Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Natural Resource Partners L.P. Third Quarter 2017 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Kathy Roberts, Natural Resource Partners’ Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Roberts, you may begin.

Thank you, Teresa. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Natural Resource Partners’ Third Quarter 2017 Conference Call. Today's call is being webcast and a replay will be available on our website for seven days. Joining me today are Craig Nunez, President and Chief Operating Officer; Chris Zolas, Chief Financial Officer; Kevin Craig, Executive Vice President of our Coal Division; and Perry Donahoo, CEO of our Construction Aggregates business. Some of our comments today may include forward-looking statements reflecting NRP's views about future events. These matters involve risk 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 for the year ended December 31, 2016, and other SEC filings. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reasons. 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 2017 press release, which can be found on our website. I would also like to remind everyone that we do not intend to discuss the operations or outlook for any particular co-lessee or discuss pricing or sales with respect to our construction aggregates operations. In addition, I refer you to Ciner Resources’ public disclosures and commentary for specific questions regarding our Soda Ash business segment. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Craig Nunez, our President and Chief Operating Officer.

Thank you, Kathy, and welcome everyone to our quarterly call. Let me begin by saying that in 2015 we made a very difficult decision to reduce our common unit distribution and we said at that time that we will work hard to pay down debt, extend near-term debt maturities and improve our liquidity. Since that time, we have reduced our debt by $617 million and lowered our debt to EBITDA ratio from a peak of 5.3 times to 3.8 times. We have extended our 2018 debt maturities out to 2020 and 2022, and our current liquidity is strong as we have more than sufficient cash and available borrowing capacity to comfortably manage the working capital needs of our business. We have accomplished all of this while paying a distribution of $1.80 per unit, per year, and we currently have a distribution coverage ratio of 5.3 times. In other words, we have done what we said what we were going to do. While we have made significant progress today, we still have more work ahead of us. We intend to continue strengthening our balance sheet and maintain sufficient liquidity to provide a margin of safety for prudent business operations. Our goal is to achieve a leverage ratio over time, defined as debt to EBITDA of less than 3 times, while maintaining minimum liquidity of $100 million, which may consist of a combination of cash and/or available borrowing capacity. As for our current operating performance, NRP continues to generate substantial amounts of cash. Distributable cash flow over the 12 months ended September 30 was $118 million, which equates the 39% of our equity market cap at yesterday's closing price of just under $25 per unit. We also generated $223 million of EBITDA over the last 12 months, which equates to 16% of…

Thank you, Craig, and good morning, everyone. Before jumping into our results, I would like to point out that while we continue to adjust certain GAAP numbers for comparative purposes, there are few other of these adjusting items as we move further way from our Q1 recapitalization transaction. Please refer to our press release for complete list and reconciliation of these adjustments. With that, let's review our results. Our third quarter results substantially improved compared to prior year levels. We generated Q3 net income of $26.1 million and net income attributable to common unitholders and a general partner of $18.4 million. Including the effect of the adjustments, our net income attributable to common unitholders and a general partner compared to Q3 of 2016 increased $4.3 million or 31%. This improvement was primarily driven by the strength in coal environment, increased production in profit from our construction aggregates business and lower interest expense. In addition, we generate $58.1 million of adjusted EBITDA and $28.9 million DCF during the third quarter. Excluding the impact cash proceeds from asset sales and timing differences on interest payments as a result of our Q1 recapitalization transactions, DCF increased 16% compared to Q3 of 2016. In comparison of the prior quarter our results remains essentially flat, which reflects the steady performances from our coal royalty, soda ash and aggregate businesses in 2017. Basic and diluted earnings for the quarter were $1.48 per common unit and $1.07 per common unit respectively. I would like to point out that the diluted earnings per unit assumes the immediate conversion of NRP’s preferred units into common units and the net settlement of the warrants in common units. However, we have the ability to redeem the preferred units in cash and to net settle the warrants for cash. Next I would…

[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of Mark Levin with Seaport Global.

A couple of quick questions. One is, you referenced to the three times on debt target. Once you get to that level, which I assume you will, is that the level at which we or investors should at least think about distribution raises entering into the picture.

Hi, Mark. This is Craig. Hope you are doing well. That target is clearly a target. Once we reach that, everything is one the table. Our primary focus is going to be enhancing unitholder value, and we will consider everything we can do to do that and clearly distribution increase is going to be high on that list.

Craig, is that something you think can be achieved at some point in 2018 whether the middle or the end of the year, that meaning getting to that 3X started?

Yes, Mark. We’re – again observe our policy we had here for the last two years, we’re just not giving forward guidance.

Okay, fair enough. No, I appreciate that.

I would encourage you to look at the numbers that we’ve provided you, and we referenced what we have done over the last 12 months, you have also seen what's happened over the last two quarters with respect to our operating performance post recap, and if you look at those, the most – it looks like our business is somewhat stabilized over the last six months and you can do your own math and draw your own conclusions on that.

Sure. No, I appreciate that. And then I know -- hopefully this is not touching into the world of guidance, but it would at least be directionally helpful just as we try to think about putting our models together. For example, looking at the Illinois basin for -- you guys did 2 million tons of production, or there was 2 million tons of production on your properties in Q1, but then less than 800,000 in both Q2 and Q3. And I think you numerated one of the factors that went into that in Q3. And then if you look at Northern App, for example, you did 1.2 million tons in Q1 and then less than 300,000 tons in Q2 and Q3. So any help, again, without asking for guidance, but you can imagine that’s a huge, huge disparity and can impact the numbers pretty significantly given the wide deltas. Can you at least give us some idea of how to think about royalty production, not specific to your company but just in the region as we look forward?

Well, you're right. It does border on giving guidance, but maybe I can give you a few points to ponder here. First of all, with respect to Illinois basin, I would encourage you to always make sure you look at the production levels and the coal royalty revenue from Illinois basin in conjunction with the overriding revenue line, because to a certain extent, as we’ve described earlier, Chris talked about earlier, as royalty -- as production has fallen in Illinois basin in that one particular line, there has been a corresponding increase in overriding royalty revenue that offset that in part. So I would make sure that when you look at Illinois basin, you look at those two together. With respect to Appalachian, we don't have forward guidance. I will tell you that it is my belief that the -- if you take that trend that you are pointing out in Appalachian and look back over more years, go back five years, you will see it's been a very pronounced downward trend, but it does appear so that may be flattening out. So without given a forecast, I think my estimate is that it’s likely we are going to see as more of a stabilizing pattern in that trend. But I'm not going to give guidance on that. I don't have clear view.

Last question. You mentioned, I think, in your prepared remarks, every $10 change in net prices is $2.5 million of revenues and/or cash flow. What -- off of what basis? Off of what net coal base are you referring and off of what revenue or cash flow base you are referring? I'm just trying to baseline it, so I can think about it.

Sure. We are using the seaborne coking price, which is around $170 or so today. And so if you use $10 delta off of that, it’s a $2.5 million revenue impact to us.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Paul Forward with Stifel.

Just wanted a follow up on Mark’s questions. I think in the lines of Appalachian volumes, obviously they were up year-on-year pretty significantly, but the trend over the last couple of quarters to sequentially has been down. And I was just wondering, as you look at the 4.3 million tons of volumes in Appalachian in the third quarter, it was down from 4.8 million. Could you talk a little bit about -- I mean, was the decline due to kind of individual mine issues? Or was it rail service? Was just a seasonal component to it? Can you talk about why you have the sequential decline even though it was obviously up nicely year-on-year?

This is Kevin Craig. I think on the items you really mentioned, all come into play. We did have some operational issues. Certain mines have impacted, I would categorize, geological issues, have impacted production. Also you have the rail transportation issues earlier in the quarter, but albeit we see now that those seem to be – the transportation issues seem to be working themselves out and on the improving trend. I would note that the significant operational issue has been resolved.

Okay, so the rails were certainly one of the factors that seems to be improving. Can you talk about any other limitations on your less feasibility to kind of match the market with increasing volumes if the market looking for them? I am thinking particularly in net coal of Appalachia.

Again this is Kevin Craig. I really cannot give any specific comments on what our various operators are doing to either increase production and match it to the orders. I really don’t have a comment on that.

And there are no further questions at this time.

Thank you, Teresa, we will conclude our call for today. And if you have further questions, please give me a call.

Thanks you, everyone, for joining us. Thank you for your support of NRP, and we look forward to speaking with you next month. Have a good day.

Thank you, ladies and gentleman, for your participation. You may now disconnect.