Coal Age Recognizes Top Performers at U.S. Coal Show

By Steve Fiscor, Editor-in-Chief

During the U.S. Coal Show, which took place last month in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Coal Age recognized the top three longwall mines with its Longwall USA Top Performers Awards. The winners were selected based on safety, the mine’s total production and its average raw longwall production per day for 2021 and 2022. Using the data from the U.S. Longwall Census published in the Jan.-Feb. 2023 edition of Coal Age, longwall operations were subdivided into three categories by cutting height: High (96 inches and greater), Medium (72 to 95 inches), and Low (71 inches and less).

As far as safety, the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) reported that its average incident rate (IR) for underground coal mines was 3.21 for 2021 and 3.59 for 2022. All the award winners were well below the industry average.

The winner in the high category was Signal Peak Energy’s Bull Mountains Mine in Montana. Signal Peak produced 7.4 million tons and 7.2 million tons in 2021 and 2022. This is a tremendous amount of production from one longwall. More importantly, however, they had an MSHA incident rate of 2.88 and 1.60 in 2021 and 2022. Congratulations to Signal Peak!

For the low category, the winner was Coronado Global’s Buchanan mine, which is located in Virginia. The Buchanan mine produced 4.3 million tons and 4.8 million tons in 2021 and 2022. They had an IR of 1.90 and 2.37. Congratulations to the Buchanan mine!

As always, the competition was very close in the medium range, but this time it was close internally with one company, CONSOL Energy. The company operate five faces among three mines in southwest Pennsylvania. Last year, the Bailey mine produced 11.8 million clean tons. They operate two faces. The Harvey mine produced 5.3 million tons from a single face. The Enlow Fork mine, which operates two faces, produced 6.8 million tons. To determine the Top Performer, the average raw daily tonnages for these three mines was then reviewed. Enlow Fork had the highest numbers, an average of 31,642 raw tons per day in 2022 and 33,277 raw tons per day in 2021. They also had a remarkable safety record with an IR of 1.08 and 1.52. In fact, all of CONSOL Energy’s longwall mines had an IR of 2.07 or lower for the 2-year period. Congratulations to the Enlow Fork mine!