This deck came out of a two-week sprint to understand a less-followed corner of commodities equities where I suspected the market was overlooking real opportunity.

The focus is metallurgical coal, for a simple reason: coking coal remains a critical input in steelmaking, has no viable substitute at scale, and sits within a supply backdrop that is structurally constrained. Just as importantly, once asset quality and jurisdiction are filtered through a subjective lens, the producer universe is small enough to get a proper handle on what is good and what is not.

The report looked at the macro backdrop, pricing mechanics, including the often-misunderstood relativity between coal grades, and a screen of select producers.

Companies covered include Alpha Metallurgical Resources, Warrior Met Coal, Core Natural Resources, Coronado, Yancoal, Peabody, Ramaco and Whitehaven. The principal long ideas are AMR and HCC, with AMR covered in greater depth.

*While thermal coal is also covered, it received lighter treatment at the time, as I felt it needed a further re-rating before it could become genuinely compelling. The subsequent Iran-related dislocation happened to provide that move. I will return to this in a further note.