J.C. Butler: It is not a major contract, but I think it’s a very important step in our growth of that business. You know, for years, we mined lime rock in Florida using drag lines underwater, or drag lines digging lime rock that’s underwater. The drag line, of course, was above the surface. So, you know, we’ve expanded into lithium. I think that’s a very exciting development for us. We’ve expanded outside of Florida. We’re mining other minerals. We’re doing sand and gravel and other things. We, for a long time, had had our sights on trying to get into phosphate mining, and we discovered an opportunity that really was several years in the making that we think gives us a nice, you know, nice entry into mining yet another mineral.
You know, Florida is a huge contributor to global phosphate production. So I think this, you know, this new contract is a pretty exciting one for us. It is a drag line operation, but of course, it’s dry. And, we’re very, very pleased to start up, get that started up sometime this year.
Doug Weiss: Okay, great. How much of the CapEx that you’ve given in your disclosures is for Thacker Pass this year?
J.C. Butler: I don’t know that, Liz.
Elizabeth Loveman: We did not call out specifically the Thacker Pass, but we did last year for 2023 when it was material. So I think you can deduce from that that it’s not a material amount this year.
J.C. Butler: Okay, and I, you know, I’m sorry, I would just, on your CapEx question, I would just add that there is a part of the CapEx. I’m not going to say how much, but there is a part of our 2024 CapEx that is CapEx from 2023 that wasn’t spent. You know, we’re always looking for ways that we can, you know, defer capital spending. It’s, you know, it’s always a smart thing to do if you can figure out how to either spend less capital or spend it later from a, you know, present value standpoint. Makes good sense. So there’s a piece of our 2024 CapEx that’s a carryover from 2023.
Doug Weiss: Okay, got it. And Thacker Pass, my sense is that’s a kind of new scope of work for you. How do you think, you know, how do you kind of add the operational capabilities you need to do that? How different is it from the work you’re doing, the drag line work you’re doing? And, you know, are there operational risks there that you’re sort of planning for?
J.C. Butler: I mean, it’s really very, very, very similar to the work that we do in our coal mining operations. You know, we’re going to run a full fleet of equipment. It’s more similar to our coal mining operations as it is the Lime Rock business, where we are, you know, really operating very specific pieces of equipment in kind of a specialized sort of thing. At the Thacker Pass project, we’re going to, we’re doing all the work related to mining. It is very, very, very similar, almost identical to the work that we do. There’s virtually no operating risk for us. We’re operating the same types of equipment. It’s a very similar contract structure. We apply the same disciplines that we do, you know, in our other operations. So we don’t really see any operational risk in this operation at all. Which is another reason why it’s so exciting.
Doug Weiss: Right. And then I know you’re reimbursed for the capital equipment. Do you keep that equipment after the project is complete?
J.C. Butler: We do.
Doug Weiss: Okay. Then just a really quick bookkeeping question. You know, the EBITDA you report in your headline results of around 7 million plus is slightly different than on your sub-table where you break out EBITDA and it’s sort of 6 million plus. Can you say what the plug is between those two numbers? I can follow up too if it’s not an easy one.
Elizabeth Loveman: We’re looking. I think the 6.4 is segment-adjusted EBITDA. Is that the number you’re referring to?
Doug Weiss: Yeah.
Elizabeth Loveman: The 7.1 is on page 10 of the release. That’s consolidated adjusted EBITDA. So we have two different EBITDA metrics. One is segment-adjusted, and our segment-adjusted stops at operating profit, whereas the consolidated-adjusted is more of a traditional EBITDA.
