The company plans to incorporate the 5-square-mile block into its mine plan for NARM following a permitting process. The South Porcupine tract is adjacent to NARM and was originally nominated for lease by Peabody in 2006. A second set of reserves—the North Porcupine area—is also contiguous to NARM. Peabody has nominated North Porcupine for bid, and a lease auction is anticipated in the second quarter.
Peabody now controls 3.3 billion tons of Southern Powder River Basin coal reserves, and the company’s flagship NARM is the largest and most productive coal mine in the world, shipping 109 million tons in 2011.
