Coal Age

MAR 2018

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16 www.coalage.com March 2018 elk creek prep plant continued As far as surprises encountered during the startup, Blanchard said they had the normal startup bumps and hiccups. Most of the difficulties encountered in com- missioning and ramping up were due to delays in construction on the refuse belt system, which hindered operations. "We started the plant with the first refuse belt and trucked the refuse up the face of the impoundment," Blanchard said. "Once we completed the construction and commis- sioned all the conveyors, we largely elimi- nated those types of issues." Coarse refuse is belted to impoundment and fine refuse is pumped to the impoundment. One of Elk Creek's advantages is the footprint of its Army Corps of Engineers approved impoundment. "We can use the refuse facility as an impoundment for sev- eral years," Blanchard said. "Eventually as Elk Creek's production continues to grow, it will convert to a combined refuse facili- ty. At that point, the company will consider plate and frame presses to assist with de- watering. Blanchard believes that Elk Creek could have 20 years of disposal at its current projected run rates and mine recoveries. The mines are separated from the prep plant by about five miles. The coal is con- veyed to the surface and then hauled off road to the prep plant. Once its washed, the product is belted to the clean coal stacking tubes where it is reclaimed into a four-hour, batch-weigh unit train loadout on a CSX line. Ramaco Resources monitors product quality using multistage sweep-belt sam- plers on raw, clean and loadout systems. They have plans to eventually install online ash analyzers on the clean coal belt for re- al-time tracking. Other plans for the future include a raw direct-coal handling facility, expansion of clean stockpiles and continu- ing to grow surface and deep mines. Met Market in Appalachia Originally Ramaco Resources had hoped to sell 1.1 million tons in 2017 before mov- ing to 2.8 million tons in 2018. With the six-month delay in construction of the Elk Creek plant, they were unable to meet the 2017 milestone, but they are still planning to maintain the 2018 sales goal of 2.8 mil- lion tons. Ramaco Resources plans to grow that annual sales figure even more by 2020 and much of that growth will be organic. Although it has moderated recent- ly, the met market remains positive. "We think the market has reached a sustainable level that keeps good operators in busi- ness," Blanchard said. Most of Ramaco Resources' customers are domestic, but that could easily change. "Roughly 70% of our coal sales will be do- mestic this year," Blanchard said. Elk Creek is a high-vol met com- plex and it primarily ships a high-vol A and what they call a high-vol A-B. The A-B is a little better than the bench - mark B, he explained, but not quite an A, so it commands a price in the middle. From an engineering/construction standpoint, building and restoring these properties was rewarding, but the own- ers and the management are most excit- ed about the 260 people they have put back to work in West Virginia so far. "We started hiring before the market turned," Blanchard said. "It's truly exciting to get a bunch of good coal miners back to work and to be a significant contributor to the local economy." Ramaco Resources will transition from being a development stage com- pany into a fully operational company in 2018. Its mining costs will continue to fall and, if met coal pricing remains the same or gains strength, the compa- ny will reap the rewards from its efforts and investments. The Elk Creek prep plant was designed with a large thickener to improve fine coal recovery. An aerial view of the Elk Creek prep plant shows the unit train load-out in the foreground and the refuse impoundment on the upper right.

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