Met coal producer American Resources has commissioned its McCoy Elkhorn processing facility in Pike County, Kentucky, for both internal and third-party processing as well as carbon-loading businesses, hedging its bets on enhanced production margins.
The plant property, which has two facilities at 500-tons-per-hour and 800 t/h for a 1,300 t/h combined capacity, offers access to full logistics and two extensive refuse storage impoundments. It also has a unit train rail loadout on the CSX railway within the heart of the company’s existing and potential reserve base.
American Resources is currently producing at its Carnegie 1 and 2 mines and announced prior its planned expansion of McCoy Elkhorn due to recent investment in structural upgrades. It has additional properties in varying phases of development in the area as well.
“[We are] also working on commencing production at several regional mines that have a logistical advantage and can be brought into production this year with relatively low cost,” the company said. “Given its recent strong production, [we have] been shipping production to its customer to fulfill existing orders while also building a stockpile of inventory at its McCoy complex to immediately begin processing.”
The operator confirmed it has been contacted by third parties seeking the use of the McCoy Elkhorn complex for processing and loading. Allowing such additional business, it said, will enable significant expansion to processing revenue with minimal additional capital expense.
Third-party processing can come in the form of tolling arrangements for both processing carbon as well as loading carbon through its state-of-the-art loadout facilities on either the CSX railway or truck, both present on-site, it added.
“We are excited to be in an advantageous position to commence operation at our McCoy Elkhorn processing and loading facilities, which are state-of-the-art facilities located in the heart of the metallurgical coal region of eastern Kentucky,” parent company American Carbon president Tarlis Thompson said.
“Due to the strong commitment from our team to get these facilities back operating, we are pleased to have the recommissioning of these plants ahead of schedule and under budget. Given the market opportunity and our planned expansion from the McCoy complex, we have been working on the restart of our internal processing capacity at this location.
Thompson noted that reopening the complex enabled that production expansion and also allows it to take advantage of attractive specialty carbon contracts.
American Resources’ properties are located in the Central Appalachian basin of eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia.
Source: American Resources