On January 1, 2018, a company had 300,000 shares of its common stock issued and outstanding. On October 1, 2018, the company repurchased 12,000 of its common shares as treasury shares. When calculating basic earnings per share (EPS) for 2018, what is the appropriate number of shares for the company to use in the denominator of EPS?

A: 312,000 B: 216,000 C: 288,000 D: 297,000