Coal Age

JAN 2013

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news continued Continued from pg 8... The employees will be reinstated on the following terms: without pay for the period December 3 to 12 inclusive; all 178 will be issued with final written warning letters, valid for one year for engaging in un-procedural industrial action; resumption of their normal shifts from 06:00 on December 13; and all pending disciplinary cases will follow due process. On December 7, the company fired 178 Mooiplaats miners for participating in a wildcat strike. Hinton Area Coal Mine Finds Financial Backer The US$1.5 billion mine proposed for the Hinton area moved a step closer after a leading private investment firm agreed to provide Coalspur Mines with $300 million in credit to fund the first phase of the Vista Coal project, The Edmonton Journal reported. Coalspur is also in "advanced discussions" with a number of groups in an effort to secure additional funding and to finalize coal marketing arrangements. And it recently announced a deal with Canadian National Rail to move the coal to Ridley Terminals in Prince Rupert. The Vista project would be Alberta's largest export coal mine, shipping up to 12 million metric tons of thermal coal per year to Asia to fuel electrical power plants. Coalspur expects to award contracts this spring in order to begin earthworks and mine pre-development work this summer. It is still awaiting approval from the Energy Resources Conservation Board and hopes to begin logging this winter in the areas planned for construction. The Town of Hinton provided formal public support for the project recently and Coalspur said it has reached an agreement setting terms for ongoing co-operation and collaboration with one of the main aboriginal groups in the area. The project boundary starts just 10 km south of town. Coalspur has 55,000 hectares of coal leases in the region, but the initial project covers 10,000 hectares over a 20-km stretch of land with three gently dipping coal seams. Adani Group Set to Proceed with Multibillion Australian Coal Project Australian officials recently visited India to formalize a deal for the largest and most comprehensive coal mining exploration program undertaken in Australia, The Associated Press reported. Martin Ferguson, minister of Federal Resources, and Queensland Premier Campbell Newman travelled to the subcontinent for the announcement by Indianbased infrastructure company The Adani Group that it's ready to proceed with a multibillion dollar mining project in the Galilee basin. The Adani Group has completed a comprehensive geotechnical field investigation to define the coal resource at Carmichael mine, which at 10 billion metric tons and worth an estimated $10 billion, makes it the largest coal lease in the world. The Adani Group has already invested $3 billion in its integrated Australian projects and is expected to invest a further $7 billion over coming years. Kuzbass Increases Coal Output Miners at the Chernigovets coal pit in the Kemerovo region in southern Siberia have extracted the 200 million metric tons (mt) of coal bringing the Kuzbass district's annual output up to 8 million mt. According to Voice of Russia, higher extraction volumes were the result of the purchase of modern equipment and introduction of new technologies. Russia is the world's third largest coal exporter after Australia and Indonesia. ˛ 10 www.coalage.com mine drainage, Rosebud will not only improve the facility's environmental impact but will be able to access coal reserves, which the company says will take up to 40 years to mine. According to the Environmental Leader, Rosebud has signed a consent order and agreement with the PADEP to build and operate the plant. The $15 million facility will be completed by April. Rosebud has about 1,100 acres of mineable land, and once it reduces the level of the mine pool water, it will have access to an additional 10,562 acres. Under the agreement with PADEP, Rosebud is responsible for all costs to treat the mine pool water. The company has also agreed to make annual payments to a trust fund, which will be used to permanently pay the operations, maintenance and recapitalization costs for the discharge treatment facility once mining is completed. The facility almost didn't happen, however. PADEP Deputy Secretary for Active and Abandoned Mine Operations John Stefanko said the company's original treatment plan—under which the treated water would still not have met EPA standards—"threatened to kill the project." To fix the problem, PADEP worked with Rosebud and the EPA to come up with the agreement for a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System Permit for the St. Michael facility. Indian Coal Exports Delayed, but Will Begin in 2013 As 2012 drew to a close, Central Appalachian steam coal still was not moving overseas under the largest coal export deal of its kind ever signed between U.S. producers and shippers in Kentucky and West Virginia and India's Abhijeet Group. And, if officials knew precisely when the shipments will begin, they were not saying. Unveiled with much fanfare in August, during a news conference that featured Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear, the estimated $7 billion private-sector agreement involves the sale of 9 million tons of coal annually for 25 years—a total of 225 million tons altogether. Much of the coal is to be produced by privately owned Booth Energy, which operates mines in both eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. The first tons were supposed to have been loaded onto barges in early fall, possibly as soon as September, at a Big Sandy River dock in eastern Kentucky for the long journey to India. But the initial shipment still had not been scheduled as the calendar flipped to 2013. While it was unclear as to the specific reasons for the delay, an official with Cincinnati-based River Trading Co. suggested it was related to market conditions overseas or "economics." River Trading is to load the coal onto barges for the trip to Associated Terminals on the lower Mississippi River near New Orleans, La. Then, the coal will be placed onto oceangoing vessels bound for India. Despite the delays, John Grantham, River Trading vice president-East Division, was optimistic that shipments will begin sometime in 2013. As soon as River Trading gets the go-ahead from the Indian customer, it is ready to begin loading barges, he said. Attempts to reach Abhijeet Group representatives for comment were unsuccessful. In August, an Abhijeet official declined to disclose specifications for the coal to be purchased under the mega-deal, calling such information "proprietary." According to its website, Abhijeet has been allotted a number of "captive coal blocks" in India by that country's Ministry of January 2013

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