Northern Appalachian thermal coal producer B&N Coal expects to receive final regulatory approvals in about a month for its new Whigville surface operation in Noble County, Ohio, with production set to start this summer, a company official said Monday.
"We're in the final review stage" for a permit from the Ohio Division of Mineral Resources Management, Roger Osborne, chief engineer for the Dexter City, Ohio-based company, said in an interview. "We're ready to move on it right now."
B&N also needs final approvals from the US Army Corps of Engineers and US Environmental Protection Agency, both of which are believed to be forthcoming.
Osborne said he will part of a small Ohio contingent that plans to travel to Washington in April to meet with representatives of several federal agencies that have at least some oversight over coal mining, including the Army Corps, EPA, Office of Surface Mining, US Fish and Wildlife Service and Mine Safety and Health Administration. The trip was been delayed somewhat because the Ohio officials are waiting for the Trump administration to fill numerous vacancies in the federal agencies.
Whigville is a greenfield mining project for B&N, which usually focuses on remining former active coal mining sites. Production is expected to start in June, Osborne said.
The new mine is targeted to produce about 150,000 st/year of high-sulfur coal for the US electric utility market. Currently, B&N is mining four separate sites, three in Noble County and the other in neighboring Washington County. The company expects to produce about 500,000 st in 2017, Osborne said.
B&N filed the 163.3-acre Whigville permit application in May 2016 with ODMRM, a division of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
The company is eager to start up the new mine to replace a nearby existing operation that is ready to close.
