Natural Resource Partners L.P. Aktie

Thank you. Hello everyone, thank you for joining us and welcome to the Natural Resource Partners LP Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. now hand the conference over to Tiffany Samas, Investor Relations. Tiffany, please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning and welcome to the natural resource partners. Second quarter 2026 conference call. Today's call is being webcast and a replay will be available on our website. Joining me today are Craig Nunez, President of the Chief Operating Officer, Chris Zolas, Chief Financial Officer, and Kevin Craig, Executive Vice President. Some of our comments today may include forward-looking statements reflecting NRP's views about future events. These matters involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to materially differ from our forward-looking statements. These risks are discussed in NRP's Form 10-K and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason.

Our comments today also include non-GAAP financial measures. Additional details and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our second quarter press release, which can be found on our website. I would like to remind everyone that we do not intend to discuss the operations or outlook for any particular Coal Lessee or detailed market fundamentals. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Craig Nunez, our President and Chief Operating Officer. Thank you, Tiffany, and good morning, everyone. NRP generated $42 million.

of free cash flow in the second quarter and 163 million of free cash flow over the last 12 months before the 39 million dollars we put to work in our sodash business back in the first quarter the The world has been noisy recently. Geopolitical conflict, shipping disruptions, tariff fights. I don't know how those will resolve. What I do know is that we paid off our bank revolver last month and have only $14 million of debt outstanding. Barring something unforeseen, we intend to raise and freeze distributions significantly in November. Coal, both metallurgical and thermal, has settled down and shown modest improvement off the lows, although I can't point to any single event that's likely to push prices sharply higher from here. not in the business of predicting commodity prices anyway. What matters more is that our mineral rights segment just keeps doing what it's done for years, reducing cash, rain or shine.

Through every major coal cycle, it has been the most dependable cash generator we've ever owned. On thermal coal, if oil prices remain high, that tends to bring more associated natural gas production along with it, which puts downward pressure on thermal coal prices in North America. Cheaper oil would work the other way. Meanwhile, renewables keep getting more competitive, and that will pose a long-term headwind for thermal coal. Now so dash. The honest picture is that global supply still exceeds demand, and we don't see a quick fix. The encouraging sign is that international prices after a long and painful decline appear to have found the floor, it's a floor below most producers cost of production, which tells you the downturn still has room to run. Domestic SODASH prices have always traded at a premium to international prices due to transportation costs, trade frictions, and the value domestic customers place on reliable supply.

That premium is unusually wide right now, mostly because domestic contracts get set once a year, while international prices move with speed. spot market. As a result, domestic prices haven't caught up with how far international prices have fallen. As contracts for 2027 deliveries get negotiated this year, we expect that gap to close, which means lower domestic prices ahead. We've seen this movie before. The 1999 to 2004 downturn looked a lot like today's market, and it eventually corrected as supply and demand found their way back into balance. We're starting to see hints of that with recent announcements of extended closures amounting to roughly 4% of global capacity. markets have a way of curing their own excesses given time. So to sum it up, Despite challenges for all three of our key commodities, NRP is generating strong free cash flow. We're almost debt free. And barring the unexpected, we plan to raise distribution significantly starting in November.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Chris. Thank you, Craig.

In the second quarter of 2026, NRP generated $25 million of net income, $41 million of operating cash flow, and $42 million of free cash flow. Of these second quarter consolidated amounts, our mineral rights segment generated $36 million of net income and $45 million of operating and pre-cash flow. When compared to the prior year, second quarter. Mineral rights segment net income decreased by 3M primarily due to increased expense caused by revised mine plans at certain long wall, thermal coal mines that resulted in higher per ton depletion rates. This decrease in net income was partially offset by increased revenues, primarily due to increased metallurgical and thermal volumes in pricing at certain properties. Operating cash flow and free cash flow each decrease 1M as compared to the prior year period, primarily due to higher recoupments during the three months ended June 30th, 2026. Partial offset by increased cash from minimum payments during the quarter.

Regarding our met thermal coal royalty mix. Metallurgical coal made up approximately 70% of our core royalty revenues and 45% of core royalty sales volumes in the 2nd quarter of 2026. Our soda ash segments second quarter net income decreased 7 million compared to prior year quarter. This decrease was driven by lower sales prices due to the oversupplied international soda ash market and weakened demand for black glass. Operating in free cash flow each decreased $5 million when compared to the prior year These decreases were due to not receiving a distribution in the second quarter of 2026 as compared to receiving a 5 million distribution in the second quarter of last year. NRP does not expect distributions from Syster Jam, Wyoming to resume until the SODASH demand rebounds or there is a significant supply response to this depressed market. Moving to our corporate and financing results, net income for the second quarter of 2026 improved $2 million, while operating cash flow and free cash flow each improved $1 million as compared to the prior year period.

These improvements were due to having less debt outstanding resulted in lower interest costs and less cash paid for interest. regarding our quarterly distributions in may we paid the first quarter distribution of 75 cents per common unit and today we announced our second quarter distribution of 75 cents per common unit to be paid later this month Regarding our debt, I'm pleased and proud to report that we have now completely repaid our Opco credit facility and have one final $14 million scheduled payment due in December on our Opco Senior Notes. As a result, and as Craig mentioned earlier, we expect to be able to significantly increase NRP unit holder distributions for the next quarterly distribution to be paid in November. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Trevor, our operator for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile a Q&A roster. There are no questions at this time.

I will now turn the call back to Craig Nunes for closing remarks.

Thank you, Trevor, and thank you everyone for joining our call today and thank you for being partners with us at NRP.

forward to talking to you next quarter. Have a good day. This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

This live transcript is auto-generated without human intervention or review.

[Call has ended.]

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to Natural Resource Partners First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call.[Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Tiffany Sammis, Investor Relations. Tiffany, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to the Natural Resource Partners First Quarter 2026 Conference Call. Today's call is being webcast, and a replay will be available on our website. Joining me today are Craig Nunez, President and Chief Operating Officer; Chris Zolas, Chief Financial Officer; and Kevin Craig, Executive Vice President.

Some of our comments today may include forward-looking statements reflecting NRP's views about future events. These matters involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to materially differ from our forward-looking statements. These risks are discussed in NRP's Form 10-K and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason. Our comments today also include non-GAAP financial measures.

Additional details and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our first intend to discuss the operations or outlook for any particular coal lessee or detailed market fundamentals. Now I would like to turn the call over to Craig Nunez, our President and Chief Operating Officer.

Thank you, Tiffany, and good morning, everyone. I would like to start off by apologizing in advance for my voice. I'm a little under the weather today, and I will do my best to speak clearly so you'll be able to understand me. NRP generated $34 million of free cash flow in the first quarter of 2026 and $167 million of free cash flow over the last 12 months before accounting for the $39 million capital investment we made into our soda ash business during the quarter.

Metallurgical and thermal coal producers continue to operate in challenging conditions, while soda ash producers are struggling amid what is arguably the most significant global supply glut in a generation. To date, we have not experienced any material impact on our Mineral Rights segment from the war in Iran.

However, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused some European countries to look at delaying coal plant phaseouts to ensure power security, similar to ongoing discussions in the United States.

U.S. metallurgical coal prices are realizing a modest benefit from increased demand for safe haven domestically produced steel. At the same time, sharply higher diesel and shipping costs are compressing producer margins and any slowdown in global industrial activity resulting from elevated energy prices could put downward pressure on steel demand and metallurgical coal pricing.

There is another second order effect worth noting. Higher oil prices may also lead to increased U.S. oil production and greater volumes of associated natural gas. Given the limits of LNG export capacity, a portion of this gas may become stranded domestically, placing downward pressure on North American natural gas prices and in turn, on thermal coal demand and pricing. Commodity markets have a way of solving one problem by creating another. In the soda ash market, higher energy and transportation costs, combined with war-related slowdowns in construction activity, particularly across Asia, have worsened condition for an industry already burdened by oversupply.

While lower-cost U.S. producers may ultimately gain market share as higher cost competitors struggle, we have not yet seen clear evidence of this shift.

In short, the war in Iran has taken an already difficult outlook for soda ash and made it worse. Despite these headwinds, NRP continues to generate substantial cash flow and remains on track with our deleveraging strategy.

Although outstanding debt increased to $73 million during the quarter as we funded the $39 million investment in Sisecam, Wyoming. we subsequently reduced debt to $60 million by quarter end and have paid it down to $45 million as of today. Our objective is straightforward: pay off debt so that more cash can ultimately flow to unitholders.

Before the conflict in Iran, both metallurgical and thermal coal markets were showing early signs of stabilization.

While we cannot say with confidence that coal prices have reached a cyclical bottom, there are indications that the worst may be behind us. Looking ahead, my primary concern remains our soda ash business. Despite being one of the lowest cost producers globally, Sisecam Wyoming is currently struggling to generate positive free cash flow. While we were early to call for a soda ash downturn, I underestimated both its severity and duration. Our prior stress testing did not envision a decline of this magnitude.

Had you asked me a year ago whether we would be making a capital infusion earlier this year, I would have said no. We are reevaluating our assumptions regarding global soda ash markets in general and Sisecam Wyoming in particular. Recent events have demonstrated that even low-cost producers like us are not immune to prolonged adverse conditions.

Since acquiring our interest in Sisecam Wyoming 13 years ago, NRP has received $0.5 billion in distributions so far. Annual distributions have ranged widely from a low of negative $39 million to a high of $81 million, averaging roughly $38 million per year. As of today, those distributions already received have already delivered to NRP an 11% compound annualized return and a 1.6:1 multiple on our investment. Those calculations assign 0 residual value for our interest in Sisecam, Wyoming. In reality, the reserve information filed with our Form 10-K indicates that at current production levels, Sisecam Wyoming has approximately 50 years of remaining reserves.

Simply extrapolating historical average distributions over the 50-year remaining reserve life would equate to roughly $1.9 billion of potential future distributions to NRP, an unusually long runway for a natural resource asset and an important component of NRP's intrinsic value.

While our internal evaluation of our interest in Sisecam Wyoming is more detailed than that, incorporating projected pricing, cost, capital expenditures and the time value of money through discounted cash flow and internal rate of return calculations, these high-level numbers give you an idea of our view of the economic characteristics of that investment.

Before turning it over to Chris to cover the financial results, I'd like to leave you with 3 key takeaways. Number one, NRP's financial health is not dependent on the success of Sisecam Wyoming. Our balance sheet is strong, liquidity is ample and free cash flow generation is exceptionally robust at this stage in the commodity price cycle. Preserving this hard-earned financial strength is our top priority. Number two, we remain on track to increase NRP unitholder distributions this year, but continue to caution that challenging environments for all 3 of our key commodities, particularly soda ash, increase the likelihood that some event or combination of events could push that timing back.

I expect we will increase distributions in November, but will not be surprised if something happens to cause that to be delayed.

We will continue to update you each quarter with our latest thinking. And number three, decisions to invest additional capital in Sisecam Wyoming will be evaluated through the same lens we would apply to all investments, maximizing NRP's intrinsic value per unit while maintaining a conservative bias and an appropriate margin of safety.

Put simply, every dollar invested is a dollar that cannot be distributed to NRP unitholders today, and that trade-off must be justified by compelling returns on capital and the expectation of higher unitholder distributions in the future. For those of you who are new to NRP, I refer you to the unitholder letters in our annual reports for more information on our investment philosophy and approach to capital allocation. With that, I'll turn it over to Chris now to cover the financials.

Thank you, Craig. For 2026, NRP generated $20 million of net income and $33 million of operating cash flow. NRP's free cash flow in the first quarter of 2026 was negative $5 million, which takes into account the $39 million capital investment into Sisecam Wyoming.

Of these consolidated amounts, our Mineral Rights segment generated $34 million of net income, $42 million of operating cash flow and $43 million of free cash flow in the first quarter. When compared to the prior year first quarter, Mineral Rights segment net income decreased $12 million and operating cash flow and free cash flow each decreased $1 million.

The decrease in net income was primarily due to lower metallurgical and thermal coal sales volumes as compared to the prior year period and increased depletion rates at certain thermal properties.

The declines in operating and free cash flow were also primarily due to lower metallurgical and thermal coal sales volumes, partially offset by higher recoupments of prior period minimum payments in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the first quarter of this year.

Regarding our met thermal coal royalty mix, metallurgical coal made up approximately 65% of our coal royalty revenues and 45% of coal royalty sales volumes in the first quarter of 2026. For our soda ash segment, net income for the first quarter decreased $12 million compared to the prior year quarter.

This decrease was driven by lower sales prices and volumes due to the oversupplied international soda ash market and weakened demand for flat glass. Operating cash flow decreased $3 million and free cash flow decreased $42 million when compared to the prior year period.

These decreases were due to not receiving a distribution in the first quarter of 2026 as compared to receiving $3 million of distributions in the first quarter of 2025.

In addition, free cash flow was further impacted by the $39 million capital investment made in Sisecam Wyoming in the first quarter of 2026. In March of this year, NRP and Sisecam Wyoming's managing partner made a capital investment into Sisecam Wyoming and NRP's pro-rata share was just $39 million.

NRP does not expect distributions from Sisecam Wyoming to resume until soda ash market demand rebounds or there is a significant supply response to this weakened market. Moving to our Corporate and Financing segment. Q1 2026 net income, operating cash flow and free cash flow each improved $3 million as compared to the prior year period.

These improvements to the Corporate and Financing segment were due to less debt outstanding, resulting in lower interest costs and less cash paid for interest. Regarding our quarterly distributions, in February this year, we paid the fourth quarter distribution of $0.75 per common unit. In March, we paid a special cash distribution of $0.12 per common unit to help cover unitholder tax liabilities associated with owning NRP's units in 2025.

And today, we announced our first quarter distribution of $0.75 per common unit to be paid later this month. And with that, I'll turn the call over to our operator for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Stephen Bols with Yellowgate Investment Management.

Can you discuss the minus $7.8 million loss on the equity and earnings from the soda ash segment? Was that a cash loss? Or does it include interest? Maybe if you could just give a little bit more detail on that.

Sure. No, that was -- that was our proportionate share of their net income during the first quarter. So that was their operating results. That includes all cash and noncash amounts. That's the U.S. GAAP number.

Understood. So that means the total loss would have been double that. And I guess I'm trying to get a sense of whether that included any impairments or whether that was sort of represented by -- I guess, maybe if you have an idea, I know it comes in the financial statements, what the gross loss would have been like...

Yes. We have a footnote in our 10-Q that you'll see later here today that will disclose anything significant, but there was no significant onetime items that were in the net income amount.

Okay. I'll take a look for that. Also talked that coal sales volumes this quarter were down about 20%, 21% versus the prior year, also down versus fourth quarter. Just my quick look, it looks like Illinois Basin was down a lot, Northern Powder River and Gulf Coast. Was that anything there that you see going forward? Do you have a sense of -- obviously, you guys don't have the production forecast, but do you have a sense of -- was there anything in particular going on there or what you think what things should look like for the year ahead?

Well, as you know, we don't talk about any lessees particularly. And when we talk about Illinois Basin, we only have one lessee. But we didn't see -- there was not a systemic problem in Illinois Basin that resulted in lower production.

It was really an issue of mining on adjacent land that was not owned -- had minerals that were not owned by us during the period, and you'll see that happen sometimes. You'll see our production volumes drop and increase rather dramatically from period to period as the operator moves from adjacent property on to us and back off of us again.

Got it. So nothing systematic.

Correct.

Great. I just wanted to have another financial statement question, a quick one is in the cash flow statements for cash flow from financing, there was $8.6 million spent during the quarter just on other items net. Can you talk about what that was?

Sure. The biggest item there is taxes associated with equity awards. So when we settle equity awards, they get net settled and those taxes get paid by NRP.

That happens every first quarter.

Got it. Okay. And I guess that's also just the payables are probably also just catching up with the bonuses or other payments from the prior year. One last quick question is just noticed there's noncash, but there was a major increase in depreciation. I think you mentioned that there was increased depletion rates in certain thermal coal. Anything else, the number went from $4 million to $7.6 million this quarter.

Yes. You picked up on it. I mean that's exactly right. We continually do evaluations of our economic tons estimates that drive that depletion calculation. And as we get information from our operators and our lessees about their future mine plans, it can cause some adjustments to our -- those estimates of economic tons.

And that's what happened last year. There wasn't just want to add there. You noticed there wasn't any associated impairment that was recorded as a result of those adjustments. So...

Again, that's something that fluctuates from time to time. Your estimated reserve quantities will go up, they'll go down. And as they do, it affects your depletion rate each year on your financial statements and on your tax returns.

Our next question comes from the line of David Spier with Nitor Capital Management.

Regarding the soda ash JV following the contribution, how much debt now remains at the JV?

$60 million?

$60 million in total, not to NRP share.

Correct.

Got it. And then earlier, when you mentioned you're potentially reevaluating the soda ash business, is it possible to further elaborate on potential options?

Well, let me tell you what I mean by reevaluating. So those of you who follow us for a long time, you know that we are very focused on scenario testing, stress testing our business, trying to evaluate every possible thing or a combination of that could undermine our results.

We do the same thing on soda ash. And quite frankly, the environment that we find ourselves in now is one that is worse than we had envisioned in our stress testing.

So we have gone back to the drawing board and said, okay, let's start from scratch because since this scenario, this market situation has fallen outside of what we had envisioned was realistically possible, we need to correct our thinking.

And so we're just reevaluating everything along those lines. As far as what are the possible scenarios going forward with respect to Sisecam Wyoming, two reasons I don't have a lot of meat to give you on that. The first is that we don't yet know what the operator of the venture is going to do.

They are working, they're evaluating, they're making their decisions of what they would like to propose as a plan going forward. And the second thing is this is a very competitive market that we're in, in the global soda ash business right now, even more competitive now than during normal times.

So I don't want to elaborate too much on the possible avenues that the operator may be considering because it could give competitors information that would not be helpful for us for them to have.

And I'd still imagine even in the current depressed environment, it's the partnership's view that this, the JV is still a large component of the company's value right now.

It is our view that this is a world-class asset that has a very long life to it with very significant cash-generating potential in the future that's going through a very difficult time right now.

And so yes, I mean, look, the concern that we have that you should have, I think that everyone should have is, are there signals here that this asset has lost the the investment characteristics that attracted us to it in the first place as it is the future going to be materially worse than the past.

This asset has been operating for over 60 years. And is the next 50 going to be materially worse than the last 60? And are we unrealistically cleaning to bright memories of the past, allowing ourselves to be misleaded misled into making more investments into the future that shouldn't be made. And we're trying to be very careful that we don't fall into that trap.

We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Craig Nunez for closing remarks.

Thank you very much, operator, and thank you, everyone, for your participation on the call and the questions. And I wish you a very good day and look forward to speaking to you on our next call.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Natural Resource Partners L.P. Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]

I will now hand the call over to Tiffany Sammis, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to the Natural Resource Partners Fourth Quarter 2025 Conference Call. Today's call is being webcast, and a replay will be available on our website. Joining me today are Craig Nunez, President and Chief Operating Officer; Chris Zolas, Chief Financial Officer; and Kevin Craig, Executive Vice President.

Some of our comments today may include forward-looking statements reflecting NRP's views about future events. These matters involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to materially differ from our forward-looking statements. These risks are discussed in NRP's Form 10-K and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason. Our comments today also include non-GAAP financial measures. Additional details and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our fourth quarter press release, which can be found on our website.

I would like to remind everyone that we do not intend to discuss the operations or outlook for any particular coal lessee or detailed market fundamentals.

Now I would like to turn the call over to Craig Nunez, our President and Chief Operating Officer.

Thank you, Tiffany, and good morning, everyone. NRP generated $46 million of free cash flow in the fourth quarter and $169 million of free cash flow in the full year 2025. All three of our key commodities, metallurgical coal, thermal coal and soda ash continued to struggle with sales prices that are near or below our estimates of operator's marginal cost of production. Metallurgical and thermal sales prices are at cyclically low levels and soda ash prices are at generational lows. We do not yet see any catalysts on the horizon that are likely to change this outlook in the foreseeable future.

In 2025, softening global economic activity and subdued demand for steel weighed on metallurgical coal pricing, while low natural gas prices and mild weather pressured thermal coal. While sentiment towards thermal coal is benefiting from the projected rise in electricity demand from data centers, we have yet to see any material market improvement.

Until we see clear evidence of a structural market shift, we remain disciplined in managing the partnership under the assumption that demand for North American thermal coal remains a long-term secular decline. As we said over the course of last year, 2025 was a very challenging time for the global soda ash industry. We believe 2026 will be worse. While we were early to warn about the potential for excess capacity hitting the market, the extent and potential duration of the downturn is exceeding even our expectations.

International prices are currently below the cost of production for most producers. We believe supply rationalization is not a question of if, but when. However, we also believe rebalancing global supply and demand will take time, and we expect it could be several years before a healthy bid returns to the market and prices return to historical levels.

We anticipate further pressure on Sisecam Wyoming's financial performance. We have not received distributions from the joint venture for the last two quarters, and we do not expect distributions to resume for the foreseeable future. Our managing partner is retaining cash to support investments in safety, operational integrity and to shore up the capital structure.

Additionally, earlier this month, we agreed with our partner to invest capital in the venture to reduce outstanding amounts under its bank credit facility and better position it to compete in the current environment. NRP share of this investment is $39 million, and we evaluated it as we would any other capital allocation decision with the goal of maximizing NRP's intrinsic value per unit. Regarding carbon-neutral initiatives, leasing interest for underground carbon sequestration remains lackluster. As political, regulatory and market uncertainties posed significant hurdles for developers contemplating large capital investments for these types of projects. We continue to work on multiple geothermal, solar and lithium opportunities and we are making small-scale progress on several initiatives, but have nothing material to report.

In conclusion, coal prices remain at cyclical lows and global soda ash prices are at generational lows. Our coal lessees are operating at or near their cost of production and our soda ash investment, one of the world's lowest cost producers is managing through what may be the worst bear market in its 60-plus-year history.

Despite this, NRP continues to generate robust free cash flow and make progress toward our goal of retiring all outstanding debt. We retired $109 million of debt in 2025 and finished the year with $33 million of debt and no other financial obligations outstanding. Our time line has been to retire all debt and significantly increase unitholder distributions in August of this year.

Although we've cautioned that extended bear markets for all three of our key commodities would increase the likelihood that some event would occur that could push that timing back. The $39 million investment in Sisecam Wyoming is one such event and will push the distribution increase we had expected to occur in August back to a subsequent quarter.

I'll turn it over now to Chris for more details.

Thank you, Craig. In the fourth quarter of 2025, NRP generated $31 million of net income, $45 million of operating cash flow and $46 million of free cash flow. For the full year 2025, NRP generated $136 million of net income, a $166 million of operating cash flow and $169 million of free cash flow.

Of these consolidated amounts, our Mineral Rights segment generated $40 million of net income, $49 million of operating cash flow and $50 million of free cash flow in the fourth quarter. And $166 million of net income, $182 million of operating cash flow and $185 million of free cash flow in the full year of 2025. When compared to the prior year fourth quarter, our Mineral Rights segment net income, operating cash flow and free cash flow each decreased $13 million.

When compared to the full year, our Mineral Rights segment net income declined $41 million, while operating and free cash flow each decreased $60 million. These decreases were primarily due to weaker metallurgical coal markets, resulting in lower sales prices and volumes. Regarding our net thermal coal royalty mix, metallurgical coal made up approximately 70% of our coal royalty revenues and 45% of coal royalty sales volumes for the fourth quarter and 65% of our coal royalty revenues and 45% of our core royalty sales volumes for the full year 2025.

For our soda ash segment, Net income for the fourth quarter and full year of 2025 decreased $3 million and $15 million, respectively, when compared to the prior year periods. Operating and free cash flow for the fourth quarter and full year of 2025, each decreased by $11 million and $31 million, respectively, as compared to the prior year periods. These decreases were primarily due to lower international sales prices, driven by new natural soda ash supply from China, as well as weak glass demand from the construction and automobile markets. We have not received a distribution from Sisecam Wyoming since the second quarter of 2025 and do not expect distributions from Sisecam Wyoming to resume until soda ash demand rebounds where there is a significant supply response to this weakened market, most likely from higher-cost synthetic production.

Moving to our Corporate and Financing segment. Q4 2025 net income, operating cash flow and free cash flow each improved $3 million as compared to the prior year period. Full year net income improved by $9 million, while operating and free cash flow each improved $8 million as compared to the prior year period. These improvements to the Corporate and Financing segment were due to significantly less debt outstanding, resulting in lower interest costs and less cash paid for interest.

We used the free cash flow generated from our business segments in 2025 to repay $109 million of debt. Even including the impact of our planned $39 million capital investment into Sisecam Wyoming, we remain on track to accomplish our deleveraging goal this year. Regarding our quarterly distributions, in November of 2025, we paid a third quarter distribution of $0.75 per common unit. In February of this year, we paid a distribution of $0.75 related to the fourth quarter of 2025.

In addition, today, we announced a special distribution of $0.12 per common unit to help cover unitholder tax liabilities associated with owning NRP's common units in 2025.

And with that, I'll turn the call over to our operator for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from David Spier with Nitor Capital Management.

Just to better understand the capital contribution to the soda ash JV, is there any way to provide how much bank that was outstanding and whether the JV is now debt-free following the contribution?

The JV is not debt free. The JV has $50-plus million of debt remaining after the contribution.

So is there any plans or intention to continue making contributions to pay down the remaining debt? Is that on the table?

We do not have that. That's not our plan right now. What I will say is that this is a very difficult soda ash market. We were early and we were right on the downturn. But we've been wrong on the extent, the depth and the duration of the downturn now that we're in it. If things get worse, there could be situations where we would elect to put more capital into the soda ash venture. That's always a possibility, but that's not what we're planning at the moment.

And was this just lastly, was this a requirement? Or was it your election and option?

It was our election.

Our next question comes from [ Dan Adler ].

My question was related to the capital investment as well. I'd lowered my hand, but not in time.

Our next question comes from Phillip Cramer with BATS Wireless.

Yes. Congratulations on the foresight and great moves by significantly deleveraging the partnership over the last years. Do you anticipate that we'll be in a position to substantially increase distributions in the make orders?

No, not in May. If you do the math, you take our run rates that we're generating in free cash. You take into account the $39 million distribution or contribution we're making to the Sisecam Wyoming joint venture. The timing would say it's probably in November.

Thanks for the clarification.

You bet. I want to say what we've said before, though in prior calls, and that is that the longer the bear market continues for all three of our key commodities, the greater the likelihood something happens that pushes that timing back. But right now, that's what the timing looks like.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Alberto Vadia with Fruit Tree Capital.

So I attended the Federal Land Management's sale of auction of Mineral Rights for two of Warriors mines. And I was just curious why you guys weren't -- didn't bid.

Good question. Let me just tell you that the opportunities to acquire passive interest in Natural Resource assets at attractive prices, which are what we try to do does not come along often. Auctions are typically not places where you come away with attractive opportunities and for mineral type assets. So you're not likely to see us participate in auctions.

Furthermore, I'll tell you, we are still on our path to delever and our goal is to essentially pay off all of our debt and then focus primarily on returning capital to unitholders in form of distributions. So those are the reasons we weren't there.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Craig Nunez for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for participating in this call, and thank you all of you for your support of NRP and have a good day.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Thank you for standing by. My name is Tina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Natural Resource Partners L.P. Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Tiffany Sammis, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to the Natural Resource Partners Third Quarter 2025 Conference Call. Today's call is being webcast, and a replay will be available on our website. Joining me today are Craig Nunez, President and Chief Operating Officer; Chris Zolas, Chief Financial Officer; and Kevin Craig, Executive Vice President.

Some of our comments today may include forward-looking statements reflecting NRP's views about future events. These matters involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to materially differ from our forward-looking statements. These risks are discussed in NRP's Form 10-K and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason.

Our comments today also include non-GAAP financial measures. Additional details and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our third quarter press release, which can be found on our website. I would like to remind everyone that we do not intend to discuss the operations or outlook for any particular coal lessee or detailed market fundamentals.

Now I would like to turn the call over to Craig Nunez, our President and Chief Operating Officer.

Thanks, Tiffany, and good morning, everyone. NRP generated $42 million of free cash flow in the third quarter of 2025 and $190 million of free cash flow over the last 12 months. We continue to generate substantial free cash flow despite significant headwinds for all 3 of our key commodities: metallurgical coal, thermal coal and soda ash.

Metallurgical coal markets are challenged by slowing global growth and soft steel demand. Thermal coal markets are struggling with muted demand caused by mild weather, cheap natural gas, slowing global growth and renewable energy adoption. While the prospects for a more accommodating regulatory environment and increased electricity demand from data centers have increased market optimism for thermal coal, we have not yet seen any material support for prices or demand. While we acknowledge that these factors offer the potential for a more bullish long-term outlook, we will continue to manage the partnership in accordance with the thesis that North American thermal coal remains in long-term secular decline until we see evidence to the contrary.

As we've seen previously, we believe -- as we've said previously, we believe most coal operators are struggling to make money with most producing at razor thin margins and a growing number operating at a loss. We are seeing this play out in the announced results of publicly traded companies and recent bankruptcies of several smaller producers. While we have not identified a catalyst to turn the market around, we continue to believe that the vast majority of our lessees are in better financial shape than in previous downturns. We believe these factors, combined with our relatively robust free cash flow generating capability, solid and improving capital structure and conservative management philosophy, position us well for navigating a very difficult coal market.

The soda ash market remains oversupplied due to capacity additions and slowing global growth. International prices are below cash production costs for most producers. While we were early to share publicly our concerns regarding the potential for the supply-demand imbalances now plaguing the market, the depth and potential duration of the current downturn is more significant than we initially expected. We are in a generational bear market for soda ash, and there will be more pain to bear before the situation improves.

If there is a silver lining to the cloud hanging over the soda ash market, it is that this dynamic is unsustainable in the long term. We expect producers will rationalize supply at some point, but we don't know when or how that will occur. Rebalancing supply and demand will likely take several years before prices return to levels enjoyed historically.

As one of the world's lowest cost producers, Sisecam Wyoming continues to navigate this downturn well. In addition to aggressively managing costs and inventories, Sisecam is maintaining its focus on safety and system integrity, 2 areas that are sometimes overlooked during periods of challenging financial results. Our soda ash investment is a long-term asset with durable competitive advantages that will produce an essential global commodity for many years in the future. We are quite pleased that our managing partner is committed to maintaining the long-term integrity of our shared asset even when near-term financial performance is down.

We did not receive a distribution from Sisecam this quarter after receiving $8 million in distributions during the first half of the year. While we expect Sisecam Wyoming to remain profitable through the downturn, we do not expect it to resume distributions for the foreseeable future with cash retained used for investments in safety and system integrity.

The carbon-neutral industry continues to struggle. Oxy notified us during the quarter that it was dropping its subsurface CO2 sequestration lease on 65,000 acres of floor space we own in Polk County, Texas. You'll recall that Exxon dropped its CO2 sequestration lease on 75,000 acres we own in Baldwin County, Alabama last year. As of now, none of our 3.5 million acres of CO2 sequestration pore space is under lease. You've heard me describe these sequestration rights as out-of-the-money call options on greatness. They cost us nothing to hold, they never expire, and we benefit if the market for CO2 sequestration goes up. I do not believe our leases were dropped due to any problems associated with our specific acreage.

On the contrary, I think the locations leased to Oxy and Exxon are some of the highest quality CO2 pore space in the Gulf Coast. The entire CO2 sequestration industry remains burdened by high capital and operating costs, insufficient and inadequate revenue streams and the lack of a consistent regulatory framework. These factors have created formidable economic barriers that operators are either unable or unwilling to overcome. Our call options on sequestration pore space will remain out of the money until and unless these industry challenges are resolved.

In conclusion, coal and soda ash prices are down, and we do not see near-term catalysts for market improvement. Our coal lessees are operating at or near their cost of production, and our soda ash investment is experiencing the lowest international sales prices in decades. Despite this, NRP continues to generate robust free cash flow and make progress toward our goal of retiring all outstanding debt. Over the past 12 months, we have retired nearly $130 million of debt with only $70 million of debt remaining as of the end of the quarter.

We continue to believe that we will be in a position to increase unitholder distributions in August. However, I caution that the longer we slog through the depths of bear markets for all 3 of our key commodities, the greater the likelihood that some event occurs that pushes that timing back. Rest assured, however, that we will continue to manage the partnership with a conservative mindset in order to protect your investment and be best prepared for negative events that may arise. And with that, I'll turn it over to Chris to cover the financials.

Thank you, Craig. In the third quarter of 2025, NRP generated $31 million of net income, $41 million of operating cash flow and $42 million of free cash flow. Of these consolidated amounts, our Mineral Rights segment generated $41 million of net income, $44 million of operating cash flow and $45 million of free cash flow. When compared to the prior year third quarter, our Mineral Rights segment net income remained flat, while operating and free cash flow each decreased $9 million. Decreases were primarily due to weaker metallurgical coal markets resulting in lower sales prices.

Regarding our third quarter 2025 met thermal coal royalty mix, metallurgical coal made up approximately 70% of our coal royalty revenues and 50% of our coal royalty sales volumes.

For our soda ash segment, net income decreased by $11 million compared to the prior year third quarter, while operating and free cash flow each decreased by $6 million. These decreases were primarily due to lower international sales prices driven by weakened glass demand from the construction and automobile markets, combined with new natural soda ash supply from China. We did not receive a distribution from Sisecam Wyoming in the third quarter of 2025 and do not expect distributions from Sisecam Wyoming to resume until soda ash demand rebounds or there is a more significant supply response to this weakened market, most likely from higher cost synthetic production.

Moving to our Corporate and Financing segment. Q3 2025 net income improved $3 million and operating cash flow and free cash flow each improved $2 million as compared to the prior year period due to significantly less debt outstanding, resulting in lower interest cost and less cash paid for interest. We used the free cash flow generated from our business segments to repay $32 million of debt during the third quarter, over $70 million through the first 9 months of 2025, and we remain on track to accomplish our deleveraging goals next year.

Regarding our quarterly distributions, in August of 2025, we paid the second quarter distribution of $0.75 per common unit. And today, we announced the third quarter 2025 distribution of $0.75 per common unit that will be paid later this month.

And with that, I'll turn the call back over to our operator for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of [ Dan Adler ].

This is Dan Adler. Thank you for all you're doing for shareholders. My question revolves around leasing for lithium mining in the Smackover region. And if you could provide any information on acreage that has been leased or potential for revenue from that leasing.

Thank you for your call, Dan, for your question. Yes, we are active in leasing acreage in the Smackover formation for lithium production to multiple lessees. We don't comment on terms of leases and that type of thing. I will say that the activity in the area has been -- has varied from robust to lukewarm at various periods over the last several years. But yes, we're active in the Smackover in Southern Arkansas and in Northeast Texas.

Our next question comes from the line of David Spier with Nitor Capital.

Just first, a bit of a housekeeping question. Just given the passive nature of the partnership, just the operating and maintenance expense, what goes into those expenses? And is there any ability given the environment to reduce that expense line?

Sure. Salaries and compensation is a big part of that. We also have a variety of other general corporate costs, insurance, legal, accounting. So there's a variety of general corporate type of costs that flow in there.

We have -- those aren't in general and administrative expenses. I'm talking about the operating and maintenance expense line.

Sure. We also have those same type of expenses in the operating expense for the Mineral Rights segment. But there's also things such as property taxes, which is a big one and royalty expenses as well. We have some royalty costs as well that go in there.

We have a zero-based budgeting approach so that every year, we -- the goal is to make the total cost as low as possible rather than simply look at increases of costs from year-to-year. So I won't say that we don't sharpen our pencil whenever times are lean because we do. But the reality is we sharpen our pencil all the time. And we have long-term cost management goals that we follow.

Got it. And then just a general question regarding the company's mineral rights. Are the majority of the company's mineral rights specific to certain minerals? Or are they general subsurface rights where royalty opportunities exist on anything that comes out of the ground? Just some better insight there would be helpful.

It is generally for specific minerals.

Understood. And then so with that, are there any opportunities given the growing demand or interest in nat gas? Are there any additional production opportunities that might be arising that didn't previously when the company -- the partnership didn't previously thought existed over the past year?

I'm not sure I understand your question. You referred.

Maybe some higher cost -- there were some higher cost natural gas plays that the company has mineral rights on that in the past few years didn't seem like a possibility for production where now these plays are now in the money and there's increased interest of producers.

In other words, call options moving in the money is what you're describing. Yes. The vast majority of our oil and gas mineral rights are in the Haynesville, in North, Central and West -- North Central and Northwest Louisiana. And that's a pretty active basin right now. And so I would say drilling has picked up a bit in the Haynesville. And to the extent that it does, we benefit from that. I will say that while -- I will say that those numbers are -- those production amounts and those revenues that we can receive from oil and gas minerals, they're not as that material to the partnership.

Got it. And then just regarding capital allocation, looking at the cash on hand and the debt outstanding, it seems like 1, maybe 2 quarters away from being in a net cash position. Is that the right way to look at it?

You're looking at it correctly. As we've said, we believe that we will be in a position where we will have the majority -- the vast majority of our remaining debt paid down and be able to increase distributions in the third quarter next year. That's the plan, and that's the forecast. The issue comes in with -- as we continue in this difficult market, are there going to be things that will happen that will change that. We don't know that there will be, but we're just warning everybody that there could be.

Our next question comes from the line of [ Ken Ack ].

[ Kenny Ackerman ]. A question, again, regarding capital allocation. I mean, you guys retired the warrants, have retired substantial amounts of debt, almost all of it, as was just discussed. What kind of would be the criteria to start unit repurchases? Or I mean, what are the thoughts surrounding that? I know this isn't the first time this has been asked, but just considering you're getting closer and closer to a net cash position. I mean, is there anything that would inspire you guys to repurchase your units? Or is there anything prohibiting? I know there's one large owner of the partnership. Just didn't know if unit repurchases were even possible.

So let's think of it instead of thinking about being in a net cash position, let's think about how we, at the company, think about our balance sheet and what the signals we look forward to being able to do -- to deploy cash in some way other than just paying down debt. We're looking to establish what we define as an NRP fortress balance sheet. And to us, that means 2 things. It means, number one, no permanent debt in the capital structure. And permanent debt, we define as debt that we do not have the ability or intent to repay prior to maturity with internally generated cash.

And then in addition to no permanent debt, we want to have $30 million of cash on the balance sheet. And that also means at the same time that we'll have our revolving credit facility in place. Once we're in that position, we feel that we have what we believe is a fortress balance sheet. And then we can feel free to allocate capital as we see best. And what are our priorities for allocating capital?

Number one, unitholder distributions. Number two, unit repurchases at material discounts to our estimates of intrinsic value. And number three, if they come along, opportunistic acquisitions where we can acquire assets that are within our circle of confidence at what we consider to be bargain prices. And there are no impediments to us being able to buy back units other than can we acquire them for a price that we think is a sufficient enough discount to our estimates of intrinsic value to want to do it.

Got it. No, makes total sense. And just one follow-up. I mean, can you give any color around what you consider intrinsic value? I mean just what -- I mean, broad question, but just what would the company consider intrinsic value just to get a decent sense of what would kind of qualify for unit repurchases and what wouldn't?

No, we're not going to guide on that. Sorry about that. I would encourage you to go back and read our unitholder letters that are published each spring with the annual report with the 10-K, especially this most recent one. But each one of them talks about how we think in terms of intrinsic value and the process we use to value the company because intrinsic value per unit is a very important component of all of our management decisions that we make. And so we've explained in writing how we go about doing that. We just don't tell you exactly what our assumptions are and what the numbers are that we think are in place.

Our next question comes from the line of Neil Patel with Sawgrass Beach.

Congrats on the progress, especially with the debt paydown to $70 million. It's been quite the journey over the last 10 years. Thanks for the comments on thermal coal. I had a question on that. It seems that every day we're hearing more about data center CapEx being at just very extreme levels. I understand you're not seeing that demand come through to your thermal coal assets yet. But if that does next year, is there infrastructure and capacity in place for the producers on your thermal coal properties to scale up? Or would that require a lot of additional CapEx on their side?

Good question. And I don't know that we completely know the answer to your question because, as you know, our operators are our operators. We don't operate and they don't necessarily share everything with us. But I can give you my educated guess on it, my best judgment. I do believe that if the increased power demand from data centers that is forecasted to result from all of the CapEx that's now planned over the next 5, 10 years, I do believe there will have to be material amounts of capital invested in the thermal coal infrastructure, both to bring new production online and to process it and transport it.

I don't know what those dollars are, and I don't know to the extent that, that capital would involve mines that are on NRP or on other acreage elsewhere in North America.

And with no further questions in queue, I will turn the call back over to Craig Nunez for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining our call today. Thank you for your questions. And as I look over the list of participants here, the vast majority of you have been with us for quite a while. So thank you for your support over the years, and we look forward to talking to you next quarter. Take care.

Thank you again for joining us today. This does conclude today's presentation. You may now disconnect.