During an annual meeting of stockholders Thursday, St. Louis, Missouri-based coal producer Patriot Coal outlined plans to significantly grow its metallurgical coal volumes in the next two years.
In a company press release, Patriot Coal said that as a result of higher expected global steel production, the company has plans in place to increase metallurgical coal volumes to more than 11 million tons by 2013. Additionally, Patriot Coal is looking to open seven new met coal mines throughout 2011 and 2012. Met coal, as a percentage of total tons produced, is expected to increase more than 30 percent by 2013, from just over 15 percent in 2009.