Carter recently spoke with The Wall Street Journal on NRP’s plans for the future. NRP currently owns about 1.8 billion tons of coal reserves and leases reserves to 54 different mining companies in nine states.

“When trying to choose a lessee to mine a particular block of coal, we have one additional criterion that makes us somewhat unique among land companies. It's that we really look at the company's ability to market the coal,” Carter told Wall Street Journal.

A company’s ability to market coal, and make a profit, is important for NRP who derives its revenue from royalties.

NRP also ranked historical records relating to its property as priority.

“Those records relate to the title and the ownership of the property; they relate to the surface ownership above the property and to the retained rights; they also contain a lot of geologic information relating to older core holes ' older mines that might have been on the property or on adjacent properties,” he said.

“We lend that expertise to the mining company. Thus, we may be able to tell the mining company about roof problems or water problems or surface issues they might anticipate.”

On future acquisitions, Carter told the Wall Street Journal NRP was keeping its eye on greenfield mines.

“A huge number of opportunities are available to use, and we’re spending a lot of time looking at acquisition potentials in the coalfields,” he said.