January 18, 2018 - Warrior Met Coal, Inc. (NYSE: HCC) announced today that Standard & Poor’s (“S&P”) Rating Services has raised the Company’s corporate credit rating from B- to B, with a stable outlook. At the same time, S&P raised the issue-level rating on the Company’s Senior Secured Notes due 2024 from B- to B+ and the recovery rating to 2 from 3. S&P cited the Company’s strong performance, strong credit metrics and stable outlook as reasons for its new ratings. The upgrade reflects S&P’s view about Warrior’s ability to increase production with its low cost structure and capitalize on robust demand in a favorable met coal price environment, enabling it to generate strong margins and cash flows. 

Warrior is a large-scale, low-cost U.S. based producer and exporter of premium hard coking coal (“HCC”) operating highly efficient longwall operations in its underground mines located in Alabama. The HCC that Warrior produces from the Blue Creek coal seam contains very low sulfur and has strong coking properties, and is of a similar quality to coal referred to as the premium HCC produced in Australia. The premium nature of Warrior’s HCC makes it ideally suited as a base feed coal for steel makers and results in price realizations near the HCC industry average index price. Warrior sells all of its met coal production to steel producers in Europe, South America and Asia.