Coal Age

DEC 2018

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December 2018 www.coalage.com 11 news continued CFO of bankrupt Westmoreland Coal Co. Gary Kohn is resigning for personal reasons. Kohn received $1.2 million in incentive bonuses, in addition to his $472,000 salary, during the year leading up to Westmoreland's bankruptcy filing. His resignation is effective in January. Westmoreland, which owns and operates several mines in the US and Canada, has come under fire for its bankruptcy plan, with objections from the Department of Justice, the utility PacifiCorp, cred- itors and current and retired coal miners. The company has also been criticized for a recent request of the bankruptcy court to dole out reten- tion bonuses to certain employees. Paringa Resources Ltd. appointed Egan J. Antill as CEO and managing director. Antill spent the next 20 years in investment banking on Wall Street, includ- ing managing director, Merrill Lynch & Co., New York, where he raised capital for and provided strategic advice to global metals and mining companies, and prior to that with Credit Suisse First Boston, New York in the mergers and acquisitions department. Motion Industries promoted Randall "Randy" P. Breaux to president. Most recently, he was execu- tive vice president of marketing, distribution, and purchasing for Motion Industries, and has nearly four decades of experience in the industrial man- ufacturing and distribution markets. Fred Palmer has joined the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E;) as a senior legal fellow. Most recently, he was senior vice president of govern- ment relations for Peabody Energy. Prior to joining Peabody in 2001, Palmer served for five years as General Counsel and 15 years as CEO of Western Fuels Association. Palmer said he was proud to support E&E;'s mission to advance U.S. energy dominance through fossil fuels while advancing environmental values resulting in an improved human and natural environment. "The years under President Obama saw a wholesale attack on any use of fossil fuels, starting with coal, and Obama's signature, toxic legacy, still in place will be our first order of business in my new role," Palmer said. He also noted that the 2009 EPA CO 2 Endangerment Finding must be repealed for social development through fossil fu- els to fully flourish at home and abroad. Union Pacific named Printz Bolin vice president, ex- ternal relations. He succeeds Mike Rock, who plans to retire February 15, after 29 years of service. Bolin is currently assistant vice pres- ident of external relations. LiuGong Machinery promoted Kevin Thieneman to vice president. He will also continue in his role as executive chairman of LiuGong North America. Before joining LiuGong, he served as president of Caterpillar Forest Products. Egan J. Antill m p e o p l e i n t h e n e w s into its bridge financing facility that antic- ipated a future Chapter 11 filing, over 100 employees have voluntarily left the debt- ors' workforce." Since Westmoreland's October 9 bank- ruptcy filing, "attrition has increased, as an additional 13 non-inside employees have resigned through November 9, 2018. The loss of key employees has disrupted and will continue to disrupt the debtors' oper- ations and deprive the debtors of import- ant institutional knowledge and customer and contract counterparty contacts." Westmoreland listed assets of $700 million and liabilities of $1.4 billion in its bankruptcy filing. Altogether, the company has 1,732 employees in the United States. If the court denies the retention bonus request, Westmoreland said the outcome "would immediately result in significant attrition." Any such attrition would cause the company to incur additional expens- es "to find appropriate and experienced replacements, and, at worse, would se- verely disrupt the debtors' operations and potentially derail the debtors' ability to consummate their proposed asset sales in a timely manner," the company added. In August, prior to its bankruptcy filing, Westmoreland said it initiated "a pre-petition marketing process pursuant to its sale protocol." It received first-round bids on September 28 and second-round "definitive" bids just prior to Thanksgiv- ing in late November. Westmoreland said it expects to enter into a stalking horse purchase agreement with an unspecified party on or before December 28, 2018, and then seek court approval of bidding proce- dures and a sale order. A sale could be consummated during the first quarter of 2019. Westmoreland's two Ohio steam coal subsidiaries — Oxford Mining and Buck- ingham Coal — are expected to be includ- ed in any eventual sale. Oxford and Buck- ingham, nevertheless, continue to pursue state mining permits for extensions or expansions at their existing operations, according to Brent Heavilin, permitting manager for the Ohio Division of Mineral Resources Management. Heavilin said he does not believe those mining operations have been affected by Westmoreland's bankruptcy. Oxford is the largest surface miner in Ohio. Attempts to reach Westmoreland offi- cials for comment in late November were unsuccessful. River View Mine to Produce 11M Tons in 2019 Alliance Resource Partners' River View underground steam coal mine in Union County, Kentucky, is poised to achieve re- cord production in 2019 as it takes advan- tage of robust export and domestic sales. For the first time in 2019, the mine near Waverly should approach or reach 11 million tons of production, according to a company official. That would ex- ceed the mine's output of approximate- ly 10 million tons in 2018, the first time River View has experienced double-digit production. In late 2018, the Tulsa, Oklahoma- based company was installing the 11 th continuous miner section in River View, with production already starting on a sin- gle shift. Full production on the 11 th CM is anticipated n early 2019, presumably be- fore the end of the first quarter. Continued from p. 7... Fred Palmer Gary Kohn Kevin Thieneman Printz Bolin Randall P. Breaux

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