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GILLETTE, Wyo. (AP) – In two of the largest coal mines in the world, finances have deteriorated so badly that their owner has not even been able to get toilet paper on credit.
Warehouse Technician Melissa Worden divided what was left of the last case, giving four reels to each mine and two to the refueling facility at the mine where she was working.
A few days later, things got worse.
On July 1, the owner of the mine, Blackjewel LLC, filed for Chapter 11 protection against bankruptcy. Worden had initially imagined that the accounts would be settled quickly and that the sellers of everything from copy paper to medium-sized dump truck parts would soon be back to normal. .
"The consensus was that in 30 days we will look at the situation, we will be fine, we will be ready to function, and the new start will be made," she said.
What happened instead shook the first coal-producing region in the United States, like an explosive charge. 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.
It is a blow to the region straddling northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana, where coal has quietly supported the two-state economy for decades and supplied a small number of power plants in 28 states. .
Negotiations that could reopen Wyoming's two mines under a new ownership – Bristol's potentially previous owner, Contura Energy, based in Tennessee – have stalled more than two months later. Some 600 employees stay out of work. They lost their health insurance coverage at the end of August.
Doubts are growing over the long-term viability of the region's coal mines, including Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr, respectively fourth and sixth largest in the US in terms of production.
"I do not think we'll be so naive again," said 44-year-old Worden.
Blackjewel, based in Milton, West Virginia, this week told its Wyoming employees that the mines could soon be operational and allow them to know if they would like to return to their jobs.
Worden said that she felt uncomfortable. During a break from a part-time job in the North Dakota power sector, she wondered whether she should accept a full-time job offer or keep her old job.
It is not the only one to challenge long-standing assumptions about the Powder River Basin coal mines, which produce less polluting coal than mines elsewhere in the United States, and do not generally think of being in the same position. danger, despite the growing demand for renewable energy. fight against climate change.
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 – and it's really a cruel irony – is that everyone wants these miners to find work again. But the solution to creating a healthy industry is to close some mines, "said Godby.
For the moment, little has changed in Gillette, a town of 30,000 in the heart of the hilly grassland basin midway between the Black Hills and the snow-capped Bighorn Mountains. The tattoo shops are plentiful and the big vans of the latest models continue to roll on the main roads.
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 assets in the region.
Coal production in the United States has fallen by more than 30% since 2008, when utilities shut down old coal-fired plants and switched to solar, wind energy and cheaper natural gas. and less polluting to produce electricity the coal industry.
Ten years ago, about half of US electricity came from coal plants. Now it's below 30%, a change that heavy equipment operator Rory Wallet has seen weaken, as utilities are less likely to enter into multi-year contracts for Belle Ayr mine coal. .
"The market has changed," said Wallet. "Bankruptcies are all related to that."
Wallet, 40, followed his father, an equipment mechanic, to the Belle Ayr mine in 2008. He said the recent mine closures and the loss of $ 80,000 a year had surprised him. .
He has four children aged 11 to 16 and his wife's main job at Gillette's restaurant Ruby Tuesday 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. Nothing in the documents filed by the federal bankruptcy courts in West Virginia indicates that the mines were about to reopen, however.
"It's a quick and sometimes unpredictable process, and as a result, we do not have an answer to all your questions at the moment," says the company's statement.
Wallet is looking for a job and is taking advantage of his free time to sell "We Will Rise Again" t-shirts for families of unemployed coal miners. He is also pressuring Wyoming lawmakers to fight harder to force the state of Washington to approve an extension of port facilities that would increase coal exports to Asia.
He questions Godby's prospects for the Center for Energy Economics and Public Policy that some mines must close.
"I think that's with Rob, it's the scenario from the most serious to the worst," Wallet said. "The ports are going to be a big problem. Asia is going to be a big problem. "
Wallet pointed out that there was still one or two centuries of recoverable coal in the Powder River Basin. And just north of Gillette, the state invested $ 15 million in a facility to study how to capture the carbon dioxide that modifies the climate of a functioning power plant and use it wisely in products. from concrete to biofuels.
Wallet is optimistic that the technology could save coal. But carbon capture, if it happens, could come too late for the coal industry to be very beneficial to global concerns about climate change, Godby said.
"We will not see the widespread adoption of carbon capture and storage for at least a decade," said Godby. "It's only the reality."
He also doubts that exports can save the coal industry in the region. There is no direct rail line to the northwest Pacific from most of the basin's mines, and the amount of coal that the proposed export terminal could handle would only offset a small fraction of the decline. of production, said Godby.
The Powder River Basin mines employ about 5,000 miners, 20% less than eight years ago. But the impact is even greater because 8,000 additional jobs, from teachers to auto mechanics, have indirect links with the wider economy around the coal industry.
Local unemployment rose to 5.7% in July from 4.1% a year earlier.
Trump won 88% of the vote in Campbell County, in the heart of the basin. Residents welcomed the lifting of a federal moratorium on coal concessions that former President Barack Obama imposed, but Worden and Wallet are not in agreement on whether changing the environmental regulations will be beneficial in the long run. Wallet thinks that an improvement could be imminent.
Both argue that coal should continue to have a place in the economy 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."
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