Plans already underway for 2026 event.
by Donna Schmidt
The Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center was abuzz with positivity for two days in April, as SEMCO Publishing, North American Mining magazine and Coal Trends magazine hosted the second annual West Virginia Coal Show, co-located once again with the West Virginia Coal Association’s annual symposium, its 51st.
The doors opened to the venue for visitors, with thousands pre-registered and a great crowd signing up on site on both days. A few of those pre-registered to attend left winners of one of several door prizes along with two $500 cash giveaways. At press time, preliminary estimates total over 2,500.
The grand hall’s show floor sold out fairly quickly, with just chance spots becoming available as 2025 began. The coliseum portion of the show – new for 2025 – was also full of both equipment display booths. A total of 219 companies made the trip the heart of coal country to share their products, services and ideas.
the West Virginia Coal Show.
As the show kicked off, several associated events also being held at the venue also saw their spaces filling. Preliminary feedback from the West Virginia Coal Association pointed to another record-breaking turnaround, and both its Mountaineer Guardian and Environmental awards luncheons were filled with honorees and supporters. Meanwhile, walking the aisles of the coliseum and grand hall were delegates including West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrissey, former governor and current Senator Jim Justice (along with his famous sidekick, Baby Dog, being transported by wagon), Lieutenant Governor Randy Smith, multiple coal company executive officers such as CORE Natural Resources’ Jimmy Brock and Ramaco Resources’ Randall Atkins, and many more.
The growth of coal, the coal industry, new mining-friendly executive orders and upcoming regulations and market changes were among the hot topics shared at both the coal show as well as on the stage of the symposium. For example, as Brock noted in his keynote presentation that its high-calorific thermal coal is in very high demand – and for end uses like cement production, it could see its demand grow by 65 million tons by 2050. At the same time, it plans to export 30 million tons, 65% of it headed for Asia.
“We want to build on a long-standing position as a leader in sustainability and safety,” he added in his presentation. “Our core values have never changed. I stopped all of my team from using the word priority, because priorities change. Values don’t. So, our values are safety, compliance and continuous improvement. We live with those, whatever project we have to put in place, those three things will be a factor of that and going forward.”
Randall Atkins, chairman and CEO of Ramaco Resources, also took his point to the stage and discussed the company’s exponential growth. Ramaco, with coal properties in Appalachia as well as a coal and rare earth elements property in Wyoming, will produce 4 million tons of metallurgical coal in 2025 while at the same time continuing the company’s push for innovative uses of coal, including advanced carbon products and REEs as well as the potential for synthetic graphite and carbon fibers.
Atkins emphasized the industry’s need for innovation and higher value propositions, citing a 50% workforce reduction and 40% production drop over a decade, and stressed the ongoing significant support needed from the federal government as the nation potentially eyes 50,000 new mining jobs and 300 million additional tons of production that will be demanded by 2040. Also needed on an ongoing basis: innovation.
“The coal industry has got to innovate,” he said.
“We’ve got to constantly innovate, and basically, we have to come up with higher value propositions. We are indeed in a resource you can just pick up today’s newspaper to see how China is using their resources against us, but the U.S. has got a lot of leg up on China. We have more coal…more than any place else in the world. We also have the technology prowess to basically reinvent not only our industry, but how we can use carbon.
“But of course, the first step is R&D. We pay for a lot of that R&D ourselves, that the federal and state governments have to help. [We can] basically harness the value of coal through new technology. And remember: you should never count coal out.”