The permit, filed in August of last year, was given the go-ahead on January 9 for Gatling LLC – controlled by Chris Cline – to produce from the Pittsburgh seam using room and pillar mining, according to SNL Energy and the West Virginia Coal Association.
The reserves for the new operation were acquired from American Electric Power (AEP).
As part of the Cline/AEP deal, according to the SNL Energy website, the output from Gatling will be provided to the adjacent 1300MW Mountaineer power facility, which will be installing an SO2 scrubber to handle the incoming coal in 2007. Once completed, incoming coal will be switched out to use Gatling’s high-sulfur product.
