The Cordero Rojo Mine is a

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

complex located in the state of

Wyoming Wyoming () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the south ...

in the United States, in the coal-rich Powder River Basin. The mine is of

open pit Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...

construction and employs several dragline excavators. Two coal-processing facilities are located on-site, and crushed coal is shipped by rail to

electric utility An electric utility is a company in the electric power industry (often a public utility) that engages in electricity generation and distribution of electricity for sale generally in a regulated market. The electrical utility industry is a major pr ...

customers in the south and west of the United States. The mine employs between 430 and 540 people. The mining complex is wholly owned by Cloud Peak Energy. Cloud Peak Energy acquired the mine in 2010 from Rio Tinto Energy America. The mine was formerly owned by the giant mining company

Rio Tinto Group Rio Tinto Group is an Anglo-Australian Multinational corporation, multinational company that is the world's second-largest metals and mining corporation (behind BHP). The company was founded in 1873 when of a group of investors purchased a mine ...

, thru its subsidiary Rio Tinto Energy America. It was formed in 1997 from the consolidation of two previously existing mines, the Cordero mine (purchased by Rio Tinto in 1993) and the Caballo Rojo mine (purchased in 1997). The mine produced between 34 and 36 million tons of coal per year in the years 2004 to 2006, over 40 million tons of coal in 2007, and 22.8 million tons in 2015, making the Cordero Rojo actually fourth-largest producer of coal in the United States.http://www.eia.gov/coal/annual/pdf/table9.pdf

References

Mines in Campbell County, Wyoming Rio Tinto (corporation) subsidiaries Mines in Wyoming Coal mines in the United States {{Wyoming-geo-stub