![Kellingley Colliery geograph 001](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Kellingley_Colliery_geograph_001.jpg)
UK Coal Production Ltd, formerly UK Coal plc, was the largest
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 business in the United Kingdom. The company was based in
Harworth
Harworth is an area in the civil parish of Harworth Bircotes (with Bircotes) in the Bassetlaw district in Nottinghamshire, England. It is approximately north of Worksop. The population of the civil parish was 7,948 in the 2011 Census.
Hist ...
, in
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...
. The company was a constituent of the
FTSE 250 Index
The FTSE 250 Index ( "Footsie") is a capitalisation-weighted index consisting of the 101st to the 350th largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. Promotions and demotions to and from the index occur quarterly in March, June, Septemb ...
. The successor company that contains the former property division, Harworth Group, is still listed on the
London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...
.
History
The predecessor company of UK Coal was founded by
Richard J. Budge in 1974 as ''RJB Mining''. In 1994, following the
privatisation
Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
of the UK mining industry, it grew fivefold with the acquisition of
British Coal's core activities. It changed its name to UK Coal in 2001 after the retirement of its founder, having acquired UK Coal plc.
Former operations
At year end 2008, the company estimated coal reserves and resources of 105 Mt at the mines, of which 45 Mt was accessible under existing five year mining and investment plans. Its most important customers were electricity generators.
In 2010 the company proposed a series of developments, mainly
opencast mining
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 ...
, including the ''Minorca mine project'' development in
Measham
Measham is a large village in the North West Leicestershire district in Leicestershire, England, near the Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire boundaries. It lies off the A42, 4½ miles (7.25 km) south of Ashby de la Zouch, in the Natio ...
,
Leicestershire
Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...
.
However, UK Coal exited surface mining in late 2014,
so these plans did not materialise.
In 2012, UK Coal were fined £200,000 after pleading guilty to breaching health and safety laws after a death of a miner at
Kellingley Colliery
Kellingley Colliery was a deep coal mine in North Yorkshire, England, east of Ferrybridge power station. It was owned and operated by UK Coal.
The colliery closed on 18 December 2015, marking the end of deep-pit coal mining in Britain. The s ...
.
One deep mine, the
Welbeck
Welbeck is a village in Nottinghamshire, England, slightly to the south-west of Worksop. The village population is included in the civil parish of Holbeck.
Welbeck became a coal-mining centre in 1912 and has a famous stately home, Welbeck Ab ...
colliery, in
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...
closed in 2011 after continuous production since 1912. Another deep mine,
Daw Mill
Daw Mill was a coal mine located near the village of Arley, near Nuneaton, in the English county of Warwickshire. The mine was Britain's biggest coal producer. It closed in 2013 following a major fire. It was the last remaining colliery in the W ...
at Furnace End, Warwickshire, closed in 2013 after an underground fire damaged much of the facilities.
On 10 April 2014, Reuters reported that the British government was to give UK Coal a £10 million loan to help fund the closure of its two remaining deep mines. The company will carry out a managed closure of the deep mines by Autumn 2015 and will seek a buyer for its surface mines. UK Coal's difficulties have been precipitated by a flood of U.S. coal on to the market, as a result of
shale gas
Shale gas is an unconventional natural gas that is found trapped within shale formations. Since the 1990s a combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has made large volumes of shale gas more economical to produce, and some a ...
development, and by the strength of sterling.
Thoresby Colliery
Thoresby Colliery was a coal mine in north Nottinghamshire on the outskirts of Edwinstowe village. The mine, which opened in 1925, was the last working colliery in Nottinghamshire when it closed in 2015. The site has been cleared and it being re ...
was shut in July 2015, while
Kellingley Colliery
Kellingley Colliery was a deep coal mine in North Yorkshire, England, east of Ferrybridge power station. It was owned and operated by UK Coal.
The colliery closed on 18 December 2015, marking the end of deep-pit coal mining in Britain. The s ...
ceased production on 18 December 2015.
with ownership to be transferred to Harworth Estates for future redevelopment.
Former opencast mining operations
Three surface mines in North East England were owned by UK Coal Surface Mines Limited (company number 08492512) which went into administration on 14 November 2014. The business was then sold to UKCSMR Limited (company number 09275881). The three surface mines are Butterwell and Potland Burn in Northumberland and Park Wall North in County Durham.
Former renewable energy and gas operations
The company moved into renewable energy, expanding into
windfarm
A wind farm or wind park, also called a wind power station or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turb ...
s, which is helped by a large land bank and the desire to diversify into energy activities beyond coal. Wind power offers financial incentives such as
Renewables Obligation Certificates
The Renewables Obligation (RO) is designed to encourage generation of electricity from eligible renewable sources in the United Kingdom. It was introduced in England and Wales and in a different form (the Renewables Obligation (Scotland)) in Scot ...
. UK Coal, through its Harworth Power subsidiary, engaged in
mine gas
Firedamp is any flammable gas found in coal mines, typically coalbed methane. It is particularly found in areas where the coal is bituminous. The gas accumulates in pockets in the coal and adjacent strata and when they are penetrated the releas ...
recovery, to generate electricity.
Harworth Power was sold on 1 October 2012 to Red Rose Infrastructure Limited for £20.30 million.
At the time of the sale, it operated 14
gas engine
A gas engine is an internal combustion engine that runs on a gaseous fuel, such as coal gas, producer gas, biogas, landfill gas or natural gas. In the United Kingdom, the term is unambiguous. In the United States, due to the widespread use of ...
s of 26 MW generation capacity supplying electricity to UK Coal and the National Grid.
Restructuring
On 12 December 2012 UK Coal plc completed
a complex financial restructuring of the company to secure its future and changed its name to Coalfield Resources plc. The company's operations had been restructured into two separate businesses: the mining division (under UK Coal Mine Holdings Limited) and the property division (under Harworth Estates Property Group Limited).
Control of the mining division had passed to an employee benefit trust ("EBT"), which initially held shares representing 67% of the voting and 10% of the economic rights in UK Coal Mine Holdings for the benefit of current and future employees of the mining division. Coalfield Resources initially retained the remainder of UK Coal Mine Holdings's economic and voting rights, but the shareholdings rank
behind pension fund debt.
On 9 July 2013, following a devastating fire, their largest mine,
Daw Mill
Daw Mill was a coal mine located near the village of Arley, near Nuneaton, in the English county of Warwickshire. The mine was Britain's biggest coal producer. It closed in 2013 following a major fire. It was the last remaining colliery in the W ...
, was forced into closure. As a direct, result both UK Coal Mine Holdings Ltd (UKCMHL) and UK Coal Operations Ltd (UKCOL) were put into administration. The remaining mining operations were again restructured, resulting in the formation of a new business "UK Coal Production Ltd".
The successor of Coalfield Resources, Harworth Group had no equity interest in the mining business by the time the last two mines were closed in 2015.
Harworth Group initially (in 2012) owned 24.9% of Harworth Estates Property Group, with 75.1% having passed to EBT in return for a £30 million cash injection and their financial support to the mines. However, in November 2014 Coalfield Resources announced that it had agreed terms with the
Pension Protection Fund
The 'Pension Protection Fund'' (PPF) is a statutory corporation, set up by the Pensions Act 2004, and has been protecting members of eligible defined benefit (DB) pension schemes across the United Kingdom since 2005. It protects close to 10 milli ...
to buy back the 75.1% of Harworth Estates Property Group it did not already own and to change the name of the company to Harworth Group plc. This transaction was completed on 24 March 2015.
Operations
The company is no longer active in mining. On 18 December 2015 the company closed its last deep mine located in Yorkshire, at
Kellingley.
Surface mines have been sold to UKCSMR Limited in late 2014.
Coal extraction has declined from 37.1 megatonnes in 1995 to around 7 Mt in 2009.
[UK Coal: Company information]
Only the former property division operates as the successor company Harworth Estates (wholly owned by the Harworth Group).
At the end of 2007 Harworth Estates land was estimated to be worth £411 million.
[ The estate assets are primarily in business parks, industrial sites and agriculture, with a smaller portfolio of residential property (residential assets associated with agricultural properties). Harworth Estates manage, develop and regenerate their extensive portfolio of land totalling over .]
Harworth Estates are now wholly owned by the Harworth Group, which had divested its equity interest in the mining operations before the restructuring of March 2015.
See also
*Coal mining in the United Kingdom
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 de ...
References
External links
Website archived on 9 November 2015
Harworth Estates
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uk Coal
Coal companies of the United Kingdom
Companies based in Nottinghamshire
Bassetlaw District
Energy companies established in 1974
Non-renewable resource companies established in 1974
British companies established in 1974