American Resources has selected a contract miner to run production at its Carnegie 2 metallurgical carbon mine in Pike County, Ky.
The identity of the mining partner was not disclosed, and no timeline details have been released. However, American officials said the experienced contractor is on a fixed-fee, per-clean-ton deal approximately US$50/t.
Carnegie 2 is the second in a series of metallurgical carbon operations owned by American Resources in the region that will extract high-quality tonnage from the Alma seam specifically for steelmaking. Its sister mine, Carnegie 1, recently restarted after an idle; the two share the same boundary of premium high-vol A/B coal.
Carnegie 2 will utilize one continuous miner under a single-section mining plan. Mining is expected to commence before the end of the year and ramp up to between 8,000 to 12,000 clean tons monthly.
All production from both Carnegie mines will be processed at the McCoy Elkhorn facility for domestic and international shipping.
“Now that we have restarted our McCoy Elkhorn processing and logistics complex as well as our Carnegie 1 mine, it is important for us to rapidly scale our production of high-quality metallurgical carbon to meet the growing demands of the infrastructure market and our customer base,” said Mark Jensen, CEO of American Resources.
“With so many constrained supply chains worldwide, we are expecting a longer-term tightening in the metallurgical carbon market when combined with a lack of invested capital throughout the industry. We find ourselves in an exciting position to be a long-term supplier given the unique growth platform of assets we have built over the past six years and the restructuring efforts we have made to cut costs and streamline efficient operations.”
American Resources’ portfolio includes the Central Appalachian basin of eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia.
Source: American Resources