Weston Holdings, a newly formed entity affiliated with Saber Mining Company, signed the asset purchase agreement which will include Bell’s two underground mines, a preparation plant and an integrated four-hour unit train loadout that is serviced by both CSX and Norfolk Southern railroads located in Middlesboro, Kentucky.

Weston Holdings has indicated the intention to immediately hire substantially all of the employees of Bell County Coal.

The deal is expected to close at the end of the year.

James River also released its third-quarter results – a disappointing $8.4 million net loss and a $10.4 million loss for the nine months ended September 30, 2006.

“As previously disclosed, our cash mining costs at the beginning of the quarter were impacted by the traditional miner vacation for one week surrounding the July 4th holiday as well as the implementation of new safety directives and the replacement of mine seals,” company chief Peter Socha said.

“These activities were largely completed during July and the mines returned to normal operations in August. We estimate that these items impacted cash mining costs by approximately $1.50 per ton during the third quarter.”

Socha said operations in the Illinois Basin were impacted by heavy rainfall in the Midwest and the continued shortage of haul trucks. Southern Indiana has received more than 50 inches of rainfall thus far in 2006 compared to the more normal level of approximately 30 inches of rainfall.

“We started out the quarter slowly due to miner vacation and the implementation of new safety directives. We finished up the quarter strongly,” Socha said.

“The sales and contracting team has done a very good job of closing up the open contract position to more normal levels. Our coal that remains to be sold is split between high BTU, low sulfur steam coal and industrial stoker coal.”