Hallador Energy Company (NASDAQ:HNRG) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

All we are saying is that we had great success in this particular quarter, and we have got a great team that is out trying to get in situations that is both good for our customer and good for ourselves.

Lawrence Martin: And Lucas, to expand on that a little bit. Think of it as I mean, we say unit contingent, but we have guaranteed a certain percentage for the year. So if the unit goes down, we don’t have to deliver on a unit contingent basis. And power could be very high that day and we don’t get penalized. But then some of that, depending on the percentage, we may make up later at our contracted price. So you said force majeure, it is not really force majeure, but kind of.

Lucas Pipes: Got it. So the kind of the legal term would be there kind of, I think you said, unit contingent, right?

Lawrence Martin: Correct.

Lucas Pipes: That is helpful. And then yes, I really appreciate the disclosures. A quick question there on Page 18 of the Q. Contracted power revenue, that line shows 2024 98.05 million. That is pretty clear. The item immediately underneath it, how is that derived exactly? Can you walk me through that, the 43.34, the revenue per megawatt hour? I clearly doesn’t assume the $6 million. So I kind of struggle a bit to back into that.

Lawrence Martin: 78% of 6 million. So Lucas, that is contract, what we have contracted for the year, which is 78% of six million.

Lucas Pipes: Got it. Okay. So it is not based on the six million, you make the assumption you are running at you said 78% up to six million?

Lawrence Martin: Well, it is what we have, we don’t have six million contracted. We have six million we can provide. So the 98 million is what we have contracted.

Lucas Pipes: Yes.

Lawrence Martin: That is total capacity and energy.

Lucas Pipes: Correct. And the line underneath the 43.34 million, what -.

Lawrence Martin: How much revenue we are going to get on our contracted megawatts.

Lucas Pipes: But you have only 1.6 million contracted now?

Lawrence Martin: But that includes capacity and power.

Lucas Pipes: Got it. Okay.

Brent Bilsland: I think what we are showing here is -.

Lawrence Martin: [Indiscernible] divided by 78% of six million, 32, plus $34.

Lucas Pipes: Yes, maybe we can take that off-line, but I appreciate it. I think I know where this is going. But maybe one quick follow-up. You have only 1.6 million of output contracted, right.

Lawrence Martin: Correct.

Lucas Pipes: And so I mean, the capacity payment, you have capacity payments, but you can still generate revenue on top of that though.

Lawrence Martin: Absolutely. So we have 4.4 million megawatt hours of power that we can still contract.

Operator: Our next question comes from [Roger Zigler] (Ph) who is a Private Investor.

UnidentifiedAnalyst: Congrats on a strong quarter despite some obstacle, guys. My question is, I have not had a chance to delve into the Section 3, you said it is related to power in general, is an exciting new market. Am I reading the release just posted, one of the tables that in 2024 you have got 27% of your power priced? Is that correct, from the non-GAAP table that was provided in.

Lawrence Martin: At $34, yes.

Brent Bilsland: Yes, that is correct.

UnidentifiedAnalyst: So you have got 83% left to, potentially, there would be some windfall times in there, if possible, right. When you get some extremes either way, as you said, that is pretty exciting?

Brent Bilsland: That would be 73%. So basically, what we are saying is yes. We have got 27%, let’s just call it fourth around that. We have got a fourth price and we have got another two third or three fourth that we are open to, we bid into the market every day. And the prices can be high and prices can be low and prices can be so low that we take the unit offline. But we think we are heading into winter. And that typically historically has been some of the better pricing. So we will see what December, January and February bring.

Lawrence Martin: But also, we have 78% of our capacity sold for next year, which if we sell 100% of our capacity, we think that will cover the majority of our fixed costs.

UnidentifiedAnalyst: Correct. Okay. And a real general question you may or may not be willing to answer, but kind of a basic high-level question. Are you finding a very strong correlation to the nat gas market for power as it is with coal?

Brent Bilsland: Yes. I mean there is a lot of gas generation in MISO. And so if gas prices are cheap, those gas units can produce cheap power, and we have to compete against that, to a certain point, because once load exceeds gas generation, then coal is going to compete against coal or if gas prices go high as they did in 2022, then you will see coal potentially dispatch in front of gas and gas will take the upper end of the market. But pricing today on gas is pretty cheap.