The facility is located on the Kanawha River outside of Charleston and is close to Massey’s Route 3 operations as well as its Inman, Black Castle and Republic resource groups.

Ground storage capacity of Marmet is 300,000 tons and its annual loading capacity totals 5-7Mt under current configurations.

"The addition of these assets will provide us with key advantages in our strategy to expand our sales of high quality metallurgical coal,” company president Baxter Phillips Jr said.

He also noted that the facility could be used for the blending of coal from the company’s resource groups, allowing for custom product with premium pricing.

"We expect to realize significant savings in transportation costs by shipping more coal on the river versus shipping by rail," Phillips added.

"Ultimately the tons we blend and ship through Marmet can be loaded more efficiently on export vessels."

Massey shipped about 8Mt of coal to domestic and export customers using the inland waterway system last year.

Marmet is expected to improve the producer’s ability to serve its expanding customer base and boost its exports to the Gulf of Mexico.