The possibility of selling shares to the public comes as Drummond, 67, is looking towards retirement. “I have about five good years left,” he said, “and I will decide the future of our company before I leave,” he told the Birmingham News.

Drummond disclosed revenues of $US1.7 billion for 2005, 80% of which came from the sale of coal. In addition to the possible IPO, Drummond announced that the company is looking into expanding operations into Illinois, the paper said.

“Illinois has a lot of unmined coal,” said Drummond, whose family and company own huge tracts of unmined coal reserves in the state.

The size of the IPO is undetermined because Drummond, as a private company, does not have to release financial information, unlike companies which are already publicly traded.

“What’s it worth?” asked Merrill Lynch mining analyst Daniel Rolling in the local paper’s report. “That’s a million dollar question.”

Drummond’s year started off a bit shaky with a series of explosions at its Shoal Creek operation in Alabama in February. The blasts caused the mine to be evacuated but there were no injuries.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration’s preliminary report authored early last month noted that an “ignition/explosion occurred when a flammable methane/air mixture was ignited by possible friction during a roof fall in the gob behind the headgate shields”. A witness, according to the filing, reported the presence of a flame in a roof cavity behind the shields.