David Marsh: That’s certainly very compelling for divesting away from the core business and making it a little bit more interesting with some potential upside kickers. So that’s compelling. With regard to the distribution, which you guys continue to maintain, very solid distribution, obviously where the units are trading now, dividend yield is very attractive. With the cash flow at this point in time and the outlook, support possibly an increase in that distribution as we start to head into next year or given where the units are trading is the board perhaps evaluating maybe repurchasing some of the units.
Joe Craft: I think that as we look to next year, we’re still in our planning process. However, sort of given you some indication that we’re looking at next year pretty much being a mirror of this year as far as where we are right now thinking that our cash flow would be. And so when we think of distributions, we have the capability to maintain or grow. I think that right now we’re focused on finishing out this year strong and we are committed, as I’ve repeated the last two calls with our distribution at the level it is this year, we to be frank we’re a little disappointed that the market hasn’t appreciated those by. The unit price not reflecting to where we’ve got to yield. It’s probably higher than it should be. In other words, our unit price should be higher than where it is.
But the board will, once we finalize our plan, present that to them. We’ll have a preliminary review with them in December, but the final plan will be approved in January and we’ll be in a position to better answer your question as to what the future distribution policy will be at our January call.
Operator: Our next question is coming from Dave Storms from Stonegate.
Dave Storms: Good morning. Appreciate you taking questions and just want to go back early in the call. You had mentioned that logistics are going to be the big driver of what your ship tons look like to close out the year. Are there any variables any notable variables and logistics channel that you’re keeping a particular eye on.
Joe Craft: The primary is just our export shipments. So we do have inventory at the pier. But we’re going to need to continue to ship coal from our mines to the piers and we’ve had some low water in the Mississippi that has slowed some of the barge movements. So it’s really just a matter of timing and barge. Availability to be able to ship our tons to be able to also match when the vessels come in and what the loading dates actually turn out to be. So that’s the primary logistical issue that we’d be faced. I don’t think with our domestic customers there are any concerns about barge availability, water, et cetera but it’s more on the export side to where we could have some timing issues on vessel loadings.
Dave Storms: Understood. Thank you. And then you also mentioned in the call just some challenges around labor and equipment in the quarter. Should we expect that that will be all wrapped up before the end of fiscal year ;24?
Joe Craft: From an equipment standpoint, yes. That was isolated at basically at both MC Mining and at Tunnel Ridge. Tunnel Ridge is already corrected itself. We’ve gotten the repairs; the delays are behind us. At MC Mining, we’ve had new deliveries for equipment to replace the older equipment that were delayed, that caused some of the impact on production. And I think all that, those items are expected to be delivered now as we speak. So we do believe by the end of the year, from an equipment standpoint, that will be behind us. As far as headcount, right now we’re planning to run MC at three units. So that’s still in the balance. So that still could be an issue for MC Mining. So that could be one unit of production. But at all other mines, we’re expecting that we’ll be fully staffed to be able to meet our production levels that we’re able to do this year and continue into next year.
We are actually seeing some improvement in Illinois Basin. So we’ve done some reevaluation of our approach to try to recruit by opening our Henderson County Mine. That’s opened a new market for some workers that we’re starting to see some increased applicant flow that’s encouraging for our River View Mine.
Dave Storms: That’s great to hear. And then lastly, we’d just love to get your thoughts on the domestic regulatory environment, anything that you’re watching with the election cycle or anything of that nature.
Joe Craft: All right. From a regulatory standpoint, the big issues related to our customers. I mentioned about that in the last quarter. Not a lot’s progressed in that area. There are eight different regulations that EPA has proposed. There’s only one that’s been finalized. And they’re still out there. At the same time, what we’ve seen really starting from last call through today and I think it’s going to continue is that we’re starting to, the industry is starting to value the need for reliability and because there is a concern of reliability and what the impact of these regulations may have on reliability of electricity generation that may have slowed down the process here. I don’t know for; I don’t really know why we haven’t seen much progress.
I’m not complaining but it’s still out there, it’s still an issue. However, I think the demand that’s needed has been a recognition that similar to what you look at where the administration is on oil, right? I mean, they want to make that sure that gasoline prices are reasonable to low so they’re going to try to encourage enough supply to come on the market in an election year. I would hope that they don’t want to see blackouts and brownouts on the electric side in an election year either. So maybe things will delay, be delayed until after the election, it’s hard to know but they’re still out there from EPA perspective at the same time. They’re just artificial compliance dates. There’s no reason why they have to be on the certain dates that they got in proposed and so we haven’t seen the final, they’ve got comments so we’ve got to wait and see what the final rules are to really be able to answer your question.
Operator: Thank you. We reached end of our question and answer session. I’d like to turn the floor back over to Cary for any further or closing comments.
Cary Marshall: Thank you, Operator. And 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 fourth quarter 2023 financial and operating results is currently expected to occur in January. And we hope everyone will join us again at that time. This concludes our call for the day. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. That does conclude today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your line at this time. And have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.
