The mine is extracted coal from Pocahontas No. 3 Seam.

The Pocahontas No. 3 coal bed is within the Lower Pennsylvania Pocahontas Formation of the Pottsville Group. Where greater than 1.17 ft (14 in) in thickness, it underlies all or parts of Wyoming, McDowell, Raleigh, Summers, Mercer, Greenbrier, and Fayette Counties in West Virginia, and parts of Wise, Dickenson, Buchanan, Scott, Russell, and Tazewell Counties in adjacent Virginia, an area within the central part of the Appalachian Plateaus. The Pocahontas No. 3 coal bed is, in general, a high-rank, low-volatile bituminous (fig. 3), low-ash, low-sulfur coal that was once considered a standard for metallurgical coal (McColloch, 1995).

Buchanan Mine #1 is an underground coal mine located at the at Mavisdale, Buchanan County, Virginia.

The mine is extracted coal from Pocahontas No. 3 Seam and has 12 shaft openings.

Six continuous mining machine Mechanized Mining Units (MMUs) comprise three super sections where two units operate side-by-side and dump coal at the same section loading point. Coal is transported from the faces by battery-powered ram cars, freedom cars (battery-powered shuttle cars), and a longwall face conveyor. The coal is then transported to the production shaft bottom by belt conveyors, stored in underground bunkers, and hoisted to the surface by skip hoist cars. Employees and materials are transported in and out of the mine via man hoists and underground travel is facilitated by a diesel-powered track haulage system.

Four fans exhausting 2.4 million cubic feet of air per minute provide ventilation. Laboratory analysis of return air samples shows a methane liberation rate of 9.3 million cubic feet per day through the main mine fans. The development units are ventilated using a split system with exhausting line curtains or auxiliary fans and ventilation tubing.

Coal processing:

– ROM coal is transported to a skip hoist by conveyor belts, where the coal is then lifted to the surface for processing at the CPP

– Two underground bunkers allow storage of up to 5,400 tonnes of coal, managing the flow of coal both from the face and to the coal CPP

- ROM coal is washed in a CPP that has a nameplate capacity of 1,270 raw tonnes per hour (TPH). ROM coal processed through the CPP has an average yield of approximately 67%.

- Coal is then loaded on the NS rail on a FOR basis and customers arrange for access to rail and port capacity.