West Virginia: Patriot Coal warns of layoffs at Danville mining complex

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Last edited Thu Sep 11, 2014, 10:40 AM - Edit history (2)

Patriot Coal warns of layoffs at Danville mining complex

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

....
Patriot Coal Corp. is once again warning of potential layoffs at its Corridor G mining complex near Danville. ... The company on Tuesday issued the required 60-day layoff notice to the 360 workers employed at the Hobet 21 surface mine and Beth Station preparation plant. The notice was made pursuant to the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act.

“These actions are an unfortunate but necessary step to align Patriot’s production with expected sales,” said company CEO Bennett Hatfield. “Both metallurgical and thermal coal markets continue to be challenging, with pricing at levels well below production costs at many Central Appalachian mines.”

The Hobet 21 mine produced 2.3 million tons of thermal coal used for power generation in 2013.

This is the second time this year the company has warned of mass layoffs at the facility. The company initially issued a 60-day layoff notice in April for the 397 workers employed at the time at the facilities. The mass layoff did not end up happening during that 60-day period.

ETA: to point out that this mine produces thermal or steam coal, not metallurgical coal. I made the edit after the first response was posted, but "Wellstone ruled" is right about the nature of the coal mined here.

[Wellstone ruled]

1. It's a Industry that has

met it's demise. The 1%ers are putting their money in Wind and Solar,they know what is going on and they plan four to five generations in the future. You and I are just Pawns or Minions in their wealth preservation games. Best we can do is try to not get run over by these thieves. Senator Reid made a statement the other day about the Gold Miners is his home town,your industry is gone as you know it,get over it.