Western Coal

Western Coal is a subsidiary of Walter Energy, a Vancouver, Canada headquartered company.

On its website Walter Energy states that Western Coal "is a producer of high quality metallurgical coal from three mines in northeast British Columbia (Canada), high quality metallurgical coal and compliant thermal coal from four mines located in West Virginia (USA), and high quality anthracite and metallurgical coal in South Wales (UK).

Coal mines and projects
Western Coal's operating mines and potential projects are:


 * Perry Creek mine is located approximately 30 kilometres from the town of Tumbler Ridge, in northeast British Columbia. The mine produces approximately 2 million tonnes a year of metallurgical coal;
 * Brule mine is located 45 kilometres south of a railroad mainline near the town of Chetwynd, in northeast British Columbia. The mine produces approximately 1.5 million tonnes of ultra-low volatile pulverized coal injection (ULV-PCI) coal for steelmaking;
 * Willow Creek mine is located 45 kilometres west of the town of Chetwynd, in northeast British Columbia. The mine is an open cut operation which produces approximately 500,000 tonnes a year of hard coking coal and low-volatile PCI coal for steelmaking. The company has applied to expand the mine to produce 1.7 million tonnes a year.
 * Belcourt and Saxon project is owned by Belcourt-Saxon Coal Limited Partnership, a joint venture of Western Coal and Peace River Coal. The undeveloped coal deposits are located 65 to 125 kilometres south of Tumbler Ridge in northeast British Columbia.
 * Maple Coal's operations are located 32 kilometres east of Charleston, West Virginia. The operations include the Eagle underground mine, which produces a premium high volatile metallurgical coal for US domestic and export steel making markets, and the Sycamore open cut mine which produces thermal coal for power generation in the US eastern seaboard. The Eagle mine produced approximately 400,000 tonnes in 2010 with the company planning to increase that to 1.0 million tonnes in 2012.
 * Gaugley Eagle property, which is 145 kilometres from Charleston, West Virginia. The property consists of the Black Pearl underground mine and the Lower Muddlety open cut mine.

Application for coal exploration in Margaret River region, Western Australia
In late March 2011 Western Coal applied for a coal exploration licence adjoining the Vasse Coal Project, which looks likely to be rejected by the West Australian government.

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Canada and coal
 * Western Australia and coal
 * Keith Calder - former CEO