The TRM resource block is located in the Appalachian Plateau province in northern West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania. This area is characterized by generally flat lying strata. The primary economic coal-bearing strata in northern West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania is comprised of the Monongahela Formation, including the Pittsburgh No. 8 seam. Structurally, the seam is gently folded with a series of synclines and anticlines crossing the eastern portion of the reserve that trends in a northeast-southwest direction.

The Pittsburgh No. 8 seam varies in thickness throughout the resource area. The Pittsburgh No. 8 seam is broken into a main bench, a variably thick parting and a rider coal of inferior quality. The main bench averages about 5.0 feet thick, the claystone parting varies from about zero to 1.6 feet thick. The upper bench, or rider, is anywhere from zero to over two feet thick and is typically high ash, high sulfur, lower quality coal. Depending on its thickness and the overall seam thickness, the rider is either left for roof coal or mined with the rest of the seam. The immediate roof within the TRM reserve block is generally a dark gray shale or claystone, overlain by a shaley limestone that has thin shale partings. Though it’s uncommon in the TRM reserve, a thin, discontinuous sandstone can be found in the main roof. The floor varies between a thin, shaley limestone to a gray-green claystone that transitions to a sandy shale.

T ........

The Tunnel Ridge Mine is developed into the Pittsburgh #8 coal seam utilizing two dual shaft compartment air shafts along with an intake shaft and a bleeder fan. Tunnel Ridge operates one longwall section with three continuous miner sections. The mine currently has three production shifts a day, five days a week. The mine has clean coal production of approximately 6.5 million tons per year. The mine is ventilated by two fans operating in the exhaust mode.

The TRM extracts coal from the Pittsburgh No. 8 seam utilizing longwall and room and pillar methods of underground mining. Room and pillar methods are used for development of mainline areas as well as longwall panel gate entries and bleeders. Longwall mining is performed in areas where 100% extraction is possible utilizing a single longwall face that is typically 1,200 feet in width and up to 20,000 feet in length. Infrastructure within the mine includes conveyors, ventilation, power, freshwater capacity, one longwall face, and up to four development units. The number of development units varies based on the rate of longwall retreat.

Pillar sizes for gates range between 34’x120’ and 89’x 260’. Typically, three entries are driven 16’ wide for a unit width of 171’ for gate development. Pillar sizes for main development are typically 65’x 250’ and up to seven entries wide. Main entries are driven 16’ wide for a total width of approximately 406’.

There are approximately 53.7 million clean tons r ........

The TRM utilizes a heavy media, float/sink style preparation plant to separate marketable coal from refuse. The plant has a design feed capacity of 1,800 tons per hour (TPH). The plant is divided into two independent 900 TPH circuits that can individually be idled to allow repairs to be made on one circuit while the other remains in operation. Once in the plant, the run of mine (ROM) material passes over vibratory screens to be separated by size. Approximately 80% of all of the ROM material reports to the heavy media circuit as coarse material. Through the introduction of magnetite, a ferromagnetic naturally occurring mineral, the gravity of the flotation solution within the heavy media circuit is manipulated to precisely control the float/sink point. The ROM material is introduced to the heavy media vessel where coal is floated in the solution and heavier rock material conveyed out for disposal. The clean coal, or product, produced by the heavy media vessel is rinsed, dried, and c ........