On Friday, St. Louis, Missouri-based Patriot Coal Corporation announced temporary curtailments of approximately 85,000 tons of metallurgical coal production per month in response to further weakening of market demand. The production cuts will occur at three Southern West Virginia mine complexes: Kanawha Eagle, Rocklick and Wells, over the next 60 days. In total, approximately 250 employee and contractor positions will be impacted by these actions.
"Metallurgical coal demand and pricing declined rapidly over the last two months as a result of slowdowns in economies around the world," stated Patriot President and Chief Operating Officer Bennett K. Hatfield. "These actions are designed to bring our production in line with expected sales and focus capital resources on our lowest cost operations as we proceed with our reorganization."