Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 25
A once-in-a-generation political crisis that’s systematically tightened its grip on the foundations of America’s democracy is coming to a crescendo with this month’s hearings on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Thursday’s prime-time hearing held by the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 Attack was the first of many. The committee has promised detailed accounts of how former President Donald Trump and a militant group of his supporters plotted and acted to overthrow the 2020 presidential election and thwart the peaceful transfe...
GILLETTE – Despite losing more than $77 million in the first quarter of 2021 and a prolonged COVID-19 hangover affecting U.S. thermal coal, Peabody Energy Corp.’s Powder River Basin mines were a bright spot for the company. The company’s three PRB mines saw production down about 11% from the first quarter of 2020, but reduced their costs to realize a profit of about $1.45 per ton on 21 million tons shipped, according to Peabody’s 2021 first quarter earnings results released Thursday. “Clearly, the company has an extremely strong U.S. thermal b...
GILLETTE - As some vocal Wyoming residents continue to lose patience with and push back against any and all coronavirus-related public health measures, it's clear Gov. Mark Gordon also is frustrated. Gordon's frustration comes from that resistance and what he calls a "cavalier" and "irresponsible" attitude toward COVID-19 and preventing its spread. As an example, during a Wednesday afternoon press briefing, he cited a number of emails he received recently after an older Sweetwater County...
GILLETTE — Gov. Mark Gordon is defending a decision by the State Loan and Investment Board to go ahead with a state bid for a package of assets owned by Occidental Petroleum. The company bought the property and other Wyoming assets as part of its $38 billion acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum last August. Gordon and other state officials have been taking heat over the past couple of weeks as details of the bid were reported on, including that the bid could be upward of $1 billion. The governor said the process has been open and transparent f...
GILLETTE — The Powder River Basin’s coal workforce shrunk by about 6% Thursday with the layoff of 300 workers from three mines. Peabody Energy Corp. employees were informed Thursday that about 170 employees have been laid off from the North Antelope Rochelle mine near Wright in Campbell County. Navajo Transitional Energy Co. also announced 130 layoffs, 73 from its Spring Creek Mine in southern Montana and 57 employees at the Antelope Mine in southern Campbell County. The layoffs represent about 6% of the 4,834 people employed by Powder River Ba...
GILLETTE — Already trying to bail out a ship taking on water, Powder River Basin coal producers are now trying to keep that up during a torrential downpour. An already-battered coal industry will struggle to make it through the rest of 2020 as much of the United States is reeling socially and financially in a coronavirus-fueled recession, said Rob Godby, a University of Wyoming economist and associate dean of the Haug School of Environment and Natural Resources. COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders and the virtual shutdown of many businesses and in...
GILLETTE — Peabody Energy Corp. has laid off about 50 workers from its flagship North Antelope Rochelle coal mine in southern Campbell County. The move impacts temporary workers at the world’s most productive open-pit coal mine and represents a reduction in workforce of 4% from the 1,242 employed at the mine at the end of 2019, according to the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. Peabody confirmed the layoffs in a statement to the News Record on Thursday afternoon, saying the layoffs represent an adjustment to lower Powder River Bas...
GILLETTE — A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge has approved the sale of the Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr coal mines in Campbell County to Eagle Specialty Materials. The ruling by Judge Frank W. Volk in Charleston, West Virginia, clears the way for ESM, a subsidiary of Alabama-based FM Coal, to reopen the Powder River Basin mines and operate them for the foreseeable future. The sale also relieves Contura Energy Inc. of about $230 million worth of reclamation obligations and allows ESM to begin hiring back as many as 500 coal miners to resume o...
GILLETTE — Contura Energy Corp. has announced it has an agreement that will allow Eagle Specialty Materials LLC, an affiliate of FM Coal LLC, to operate the Belle Ayr and Eagle Butte coal mines, which have been shuttered since July 1. Under the agreement, Contura will pay Eagle Specialty Materials $90 million to take over the mines. Contura also will pay Campbell county $13.5 million of the $15.1 million it was assessed in back ad valorem taxes, according to a Contura press release announcing the deal. The other $1.6 million will be paid to t...
GILLETTE — A letter to locked out Blackjewel LLC coal workers at the company’s shuttered Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr operations foreshadows a possible reopening of the mines and leaves almost 600 employees with more questions than answers. Blackjewel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection July 1 and abruptly closed its 32 operations in Wyoming and across Appalachia and locked out about 1,700 workers. Since then, employees have had their final paychecks bounce, haven’t been paid for other time worked, haven’t had 401(k) and health insuran...
GILLETTE — Blackjewel LLC says the three-week old negotiations between Contura Energy Inc. and the federal government continue and a potential sale of two large Wyoming coal mines is not “dead.” Stephen Lerner, a Blackjewel bankruptcy attorney from the Cincinnati, Ohio, law firm of Squire Patton Boggs, said the wording in a Tuesday afternoon court filing that claimed the deal “is dead” was “unfortunate.” That Contura’s negotiations with the government over federal coal royalty payments have stalled is “not the case, from the Debtor’s perspect...
GILLETTE — Patience may be a virtue, but if you’re among the nearly 600 locked out Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr coal miners who have been out of work for 56 days, it’s also more difficult to practice. For many, there is no more patience. Deanna Fritz has spent a dozen years as a coal mine worker, including the last two has a haul truck driver for Blackjewel. After Fritz and about 1,700 of her coworkers in four states were abruptly locked out of their jobs without notice July 1, they’ve been living what she described as a roller coaster soap op...
GILLETTE — A proposed sale of the Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr coal mines to Contura Energy Corp. “is dead,” according to a Tuesday afternoon U.S. Bankruptcy Court filing in the case of Blackjewel LLC. In a response to a Blackjewel motion to separate the Pax Surface Mine from Contura’s deal to buy it along with the Wyoming mines, the company’s senior debt holder, Riverstone Credit Partners, claims Blackjewel “recently advised Riverstone that Contura’s proposed acquisition of the Western mines ‘is dead.’” The document goes on to say the deal-kil...
GILLETTE — Cloud Peak Energy Corp., one of the Powder River Basin’s largest coal mine operators, has accepted a bid from Navajo Transitional Energy Co. to buy “substantially all of Cloud Peak Energy’s assets.” Cloud Peak announced the sale Friday, which will be considered for approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Monday. Navajo Transitional Energy has agreed to buy the company’s Antelope and Cordero Rojo mines in Campbell County, along with the Spring Creek mine in southern Montana, according to a Cloud Peak statement announcing the winning...
GILLETTE — In the absence of another qualified and better bid, Contura Energy Corp. may be one step closer to acquiring the Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr mines in Campbell County and nearly 600 workers may be close to being recalled to work. Wednesday was the deadline for bids in Blackjewel LLC’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy auction of its assets and the culmination of a month of turmoil for the company. Since filing for bankruptcy July 1, the company has: Locked out its 1,700 employees in Wyoming, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia; Ousted its for...
GILLETTE — Nearly 600 Blackjewel LLC coal workers in Wyoming and West Virginia may see a monthlong forced layoff end soon after the company has agreed to sell a trio of mines to Contura Energy Inc. An agreement to sell the company’s flagship Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr mines in Campbell County, along with the Pax Surface Mine in West Virginia, was one of the notable outcomes of a marathon three-day Chapter 11 bankruptcy auction that began Thursday morning and concluded about 8:45 p.m. Saturday. After a competitive bidding process, Contura wil...
GILLETTE — Contura Energy Inc. plans to reinstate about 500 jobs immediately at the locked out Belle Ayr and Eagle Butte coal mines now that it's been given a green light to buy the mines from bankrupt Blackjewel LLC on Tuesday. The sale was approved at about 2:15 p.m. Tuesday. The only things standing in the way of the Wyoming mines and the Pax Surface Mine in West Virginia from reopening under Contura’s banner is a final hearing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of West Virginia and an agreement with the federal gov...
GILLETTE — Blackjewel LLC has reached a deal to sell the Belle Ayr and Eagle Butte surface coal mines in Campbell County along with a mine in West Virginia. If approved, Contura Energy would become the stalking horse bidder for Blackjewel’s western assets, along with the Pax Surface Mine in West Virginia, according to a motion filed early Thursday morning with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. The linchpin of the deal is $20.6 million cash Contura will put down as a deposit that the company can use imm...
GILLETTE — Blackjewel LLC may be closer to selling its flagship Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr mines in Campbell County than it is to securing financing to reopen and resume operations at its more than 30 operations in Wyoming, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia. That was part of the information gleaned from a Friday hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of West Virginia in which Blackjewel asked the court to approve another $2.9 million loan to tide the company over through Monday. The money, which was approved, is in a...
GILLETTE — Nearly 600 workers at Blackjewel LLC’s coal mines in Campbell County are suddenly out of work after the company abruptly closed its Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr mines Monday afternoon. The move came just hours after the company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in West Virginia. But motions that included asking for emergency financial relief to keep mines at Blackjewel’s 32 operations in Wyoming and the eastern United States either were denied or not acted upon. Online court filings as of Monday evening did not inclu...
GILLETTE — Wyoming Blackjewel LLC employees still having problems with their final regular paychecks may have those worked out by Friday. Concerned over reports of Blackjewel LLC employees not being paid, a federal bankruptcy court judge held a short Fourth of July hearing where he made it clear that getting workers the money they’re owed is a top priority. “I know this may be interfering with the holiday plans for some of you, but I’m sure you’d agree it’s minimal (compared) to what these employees are dealing with,” said Judge Frank W. Volk...
POSTED: July 8, 2019 GILLETTE — Partially prompted by threats from locked-out Blackjewel LLC coal miners and others, former company President and CEO Jeffrey Hoops Sr. maintains he’s not a crook, did not steal from company accounts and took extraordinary efforts to make sure miners were paid. In a Fourth of July statement addressed to “All Blackjewel Employees,” Hoops said that he realizes there are 1,700 employees not working and wondering if they have a future at any of the 32 Blackjewel properties that are in limbo after the company filed f...
GILLETTE — It didn’t take this past week’s bankruptcy and lockout of 1,700 Blackjewel LLC workers countrywide to convince Melissa Peterson-Worden that the struggling coal producer was reaching a financial critical mass. “I knew it was coming and it was going to be bad,” she said. “I was like, ‘OK, the ship is going down.’” Peterson-Worden has worked in various roles at Powder River Basin coal mines off and on for 18 years, including in the warehouse for Blackjewel starting just a few months ago. She helped organize supplies, equipment and maint...
GILLETTE — A Gillette employee of Blackjewel LLC has filed a class-action lawsuit against the coal mining company, claiming it failed to give its 1,700 employees proper notice or pay wages and other benefits earned before and after Blackjewel filed for bankruptcy then abruptly shut its mines across the United States. Those affected include nearly 600 workers at the Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr mines in Campbell County, along with employees at mines in Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia. David Engelbrecht is seeking 60 days’ pay and benefits fro...
GILLETTE — Cloud Peak Energy’s bankruptcy filing Friday afternoon may be the beginning of the end for the Gillette-based coal producer. Unlike previous Powder River Basin coal bankruptcies, Cloud Peak seems to be looking to shed debt and sell its assets rather than emerge as an ongoing company. The company said it will continue to attempt to sell "all of its assets" and that the company expects its three PRB mines "will continue normal operations throughout the process.” The filing ends moths of speculation about Cloud Peak's shaky finan...