Operations

As of June 30, 2010, we operated four mining complexes located in Central Appalachia (Tug River, Rob Fork, Deane and Rhino Eastern – owned by our joint venture with an affiliate of Patriot), two mining complexes located in Northern Appalachia (Hopedale and Sands Hill) and one mine located in the Western Bituminous region in Colorado (McClane Canyon). We define a mining complex as a central location for processing raw coal and loading coal into railroad cars or trucks for shipment to customers. These mining complexes include six active preparation plants and/or loadouts (including one owned by our joint venture partner), each of which receive, blend, process and ship coal that is produced from one or more of our active surface and underground mines. All of our preparation plants are modern plants that have both coarse and fine coal cleaning circuits.

Our surface mines include area mining, mountaintop removal and contour mining. These operations use truck and wheel loader equipment fleets along with large production tractors. Our underground mines utilize the room and pillar mining method. These operations generally consist of one or more single or dual continuous miner sections which are made up of the continuous miner, shuttle cars, roof bolters, feeder and other support equipment. We currently own most of the equipment utilized in our mining operations. We employ preventive maintenance and rebuild programs to ensure that our equipment is modern and well-maintained. The rebuild programs are performed either by an on-site shop or by third-party manufacturers. The mobile equipment utilized at our mining operations is scheduled for replacement on an on-going basis with new, more efficient units according to a predetermined schedule.