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bowie resources continued and then we'll put silencers on it. In the winter, we often plow some of our neigh- bors' roads. If we had a neighbor that had a dam and they needed a couple of hours of back-hoe work because their dam had a problem, they'll call us up and we'll help them fix it. It's just a matter of being a good neighbor and being respon- sible. It's pretty much the golden rule, and living by it," said Tanner. Bowie Gets in the Export Game Currently, Bowie is exporting a small portion of its coal to Mexico, and is anx- ious about exporting some to the Pacific Rim and Asia. "When those deals come together, through our Mercuria partner- ship, we have some port space in Stockton, Calif." Tanner hopes that ini- tial tonnage capacity at the port will grow from 500,000 tons to 1.5 million over time. "While in the big picture that's not much coal, it is an outlet and everything and anything helps." Rail Service in the North Fork Rail service in the Valley came under quite a bit of criticism prior to the great recession. Back around 2007, these mines predicted they would load 20 mil- lion tons, though the railroad was geared up and prepared for only 17 million - 18 million tons. With a bottleneck in Denver, finally Union Pacific invested several million dollars to get things turned around. "Since they increased their capacity, all three of us have not produced to that amount. We still did collectively 16 mil- lion - 17 million a year maximum, though between us all we'll do maybe only 15 million out of the valley this year. It would be like us to beat the railroad up for years and then finally they spend the money and the market changes." Since the railroad made some improvements, it has been performing very well, said Tanner. "They do a pretty good job of managing their business, their ups and downs. They do a good job taking care of us." Unlike most mines, however, Bowie has an independent contractor take over switching and loading services once the UP drops off an empty train. Once the train arrives, Load-Out Services, a sub- sidiary of Fenner-Dunlop, takes over. "They break it in half for us, load it and then they put it back together so it's pre- pared to go. At that point, the railroad will bring their crew here," said Tanner. Though Bowie's return is certainly a success story, production and shipments from the three mines in the North Fork of the Gunnison Valley are down, roughly 20% or so. "We are picking up. Both of our sister mines in the Valley have fully retained their employees through the downturn. They had some overtime and some contract labor that they mini- mized, and we did the same thing. There's about 1,000 miners employed by these three mines in total. Arch's West Elk has some great coal miners and an exemplary safety record. The Oxbow guys have done a good job with their coal mine too. We're participating with Oxbow and looking at some future reserves to the west of us. Looks like we've got a good chance to get that start- ed before year's end. Though the coal market is tough, I think we can weather the storm. It's not easy but I think we're in better shape than most," said Tanner. November 2012 www.coalage.com 27