Teleconferência de Resultados do 3T26 da NRP: Distribuição Sobe para US$ 2,34 com Queda da Dívida

Principais Destaques

• A Natural Resource Partners L.P. gerou US$ 27 milhões em lucro líquido, US$ 44 milhões em fluxo de caixa operacional e US$ 45 milhões em fluxo de caixa livre no terceiro trimestre de 2026.
• A parceria aumentou sua distribuição trimestral para US$ 2,34 por cota ordinária, em comparação com a distribuição de US$ 0,75 por cota paga em agosto referente ao segundo trimestre.
• A NRP pagou US$ 13 milhões em dívidas durante o trimestre e afirmou que os US$ 14 milhões restantes devem ser quitados no próximo mês.
• O segmento de Direitos Minerais gerou US$ 47 milhões em fluxo de caixa livre trimestral e US$ 185 milhões nos últimos 12 meses, permanecendo como o principal gerador de caixa da NRP.
• A administração não prevê mudanças materiais nos preços do carvão em 2027 com base nas condições atuais. Afirmou também que os fundamentos fracos da barrilha farão com que 2027 seja mais difícil do que 2026.
• A NRP não espera que as distribuições da Sisecam Wyoming sejam retomadas até que a demanda por barrilha se recupere ou que o mercado desaquecido veja uma resposta significativa de oferta.

Principais Dados Financeiros

Desempenho Operacional e dos Negócios

Direitos Minerais

Preços e volumes mais altos de carvão metalúrgico em determinadas propriedades, juntamente com o cronograma de pagamentos, sustentaram o aumento no fluxo de caixa do segmento na comparação anual. Esses benefícios foram parcialmente compensados por taxas de aditivo de arrendamento recebidas no terceiro trimestre de 2025.

O carvão metalúrgico respondeu por aproximadamente 70% da receita de royalties de carvão e 45% do volume de vendas de royalties de carvão no 3T26.

A administração afirmou que a demanda global por aço permanece fraca e continua limitando os preços do carvão metalúrgico. As condições do carvão térmico também continuam desaquecidas devido aos baixos preços do gás natural e aos elevados estoques de carvão nas usinas termelétricas. Custos mais altos de diesel estão pressionando ainda mais as margens das operadoras.

Barrilha

O lucro líquido do segmento de Barrilha recuou US$ 2 milhões na comparação anual, impulsionado por preços de venda mais baixos em um mercado internacional sobrecarregado por excesso de oferta e pela menor demanda por vidro plano.

A administração declarou que os preços internacionais pararam de cair, mas permanecem abaixo dos custos de produção para a maioria dos produtores. Espera-se que os preços domésticos caiam à medida que os contratos forem reajustados e o prêmio sobre os preços internacionais diminua.

A empresa continua considerando a Sisecam Wyoming uma das operações de barrilha de menor custo do mundo. Seu sócio-gestor está buscando redução de custos enquanto mantém operações seguras e confiáveis.

Perspectivas da Administração

A administração afirmou que os indicadores atuais não apontam para uma mudança material nos preços do carvão durante 2027, enquanto conflitos geopolíticos podem mover os preços em qualquer direção.

Para a barrilha, a administração espera que o reequilíbrio do mercado leve anos em vez de trimestres. O fechamento de fábricas já começou, mas a resposta da oferta continua lenta. Espera-se que os preços contratuais domésticos mais baixos tornem 2027 mais desafiador do que 2026.

As futuras distribuições serão determinadas trimestralmente pelo Conselho com base nos resultados, nas necessidades de liquidez e no uso alternativo do caixa, incluindo a recompra de cotas ou aquisições oportunistas.

Riscos e Pontos de Atenção

• A fraca demanda global por aço está limitando os preços do carvão metalúrgico.
• Os baixos preços do gás natural e os elevados estoques de carvão nas usinas termelétricas estão pesando sobre as condições do carvão térmico.
• A incerteza geopolítica e os custos mais elevados do diesel podem afetar os preços das commodities, os custos da cadeia de suprimentos e as margens das operadoras.
• O excesso de oferta global de barrilha e a fraca demanda continuam pressionando os preços.
• Não há previsão de retomada das distribuições da Sisecam Wyoming até que a demanda melhore ou a oferta encolha significativamente.
• O fluxo de caixa livre trimestral e as distribuições podem variar materialmente entre os períodos.

Destaques da Sessão de Perguntas e Respostas com Analistas

A administração se recusou a divulgar sua estimativa do valor intrínseco da NRP em resposta a uma pergunta sobre potenciais recompras de cotas.

A NRP também afirmou que sua abordagem para sequestro de CO2, energia solar, geotérmica e outras oportunidades relacionadas a renováveis não mudou após a desalavancagem do balanço patrimonial. A parceria continua buscando arrendatários que possam desenvolver projetos em suas terras.

Transcrição Completa da Teleconferência de Resultados

Transcrição completa da teleconferência de resultados

Comentários da administração

Operator

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Natural Resource Partners L.P. Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I will now hand the conference over to Tiffany Sammis, Investor Relations. Tiffany, please go ahead.

Tiffany Sammis

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to the Natural Resource Partners third 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 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.

Craig Nunez

Thank you, Tiffany. Good morning, everyone. NRP generated $45 million of free cash flow in the third quarter of 2026 and $166 million of free cash flow over the last 12 months before the investment in our soda ash business earlier this year. Last quarter, I said that [ barring ] something unforeseen, we intended to raise distribution significantly in November. We are delivering on that. A decade of work to pay down debt and derisk the partnership has brought us to the point where we can pay out free cash flow beyond the unitholder tax liability. We generated $45 million of free cash in the quarter. We paid down $13 million of debt, leaving $32 million or $2.34 per unit available to distribute.

Our free cash flow can move around a lot from quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year. Our Board will decide on distributions each quarter weighing our results, our liquidity needs and other uses of cash, which could include unit repurchases or opportunistic acquisitions. If the Board decides to retain cash rather than pay it out, we will hold ourselves to the same test as always, more than $1 of intrinsic value per unit for every dollar we keep.

Last quarter, I said our Mineral Rights segment was our most dependable cash generator. It delivered again this quarter, producing $47 million of free cash flow and $185 million over the last 12 months. Spot prices for metallurgical coal bumped up modestly in the quarter before pulling back. Global steel demand remains weak, and that keeps a lid on prices. Similar story with thermal coal. Natural gas is cheap, power plants are sitting on plenty of coal, and we do not see anything on the horizon to change that. The geopolitical backdrop remains bumpy and diesel is up more than 75% this year which raises costs all along the supply chain and squeezes operator margins. For 2027, nothing we are watching points to a material change in coal pricing. If geopolitical conflicts drag on, prices can move in either direction, and I will not pretend to know which.

Now to Soda Ash. The picture is the same as a quarter ago, too much supply, too little demand and no quick fix. Increased natural soda ash exports from China are pushing older synthetic plants to modernize, shutdown or both. Producers are doing what you would expect. Running plants at lower rates, shedding higher-cost capacity, cutting discretionary spending and hunting for efficiencies. International prices have stopped falling, but have settled at levels that are below the cost of production of most producers. As we explained last quarter, domestic prices should move lower as contracts reset and the premium over international prices narrows. That will make 2027 harder than 2026.

Closures are beginning to occur, however, but slowly. We continue to think rebalancing the market will take years, not quarters. Our investment in Sisecam Wyoming is -- holds one of the lowest cost of soda ash operations in the world and low cost is what carries you through a downturn. Our managing partner continues to aggressively pursue cost savings while keeping operations safe and reliable and protecting the plant's competitive position. This cycle may take years to turn, but we are confident in the quality of the asset and its ability to generate competitive returns when the market returns to balance. So to sum it up, Mineral Rights keeps generating strong free cash flow. We have $14 million of debt left to repay next month, and we are finally at the point where we can return the cash this business generates to you, our partners, subject to the Board's quarterly decision.

With that, I'll turn it over to Chris.

Christopher Zolas

Thank you, Craig. In the third quarter of 2026, NRP generated $27 million of net income, $44 million of operating cash flow and $45 million of free cash flow. Of these consolidated amounts, our Mineral Rights segment generated $37 million of net income, $46 million of operating cash flow and $47 million of free cash flow. When compared to the prior year third quarter, our Mineral Rights segment net income decreased $4 million primarily due to increased DD&A expense. Operating cash flow and free cash flow each increased $2 million as compared to the prior year period, primarily due to higher met coal pricing and volumes at certain properties and timing of payments, partially offset by lease amendment fees we received in the third quarter of last year. Regarding our met thermal coal royalty mix, met coal made up approximately 70% of our coal royalty revenues and 45% of our coal royalty sales volumes for the third quarter of 2026.

For our Soda Ash segment, net income for the third quarter decreased $2 million compared to the prior year quarter. This decrease was driven by lower sales prices due to the oversupplied international soda ash market and weakened demand for flat glass. Operating and free cash flow was flat when compared to the prior year period due to not receiving a distribution of third quarters of 2025 and 2026. NRP does not expect distributions from Sisecam Wyoming to resume until the sodas market demand rebounds where there is a significant supply response to this depressed market.

Moving to our corporate and financing results. Net income, operating cash flow and free cash flow for the third quarter of 2026, each improved $1 million as compared to the prior year period. These improvements were due to lower debt resulting in lower interest costs and less cash paid for interest. Regarding our quarterly distributions, in August, we paid the second quarter distribution of $0.75 per common unit. Also during the third quarter of this year, we fully repaid the remaining $13 million balance on our Opco credit facility. As a result, and consistent with our communications throughout the year, the partnership increased the distribution to $2.34 per common unit with respect to the third quarter of 2026.

In our recent earnings release, we have included a reconciliation of this Q3 distribution amount from the operating cash flow we generated in the third quarter.

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

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Robert Lu.

Unknown Attendee

This is Robert Lu. I'm an independent investor in NRP for the last few years. I'm curious, you talked about the potential for share buybacks when you saw that the intrinsic value is below or above the current market price. I'm curious, would you be able to share your thoughts on that and where that might be?

Craig Nunez

No. We will not give you guidance on what we think is the intrinsic value of our units. But thank you for your support.

Unknown Attendee

Yes. Thank you for following through on what you said you do and excited about the news today.

Craig Nunez

You bet. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Steven Balsam with Yellow Gate Capital.

Perguntas e respostas

Steven Balsam

I just wanted to say congratulations on reaching this point. It's really rare to see such a long-term decision taken and made and follow through consist really been fantastic [indiscernible] on long-term sale trend feels great to get to this point. I'd like to just one question regarding...

Craig Nunez

Thank you for being with us for a long time and supporting us. We couldn't have done it without all of our partners.

Steven Balsam

You bet. I was hoping maybe you guys could comment a little bit on potential activities that you're looking at, whether it be carbon sequestration or any other sort of actions that your debt that are going on with respect to the various properties.

Craig Nunez

I would tell you that our activities with respect to CO2 sequestration, solar, geothermal, all of the renewable type activities that we look at they're not changing at all as a result of the change in our capital structure and the change in our cash allocation strategy, capital deployment strategy here now that we've paid off our debt or about to pay off all of our debt. There's no changes to that. We're attempting to maximize the acreage that we have, find lessees that are willing to come in and and develop projects on our acreage for all the various types of initiatives. And we've been doing that even before we've reached this point with our -- with respect to our capital structure.

Steven Balsam

Excellent. I love the approach and really happy with the approach taken on it as far. And I realize there's nothing -- no statements made about future distribution like the way it was set out in the financials being that variable distribution paid out of free cash flow feels great. Congratulations, again.

Craig Nunez

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Operator

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

Craig Nunez

Thank you, operator. And again, thank all of you for your support over the years. We're still on the journey. But being able to raise our distribution today and pay out a larger share of our free cash flow now that we have practically delever the entire balance sheet. It was a joint effort, and we couldn't have done it without you. So now we got to look ahead and add value in the next period. So with that, thank you, and have a great day.

Operator

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