Atlantic Coal sees encouraging production

Atlantic Coal has announced a positive production and sales update for 1Q15, together with an update on the development progress at its Stockton anthracite mine, located near Hazleton, Pennsylvania.

Key figures

• Clean coal production of 45 669 t.
• Total coal sales of 44 356 t.
• Clean coal stockpile of 18 185 t.
• Run of mine (ROM) production of 136 981 t.
• ROM stockpile of 59 939 t.
• Bank cubic yards (BCY) of overburden removed, 1 082 028.
• Wash recovery rate of 54%.

Stockton mine

Atlantic Coal is now mining almost solid coal in the 29 ft thick Mammoth seam current cut. In the future, the company expects to be working the Mammoth seam with higher levels of coal (above 35-40%) remaining.

The additional coal in this seam means that the company’s ROM production and the coal content of the ROM have increased. Wash plant recovery levels are now approximately 54%, compared with 39.7% for 2014.

Comments

Commenting on the positive news, Managing Director Steve Best said: “I am delighted to report an excellent first quarter performance in 2015. Despite another desperately cold winter in Pennsylvania we surpassed our 1Q14 performance by some considerable margin and broke a number of production records with record quarterly ROM production and overburden removal figures…

“[H]ad it not been for persistent sub-zero temperatures and the adverse effect on coal washing operations, we anticipate that we would also have achieved record clean coal production albeit this was still 32% up on 1Q14.

Competitive market

"We are pleased to be able to report the positive developments in relation to the 29 ft thick Mammoth seam. Our overall sales volumes are good and I am pleased to report that the average price for Q1 was up slightly on 4Q14 in what is a competitive market.

Mining equipment

"The new Komatsu PC3000 hydraulic excavator is now operational and most of the new fleet of Komatsu plant we announced on 13 March is now on site and operational with the remainder expected before the end of April. The new mining equipment and improved mining conditions at Stockton means that we can look forward with confidence to the remainder of 2015.

US Chairman

"Finally, I am pleased to report that substantial progress is being made by our full time US based Chairman, Adam Wilson, in relation to management process and cost savings at Stockton and also establishing new investor interest in the potential acquisition of anthracite reserves, mining operations and washing plant capacity to achieve our objective of being a leading Pennsylvania anthracite producer and we will make further announcements on this at the appropriate time."

Adapted from press release by Katie Woodward

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcoal.com/mining/07042015/atlantic-coal-stockton-mine-update-2145/