Here’s the announcement made yesterday by Patriot Coal:
Patriot Coal Corporation today announced plans to idle its Logan County complex located near Man, West Virginia, reducing thermal coal production by approximately two million annual tons. Pursuant to the WARN Act, the Company gave 60-day notice today to affected employees. The operations expected to be idled include the Guyan surface mine and the Fanco preparation plant and rail loadout – with a total of approximately 250 employees being impacted. Efforts are being made to place employees into open positions at other Patriot subsidiary operations, and the Company currently anticipates that about 50 employees will be offered jobs at those locations.
This is an unfortunate but necessary step to align Patriot’s production with expected sales,” said Patriot President and Chief Executive Officer Bennett K. Hatfield. “Despite the substantial progress being made in the Patriot reorganization, we still have to contend with the industry-wide challenge of coal prices that have fallen well below production costs at many Central Appalachian mines. Thermal coal markets are extremely weak due to low natural gas prices and costly regulatory changes that have reduced coal-fueled electricity generation capacity.”
And here’s a statement issued by UMWA President Cecil Roberts:
Today’s announcement by Patriot is very disappointing, though not unexpected. The company had already announced its intention to close this complex in the near term, however the continued depression in the coal market led to this action being taken sooner.
There will be jobs available for some of our members at the Hobet mine in Boone County, others are eligible for retirement and will choose that route.
This makes it even more important that we continue our fight to secure the long-term retirement health care benefits our members have earned. This is a former Arch Coal mine, and Arch made the promise of retiree health care to these miners and their spouses. We will continue to work in Congress, argue in court, and march in the streets until our struggle for fairness and justice is won, and we have a long-term funding solution for their benefits.