“It has been a great run for Humphrey,” said J. Brett Harvey, president and chief executive officer. “Since it began production in 1956, the mine has produced more than 107 million tons of coal, amounting to more than $2 billion in sales.”
Construction of the Humphrey Mine began in 1956 by Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal Company, and the mine began operating in August of that year. Pitt Consol was a publicly-owned company at the time. The mine’s preparation plant and river load-out on the Monongahela River were completed in 1957. The mine was named for George M. Humphrey, former chairman of the board of Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal and former Secretary of the Treasury during the Eisenhower Administration.
Originally, the mine produced coal that was considered metallurgical-grade coal for coke manufacture, as well as coal for making heat for steam. By the mid-1970s, however, metallurgical uses for the coal were entirely supplanted by its use to generate steam to produce electricity.
Also in the mid-1970s, then Consolidation Coal Company installed a longwall mining system at Humphrey that continued to operate until 1997, when the mine depleted the reserves of coal that could be economically mined with a longwall system.
At that time, local miners and mine management proposed a novel idea to the company – rather than close the mine, continue to run using only continuous miners, and mine an additional 500 acres of reserves that straddled the West Virginia-Pennsylvania border.
“If it worked, the proposal could extend the life of the Humphrey Mine for another three to seven years,” said Harvey. However, the idea’s success depended on several things, Harvey explained.
First, the company needed to acquire 240 acres of coal in Greene County, Pennsylvania, that the county held as part of a larger coal tract that had been forfeited by another company for failure to pay taxes. This required the Greene County Commission to carve out the 240-acre tract from the larger 6,000-acre block and offer it for sale separately.
Second, several work rule changes would be needed to help lower Humphrey’s costs of production.
Third, because it would be too expensive to wash the coal, the company would have to find a market for coal as a raw product.
“A lot of us were skeptical at first,” said Harvey, “because so many things had to fall together. But in the end, the success of Humphrey’s last years was due to an unprecedented level of cooperation and determination among the company, the workforce and local government.”
The company secured sales for the coal, the workforce agreed to several changes to lower costs, and the Greene County Commission voted to offer the 240 acres.
“Because of these efforts, the Humphrey Mine continued as a viable operation providing jobs for 89 people and tax revenues for an additional four-and-a-half years,” Harvey said.
In the end, the current soft coal market and higher mining costs for the small amount of coal remaining caused the company to announce the permanent closure of the mine.
“We accomplished what we set out to do – extend the life of the mine,” Harvey concluded. “I am very proud of all the people who made this project a success – a dedicated and professional workforce, visionary mine management and relentless sales people.”
