Idle mines portend dark days for top US coal region

GILLETTE, Wyo. (AP) — At two of the world’s biggest coal mines, the finances got so bad that their owner couldn’t even get toilet paper on credit.

Warehouse technician with the mines.

Melissa Worden divvied “The consensus was: up what remained of the In 30 days, we’ll look last case, giving four back on this, and we rolls to each mine and made it through, and we’ll two to the mine supply be up and running, and it’s facility where she a fresh start,” she said. worked. What happened instead

Days later, things got has shaken the top w or se. coal-producing region in

Mine ow ner the United States like a Blackjewel LLC filed for charge of mining explosive. Chapter 11 bankruptcy Blackjewel furloughed protection on July 1. most of its Wyoming Worden at first figured employees and the accounts would get shut down Eagle Butte settled quickly and vendors and Belle Ayr mines, the of everything from first idled by hardship copy paper to parts for since coal mining in the house-sized dump trucks Powder River Basin exploded would soon be back to in the 1970s. doing normal business It’s a big hit to the viability of the region’s coal mines — particularly Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr, the fourth- and sixth-biggest in the U.S. by production, respect i vel y.

“I don’t think we’ll ever be that naive again,” said Worden, 44.

Blackjewel, based in Milton, West Virginia, told its Wyoming employees this week that the mines might be up and running soon and to let the company know if they wanted their jobs back.

Worden said she felt little reassurance. On a break at a part-time electrical contracting job in North Dakota, she wondered if she should accept any offer of fulltime work or hold out for her old job.

She’s not the only one questioning long-held assumptions about Powder River Basin coal mines, which produce cleaner-burning coal less expensively than mines in other parts of the U.S. and weren’t widely thought of being at risk despite a push for renewable energy to combat climate change.

But with coal in longterm decline, how the basin might eventually scale down production to a sustainable level has become a big question, said Rob Godby, director of the Center for Energy Economics and Public Policy at the University of Wyoming.

“The irony here — and it’s really a cruel irony — is everybody is focused on getting these miners back to work. But really the solution to creating a healthy industry is some mines close,” Godby said.

For now, little appears changed in Gillette, a city of 30,000 people at the heart of the basin of rolling grasslands midway between the Black Hills and snowcapped Bighorn Mountains. Tattoo shops are abundant, and big, late-model pickup trucks still cruise the main drag.

This year, however, has been especially tumultuous. Three of the Powder River Basin’s nine producers — Westmoreland Coal, Cloud Peak Energy and Blackjewel — have filed for bankruptcy since March. Two others, Arch Coal and Peabody, have announced they will merge assets in the region.

The turmoil comes as U.S. coal production is down over 30% since peaking in 2008. Utilities are retiring aging coal-fired power plants and switching to solar, wind and cheaper and cleaner-burning natural gas to generate electricity despite President Donald Trump’s efforts to prop up the coal industry.

A decade ago, about half of U.S. electricity came from coal-fired power. Now it’s below 30%, a shift that heavy equipment operator Rory Wallet saw as utilities became less willing to lock in multiyear contracts for Belle Ayr mine’s coal.

“The market’s changed,” Wallet said. “The bankruptcies all tie into that.”

Wallet, 40, followed his father, an equipment mechanic, into the Belle Ayr mine in 2008. He said the recent mine closures and loss of his $80,000-a-year job took him by surprise.

He has four children, ages 11 to 16, and his wife’s job at the Ruby Tuesday’s restaurant in Gillette is their main income while they await news about the mines.

Blackjewel said Thursday that it was working on plans to restart the mines while pursuing their sale. There were no indications in federal bankruptcy court filings in West Virginia that the mines were set to reopen, however. - AP