When Will The Coal Market Rebound

Mountianeer Enterprises once again received more bad new. At the beginning of this week I was told by one of my truck drivers that a Foreman where I was selling my AML coal informed him that Thursday, May 21, would be our last day. I contacted the man I broker my coal through and he wasn't aware of any such cut off but said he would check into it. Well yesterday the same truck driver said that now he was told we could ship coal through May 31. We'll this was confirmed by my broker yesterday evening. This is actually only 3 more days than originally thought. The plant don't take coal on Fridays and Monday the 25th is a Holiday so all I gained was 3 days. I actually sell my coal, I pretty sure, for less than the buyer can produce it themselves. But they don't want to purchase outside coal while they have mines of their own shut down. I understand what their thinking. This doesn't help my situation however. A year ago I had a couple of different companies begging me to produce more and painted such a good picture that I have now put myself between a rock and a hard spot. I'll get into more details on that later. See Ya.

IS THE END IN SITE FOR COAL?

An article in the Bristol Herald Courier this morning leads me to believe the answer is no. Apparently the Obama administration wants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2050. According to this article the last time they were that low was when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.I for one don't see this happening.

Mining Cutbacks

Mining continues to decline. Friday, May 8,2009, I was told to reduce my coal shipments to 6 truck loads per day, 4 days per week. There is no way I can do this for an extended period of time. If I'm unable to secure some more orders somewhere, I will be force to shut down and pursue a different line of work. Hopefully things will work out. As it stands I will have to lay off 3 more employees. That will leave my total man power at 4 for the mine and 3 truck drivers

Mountain Top Mining in West Virginia- Surface Mining/AML in Virginia

MOUNTAINEER #3 GOB PILE:

This photo shows the gob pile prior to any re-mining being done to clean it up.





I am an independent contractor but what happens to the larger companies like Alpha and Consol has an effect on my operation as well. I have sold a great deal of my coal to Alpha in Virginia. The coal market is really bad right now and my coal sales to Alpha have been terminated. Hopefully the coal market will return soon.

The Big Boys of Mining Get a W.
Check out this article from Reuter.

U.S. court overturns ban on West Virginia surface mining

By Steve James

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. Court of Appeals on Friday overturned a lower court ruling that had banned surface, or mountaintop, mining in West Virginia, according to court documents.

The ruling was hailed by the coal mining companies who have turned to mountaintop mining as an economical alternative to traditional underground mines in Appalachia where production is declining.

The environmentalists who brought the original case said they would assess their next legal move, but vowed to fight on against the mining method which basically slices the top off hills and mountains.

Stock in Massey Energy Co which brought the appeal with the U.S. Corps of Engineers, was up 7 percent in late trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

The 4th Circuit judges in Richmond, Virginia, reversed a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Chambers, who had found that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had not fully evaluated the potential environmental damage before approving permits for mountaintop mining for four mines operated by subsidiaries of Massey.

"We reverse and vacate the district court's opinion and order of March 23, 2007, and vacate the district court's injunction," Friday's opinion said.

It said that under existing regulations, the state of West Virginia has "exclusive jurisdiction over the regulation of surface coal mining and reclamation operations."

The appeal had been brought by Massey and the West Virginia Coal Association. Surface mines account for about one-third of coal from West Virginia and half of that from Kentucky.

"We're pleased with the court's decision," said Roger Hendriksen, director of investor relations for Massey.

Judge Chambers had originally ruled in favor of a petition filed by a number of groups led by the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. (OVEC)

Basically, OVEC contended that the Corps of Engineers had violated the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Since then, the Corps has effectively frozen so-called 404 permits for surface mining.

Janet Keating, executive director of OVEC said: "We are deeply disappointed with the court's decision. We will assess our next step, but obviously we will continue to organize against surface mining."

In their ruling the appeals judges said basically that the Corps of Engineers had acted within regulations in place. "We cannot say that the Corps' assessments of stream functions in the challenged permits were arbitrary and capricious.

"It is not our place to dictate how the Corps should go about assessing stream functions and losses," they said.

Analysts had said if the ruling was upheld, Appalachian coal prices could spike and producers with a significant amount of surface exposure in Appalachia could get hurt.

Several mining companies -- Massey, International Coal Group, Alpha Natural Resources and Patriot Coal Corp -- would lose production if the ruling went against the miners, the analysts said.

One analyst Mark Morey, director of power systems strategy for Allstom Co Ltd said investors might hold off until the issue had been definitively resolved.

"Decisions like this are long term, so if you have any uncertainty, that's still gonna guide what your investment is.

"Does this 'overturn' mean they can have a whole new round of capacity? People have been thinking this decision might be held up anyway so they've been making decisions for the past two years with this hanging over their heads."

Several mining companies -- Massey, International Coal Group, Alpha Natural Resources and Patriot Coal Corp -- would lose production if the ruling went against the miners, the analysts said.

One analyst Mark Morey, director of power systems strategy for Allstom Co Ltd said investors might hold off until the issue had been definitively resolved.

"Decisions like this are long term, so if you have any uncertainty, that's still gonna guide what your investment is.

"Does this 'overturn' mean they can have a whole new round of capacity? People have been thinking this decision might be held up anyway so they've been making decisions for the past two years with this hanging over their heads."

(Reporting by Steve James; editing by Carol Bishopric)

Mining: More Pitfalls

Once again the dreaded happens. As my luck would have it I received a call on my cell phone just after 5:00 am Friday morning, May 1, 2009. If you're in your own business this will usually cause your heart to skip a beat or two. This call was one of my Coal Truck drivers calling to tell me that another one of my drivers just turned his truck over while dumping a load of coal. This type of incident is not all that uncommon especially with the type of product I get when I re-mine old gob piles. Fortunately the driver wasn't injured put several thousand dollars of damage was done and I lose the income that truck would bring in for several weeks or months. I wasn't able to get a photo of this particular incident except on a text sent to me so I'm attaching a picture of a different turn over I had with another truck identical to this one. The only difference is where the incident occured and the one yesterday took the tractor completely over on its side. The incident in part yesterday was due to an unlevel dumping site on which 3 trucks counting mine have turned over in the past 2 months.

Check Out Coal Tattoo:
Check out my other business.

This photo is the type of mining I am now doing. I re-mine old refuse piles that were deposited as waste back when the coal cleaning technology wasn't available to recover fine coal particles and therefore they were dicarded along with the rock. Many of these sites are scattered across the coal mining States. Many of these old site also burned for many years. When I was growing up in West Virginia I can remember going past a couple of different gob piles at night and you could see blue flames flickering up from them. They also had a terrible smell. In this picture you can see the orange area at the bottom. This is coal that has burned and the ash left from that burning. This burnt coal and ash is commonly called red dog.

Independent Contractors at Mines – Avoiding Legal Liability Pitfalls

When can MSHA cite independent contractors for violations on mine property? And what is the likelihood MSHA will cite mine operators for contractor violations? These are questions that we are often asked as mine safety lawyers. The answer to the first question is fairly straightforward – the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act grants MSHA the authority to issue citations directly to independent contractors at mines for violations that are within their area of responsibility. MSHA almost always will cite a contractor where the inspector concludes the contractor caused the violation or bore some responsibility for continued exposure of miners to the hazard.

As for when MSHA will hold mine operators responsible for contractor violations, things are now less clear. The Mine Act is a strict liability statute. Operators can be cited regardless of whether they themselves were negligent.

I owned and operated underground coal mines in Virginia from 1980 to 1998. I was a Mine Superintendent for most of the next 5 years. Then I opened another underground mine in 2004. I can personally tell you that my experience has been that MSHA most always wrote me the mine operator a violation even when an independent contractor created the violation. I can quote one incident that occurred when I was operating the mine I had in 2004. An excavator operator working for the large coal operator I leased from, was working ditch lines along the haul road to my mine. He actually got completely off the haul road to clean a pond and in doing so dug into and ruptured a main gas line. This could have been a very serious accident with a fatality. Fortunatly no one was hurt. My mine was cited for failure to report an inundation. The large coal company that the excavator operator worked for was also cited. I had no idea that it was my obligation to notify MSHA of the incident. It wasn't on mine property and wasn't caused by any of my employees. I contested the citation but MSHA wouldn't nullify the citation. There reasoning was that the operator was doing work that benifited my mine and at my request.

Owning An Independent Coal Mine Company

Hi,
My name is Carl A Hamilton, I am 57 years old and live in Lebanon, VA. I was born in West Virginia at a place called Herndon Heights. I grew up with almost everyone I new working in some way in the Coal Industry or a business which depended on coal. I graduated from Pineville High School which was consolidated with several other Wyoming County, WV, schools into what is now I think Wyoming East. I graduated from West Virgina Tech with an AS degree in Electrical Engineering Technology in December of 1971.

I married my wife Judy in June of 1971 when I was 19 years old and still had a semester left of college. I actually started out persuing a BS degree in Elect. Engineering but wanted to get married so bad I opted to switch to an AS Degree in Elect. Tech. I was only 17 when I entered college, 19 when I got married, and just turned 20 when I finished my college.

From there I got a job with a mine in McDowell County, WV. The name of the mines was Capels and it was owned by Allied Chemical Corporation, Semet Solvay Division. I actually worked in this mine the summer of 1971. This was the beginning of my mining career, which by the way was as a general labor person in the UMWA. My mining has took me down many paths that I'll discuss in later posts.