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Coal trains lead up to the Patriot Coal site in Kanawha County, West Virginia.
U.S. miner Patriot Coal, the second largest producer east of the Mississippi River, has decided to suspend indefinitely all operations at its mines in western Kentucky and weigh the future of the facilities while it continues a review of strategic options.
The Highland Mine near Henderson and the Dodge Hill Mining Complex near Sturgis are ceasing coal production effective Monday, the company said in a Sunday statement.
Earlier this month workers at those facilities were told the St. Louis-based company might make “substantial” job cuts. The Kentucky operations employ about 670 people and last year produced 3.9 million tons of thermal coal, which is used to generate electricity.
The Heritage preparation plant and barge-loading terminal on the Ohio River are slated to continue processing and shipping coal from on-site stockpiles, Patriot added.
The coal miner, which emerged from bankruptcy only a year ago, has 10 active mining operations in Appalachia and the Illinois Basin. It ships the fossil fuel both domestically and internationally to electricity generators, industries and metallurgical coal customers with approximately 1.8 billion tons in reserves.
3 Comments
Roger Charles
Is the causes of Obama’s polices: I would say so, putting all these people out of work is terrible
Roger Peterson
While it is sad the miners are loosing their jobs by the thousands, I have zero sympathy for them. Before Obama was elected the first time, he said would basically shut down the coal industry. The Coal Miners Union backed him anyway. How stupid can they be? Maybe next time the union members won’t blindly follow when their union bosses tell them how to vote.
Wilkins-Tho mp.
Remember how NASA and many other nations had been employed together for trapped miners in Chile. Where else has such been done, as NASA at present seems to have it’s “head in the clouds.” Signing off. The mines from holes in the ground and such are everywhere. I recall young boys crawling through small, un-‘buttressed” coal mines in many places. Child labor for the near equivalent enslavement of male-female is rampant again now. It is not just Kentucky though many memorable drives through that “blighted area,” within recent years.