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Arch Resources has confirmed that the long-awaited start of production at the Leer South longwall operation in Barbour County, W.Va., has finally arrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The start-up, which was official at the end of August following a 30-day outage to upgrade the material handling system at the site, comes after two-and-a-half years of work and about US$400 million in investment dollars to bring the underground operation to fruition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arch COO John Drexler commented on the timing of the production start despite many headwinds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Leer South team has done an extraordinary job in bringing this large, multi-faceted project to fruition in the face of a pandemic and in the midst of a rising material and labor cost environment,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBecause of the tremendous focus and dedication of the entire Arch operations team, Leer South is ramping at a highly strategic time, with the global economy rebounding and with steelmakers struggling to secure sufficient supplies of high-quality metallurgical coals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leer South crews are now testing and integrating the new material handling infrastructure and will continue to ramp up operations over this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arch expects Leer South to make a significant contribution to production volumes in the fourth quarter and reach its full production mode by the start of 2022. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When fully ramped, the mine is expected to produce up to four million tons of premium-quality, high-vol A metallurgical coal per year for global steel market sale.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n