Thank you, Cary, good morning, everyone. I want to begin my comments by thanking the entire Alliance organization for their continued hard work and dedication, which allowed us to post solid results for the quarter and the first half of 2023. Their efforts helped us deliver year-over-year improvements in coal production, realized coal prices, oil and gas royalty volumes, net income, and EBITDA. Our year-to-date results have been impressive despite coal demand, both domestically and globally, being lower than we expected entering this year due to a slower economic growth, mild weather in our targeted markets, and lower natural gas prices. The strong first half performance was led by significantly higher coal sales price per ton, which rose by 21.8%, resulting in total revenues in the 2023 period, increasing by 20.4% to $1.3 billion compared to $1.1 billion for the 2022 period.
The year-over-year improvement in realized coal prices reflects the positive impacts of our contracted order book. Segment adjusted EBITDA expense per ton sold for our coal operations for the first half of 2023 was $38.73, an increase of 15% versus the 2022 period, primarily due to inflationary pressures throughout the year. Our net income and EBITDA rose sharply in the 2023 period, increasing 79% and 29.6% respectively, over the 2022 period.
These increases reflect higher sales volumes in both coal and oil and gas royalties, as well as higher price realizations in coal, which more than offset lower realized prices in oil and gas royalties, along with the inflationary pressures that Cary previously described. As Cary also mentioned, we have adjusted our production targets lower for this year in response to lower domestic demand, driven by lower natural gas prices. We are now operating 4 production units at our Gibson South mine, down 1 unit from the original guidance in January 2023. At River View, we have moved some units from production mode to construction mode to accelerate the timing of the previously announced expansion project at River View.
In June, we had a groundbreaking event for the new Henderson County Mine site, where the new shaft will connect through underground conveyors to eventually be conveyed to the River View prep plant and barge terminal. This project is now scheduled to be completed at the end of 2024. Committed and priced sales tons currently represent 96% to 97% of our updated guidance range, and we plan to sell any remaining uncontracted tonnage primarily into international markets. While our view of export sales volume opportunities has not changed, pricing has been more volatile than previously expected. Accordingly, we have adjusted the top end of our coal sales price per ton sold range downward on the recent market analysis.
On the positive side, we are also lowering our cost estimates by the same amount per ton sold for the year as our team continues to find ways to reduce expenses in a stubbornly volatile inflationary environment. During the 2023 quarter, we agreed to sell an additional 8.6 million tons with multiple customers for coal to be delivered over the 2024-2026 time period. As we can see in our updated sales guidance, we committed meaningful tonnage in 2024. We expect contracting activity to continue in the coming months. As of the end of the second quarter, we have committed to sell 25.5 million tons domestically in 2024 and 1.4 million tons to international markets, representing an increase of 3.5 million tons from our last update.
We also committed and priced a total of 5.1 million tons for delivery in 2025 and 2026. Our contracting customers continue to value the certainty of supply we provide across all market conditions. The modest guidance revisions this quarter have not changed our view that we still are on track to achieve record financial results this year. As we look beyond 2023, we are encouraged by growth opportunities being pursued by our new ventures team, the recent increase in the forward oil and gas price curves, and acquisition prospects for our oil and gas royalty segment. We are also seeing stability for coal demand over the next several years. Many of our customers are projecting significant growth in electricity demand as record numbers of new manufacturing facilities are being announced to come online over the next several years.
All of these announced projects require exceptionally large electrical loads, adding to the reliability concerns of the stakeholders responsible for meeting the rising energy needs of their customers. The increased electricity demand should lead to slowing the premature closing of coal-fired power plants in the eastern United States. We also expect the growth in LNG terminals coming online over the next 5 years will support higher domestic natural gas prices, further supporting stable demand expectations for our coal segment over the next 5-10 years. In closing, I'm pleased with ARLP's solid first half results and encouraged by the opportunities in front of us. We continue to add to our heavily contracted coal book at attractive levels, and our robust cash flow generation positions us to continue improving our balance sheet and pursue attractive investments to meet the evolving energy needs of tomorrow.
Looking forward, we believe ARLP is well positioned to deliver solid growth and attractive cash returns to our unit holders in 2023 and beyond. That concludes our prepared comments. I will now ask the operator to open the call for questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press Star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For a participant choosing speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment while we pull for questions. Our first question is from Nathan Martin with Benchmark Company. Please proceed.
Nathan Martin (Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, good morning, Joe, Cary. Thanks for taking my questions.
Cary Marshall (SVP and CFO)
Morning.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
Morning.
Nathan Martin (Equity Research Analyst)
First, you know, great job on the cost side. However, similar to the first quarter, you know, two key shipments, a little bit lower than I than I expected, especially based on production. Maybe a bit of a, a multipronged question to start. First, anything behind, you know, the additional 500,000 tons of, of inventory built? You guys did mention reduced export sales. Second, do you feel confident shipments will pick up in the second half of the first half? You know, what do you expect that sales cadence to look like in 3Q, 4Q? Finally, is there any risk to the further sales guidance cuts, based on your, your conversations with utilities at this point? Thanks.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
I'll try to remember all your questions. Let me go ahead and give you a stream of answers here, and then I'll follow up to see if I made sure that I covered everything you asked. Specifically to the first half, you know, our production was running on a higher clip through the second quarter, and as a result, that's the primary reason for our increase to the 500,000 ton inventory level. Our actual contract book has been running consistent with what our ratable requirements are under the contract.
If we look at our contracts and look at our average ratable rate, we're right at 99% of what we should be under the contracts, which is really good, because there's always certain issues that people have to deal with. We feel very good about our customers adhering to the contract terms in the first half, and as we look to the second half, you know, we expect the same. I think that there are a few customers that are constantly asking us for deferrals. However, I believe all our customers appreciate what we did for them in 2022, and they understand that they should do the same thing for us this year.
As we think through, the biggest issue, I guess, on timing, gets in the export market, we have a couple of customers that are definitely committed to take the volume. You know, the timing is somewhat lumpy, that does impact some of the volumes in the first half as well, not by much, but by a little. As we look to the end of the year, we're anticipating with our guidance, about a half million tons of inventory. I would not expect that to grow beyond what would be normal. When we entered into this year, we had about a half million tons carryover, most of that was just tied to timing, vessel shipments and other methods.
I think as we look at this year, trying to factor in what we think the demand for export is, what we think the contract takes under our contracts would be. We believe we're on track to our current guidance, and the way I would measure any variability to that, we don't expect it to be greater than what our 500,000 tons was last year. It's always possible for things to change, but there's a lot of encouraging signs as we look at the last 12 months, one for comparison. When you compare 2022 against 2023, about this time last year, we saw customers starting to lay and defer coal tonnage.
When you start looking at comparisons in 2023 versus 2022, you're not going to see the significant difference as what we saw in the first half on coal shipments in, in our view. We've seen this hot spell in July, and that doesn't seem like it's going to abate anytime soon, so we think that's going to be positive for coal burns. The natural gas forward curve is still approaching $3.50 at the end of the year, which is constructive and going into the winter, you know, depending on exactly how long this heat wave goes and really what happens in the economy. We believe that we're well positioned, you know, running into 2024. Overall, I'm very pleased with our, our customers and their willingness to continue to take under the terms of our contract.
I'm optimistic that, you know, the guidance we've given, that there should not be any further adjustments. On demand, we will be, as we said in our prepared comments, you know, slowing down production. So, Cary, I don't know if you want to comment specifically on the cadence, you know, for the third quarter and fourth quarter on sales that we're projecting.
Cary Marshall (SVP and CFO)
Yeah, I think, I think, yeah, as you, as you just take a look at, you know, what our expectation is in the third and fourth quarter, it's pretty ratable between the two quarters, when you look at the anticipated volumes that we would anticipate to ship in each one of the quarters. When you take a look at what we did in the first half and back into our overall guidance, I would, I would anticipate shipments to be pretty equal in the third and fourth quarter of the year. Not really that unusual to what we experienced last year at this time as well. We were in a similar situation and that was the result last year, and that's our in-- our expectation for this year as well.
Nathan Martin (Equity Research Analyst)
... Great, really appreciate the color there, guys. And then, maybe looking ahead, you know, good job securing that additional tonnage you called out for 2024-2026. You know, as we look at 2024 and beyond, do you feel like this 36 million ton run rate for 2023 is, is still achievable over the next few years? I know there's obviously some puts and takes, but it'd be great to get your thoughts on, you know, maybe potential EPA regulations floating around. Joe, you just talked about some of the demand that's coming online on the industrial side. You know, how do you think those things affect your production and maybe even US coal production overall as, as we look ahead?
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
To answer your first question: Yes, we do believe the 36 million ton run rate is sustainable over the next several years. When we look at the negotiations that are yet to be determined in the back half, we've got probably over a half dozen customers that we believe will be in the market to fill out their book for 2024 plus. Most of our solicitations have been for a 3-year period, and most of them are at similar tonnage. We believe that with our customer base and their plans for the future, we do see the ability to maintain our 36 million at a minimum. You know, it could go higher, depending on what we want to do in the export market.
We're targeting about 6.5 million tons this year into the export market. It's possible that that number would go down if we are successful on some solicitations in the back half, with the ability to flex back up to something over 36 million, depending on the export market, you know, next year and the following year. Specifically to the EPA rules, EPA, they are out there in force trying to accelerate this transition. We believe that essentially everything they're doing is in violation of the major questions doctrine, that was the result of the West Virginia v. EPA decision last year by the Supreme Court. There's a lot of legal activity going on to try to prevent those rules from coming into effect.
I think that with the demand, projections for electricity, there are several utilities that are engaged in, as well as NERC, FERC, you know, the different RTOs, trying to give warning signs to the administration that we need to maintain all of our fossil fuel fleet. That's both coal and natural gas. There's still pressure, for some that believe that you can continue to close plants and still grow electricity. I don't quite understand that, as far as generation, to meet the growing demand. We feel good about the future, and we feel good about the demand. You know, last week, just, Elon Musk spoke at, at a Pacific Gas and Electric summit, and he basically was saying that, you know, his biggest concern is there's insufficient urgency, and people just don't understand how much electricity demand there will be.
He's, the headlines were a tripling of electrical output. We believe the same thing that Elon is saying. I don't know about the math, we definitely are seeing in everything we're looking at, that the demand predictions for electricity are pretty low by our investor-owned utilities, compared to what we're hearing of opportunities to make investments in this transition area. That's going to require quite a bit of electric load. You still see the delay in getting replacements for coal plants. We think it's gonna be delayed, practically speaking, and hopefully by policy. President Biden continues to double down on his beliefs. I think in talking to the industry, there's some caution that's being raised that...
We're getting input from customers just saying that, "We need you to continue to, to maintain your production level, you know, for the next decade," is what we're hearing now. We'll have to wait and see whether politics rules over what the engineering officers are saying or engineering management is saying. We feel good about our demand staying at current at this, at the 36 million tons, and hopefully, we can grow it a little bit.
Nathan Martin (Equity Research Analyst)
Very helpful, Joe. Thanks. Then maybe just finally, if I could ask one last question. You guys mentioned, you know, your, your cash position, your liquidity is affording you the ability to look at multiple investments. Can you talk about some of those opportunities you guys are seeing in the marketplace currently? Maybe on the oil and gas side and the new venture side. Any thought on, on timing or size would be great as well.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
On the oil and gas side, you know, we committed and everything is still continuing to be the same as what we've indicated to you all before, and that is, we're reinvesting prior years' EBITDA into the oil and gas space. Through the second quarter, you know, we've invested around $76 million. With our guidance, that leaves probably $35 million or so. Well, we had $35 million for the ground game, is what we call it, as opposed to competing in packages. We've completed around $4 million of that in the first half. Just in July, we closed $5 million of investments as we look to the balance of the year.
There's another $25 million or so. We're on. You know, we think there are opportunities out there, so I would expect that we will be able to complete those investments in our oil and gas segment, in our royalty segment. We continue to be positive on that segment for the long term. We continue to see oil demand in the world at record levels. We really just don't see that changing even with the conversion to electric vehicles. We think electric vehicles will grow. We're not in the belief that it's gonna grow as fast as some believe.
With the refining and the world demand for oil, we believe that we'll continue to, to see great opportunities to invest that cash flow and get returns comparable to what we've been getting, which, we find them to be attractive. With natural gas, with LNG terminals coming on, we think the demand is gonna be growing there as well, which benefits not only our royalty segment, but also, should impact domestic pricing, which will benefit our coal operations. On the new venture side, Matrix is continuing to perform as we previously expected. We are also looking at several opportunities to invest in the new ventures area.
Our primary focus right now are on energy solutions issues, which basically get into battery storage and other aspects of the Battery Belt, and opportunities that are presenting itself with the continued investments from Michigan down through Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, et cetera, which is right in our service territory. I have nothing to talk to you about today. Hopefully, by the next earnings call, we'll be able to give you a better color on the opportunities that we're talking about there.
Nathan Martin (Equity Research Analyst)
Great. Really appreciate those comments, Joe. I'll leave it there, guys. Best of luck in the second half.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our next question is from Mark Reichman with Noble Capital Markets. Please proceed.
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Can you hear me?
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
Yes.
Yeah, we can hear you.
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Thank you. Oh, okay, good. I had to dial in on my iPhone because we were having problems with the server on the other phone. The question I have is, you know, looking at sales, I mean, it looks to me like even at the low end of your guidance, you're still gonna have modestly higher sales in the second half. For me, I think the wild card is really the price. you know, Illinois Basin pricing has been relatively steady, but the pricing in Appalachian, you know, fell considerably second quarter versus the first quarter. Your guidance suggests, on a total basis, that really you only shaved off $1 at the top end. Could you just maybe illuminate your expectations on pricing between the basins for the remainder of the year?
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
Yeah. We're totally focused on the international markets, so there's really no spot market. We don't anticipate there'll be any activity for 2023. If you look at the 1 thermal mine we have, basically, in East Kentucky, is, it's really a premier product, and it doesn't really trade off those indexes.
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Mm-hmm.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
We don't have that much to sell open to the market this year there anyway. Our reduction down really reflects the decrease in API 2, in the export pricing, of the export market that we're planning to fill-
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
... for, balance of these sales. When you're looking at the pricing, you know, that's on a delivered basis, so there's a lot of different moving parts back to transportation and logistics that can soften some of that, you know, as far as getting a good net back, back at the mine.
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
We've estimated, and we've got several conversations going on, with our trading partners for those export volumes, and we believe we've conservatively priced, what we think those sales opportunities are gonna be in the back half of this, of this year, and we're confident that we can place those tons. We feel really good about our guidance.
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Mm-hmm
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
... as long as we can continue to execute, and demand stays consistent with where it is now. There's, you know, it's hard to see what catalyst would change that, based on conversations we have. There's always surprises, but right now, we feel very good about our guidance.
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. Well, I guess, I guess what I'm kind of getting at is it kind of implies, you know, an improvement in the 3rd and the 4th quarter in Appalachian pricing relative to the second quarter, but maybe not as high as the 1st quarter. I mean, but you would expect maybe a rebound in pricing in Appalachian, assuming Illinois Basin remains relatively constant. I think right now I have Illinois Basin a little weaker in the second half, but, but just as the model stands now, I think I'm around 65.25 on a full year basis. But that, like I said, that does imply the 3rd and the 4th quarter coal sales price per ton in Appalachian, you know, quite a bit higher than the second quarter. Is that kind of consistent with what you're, you're thinking?
Cary Marshall (SVP and CFO)
Yeah, Mark, I don't know what you mean by, by quite a bit higher, but I think as we look at the second half, in Appalachian.
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Mm-hmm
Cary Marshall (SVP and CFO)
we, we do anticipate it being slightly higher than where we were in the second quarter.
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay.
Cary Marshall (SVP and CFO)
Generally speaking, on the Appalachian side, as we, as we look at the back half of the year, you know, anywhere from 2% to 4% higher than where we were, in the second quarter.
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay
Cary Marshall (SVP and CFO)
...is, kind of as we look at the pricing piece of it, related to, to that particular area where our guidance kind of zeros in on.
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. No, that's where-- Yeah, that's really-
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
Those are our contracts, yeah, too, Mark. I mean, it's not like we're looking at the market and projecting on the domestic side.
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Mm-hmm.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
We're looking-
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Right
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
... at contract book and what is expected to be delivered on our contract.
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Yeah, it's pretty firm. It's pretty firm at this point. You've got good visibility there. The second question was just on that G&A. I mean, you know, a $10 million reduction, I mean, that's almost 10% of the, of the, of the, of the full year previous guidance. You know, I guess your due guidance would kind of track with the first and the second quarter expenditures, were there any expenditures that you just, you know, that you were expecting, that you decided not to spend? What do you attribute to the, to your, lowering of your G&A expense guidance?
Cary Marshall (SVP and CFO)
I think really when you get into G&A, it's just looking at, what full year results, and the impact-
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay
Cary Marshall (SVP and CFO)
that you have in terms of the full year results, are anticipated, and what that, impact, works back to on the G&A side.
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Kind of you adjusted it based on kind of your first half spending and, and, that, like I said, that kind of tracks with the, with the, new full year guidance.
Cary Marshall (SVP and CFO)
Yeah
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
... you know, in terms of around $80 million. Okay, well, that was, but I mean, $10 million was pretty significant relative to the, to the, to the previous guidance. Just lastly, you know, and I think this kind of goes to Nathan's question earlier, which I thought was a good one. You have very strong free cash flow, you know, roughly, what, about $140 million, $139 million. Very strong coverage on the dividend. Just, you know, basically, kind of how are you kind of thinking about capital allocation?
I know you, you, you took down some debt, recently, so just kind of your, your overall view on, you know, do you think you'll get more active on the acquisition front, or just, how are you kind of thinking about, you know, managing the, the cash flow that you're generating?
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
I think as we've indicated previously, we plan to sustain our distribution at the $0.70 a quarter. Secondly, we will provide the capital necessary to maintain our cooperations, plus the growth projects that we previously announced. The CapEx will be what is guided and maybe a little lower, but right, you know, within those ranges, maybe at the low end, I can't precisely tell. It's all timing. The commitments are pretty much there. Oil and gas, we've talked too, the balance then gets to debt pay down, which Cary mentioned it is fully in his prepared remarks, that we will look to continue to pay off those senior notes. Then we've got these investment opportunities, primarily in the new venture space, that we're looking at.
If you go back to a year ago, I talked in terms of two different ways we could look at investments. You know, one was through how we would think about just good investments that would give us visibility into various areas that we could determine how to make investments in those assets, that could actually be long-term cash flow vehicles. That fifth vertical was in those type of asset investments. I think we sort of matured, based off of the two years of an investment philosophy.
I think we've zeroed in with the experience we've had, to focus on some businesses that yes, we still may invest in a minority position in some growth businesses, but when we do that, it's definitely going to be in conjunction with the opportunity to invest more alongside either those particular businesses or those types of industries where we can in fact, start building businesses for the long term. We're again, focused in the battery area. We just think that, you know, with the increased demand in electricity, that battery storage, both for the electrical sector, as well as the industrial sector, is going to be an area of huge demand. We're focused on that area and seeing how we can participate in that.
The investment sizes we've typically made are anywhere from $25 million-$50 million on, you know, per investment to make it sizable enough that we see opportunity to make a good return and have those strategic relationships, but not so much that we're ending up focusing on one or two investments, but we'll have the opportunity to have several, so that we've got opportunities to be able to grow our company over the next 5-10 years. We're, as I mentioned in my prepared comments, we're encouraged by what we're seeing, and I think and hopefully, we, by the next earnings call, we'll be able to give you more specifics on specific investments that hopefully will be successful in making some commitments by that timeframe.
We're not in position to talk about those right now.
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Well, that's very helpful. I really do appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
The other thing I would just say to that, we're hoping to find some opportunities to invest in businesses that will allow us to bring on more debt capacity as well. These would be cash flow generating type businesses, so that it would allow for additional debt capacity additions as we look into 2024.
Mark Reichman (Senior Research Analyst)
Well, thank, thank you very much.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
Yeah.
Operator (participant)
Our next question is from Dave Storms with Stonegate Capital Markets. Please proceed.
Dave Storms (Director of Research)
Good morning.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
Hello, Dave.
Dave Storms (Director of Research)
Just want to start, you mentioned in your prepared remarks on, some cost savings measures that you've started. Just wondering if you could give us a little more color on what that looks like?
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
Everything goes back to efficiency. That's the main evaluation, trying to determine, you know, where the most efficient, you know, mine plan is. You know, obviously, everything needs to try to staff ourselves to be able to operate at full capacity for what we've got invested, you know, by cutting back some of that production. You know, we have to decide how we do allocate that. Our guys are focused on that. I think supply chain is an area that last year, we were needing to buy more supply than we actually needed, just to ensure that we had materials and supplies.
I think that has allowed us to, you know, with the years, you know, over the last year, the supply chain has improved. That's allowed for some small reduction in expenses. It really just gets back to productivity. In large part, what we're seeing in the second quarter was just the productivity at Tunnel Ridge by not having the longwall moves. Productivity is the key to cost in most cases, and that's, that's definitely true for us.
Dave Storms (Director of Research)
Very helpful. You just kind of touched on it, with staffing at full capacity. It sounds like you're reallocating some of your shifts. Is there any threat of losing labor, especially in this tight labor market, as you, you know, move, move people around?
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
tle transit or a little bit of some people that have left, but you know, we're trying to maintain our headcount, and so far, we've been able to do that. Again, that's why we're repositioning to some areas that may not be as productive in the short term, but will allow us to be more productive once we get through a couple of these construction projects. We've got the one at River View, and the extended longwall move at Mettiki is another example, where we're moving into a new area and the new area that we're moving into have longer panels. So our development has been, you know, needing to catch up with the length of the panels that we're moving to.
We could have designed that differently, but given where the market is, we felt like this was a great opportunity just to go ahead and go for the longer panels. That will reduce our production in the short term, but positioning ourselves for next year, should give us a lowest, lower cost future there than what we would otherwise have with the shorter panels. From a headcount basis, we're maintaining our headcount, but it is targeted more to the 36 million ton production level compared to when we started the year, we were targeting 38, and last quarter we went to 37, now we're at 36.
you know, we're, you know, labor's still tight, but, you know, we're able to maintain at this level, and, and the attrition has slowed down over the last 3 months or so, to where we feel like we can maintain this level.
Dave Storms (Director of Research)
That's great, color. Thank you. One more, if I could. Just, any comments you have around the new customer acquisition environment, given that, you know, coal prices are starting to stabilize a little bit, inflation is starting to moderate, is any of that helping you, drive new customer acquisitions?
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
I wouldn't say new customer acquisitions. I mean, we've been in this business quite a while, so we sell to most of those that want to be around for the next 15 years, which is what we've targeted. We have had some conversations where we're hopeful that we could pick up some market share. You know, we'll have more to know as we go through these solicitations, whether that happens or not. As I mentioned earlier, we're very confident that we will be able to maintain at this level, if not grow our domestic book beyond the 36-- well, beyond $30 million. It allows us to stay at the $36 million, and then that, then we'll have to decide whether we want to pull back the international side or, or try to grow production a little bit.
Right now, I'd say domestically, we're targeted on the $30 million a year run rate for the next five years or so, and hope that we can sustain that, and believe we can.
Dave Storms (Director of Research)
Understood. Thank you very much.
Operator (participant)
Our next question is from David Marsh with Singular Research. Please proceed.
David Marsh (Equity Research Analyst)
Hi, good morning. Thanks, guys, for taking the question. just wanted to touch on the, the, the notes real quickly. are they continuously callable at this point at par? What, what are your, what are the parameters around, calling those in? Is it 30 days' notice?
Cary Marshall (SVP and CFO)
Yes. To answer your question on that, you know, David, yes, they are, they are callable at par, anytime. Like you said, it's just a 30-day, generally a 30-day notice period that, that we are, required to provide, in order to call those.
David Marsh (Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. You know, obviously, interest expense was down a good bit in the quarter. I, I suspect in part due to the partial call. Should we, you know, should we expect that to continue to decline as you continue to work those off? Can you kind of put some, you know, maybe put some brackets around that in terms of how quickly that continues to come down?
Cary Marshall (SVP and CFO)
You know, I think, yeah, as it relates to the senior notes, the current expectation, we'll continue to call those, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, on a consistent basis. The current thought process right now is to do something similar to what we have been doing, you know, here in the most recent quarter. That's obviously up for conversation, you know, each time that we make that decision to call. I think a consistent quarterly call would be a good assumption to make.
David Marsh (Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. Yeah, that's really helpful, and it's a prudent use of cash flow. I definitely think, in this environment, it's awfully tough to consider refinancing them, so. Just shifting gears a little bit, you know, one thing I noticed is that, on the, you know, on the oil and gas side, you know, your, your, your BOE sold has really grown really nicely, very nicely year-over-year. I mean, it's up 50% year-over-year. Clearly, these investments that you guys have been making are paying dividends. You know, obviously oil is starting to, to climb back up a little bit, you know, up into the 80s here.
I know that the mix for you guys is a little bit gassy, but, could you just talk about, you know, directionally, how, how does that change, you know, how does that change the game for you guys? And in terms of evaluating, acquisition opportunities as well, just as oil continues to, to creep back up and, you know, what do we need to see on, on the Nat-gas side for you guys to get, you know, kind of better price realizations, maybe closer to the back half of last year type levels?
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
I think Right now, the guidance we've given in this release did not factor in the most recent uptick in oil prices. I think that as we look at acquisitions, you know, we continue to be focused in the Permian, and, you know, as we think about, the Delaware is a little bit more gassy, but, you know, I think most of our acquisitions most recently have been more oil-based. You know, we still have our mid composition, but, we're still bullish on gas too. I think our focus on the royalty side will continue to be consistent with what we've been doing and really target the Permian primarily, but we'll look at all basins and all opportunities.
You know, I think that we have not changed our underwriting standards, and we are seeing some good deal flow, so both for small and direct investments, and, and there's still some packages out there that, that we'll continue to evaluate.
David Marsh (Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. Thank you guys very much for the call. I appreciate it. I'll yield to the next caller.
Operator (participant)
Our next question is from Arthur Calavritinos with ANC Capital. Please proceed.
Arthur Calavritinos (Portfolio Manager)
Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just a couple of things. On the financing, financing question, Cary, are there any minimum bite sizes when you guys call these senior notes?
Cary Marshall (SVP and CFO)
No, there...
Arthur Calavritinos (Portfolio Manager)
expect us?
Cary Marshall (SVP and CFO)
Yeah. No, there, there, there's no minimum bite sizes. It's really, really up to us, whenever we call them to, to designate, what amount that, that we are calling. They're callable on a pro rata basis, so whatever amount we designate, it's pro rata basis, back out to the, the holders of those notes. If we wanted to do $10 million, we could, we could do that. We just opted to do $50 million in this last quarter.
Arthur Calavritinos (Portfolio Manager)
It probably depends on how you're feeling, where the cash is gonna be at the end of the month or the quarter, whatever, right? How you decide this. Seems like you're matching it with your cash flows, like, the way I look at it. I mean, would that-
Cary Marshall (SVP and CFO)
That's right.
Arthur Calavritinos (Portfolio Manager)
Yeah.
Cary Marshall (SVP and CFO)
That's correct.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
Yeah, future opportunities for cash flows.
Arthur Calavritinos (Portfolio Manager)
Got it. All right. Then there's the second thing, away from the finance, question is, I got the Elon Musk thing this morning on the PG&E conference, and, and, and the question was, he was talking about electric demand. A few weeks ago, like, the auto sales were like three point... No, I'm, I'm sorry, 7%, like, were, were electric cars. And I'm starting to think, like, at what point do we get with the electric cars in this country where we can almost point to, this is how much BTU or how much coal demand is feeding the fleet? I mean, it seems it's kind of early, but I was shocked at that 7% number for new car sales. Any, any color on that, that you could shed where, where we go? Because it's almost displacement, right?
We're displacing unleaded gasoline with coal to power transportation, but it's early days. Any color on that would be great.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
Yeah. You know, with the EV space, I mean, the big issue that most that, you know, like, two or three different factors. One is just the cost of the EV. What we have seen is most of the OEMs have reduced their, their pricing by $10,000 per vehicle or so to try to stimulate the demand and really try to get market share because you're starting to see many more models come out. You know, the second factor gets into the, yeah, what they call range anxiety.
Arthur Calavritinos (Portfolio Manager)
Yeah.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
There's been a couple of announcements that have come out since our last call. One is with Tesla, where they're going to open their network, and have partnered with GM and Ford, I believe, and that's gonna roll out over the next two years. That's not immediate, but it's gonna roll out over 2024, 2025, and be fully operational, I think, by 2026. You've seen another announcement by numerous of the other manufacturers from out, you know, the, from the European manufacturers primarily coming together and talking about building out their own network. On top of the $5 billion NEVI program that the government's put in place, and we're starting to see, finally, the states starting to go out and bid for those projects.
I would say over the next 1.5-2 years, you're going to see a pretty robust network of charging stations on the highways that should give customers a safe feeling on the ability to have range anxiety eliminated to where it would support the purchases of more EVs. I think the commitment not only by the OEMs, but all these governors around the Battery Belt to build these out. The third factor I didn't mention is back to the tax credit, the $7,500 tax credit per vehicle, which also then requires a certain % of the, of the auto to be manufactured in America and/or the battery materials being sourced or manufactured or some type of assembly in America, That's an area that is constantly being discussed.
I think that this administration has, when they've adopted regulations, expand that opportunity to make sure these $7,500 credits are available. The price point seems to be competitive with the combustion engine. How fast that goes is anybody's guess, but I think when we look at our new ventures area and we look at investments in the battery space, all these manufacturing facilities are talking about at least 50 megawatts, sometimes 250 megawatts, so somewhere in between for every manufacturing facility that you hear announced. That's a significant load compared to historic, when business economic development officers are out looking for projects to move to states. You know, in the past, you know, 5,000 megawatts would be high, much less 50 to 100 to 200.
We're looking at major sinks, and not only are they large loads, but they want to be continuous. They do not want to have interruptible rates, and we're starting to see capacity concerns, and that's why you hear FERC and all these guys saying, "We better pay attention to-"... the speed of this transition because you can't continue to close plants and build plants and add no new capacity. I think that demand for electricity has definitely gone up. I think, as I said earlier, it seems to be underappreciated at what that speed is going to be. Back to your question of when can we actually see that and see that roll through? I think it will be within the next 2 years.
In my conversations, when I go out and speak to people, I've been saying to everybody, just think about how many people have a graduation in their family this year, whether it's college or high school or kindergarten or whatever, and just say, How fast did that four years go by? It goes by in a flash. We, as public policymakers and investors, we have to recognize we're making decisions right now that are going to determine the answer to your question. We don't have time just to delay and just think business as usual. We have to really gear up in anticipation of this significant growth in electricity demand. I think that demand for electricity has definitely gone up. I think, as I said earlier, it seems to be underappreciated at, at what that speed is going to be.
Back to your question of when can we actually see that and see that roll through? I think it will be within the next two years. In my conversations, when I go out and speak to people, I've been saying to everybody, just think about how many people have a graduation in their family this year, whether it's college or high school or kindergarten or whatever, and just say, "How fast did that four years go by?" It goes by in a flash. We, as public policymakers and investors, we have to recognize we're making decisions right now that are going to determine the answer to your question. We don't have time just to delay and just think business as usual. We have to really gear up in anticipation of this significant growth in electricity demand.
Therefore, it's time for policymakers to come to the table and realize that if we're going to have reliable, low-cost energy, we can't do business as usual. We have to factor in this demand growth, and that's why I have confidence that they're going to start thinking in terms of deferring some of these closures, because if we're going to meet that demand, you have to have electricity. It's bottom line. Biden wants to electrify America, he's got to have electricity to do it.
Arthur Calavritinos (Portfolio Manager)
Oh, yeah.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
We all know the renewables are just. You cannot look at a renewable installation that's adding capacity, because, you know, we still don't have battery storage to a level that is dependable, so you're really having to look at baseload plants, and those are fossil plants in your nuclear fleet. It's hard to answer your question precisely, but directionally, I would say within 2 years, you'll have a better idea of, of exactly what that demand load is for. I'm focused on the Eastern United States. So for the areas where we market, I think we'll have a very good idea by 2025, exactly what that demand load needs to be, and, and therefore, what capacity we have to have to provide reliable energy.
Arthur Calavritinos (Portfolio Manager)
Yeah, it is interesting. A couple of weeks ago, Barron's had a cover story, and Siemens, the big German, equivalent of GE, having enormous problems optimizing wind, wind, wind power, windmills. These are great engineers. The wind may fall far short of what's like, you know, what's a boilerplate on a windmill to deliver electrons. Just this seems like it's happening in slow motion, when we find out. All right. On the Permian, there's a large royalty company, public one. I don't know, they're having a proxy fight, whatever, right? I don't know if they're getting delayed in buying stuff. Are there, are there more opportunities than normal for these oil and gas royalties in the Permian? This, it seems like there's some dysfunction in some of the M&A going on.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
I would not say there's any more than normal.
Arthur Calavritinos (Portfolio Manager)
Okay.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
Going, you know, starting last year, as you saw some of the price decline-.
Arthur Calavritinos (Portfolio Manager)
Yeah.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
It got sticky. Nobody was wanting to sell at those prices. Then after, you know, you start adjusting to what might be the new normal. There's adequate deal flow for us to maintain our policy, to think in terms of investing $100 million a year. That's the way I would look at it from our lens and our perspective, without modifying our underwriting standards. As one of the earlier callers said, I mean, our returns have been very good. We've been able to hit our targets as we think about the investments we've made, and, I think our guys have done a very good job of trying to assess the pace of drilling.
You can read a lot of stuff, but I think in the Permian, you know, they're going to continue producing at the same level for several years to come. As a royalty owner, we feel, feel like it's a great investment for us to be complementary for our cash flow purposes as we look to where we want to be in 2030.
Arthur Calavritinos (Portfolio Manager)
you're the right size. You're not like an Exxon, where you're, like, too big, where it doesn't make a difference. You're not too small. You got a good size then, right? I mean, coming, going in there.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
Yes, sir.
Arthur Calavritinos (Portfolio Manager)
Right? Yeah.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
We think so, yeah.
Arthur Calavritinos (Portfolio Manager)
Yeah. Okay, great. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Thank you.
Joe Craft (Chairman, President, and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
We have reached the end of our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Cary for closing comments.
Cary Marshall (SVP and CFO)
Thank you, operator. To everyone on the call, we appreciate your time this morning as well, and also your continued support and interest in Alliance. Our next call to discuss our third quarter 2023 financial and operating results is currently expected to occur in late October. We hope everyone will join us again at that time. This concludes our call for the day. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.