Its Highland underground complex as well as the surface Grand Eagle mine and preparation facility have all received honours for having the best safety performance in western Kentucky for the year ended September 30.

The DNR awards are earned by mines that report the lowest accident frequency, the lowest number of violations per inspection shift and the best performance overall.

Grand Eagle also was honoured with an award for its reclamation efforts.

“Maintaining a safe workplace is the right thing to do, and it also makes Patriot more efficient and more productive,” said Patriot president Paul Vining.

In October, Patriot’s Big Mountain preparation plant in West Virginia passed another safety milestone – two years of operation without a lost time or reportable injury.

The plant, which began operations in 1929, processed 7.6 million tons of coal in the past two years.

“Through the years, the facility has seen many upgrades, and was the first computerised preparation plant in the US," Vining said last month.

Big Mountain’s coal source has been one of Patriot’s company-operated mines, Big Mountain No. 16, as well as multiple contractor-controlled operations, all of which employ continuous miners for extraction. After processing, the output from the Coalburg seam is transported by CSX railroads.

Patriot Coal is the third largest coal producer in the eastern US, controlling 16 operations in Appalachia and the Illinois Basin.