Photo by: Duane Daws
TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – NYSE-listed Arch Coal on Monday announced that it was idling the Cumberland River Coal Company complex, located in Wise County, Virginia, and Letcher County, Kentucky, in the wake of persistently sluggish metallurgical coal markets.
Cumberland River comprises two underground operations and related facilities. The mining complex previously shuttered two contract mines during the second quarter of 2013.
"With this move, we are actively responding to currently challenged metallurgical coal markets while striving to enhance our overall competitive cost position in Appalachia. Our strategy is to increasingly shift our portfolio toward higher-margin, lower-cost metallurgical coal operations, while retaining our valuable reserves for when market conditions strengthen in future,” Arch president and CEO John Eaves said.
In total, 213 full-time positions would be eliminated by idling Cumberland River; however, where available, the company was taking steps to provide opportunities at other Arch subsidiaries.
Cumberland River sold about 290 000 t in the first half of the year, consisting mainly of higher-cost metallurgical grade coal. The decision to idle operations at Cumberland River was expected to reduce Arch's 2014 metallurgical coal sales volume by about 200 000 t.
Arch now expected to ship between 6.3-million tons and 6.9-million tons of metallurgical coal for the full year.
The company planned to update investors regarding its full-year 2014 expectations in its second quarter earnings release on July 29.