Patriot Coal Corporation was a coal-mining company based in St. Louis,

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. The company is a

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of most of the Eastern U.S. operations of Peabody Energy. Patriot is the second largest coal miner east of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest Drainage system (geomorphology), drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson B ...

. The company's operations are made up of 16 mining complexes. Thirteen of these complexes are located in

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the ...

and three are located in

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

. In 2007, Patriot sold 22.1 million tons of

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 ...

. The company controls 1.9 billion tons of proven and probable coal reserves. Patriot is the largest producer of thermal coal in the Eastern United States. It is also a leading producer of metallurgical coal. Approximately 80% of its coal is sold to domestic utilities and 20% is sold to domestic and international steel producers. Patriot Coal's stock started trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol PCX on November 1, 2007. On July 23, 2008, Patriot acquired Magnum Coal Company. At the time, Magnum was one of the largest coal producers in Appalachia, with 11 mines and 7 processing plants. Magnum had over 600 million tons of proven or probable coal reserves. On June 1 and 14, 2012, solely for the purpose of establishing venue in the Southern District of New York, Patriot incorporated two subsidiaries in New York, according to counsel for the United Mine Workers. On July 9, 2012, Patriot Coal Corporation and all of but two of its wholly owned subsidiaries filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. None of its joint ventures are party to the bankruptcy proceeding, however. Patriot management advised its shareholders that it intends to use the reorganization process to address its financial challenges and make the company stronger and more competitive. The stock listed on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) under the symbol PCX dropped 72.1% to a record low on July 9, 2012. Also on July 9, 2012, the company issued a letter to all retired workers that their medical programs are still in place and payments will be made as usual. The company has, however, made it clear that it intends to seek to reduce or eliminate its benefit obligations through the bankruptcy process, which it estimates to have a total present value of $1.3 Billion. The

United Mine Workers of America The United Mine Workers of America (UMW or UMWA) is a North American labor union best known for representing coal miners. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing workers and public employees in the Unit ...

, which represents Patriot's classified workers and retirees, has indicated that it will fight to preserve those promised benefits. On July 10, 2012, the company received interim bankruptcy court approval of a debtor-in-possession loan facility, giving Patriot access to $677 million in financing. Having restructured, the company exited Chapter 11 on December 18, 2013, as a privately owned company. In Patriot Coal's Brody Mine No. 1 in West Virginia two of its workers died in a ground failure. The owners were in the process of disputing numerous safety violations at the mine which the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration had categorized as a pattern violator. in February 2014, over 100,000 gallons of coal slurry spilled from a Patriot Coal facility into Fields Creek, a tributary of the

Kanawha River The Kanawha River ( ) is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 97 mi (156 km) long, in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The largest inland waterway in West Virginia, its valley has been a significant industrial region of the st ...

. On May 12, 2015, Patriot Coal Corporation and its wholly owned subsidiaries filed voluntary petitions for restructuring under Chapter 11. In October 2015, Lexington, KY-based Blackhawk Mining, LLC, purchased most of the assets of Patriot Coal out of bankruptcy. The value of the transaction was approximately $1 billion. The company has announced it will no longer provide health coverage to its retirees after 31 December 2016.

Operations

On November 15, 2012, the company signed an agreement with the Sierra Club to end the practice of mountaintop removal, a destructive forms of mining.

References

External links

{{authority control Coal companies of the United States Coal mining in Appalachia Mining in Kentucky Mining in West Virginia Mountaintop removal mining Companies based in St. Louis American companies established in 2007 Energy companies established in 2007 Non-renewable resource companies established in 2007 Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2015 2007 establishments in Missouri