Underground mining equipment market to reach US$30.5 billion by 2023

Wales Online reports mining at the historic Tower Colliery in Wales could begin again as soon as Christmas after a £30m scheme to regenerate the site was given the green light by councillors of the nearby town of Rhondda Cynon Taf earlier in the week. Tower Colliery was the oldest continuously worked pit coal mine in the United Kingdom at the time of its closure by British Coal in 1994 with a history dating back to at least 1805. It was bought out by the laid off miners and re-opened the next year before finally shutting down in 2008.

Arch Coal Inc.'s (ACI: News ) second-quarter net income plummeted to $11.1 million or $0.06 per share from $66.2 million or $0.41 per share a year earlier. Excluding charges, adjusted net income for the second quarter of 2011 was $78 million, or $0.44 per share, the company said. On average, 22 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings per share of $0.60 for the quarter.

Anglo American, one of the world's largest miners, today reported strong first half growth with operating profit ahead 40% to $6bn. Chief Executive Cynthia Carroll said that investments made during the downturn would stand them in good stead in the near-term future. "We believe that the fundamentals for the mining industry are very, very strong, and therefore the longer-term outlook is extremely positive." Image by shizhao

Sixteen miners died and another 10 were missing after a nighttime explosion in a coal mine in the Lugansk region in eastern Ukraine, the emergencies ministry said on Friday. As a result of the early Friday accident, two more workers received burn injuries and were hospitalized, the ministry said in a statement.

Diversified miner Teck Resources doubled its quarterly profit on higher copper and coal prices, the company announced on Thursday. Teck said it brought in $756 million in profits in the second quarter of 2011, a 90 percent increase from the same period in 2010, or $1.12 a share compared to 59 cents per share in Q2 2010. President and CEO Don Lindsay attributed the doubling of profits to higher prices for coal and copper — the company's chief commodities — along with a US$2 billion rights offering in July that cashed up the company to the tune of $3.4 billion. Photo of Teck's Elkview operation in southeastern British Columbia, by Teck Resources Limited.

Federal regulators say they issued citations for safety violations at 12 coal mines in June.

China Briefing News reports state-owned Shenhua, the leader of a joint Chinese, Mongolian, Russian, and US consortium awarded the western block of Mongolia's Tavan Tolgoi coking coal field – the world's largest – faces a rocky road ahead to bring the project to fruition. According to CBN the political structuring is typical but none of the three operators have given public explanations as to how they may proceed or even work together. While losing bidders from Brazil, India and South Korea are smarting, Japan have gone so far as to call the bidding process'extremely regrettable'. And all this while Mongolia hopes to raise as much as $5 billion privatizing Tavan Tolgoi early next year.

The Huntington News reports Thursday two protesters associated with the portentous Radical Action for Mountain People's Survival Campaign, continue to occupy trees within the Bee Tree surface mine's blasting zone, where they have stopped mining for eight days.   The Bee Tree mine is situated on the aptly named Coal River Mountain in West Virginia and is owned by Alpha Resources, the company that bought the original owners of the mine, Massey Energy which last year was responsible for the worst US mine disaster in 40-years after keeping fraudulent safety records.

CONSOL Energy, a diversifed fuel producer in the Eastern United States, reported adjusted net income of $174 million or 76 cents per diluted share, in the quarter ended June 30, 2011, an increase of 69% from the adjusted net income of $103 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2010. The financial results were aided largely by the coal division, which posted record revenue of $1.212 billion. This was the fifth consecutive quarter of record revenue for the coal division.