[ad_1]
GILLETTE, Wyo. (AP) – In two of the largest coal mines in the world, finances were so bad that their owner could not even get toilet paper on credit.
Melissa Worden, warehouse technician, divided what was left, giving four reels to each mine and two to the refueling facility at the mine where she was working.
On July 1, the owner of the mine, Blackjewel LLC, applied for Chapter 11 protection against bankruptcy. Worden thought the accounts would be settled quickly.
"The consensus was that in 30 days we will review the situation, and we will be successful, we will be operational and it will be a new beginning," said Worden.
What happened instead shook the first coal producing region in the United States. Blackjewel has laid off most of its Wyoming employees and shut down the Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr mines, the first to cope with the difficulties since coal mining in the Powder River Basin in the 1970s.
The region straddles northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana, where coal has quietly supported the economies of both states for decades and supplied a small number of plants in 28 states.
Negotiations that could reopen the two mines in Wyoming under a new owner are blocked more than two months later. Some 600 employees stay out of work. Doubts are growing about the long-term viability of the region's coal mines.
"I do not think we'll be so naive again," said 44-year-old Worden.
Blackjewel, based in Milton, West Virginia, this week told Wyoming employees that the mines may soon be up and running again and let the company know if they want to get their jobs back.
Worden said that she felt uncomfortable. It is not alone in questioning long-standing assumptions about Powder River Basin mines, which produce less polluting coal than mines in other parts of the United States, and were generally not considered in danger.
But with the sustainable decline of coal, the question of how the basin could potentially reduce its production to a sustainable level has become an important issue, said Rob Godby, director of the University's Center for Energy Economics and Public Policy. from Wyoming.
"The irony here – and it's really a cruel irony – is that everyone is using it to get these miners back to work, but the solution to creating a healthy industry is to shut down some mines, "said Mr. Godby.
For the moment, little has changed in Gillette, a city of 30,000 people in the heart of the hilly meadow pond where tattoo shops are abundant and where the last generation of large pickup trucks continue to drive on the main track.
This year, however, has been particularly tumultuous. Three of the nine producers in the Powder River Basin – Westmoreland Coal, Cloud Peak Energy and Blackjewel – have gone bankrupt since March. Arch Coal and Peabody, two others, announced plans to merge their assets in the region.
Coal production in the United States has fallen by more than 30% since its peak in 2008. Utilities abandon old coal-fired plants and switch to solar, wind and natural gas cheaper and less polluting to produce electricity, despite the efforts of President Donald Trump the coal industry.
Ten years ago, about half of US electricity came from coal plants. Today, it's less than 30%, a change that Rory Wallet, the heavy machinery operator, found when utilities were less and less willing to enter into multi-year contracts with the company. coal mine Belle Ayr.
"The market has changed," said Wallet. "Bankruptcies are all related to that."
Wallet, 40, who followed his father into the mine in 2008, said the recent closures and the loss of his job of $ 80,000 a year had surprised him. He has four children and his wife's work at a restaurant in Gillette is their main source of income while waiting to hear from the mines.
Blackjewel said Thursday that he was working on plans to restart the mines while continuing their sale. The documents filed by the Federal Bankruptcy Court, however, do not indicate that the mines should reopen.
"It's a fast and sometimes unpredictable process, so we do not have an answer to all of your questions at the moment," says the company's press release.
Wallet is looking for a job and is pressuring Wyoming lawmakers to fight harder in order to force the state of Washington to approve the extension of the port facilities; which would increase coal exports in Asia.
"The ports are going to be a big problem. Asia is going to be a big problem," Wallet said.
But Godby said the amount of coal that the proposed export terminal could handle would only offset a small fraction of the drop in production.
The Powder River Basin mines employ about 5,000 miners, 20% less than eight years ago. The impact is even wider because 8,000 additional jobs, from teachers to auto mechanics, have indirect links with the coal industry.
Locals applauded when Trump lifted a federal moratorium on coal leases, but Worden and Wallet disagree over whether the change in environmental regulations will have any beneficial effects.
Both say that coal should continue to have a place alongside renewable energies.
"It must be a group effort, not green is on one side and black is on the other," said Worden. "We do not want this community to die."
___
Follow Mead Gruver to https://twitter.com/meadgruver
[ad_2]
Source link