Rosebud Mine, the lone coal supplier for Colstrip Power Plant, seems to be on the steadier ground, at least for now, as Westmoreland Coal Co. Exits financial disaster. One month in the past, the mine’s supply contract with the electricity plant appeared in doubt as Westmoreland and its first-lien lenders attempted to cancel the deal. The Colorado-based mining business enterprise argued in a financial ruin court docket that persevering with the agreement could make Rosebud much less appealing to a future proprietor.
This month, Westmoreland emerges from financial ruin, and Rosebud has a brand new proprietor, Westmoreland Mining LLC, a business enterprise created with the aid of Westmoreland’s first-lien creditors. On the floor, management below the original owner remains identical. The lenders behind the Westmoreland Mining LLC continue to be unidentified.
Here’s what’s positive approximately Rosebud’s outlook for the rest of 2019:
The mine will maintain delivering coal to Colstrip Power Plant below the phrases of its present contract thru the cease of the year. That is when the supply phrases were anticipated to terminate before Westmoreland requested an early exit in bankruptcy filings.
One application with a stake in Colstrip, NorthWestern Energy, indicated in courtroom filings that the power plant would shutter this spring if the coal agreement ended early. It can take months, if no longer years, of allowing to burn coal from every other supply. Montana’s Legislature crafted a bill to decouple the power plant and mine so that you can help the strength plant switch to some other source.
Miners represented through the International Union of Operating Engineers, neighborhood 400, will function at Rosebud under their modern-day hard work settlement via year’s cease. The collective bargaining agreement turned into a set to run out this spring.
Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality keeps to paintings on a brand new allow enlarging Rosebud Mine. The mine remains a feasible enterprise, said Kristi Panozzo of DEQ. As lengthy, because the cleanup bond is maintained and the permit is passed on to a viable commercial enterprise entity, the kingdom will continue to extend the existence of the coal mine with a ten-rectangular-mile growth.
Conservationists had warned the state in October about allowing the mine for unknown customers. The identification of the customers remains unknown, even though the management for Western Mining LLC comes from current coal corporations.
