Officials said August 24 that the agreement will allow it to get to another 95 million tons of coal and also enhance its future development flexibility.
The coal includes tons directly under the acquired land as well as other adjacent tonnage that it expects will become available for future mining since it now has access to the acreage.
“The agreement primarily involves a land exchange and production payments from any future sales of the underlying coal, including certain recoupable advance production payments,” the company added.
The thermal coal-producing Cordero Rojo operation reported proven and probable reserves of 267 million tons at the end of last year. Across its portfolio of three operations (Cordero, Antelope and Spring Creek), Cloud Peak reported control of about 1.1 billion tons of reserves on the same date, not including the additional then-inaccessible tonnage.
CPE said earlier this year that its final lease by application (LBA) payment for federally leased coal was made in June; no further committed LBA payments exist.
