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c o m e f o r P a t r i o t ' s e m p l o y e e s a n d s t a k e h o l d e r s , " P a t r i o t P r e s i d e n t a n d C E O B o b B e n n e t t s a i d . " I a m c o n f i d e n t t h a t B lackhawk and VCLF will be responsible stewards of our mining operations going forward, and I wish them and their employees the best of luck." Centerview Partners served as Patriot's financial advisor and investment banker; Kirkland & Ellis was legal advisor. Alvarez & Marsal served as chief restructuring officer for the producer. Cliffs Cuts Staff at Alabama, West Virginia Longwalls C liffs Natural Resources has announced plans to cut nearly half of its miner payroll at two operations, the Oak Grove mine in Jefferson County, Alabama, and the Pinnacle complex in southern West Virginia. Spokesperson Patricia Persico confirmed October 29 that the company is rolling out a new operating plan for its North American Coal arm, noting that it will "aggressively lower costs and drive a drastic improvement in its near-term financial performance" with the initiative. "While Cliffs remains committed to the sale of its coal assets, it is taking necessary measures to lower operating and capital costs for the mines," she said. Cliffs did not indicate in its statement how many workers would be affected at Pinnacle, which is located in Wyoming County. However, local Alabama media have reported that about 220 will be sliced at Oak Grove. "Cliffs has notified the union at both sites and all employees about the new operating plan, staffing implications and how labor will be realigned," Persico said. "Cliffs will make every effort to support its employees during this transition." The producer will continue to meet its committed customer orders into 2016. The Oak Grove longwall mine produced 2.27 million tons of high quality, low-vol met coal in 2013 from the prolific Blue Creek seam. The Pinnacle longwall complex produces the same product, and produced 2.8 million tons from production from the Pocahontas No. 3 seam during the same period. Cloud Peak Amends Deal With Westshore Terminals Citing "depressed international conditions," top producer Cloud Peak Energy (CPE) confirmed October 28 that it has made modifi- cations to a throughput agreement with Canadian port Westshore Terminals that negates volume obligations for both groups from 2016 through 2018. Under the deal's amendments, Cloud Peak will now make an upfront payment to Westshore as well as quarterly payments dur- ing the three-year period instead of its previous deal for take-or- pay commitments. CPE said both parties will meet quarterly over the next several years to discuss market conditions as well as any potential ship- ments and terms. Officials noted that if export shipments do not occur, they expect that the Spring Creek mine in Montana, which supplies the tonnage, will see its production volumes reduced accordingly. "If this amendment were in effect as of September 30, our out- standing, undiscounted port take-or-pay commitments at that time would have been approximately $454 million through the remaining term of the agreement if we do not ship any export tons," the producer said, adding that, except as amended, the orig- n e w s c o n t i n u e d erals, flocculent and a small amount of unrecovered coal into two Athabasca River tributaries. According to the AER's filing, the charges are for contraventions of the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act (EPEA), the Public Lands Act (PLA) and the Water Act. The first appearance in the case is set for January 20, 2016, in H inton Provincial Court. In a statement, Sherritt said that the charges are being reviewed. "Sherritt has worked with provincial and federal regulato- ry authorities throughout the investigation to ensure all require- ments set forth by the environmental protection order issued by Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development in November 2013 have been met," officials said. Indonesian Coal Exports Drop Coal exports from Indonesia dropped significantly for the first nine months of the year as demand softened and prices weakened, according to the Jakarta Post. Figures from Indonesia Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry's directorate general showed that national production reached 308 million metric tons (mt) from January to September this year, declining by around 14% compared to the 360 million mt produced in the same period of last year. Out of total production, 235 million mt were exported. The export figure was nearly a 20% drop compared with the 293 million mt exported during the same period last year. HD Mining Gets Greenlight for Canadian Longwall The Minister of Energy and Mines recently approved the environmental assessment for HD Mining International, the first underground coal mine to get the go-ahead in British Columbia, Canada, in more than 25 years. Minister Bill Bennett confirmed during October that the company's $688 million Murray River Coal project in the northeastern region of the province outside of Tumbler will progress. It will be British Columbia's first longwall. Murray River, with a projected oper- ating life of 25 years, will produce about 4.8 million metric tons (mt) annually. About 780 jobs will be created by the new complex. No exact timelines for the site's development were provided; however, with some final permits still pending, HD Mining still has about three years before work can commence. In addition to environ- mental pushback, HD Mining also took heavy criticism for its plans at Murray River in 2012 when it said it was planning to bring in temporary workers from China to help prepare the complex. Germany Starts to Shift Away From Coal German utilities RWE, Vattenfall and Mibrag will start reducing their coal-fired power output at the start of winter 2016, shifting this capacity instead to the country's power reserve as part of a plan to cut carbon emissions, according to Reuters. In July, Germany abandoned plans for a levy on coal-fired power plants and instead said it would pay companies to shift capacity to a coal-fired reserve to safeguard its target to cut emissions by 12.5 million tons by 2020. Some 2.7 gigawatts (GW) of power generation from brown coal, equivalent to the output of five power plants, will be set aside in case of emergency and then shut down after four years. The lignite-fired units will be taken off grid over the four years 2016-2019 and used only as facilities of last resort. Eventually, the Continued from p. 5... 6 www.coalage.com November 2015 Continued on p. 8...