MARKETS

Oxbow loses longwall, furloughs 150

A STUBBORN fire that has hung on at Oxbow Mining's Elk Creek underground mine in western Colorado...

Donna Schmidt
Oxbow loses longwall, furloughs 150

Company spokesperson Brad Goldstein said in order to keep mining it had to furlough all but about 130 individuals on its crew.

It follows nearly 10 months of attempts to resolve the situation and efforts to recover the equipment at the longwall panel, where the heating activity originated.

Mine executive vice president Mike Ludlow was unavailable to speak with ILN on Thursday but told a local media outlet late Wednesday that he maintained no expectations that the equipment, valued between $50 and $100 million, could be saved.

“We have made a decision that it's not safe to recover the (machine), so it's going to be sealed in place,” he told the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.

He added that due to the emergency nature of the incident, the federal guidelines for issuing advance mass furlough notices did not apply.

Despite that, employees are being provided severance.

While the layoffs are considered permanent, he told the paper that he hoped Oxbow would be able to retain another longwall system and potentially hire once again.

“We’d like to think that our business would pick back up in the years going forward and then we would be able to build our workforce and production back to previous levels,” he said.

In the meantime, the mine in Gunnison County will move forward with its work as a continuous mining operation.

Oxbow, which initially evacuated its entire crew on January 9 after discovering elevated gas levels, has since been running at about 80% of normal production levels.

Its typical production capacity is about 5 million tonnes annually.

The mine, which is located near Somerset and neighbours the Bowie and West Elk operations, has been in production since 2001.

Florida-headquartered Oxbow is owned by billionaire Bill Koch.

TOPICS:

A growing series of reports, each focused on a key discussion point for the mining sector, brought to you by the Mining Monthly Intelligence team.

A growing series of reports, each focused on a key discussion point for the mining sector, brought to you by the Mining Monthly Intelligence team.

editions

ESG Mining Company Index: Benchmarking the Future of Sustainable Mining

The ESG Mining Company Index report provides an in-depth evaluation of ESG performance of 61 of the world's largest mining companies. Using a robust framework, it assesses each company across 9 meticulously weighted indicators within 6 essential pillars.

editions

Mining Magazine Intelligence Exploration Report 2024 (feat. Opaxe data)

A comprehensive review of exploration trends and technologies, highlighting the best intercepts and discoveries and the latest initial resource estimates.

editions

Mining Magazine Intelligence Future Fleets Report 2024

The report paints a picture of the equipment landscape and includes detailed profiles of mines that are employing these fleets

editions

Mining Magazine Intelligence Digitalisation Report 2023

An in-depth review of operations that use digitalisation technology to drive improvements across all areas of mining production