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Note 4 - Acquisitions
12 Months Ended
Dec. 31, 2023
Acquisitions  
ACQUISITIONS

NOTE 4—ACQUISITIONS

Ramaco Coal

On April 29, 2022, the acquisition of Ramaco Coal, an entity owned by an investment fund managed by Yorktown Partners and certain members of the Company's management, was completed pursuant to a Purchase and Sale Agreement, dated February 23, 2022. The purchase price was approximately $65 million, consisting of an initial payment of $10 million paid at closing and a deferred purchase price of $55 million paid during the remainder of 2022 in

$5 million ratable quarterly installments, and $10 million ratable quarterly installments paid in 2023 plus interest at a rate of 9%.

Ramaco Coal controls certain coal mineral interests of principally metallurgical coal properties which are owned in fee or leased under long-term leases that are, in turn, leased or subleased to the Company and various third parties. Such lessees pay a royalty based on the amount of metallurgical coal mined and the realized price per ton.

Ramaco Coal also controls a large thermal coal deposit and permit near Sheridan, Wyoming covering approximately 16 thousand acres, including a research and development facility and associated equipment and has a goal of converting coal to carbon products, such as graphene, graphite and carbon fiber.

Concurrent with this acquisition, the Company and Ramaco Coal each sold certain mineral rights located in West Virginia (the “Split Ridge Arrangement”). To compensate for the sale of these rights, we received an overriding royalty arrangement which included $2 million up front and $125 thousand quarterly minimum royalty payment beginning in January 2024 until December 2028. The fair value of this arrangement was $3.7 million, of which, $1.6 million was treated as an allocation of the fair value of this disposed component of Ramaco Coal and, separately, a $2.1 million gain on the sale of the Company’s mineral rights included in Other income (expense), net on the 2022 Consolidated Statement of Operations.

The acquisition of Ramaco Coal was accounted for as a purchase of assets due to substantially all of the fair value being concentrated in a single asset, the rights to metallurgical coal deposits. The consideration paid in connection with the acquisition of Ramaco Coal, including $1.6 million in closing costs, relinquishment of $1.6 million of prepaid royalties and $0.1 million paid to a mineral owner as part of the acquisition, was approximately $68.3 million and was allocated based on fair values to mining property and mineral rights ($65.1 million), buildings ($2.6 million) and equipment ($0.6 million). Refer to Note 7 for a description of the acquisition financing.

Maben Coal

On September 23, 2022, the Company completed the acquisition of 100% of the equity interests of Maben Coal, LLC (“Maben Coal”) pursuant to the Securities Purchase Agreement dated August 8, 2022, with Appleton Coal, LLC. The purchase price was approximately $30.0 million, consisting of an initial payment of $9.0 million and proceeds from a new two-year loan in the amount of $21.0 million. The Company also paid approximately $1.7 million of transaction costs and recognized liabilities of $1.3 million on the closing date, primarily related to $1.2 million of cash bond replacement obligations incurred by the Company as part of the transaction. In the fourth quarter of 2022, the Company paid off the $1.2 million cash bond replacement obligation to Appleton Coal, LLC, which was included in the investing activities section of the statement of cash flows. The $1.2 million bond replacement payment was subsequently recovered in 2023, which reduced the cash investment related to this transaction to $10.7 million.

We acquired a large coal deposit on approximately 28 thousand leased acres located in Wyoming County and Raleigh County, West Virginia. We assumed existing mining permits issued by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, which authorizes mining by both surface and highwall mining methods as well as by underground methods. The property also has issued permits covering an existing haul road, as well as an active refuse disposal area together with a preparation plant and unit train loadout, neither of which had been constructed as of the closing date.

The acquisition of Maben Coal was accounted for as a purchase of assets due to substantially all of the fair value being concentrated in a single asset, the rights to leased metallurgical coal deposits. The total consideration of approximately $33.0 million was allocated to mining property and mineral rights ($30.6 million), capitalized mine development costs ($1.0 million), receivable for the right to recover cash bond replacement payments made by the Company as discussed above ($1.2 million, which was received in 2023), and recoupable royalties ($0.2 million). Refer to Note 7 for information regarding the acquisition financing.

Amonate Assets

In December 2021, we acquired what are referred to as the “Amonate Assets” from Coronado, pursuant to an asset purchase agreement. The acquisition, for a total cash consideration of $30 million, included a mine complex located in McDowell County, West Virginia and Tazewell County, Virginia adjacent and contiguous to the Company’s existing Berwind Complex. The acquisition primarily consists of high-quality, low and mid-vol metallurgical coal reserves and resources, much of which will be mined from the Company’s Berwind Complex. Also purchased were several additional permitted mines and a currently idled 1.3-million-ton per annum capacity coal preparation plant. The Company paid an additional $0.6 million in 2023 for transaction-related costs, which was also included in investing activities since the delay in payment was due to administrative reasons rather than financing.