Arch Commences Production At Leer South Longwall Mine
September 09, 2021 at 06:55 am EDT
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Arch Resources, Inc. announced that it recently commenced production at its new Leer South longwall mine in Barbour County, West Virginia. When fully ramped, the mine is projected to produce up to four million tons per year of premium-quality, High-Vol A metallurgical coal for sale into global steel markets. The state of West Virginia played a pivotal role in the development of the project, according to Lang. Arch commenced work on the new mine just two-and-a-half years ago and invested approximately $400 million on the buildout. As anticipated, the Leer South longwall started up at the end of August following a planned 30-day outage that accommodated the upgrading of the material handling system, and is currently in the process of system testing and integration, with the expectation that ramping will continue throughout the month of September. Arch expects Leer South to make a significant contribution to production volumes in the fourth quarter of 2021, and to ramp to full production mode by the start of 2022.
Arch Resources, Inc. is a coal producer and a producer of metallurgical coal. The Company sells substantially all of its coal to steel mills, power plants and industrial facilities. It is a producer of metallurgical products for the global steel industry, and the supplier of High-Vol A metallurgical coal globally. The Company has two distinct lines of business, metallurgical and thermal, and may include a number of mine complexes. It operates about seven active mines located in three of the major coal-producing regions of the United States. Leer and Leer South longwall mines anchor its large-scale, first quartile metallurgical franchise. The Leer and Leer South operations are complemented by the Beckley and Mountain Laurel continuous miner mines, which in aggregate provide it with a full suite of metallurgical products for sale in the global metallurgical market. The Company also operates thermal mines in the Powder River Basin and Colorado that produce thermal coal.