Peabody Energy Corporation (NYSE:BTU) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Mark Spurbeck: And maybe I’ll follow up on the seaborne thermal. A couple of things for the additional terms. More higher ash tons at a Wilpinjong in the Wambo Open-Cut joint venture are doing extremely well. So volumes are up there. You also note pretty good reduction in costs for the next quarter. And again, I think it’s Wambo Open-Cut the production going up and cost doing better as well as some additional Wilpinjong tons there. And also some lower sales price sensitive costs.

Jim Grech: And, Lucas just if another point I wanted to make on Shoal Creek was, even though we’re looking at the one longwall, it’s in the L panels where we have started our development coal mining and the coal seams look very good. Very good conditions for us right there. So, we’ve given — we’ve talked about the output of the mine before and I’m confident with the one longwall mine in the mining conditions we’re in, there’s going to be no drop-off from our expectations from the production levels that we’ve had in the past, we’re going to be again, the L panel has some very, very good mining conditions from what we’re seeing so far.

Lucas Pipes: Very helpful color on both fronts. Thank you for that. And then a quick follow up on the JV and I looked at the cash flow statement for the quarter and contributions to JV were roughly equal to distributions from the JV. And that’s — is that only Middlemount or does that also include Wambo and if it is Middlemount, we expect maybe additional cash to come in from that side would appreciate your perspective and clarification on that point.

Mark Spurbeck: Yes, Lucas, it is only Middlemount there. So not a lot of cash flow from Middlemount currently, I’d expect the results to be kind of similar in the second half of the year as well, certainly not what we saw last year.

Lucas Pipes: All right. Well, I have more questions, but I’ll jump back in the queue. Thank you very much.

Jim Grech: Thank you.

Operator: [Operator Instruction] Our next question here will come from Nathan Martin with The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Nathan Martin: Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions.

Jim Grech: Good morning, Nathan.

Nathan Martin: Maybe I’ll just start on North Goonyella. I Appreciate the update there in the release, could we maybe get a refresher on the expected spending and timing of that spending on the project as you guys move towards anticipated longwall production in 2026? And then what and when are some of the regulatory hurdles you expect?

Jim Grech: Yes, Nathan, the first we’ve got it in two tranches of spending as we’ve discussed in the past, the first one is $140 million, which we’re spending this year a lot of that this year and early next year. And the — and what we’re seeing is the major regulatory hurdle that we have to overcome or I should say overcome to get approval of is the permission to reenter the Zone B area which is the sealed area. And at the combination of degassing that area and the ventilation of that area. And we expect to be able to reenter Zone B in sometime in September. That is the major regulatory hurdle that we have to get through. So after we can reenter Zone B and we get a good assessment of the situation there. Then we have to go back to with our board and get the approval of spend the remaining it’s approximately $230 million to $240 million.