Consol Energy allowed to enter Pennsylvania mine
TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – US fossil-fuels producer Consol Energy on Monday said it has received approval from the Mine Safety and Health Administration, the state of Pennsylvania, and United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) officials of its plan to re-enter the Blacksville No 2 mine, in Pennsylvania, which was evacuated on March 12, when smoke was detected exiting the Orndoff shaft.
Since then, Consol, in collaboration with federal and state authorities, had pumped a sufficient amount of water into the mine to complete the water seal and remotely pumped eight isolation wells from the surface to seal off the fire area.
This process was completed on Sunday morning.
Consol said analysis of the continuous mine atmosphere readings that the team had been taking indicated that gas levels remained steady and oxygen levels continued to decrease, which was cause for the company to believe the fire had been successfully extinguished.
"I am extremely proud of the successful collaborative effort from federal and state agencies, the UMWA, contractors/vendors and our employees on site who worked around-the-clock to remotely extinguish a fire in less than twelve days. Without their efforts, we would not be where we are today. Most importantly, we accomplished all of the work without an injury,” Consol senior VP Chuck Shaynak said.
Consol said it would continue monitoring the mine atmosphere before allowing personnel to enter, which was scheduled to begin on Wednesday morning if all atmospheric monitoring continued to indicate that it was safe to enter.
Blacksville No. 2 mine produces about 400 000 t/m of coal under normal operations.
Comments
Press Office
Announcements
What's On
Subscribe to improve your user experience...
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation