Beckley is extracting high quality, Low-Volatile metallurgical coal in the Pocahontas No. 3 seam.

The Beckley mining complex is located on approximately 19,700 acres in Raleigh County, West Virginia and is extracting high quality, Low-Vol metallurgical coal in the Pocahontas No. 3 seam.

Beckley is operates employed Room-and-Pillar mining method with continuous miners.

In room-and-pillar mining, a network of rooms is cut into the coal seam, leaving a series of pillars of coal to support the roof of the mine. Continuous miners are used to cut the coal and shuttle cars are used to transport the coal to a conveyor belt for further transportation to the surface. The pillars generated as part of this mining method can constitute up to 40% of the total coal in a seam. Higher seam recovery rates can be achieved if retreat mining is used. In retreat mining, coal is mined from the pillars as workers retreat. As retreat mining occurs, the roof is allowed to collapse in a controlled fashion.

Beckley processing facilities include a 600-ton-per-hour preparation plant, loadout facility that can load a 10,000-ton train in less than four hours and CSX rail infastructure.

For coarse material, the separation process relies on the difference in the density between coal and waste rock and, for the very fine fractions, the separation process relies on the difference in surface chemical properties between coal and the waste minerals. To remove impurities, we crush raw coal and classify it into various sizes. For the largest size fractions, we use dense media vessel separation techniques in which we float coal in a tank containing a liquid of a pre-determined specific gravity. Since coal is lighter than its impurities, it floats, and we can separate it from rock and shale. We treat intermediate sized particles with dense medium cyclones, in which a liquid is spun at high speeds to separate coal from rock. Fine coal is treated in spirals, in which the differences in density ........