The other thing that’s going to happen is today, you have a fairly balanced a significant amount of coal generation and a significant amount of gas generation. And so as gas prices get high, coal will start to dispatch in front of gas in the dispatch curve as gas prices get low, coal, gas dispatch in front of coal. If you have less gas coal generators over time, when gas prices get high, you’re not going to see switching to coal generation because there is no coal generation, right? So to me, this price cap that we have on gas is somewhat being removed by the retirement — the premature retirement of these coal-fired generators. So the markets are changing because we have this rapid transition going on. And then the other thing that’s happened is because power prices have gotten so uncertain and so expensive in Europe, I think we’re seeing a significant transfer of the industrial — European industrial base is looking for a home.
And by and large, it’s coming — a significant portion of that is coming to the United States and Mexico, which puts further demand along with electric cars and that sort of thing for more power generation that’s got to be powered and fueled by something, all adds a lot — the trade is moving our way.
Operator: Our next question comes from from Castleberry. Your line is open.
Unidentified Analyst: Yes. You’re entering a new business. You retained the staff from the power plant or hired additional people to help you run it efficiently? And the second question would be you’re implying that you’re going to be facing less competition from other plants as other ones to close, but are you going to have competition on pricing? Or you referenced this organization, MISO, I guess, that they make a deal with a group of utilities, is that correct?
Brent Bilsland: So, MISO is the Midwest Independent System Operator. That’s the reason it’s 15 states and one Canadian province. Our power generators in the Zone 6 of MISO located in Indiana — I’m sorry. I answered the last part of your question. What was the first part of your question?
Unidentified Analyst: The first part is we made a significant investment. Have you retained the staff that was working for that plant? And are you hiring additional people to help you optimize its production and its costs and so forth?
Brent Bilsland: Yes. So, we retain all the people at the power plant. We did not acquire probably about 12 people at the seller’s corporate office. We retained the same firm that runs the day ahead power desk that Hoosier had. And then we hired CAMs as an independent contractor to technically, they employ the employees of the plant and help oversee running that plant. But the plant manager of Merom is still there. He’s done a great job, and the staff of Merom is doing a terrific job. We just wanted to make sure that we had CAMs as they are experts that run over 30 gigawatts of generation in the United States, there to offer their expertise and insight and experience. So all that has really gone very well, and we’re pleased with the performance of both the retained people and CAMs.
Unidentified Analyst: Great. And then on the coal side, other smaller cooperators have had significant problems with transportation and you’re looking to increase production. Do you feel good about the how you’re working with the railroads, et cetera?
Brent Bilsland: Yes. I think there was a shortage of transportation in 2022. I think that is being alleviated here in 2023, so less was concerned about transportation today as we were six, nine months ago.
Operator: We have a follow-up question from Lucas Pipes at B. Riley Securities. Your line is open.
