Photo by: Reuters
TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Several operating affiliates of US coal miner Alpha Natural Resources on Friday notified more than 500 employees that their mining and processing operations would probably be idled.
NYSE-listed Alpha’s affiliates gave 439 employees at Rockspring Development's Camp Creek underground mine and processing plant, in Wayne County, West Virginia, Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notices, citing the mine operator's current assessment of market conditions as the reason for doing so.
Three other Alpha-affiliated mine operators announced last week that reductions in their workforces were taking place as a result of sustained weak market conditions and government regulations that had challenged the Central Appalachian coal industry, the company said.
Seventy-one employees were impacted, including 17 at Enterprise Mining's EMC No 9 underground mine, in Knott County, and at the Roxana Prep plant, in Letcher County, both in Kentucky; 35 employees at Knox Creek Coal's Tiller No 1 underground mine, in Tazewell County, Virginia; and 19 at Mill Branch Coal's Dorchester and North Fork underground mines, in Wise County, Virginia and Letcher County, Kentucky.
Alpha stressed that persistent weakness in US and overseas coal demand and depressed price levels, along with government regulations that were causing electric utilities to close existing coal-fired power plants and forego construction of new coal-fired capacity triggered the layoffs.
A global supply glut had also played its part in the sustained price weakness, forcing several other North American coal producers to shutter mines and scale back operations.