By DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER Star-Tribune energy reporter | Posted: Thursday, October 1, 2009

Arch Coal Inc. (NYSE:ACI) announced today that it has completed the acquisition of Rio Tinto Energy America’s Jacobs Ranch mine in Wyoming’s southern Powder River Basin.

The $764 million deal allows Arch Coal to merge the Jacobs Ranch operations with its adjacent Black Thunder mine creating what some say is the largest coal mine complex in the world with a capacity of more than 140 million tons per year – about 12 percent of U.S. coal production.

Read more at http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_2d21d228-ae9b-11de-b7f9-001cc4c002e0.html

BY REBECCA SMITH, Wall Street Journal, Published June 8, 2009

Every year, federal employee George Warholic calculates America’s vast coal reserves the same way his predecessors have for decades: He looks up the prior year’s coal-reserve estimate, subtracts the year’s nationwide production and arrives at a new official tally.

Coal provides nearly one-quarter of the total energy consumed in the U.S., and by Mr. Warholic’s estimate, the country has enough in the ground to last about 240 years. A belief in this nearly boundless supply has led officials to dub the U.S. the “Saudi Arabia of Coal.”

But the estimate, recent findings show, may be wildly overconfident.

Read the full article at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124414770220386457.html

By Carol Berry, Today correspondent
Story Published: Jan 14, 2009

DENVER, Colo. – A controversy over coal mining in northern Arizona reached a milestone Dec. 22 when a federal agency gave the go-ahead for Peabody Western Coal Co. to expand an existing long-term permit on Black Mesa, home to Navajo and Hopi villages.

Around the same time the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement revised Kayenta Mine’s permit, Ben Nuvamsa resigned as Hopi tribal chairman in an effort to end a divisive tribal conflict that centered in part on whether Peabody should control Black Mesa’s vast coal resources and tap its underlying aquifers.

“I’m not proposing shutting down mining, but I think there’s a better way of mining and I think Hopi should be at the core of making policy decisions – deciding product and prices and other things. I also believe there needs to be enacted a tax ordinance to impose a tax on Peabody Coal,” he said by phone, asserting that a past Hopi decision not to tax Peabody was, “not a sound decision.”

Read more about this at Indian Country Today.

DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER Star-Tribune energy reporter | Posted: Wednesday, January 7, 2009 12:00 am

Peabody Energy, Wyoming’s biggest coal producer, announced Wednesday it plans to trim its Powder River Basin coal production by 10 million tons this year because of the recession and weakening global demand.

Peabody does not expect any significant reduction in jobs, however. The company employs more than 1,700 miners in Wyoming.

“We are taking prompt market-driven actions to make adjustments to our production platform and respond to the global economic downturn,” Peabody chairman and CEO Gregory H. Boyce said in a prepared statement.

Peabody’s three Wyoming coal mines – North Antelope Rochelle Complex, Caballo and Rawhide – together produced about 143.5 million tons in 2008, according a Casper Star-Tribune estimate. North Antelope Rochelle accounted for about 94.2 million tons of that total.

Read more at http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_6768edbe-5bc4-5a89-abef-973029c21cc4.html

THERE’S LESS AROUND GILLETTE THAN ONCE THOUGHT, BUT STILL PLENTY
BOB MOEN Associated Press writer | Posted: Saturday, August 2, 2008

CHEYENNE – The U.S. Geological Survey has lowered its estimates of the amount of recoverable coal in the nation’s most prolific coal field, but not enough to jeopardize the characterization by some that the United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal.
The USGS report released this week estimates there are 77 billion short tons of recoverable coal in the Gillette field, down 29 percent from the 109 billion short tons estimated in 2002 in generally the same area.

Read the whole article at http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_37d02719-32e9-5e71-b489-b2fc668195a1.html

By CHRISTA MELAND and PETER GARTRELL, News-Record Writers
Published: Sunday, September 9, 2007 12:52 AM MDT

The nation’s largest surface coal mine and a temporary staffing firm have been hit with four federal citations stemming from an Aug. 4 haul truck accident in which a truck tumbled up to 330 feet, trapping its driver inside for more than two hours.

Thunder Basin Coal Co. and SOS Staffing are awaiting fines for citations issued by the Mine Safety and Health Administration that allege the driver, Sean Terrance Clifford, 44, of Suffern, N.Y., did not have control of the truck and was driving too fast.