Brian Cantrell : Yes. With respect to the bonds, we needed to wait until we completed our bank financing to make sure that we have the flexibility that we wanted to see should we choose to go out and begin taking the bonds down. We did achieve that flexibility. And with the strong cash flow that we’re generating, we do have the opportunity to potentially opportunistically repurchase in the open market if conditions warrant. And then beyond that, you’re correct, our bond call goes to par in May of this year. We’ll evaluate market conditions and whether it’s right — when the right time is to completely potentially take those bonds down before they mature in May of ’25. Clearly, we’ve got plenty of time to manage that, and we’ll be watching markets very, very closely to try to pick up some of those positions at attractive levels.
Joe Craft: Yes, it will depend obviously on our other alternatives.
Abraham Landa: Meaning like other capital allocation alternatives.
Joe Craft : If there’s opportunity — acquisition-type opportunities that pop up.
Brian Cantrell : Yes. I mean, obviously, managing our balance sheet is one of our core capital allocation priorities, returning cash to unitholders is as well. The distribution we announced today — or on Friday, I’m sorry, as Joe mentioned, we intend to currently intend to maintain that level through the year. So that’s fairly well defined. And with the flexibility we’ve been given with our bank refinancing. Should conditions warrant, we could return additional cash to unitholders through a repurchase program that the Board elected to top off last week.
Abraham Landa: And then just two quick housekeeping. It was good to see your credit agreement was extended. I think it also — within that note, it included a $75 million term loan, just maybe uses. And also, is that currently undrawn?
Brian Cantrell : No. The term loan is drawn at closing. So that cash is now on our balance sheet. In our prepared comments, we noted that we do have these activities going on at the River View and we acquired some additional coal reserves at Tunnel Ridge. So we’re using that $75 million to effectively turn those activities out for a more extended period of time primarily.
Operator: The next question is coming from Mark Reichman of NOBLE Capital Markets.
Mark Reichman : Just on the guidance, when you talk about the stronger second half — and I’d agree with those observations. But — so coal prices in Illinois Basin in the fourth quarter was $57.47 a ton and an Appalachia at about $89 a ton. I was just wondering how much of a leap you have to make in terms of on those open or unpriced tonnage to meet your guidance?
Joe Craft : Not much. I mean I think if you look at fourth quarter and then you look at our guidance, I mean, like you said, our fourth quarter averaged $67.84. And so our guidance is what?
Brian Cantrell : $67 to $69.
Joe Craft : $69. So you can see we’re right on with what we have committed. And so anything that we have open, it’s going to be helpful to those numbers. So I think that that’s where you get to the midpoint or the higher end of the range. But if — so I think we’ve got flexibility there within that range that we’re in. I would say — yes, the pricing is conservative that’s in our guidance for the year…
Mark Reichman : And then I was just curious on — has the new ventures team — what kind of progress have you seen there in terms of have they come up with some pretty good ideas? Or what are your expectations there?
Joe Craft: Primarily, we — they have established a process and we established internal resources as well as external resources to help us as we go through the many, many, many opportunities that are out there. We’re trying to take those multitude of opportunities and trying to narrow those into preferred areas so that we can be efficient with our time and our resources, our people resources. So that we’re focused on the right targets. So they made significant progress in a short period of time. I think we’ve got a clear vision on how we want to approach inbound opportunities that come to us. We also have an approach that’s very much proactive that we are, again, using some outside sources to help us go target certain areas that will fit with what we believe to be our core competencies and give us those long-term risk-adjusted returns.
Most of the things that we’re looking at are more in the mid- to late stage of the growth process of a lot of these what have been in the transition world, we’re trying to not limit ourselves on just a transition-type investments. So we’re looking at other type things that are a little bit more mature that have cash flow that can be financed. But I would say our progress has been good. At the same time, there’s just a lot of things we can look at that we’re having to prioritize and it’s going to take a little time.
Mark Reichman : One thing I’ve always appreciated is the strength and the longevity of Alliance’s management team. So congratulations to both Brian and Cary and to the whole team for an excellent — for the excellent results.
Operator: The next question is coming from Tom Coleman of Kensico Capital.
Tom Coleman : Just wanted to go back to your comment about the royalty team having like 50 million or whatever, they can use their free cash to keep expanding their business. So when they come to you with a deal, does it feel
Joe Craft: You are cutting out
Tom Coleman : Okay. When the royalty guys come here with the deal and you compare the packaging in the common stock repurchase. Is there a critical mass in royalty that’s important to achieve and you’re willing to reach a little bit relative to the comment to get to a certain level? How do you think about the size of that business standalone?
