GMan 3,569 Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 400 immediate job losses, 1200 total... http://www.wvva.com/story/19570732/alpha-closing-8-mines-cutting-1200-jobs-in-all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted Account 5,203 Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 (edited) 400 immediate job losses, 1200 total... http://www.wvva.com/story/19570732/alpha-closing-8-mines-cutting-1200-jobs-in-all I was feeling pretty bummed while reading this article, until I got to: "Alpha's $7.1 billion acquisition of Massey Energy..." While not as bad as CONSOL, Massey, among its many other abominable traits, was NOTORIOUS for cutting its nose off to spite its face to prove a point. Seems like they taught Alpha a thing or two in the merger... When you juxtapose that with "Globally, "there remains a structural undersupply" of metallurgical coal, Crutchfield said, and Alpha expects to see demand grow by more than 100 million tons by the end of the decade.", you get why I'm not exactly extolling the glories of "poor CONSOL" or "poor Massey" or "poor Alpha". They're screwing their workers for political motives. Oh, and before this becomes a "blame Obama" thing (which is a worthy complaint sometimes, just not here), Alpha dug its own grave with its own comments: "Alpha has 25 million to 30 million tons of export capacity through the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, giving it the ability to scale up exports quickly, [Crutchfield] said." So, Alpha has the capability to ramp up exports, and they're CUTTING the workforce? Why do people keep giving these scumbags a free pass? Disgusting. Edited September 18, 2012 by UVAObserver Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMan 3,569 Author Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 They are making those quotes to make their investors feel "safe". Nonetheless, I foresee a major dumping of stock by investors. I'll pick it up again when it drops back down to the 4.50-5.00 range... My concern is another 1200 families being affected by layoffs/closings...the trickle down will be felt by everyone in the areas where the mines close. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted Account 5,203 Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 My concern is another 1200 families being affected by layoffs/closings...the trickle down will be felt by everyone in the areas where the mines close. Also very true. Look at companies like Joy, Pemco, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hacker 82 Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 Great points guys, Alpha is playing bottom line knowing that they can recall laid off miners and ramp up production in a weeks time. The real human impact will be down stream. Joy, Pemco, Walmart, McDonalds and every business in the region. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1inStripes 933 Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 Joy in Duffield has already started with layoffs. Had friends going into work Monday not knowing if they still had a job or not when they got there. Its going to be tough for a lot of people for a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redtiger 1,742 Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 Joy in Duffield has already started with layoffs. Had friends going into work Monday not knowing if they still had a job or not when they got there. Its going to be tough for a lot of people for a while. They actually have been laying some workers for the past few months. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falconman 44 Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 Coal is becoming obsolete in the energy business according to my professor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lance 228 Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 been saying it for months...expect more layoffs until after the election...this shouldn't come as a shock to anyone at this point. I honestly HATE to hear this stuff for the people who get laid off...they pay the price and are the ones who get screwed in it all, but it's 100% political. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMan 3,569 Author Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 I honestly HATE to hear this stuff for the people who get laid off...they pay the price and are the ones who get screwed in it all, but it's 100% political. I wouldn't say 100% political...maybe 95%... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan4VT 4,557 Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 They are making those quotes to make their investors feel "safe". Nonetheless, I foresee a major dumping of stock by investors. I'll pick it up again when it drops back down to the 4.50-5.00 range... My concern is another 1200 families being affected by layoffs/closings...the trickle down will be felt by everyone in the areas where the mines close. My step-dad is a highly tenured scoop operator for Alpha. He works second shift this week. So he has no clue of he'll even have a job. They did tell him a few months back that if anything happened to his mine. He is one of the best they have in the entire company, and they would just move him. But it's still scary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandman 13 Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 Coal is becoming obsolete in the energy business according to my professor. My suggestion is you withdraw from that professor's class rapidly! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stu_bean 1,058 Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 Coal is becoming obsolete in the energy business according to my professor. It is down to less than 50% for all the coal produced energy. It isn't obsolete. With that said even the metalurgic coal demand is down. From an inside point of view not directly related to coal mines, it has gotten to where the coal in the midwest is now as feasable as appalachian coal. They can produce it as fast at nearly the same quality at a much lower price. Coal mines around here used to be the cream of the crop so they paid those wages fitting of it. That's just not the case any more. There are so many factors in it the list could go on and on... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted Account 5,203 Report Share Posted September 18, 2012 My step-dad is a highly tenured scoop operator for Alpha. He works second shift this week. So he has no clue of he'll even have a job. They did tell him a few months back that if anything happened to his mine. He is one of the best they have in the entire company, and they would just move him. But it's still scary. That's a shame. Good, hard-working people like your step-dad have to wrestle with these effects. I wish him and all their other workers the best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GHS89 77 Report Share Posted September 19, 2012 Hard times ahead. The likes of which few around here have ever seen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan4VT 4,557 Report Share Posted September 19, 2012 That's a shame. Good, hard-working people like your step-dad have to wrestle with these effects.I wish him and all their other workers the best. Thankfully his mines isn't one of the ones. Still feel terrible for all those who were immediately and otherwise effected. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhs7695 185 Report Share Posted September 19, 2012 Some news about the energy wars: http://www.futuresmag.com/2012/09/19/coal-fights-natural-gas-for-share-of-energy-market?t=commodities COAL WARS! Did you hear about the coal wars? Well they are running hot and heavy and up until recently, the long dominant cheap fuel coal had suddenly begun to lose its low price dominance to the up and coming cheap fuel, natural gas. For the first time in the history of the universe U.S. Central Appalachian coal prices rose above natural gas prices causing many industrial users to switch to natural gas. Yet it appears that old King Coal will not give up that easy and may be making a bit of a comeback. Reuters News reports that U .S. Central Appalachian coal prices slip to two-year lows. Citing milder late-summer weather and coal use in power generation down sharply this year, coal may be making natural gas less attractive. In fact Reuters points out that prices for Central Appalachian coal produced in the eastern United States slid to the lowest in more than two years this week, stirring talk that coal was getting more competitive with natural gas for a share of the power generation market. Milder late-summer weather has finally started to slow electricity demand for air conditioning and helped pressure coal prices. Front-month coal futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange slid Monday to $52.58 per short ton, down more than 13 percent from recent peaks above $60 in late July and early August. That would be roughly equivalent to a natural gas price just above $2 per million British thermal units. Gas prices are currently trading at about $2.80 after briefly poking above $3 last week. The slide in coal prices has stirred talk that some electric utilities that have been burning cheaper gas to generate power could switch back to coal. A loss of that demand, which helped prop up gas prices all summer, could force more gas into already bloated inventories. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhs7695 185 Report Share Posted September 19, 2012 It is down to less than 50% for all the coal produced energy. It isn't obsolete. With that said even the metalurgic coal demand is down. From an inside point of view not directly related to coal mines, it has gotten to where the coal in the midwest is now as feasable as appalachian coal. They can produce it as fast at nearly the same quality at a much lower price. Coal mines around here used to be the cream of the crop so they paid those wages fitting of it. That's just not the case any more. There are so many factors in it the list could go on and on... But the Illinois Basin still isn't the low sulfur quality of Appalachian Coal and low sulfur is the best type for manufacturing of steel. Until the steel market come back world wide and the current administration in the U.S. is out of the way, this area will see trouble for a long time with regards to coal production. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stu_bean 1,058 Report Share Posted September 19, 2012 But the Illinois Basin still isn't the low sulfur quality of Appalachian Coal and low sulfur is the best type for manufacturing of steel. Until the steel market come back world wide and the current administration in the U.S. is out of the way, this area will see trouble for a long time with regards to coal production. Exactly right there. It seems though I saw an article yesterday that was talking about how a lot of steel production has been outsourced over seas now. The sad thing is so many things are related to this that it affects most everybody in the area. I work in a motor rebuild shop and we go from a record setting first quarter to almost a stop in Q2. Granted I am in IT and not specifically tied to this, it still makes for some very tough times. The saying around here is we have to fight because we really don't know what the future will bring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwood78 161 Report Share Posted September 19, 2012 just going by experience mind you, back in the 80"S, my company went through a similar situation, they "expanded" lets say, we all said they were gettin to big for their britches, laid a bunch off, said they had to mine coal for different market, they laid several off , some who , only lacked 1 month to secure retirement, and even more who had large families with medical problems.............i'd say alpha, in a round about way, is doing the same thing.........when the dust kinda cleared (no pun intended). they started hiring NEW employees.................... we heard the same, to stiff regulations, cheaper natural gas, over seas market etcc.......... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhs7695 185 Report Share Posted September 20, 2012 To stop the war on American jobs we must end Obama's war on coal By Phil Kerpen Published September 19, 2012 FoxNews.com At this point, you’d have to be blind not to see President Obama’s war on coal, and the devastating impact it is already having on coal mining communities and will, sooner rather than later, have on everyone who pays an electric bill. Does this administration care at all about saving American jobs? The latest announcement came from Alpha Natural Resources, which is laying off 1,200 coal miners, citing “a regulatory environment that’s aggressively aimed at constraining the use of coal.” We shouldn’t be surprised by what’s happening. Obama told us his disastrous plan for the coal industry and affordable electricity on the campaign trail in 2008. “If someone wants to build a new coal-fired power plant they can, but it will bankrupt them,” candidate Obama said then. “Electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,” he added. First he tried a massive cap-and-trade plan. It failed. The day after the 2010 landslide election, he said: “Cap-and-trade was just one way of skinning the cat.” Now he's abusing regulatory power to accomplish the same deeply destructive goal of bankrupting coal. We’ve already seen mercury rules from the EPA that will impose tens of billions of dollars in retrofit costs for coal plants, heavy-handed denials of clean water permits to block mining operations, and even an illegal attempt to veto an already approved permit to block a West Virginia mine – that one was overturned by a judge who accused the EPA of “magical thinking.” A cross-state air pollution rule designed to cripple coal was also at least temporarily blocked by the courts, but with dozens of draconian rules there is plenty of redundancy. Worst of all is the power plant greenhouse gas rule, designed to transform Obama’s failed cap-and-trade scheme into the law of the land by distorted and contorted the 1970 Clean Air Act. As EPA regional administrator Curt Spalding let slip, the rule says that “basically gas plants are the performance standard, which means if you want to build a coal plant, you got a big problem.” Spalding went on to praise his boss Lisa Jackson, the national EPA administrator for the decision to destroy coal, saying: “You can’t imagine how tough that was. Because you’ve got to remember if you go to West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and all those places, you have coal communities who depend on coal.” The strongest words of anger against this regulatory destruction of the coal industry came not from an industry voice but from organized labor. Cecil Roberts, the president of the United Mine Workers, said: “The Navy SEALs shot Usama Bin Laden in Pakistan and Lisa Jackson shot us in Washington. This rule is an all-out, in my opinion, decision by the EPA that we’re never going to have another coal-fired facility in the United States that’s constructed.” Worse than that, the rule will create a legal predicate under which the Sierra Club can sue to shut down all existing coal plants, which you can be certain they will do. That will make good on Obama’s campaign promise to make electricity rates “necessarily skyrocket.” The House is expected to vote Friday on stopping Obama’s War on Coal. I’ve got a form set up at http://www.WarOnCoal.com where you can urge them to do so. But the future of coal and affordable electricity will most likely depend on defeating Barack Obama at the ballot box. Mr. Kerpen is the president of American Commitment and the author of Democracy Denied. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/19/to-stop-war-on-american-jobs-must-end-obama-war-on-coal/#ixzz270tt94Ta Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhs7695 185 Report Share Posted September 20, 2012 The announcement that 1,200 coal-mining jobs have been eliminated across central Appalachia has sparked renewed cries that Obama administration policies are crippling domestic-energy production and jobs -- and is already factoring into the 2012 presidential race. Alpha Natural Resources announced Tuesday its plan to cut the positions and scale back coal production by 16 million tons annually -- which would result in eight mine closings in Virginia, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Four-hundred workers will be laid off immediately, though the company reportedly may try to re-hire some of the 1,200. Kevin Crutchfield, the company’s chief executive officer, said the lay-offs and the closings of the non-union mines are the result a difficult market in which power plants are switching to abundant, less-expensive natural gas and "a regulatory environment that's aggressively aimed at constraining the use of coal." However, elected officials and business groups have been less oblique in their analysis, saying Alpha employees are victims of President Obama’s so-called "War on Coal." The Mitt Romney campaign is among the most recent to put the blame squarely on the president, releasing a TV ad Wednesday that reminds voters about what Obama said in 2008. “If somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can, it's just that it will bankrupt them,” the president said, in a quote interpreted by critics as a campaign promise that coal would have no future in an Obama White House. West Virginia Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito acknowledged this week that several factors, including the declining price of natural gas, have led to recent mine closures. But she said the Environmental Protection Agency’s “extreme rules and regulations played a major role.” “The president’s extreme policies are crippling entire towns and making it harder for workers to find jobs,” Capito, co-founder of the Congressional Coal Caucus, said in a written statement. "Because of the president's War on Coal, thousands of West Virginia families have to worry about where their next paycheck is going to come from." She has added language to a bill which the Republican-controlled House is expected to vote on this week that would force the EPA to consider the impact on jobs and the economy when issuing new rules and regulations. Billy Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, said the EPA has specifically created “impossible standards” for electricity-generating plants. He also said the EPA is now “bullying” West Virginia into accepting water-quality standards over which the state once had some determination. Raney said the coal industry wants to comply, but the administration has created “unrealistic timetables” and there is no technology to reach the goals. “This goes right back to the administration’s policies and the EPA,” he said. Raney and others said they agree that the United States should have a balanced energy policy that relies less on foreign oil, but the green energy alternatives backed by the president cannot shoulder the country’s energy demand over the short term. Obama, perhaps due to his coal policies and other factors, faces dim chances in West Virginia come November. Keith Judd, a felon incarcerated in Texas, won 40.7 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary. And neither West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin III nor Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin attended this month’s Democratic National Convention. Steve Roberts, president of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, said internal polls already show Republicans have a shot at unseating Rep. Nick Rahall, a pro-coal Democrat. In addition, Ohio and Virginia -- two battleground states Obama won in 2008 – are coal-producing states where Romney could hammer his message on the industry in the weeks ahead. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/19/romney-pro-business-groups-blame-obama-polices-on-recent-mine-closings/?test=latestnews#ixzz270wor24z Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swvacsas2 15 Report Share Posted September 20, 2012 "The slide in coal prices has stirred talk that some electric utilities that have been burning cheaper gas to generate power could switch back to coal. A loss of that demand, which helped prop up gas prices all summer, could force more gas into already bloated inventories." The problem coal has is not an FOB price at arrival at the power plant- but the regs on burning and on coal ash disposal courtesy of EPA. Ash disposal is as big a barrier to coal use in many cases as are clean air regs. A lot of TVA actions are related to the bad spill at Kingston about four years ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted Account 5,203 Report Share Posted September 20, 2012 The problem coal has is not an FOB price at arrival at the power plant- but the regs on burning and on coal ash disposal courtesy of EPA. Ash disposal is as big a barrier to coal use in many cases as are clean air regs. A lot of TVA actions are related to the bad spill at Kingston about four years ago. Bingo. And it's one of the main reasons that Obama's EPA isn't very much to blame in this particular closure... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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