Peabody Energy Fast Tracks Colorado Mine Expansion

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Twentymile Coal Company, a subsidiary of Peabody Energy Corporation (NYSE:BTU ) (Saint Louis, Missouri), is moving ahead with expansion projects at the company’s Foidel Creek Mine in Oak Creek, Colorado. Oak Creek is located west of Steamboat Springs in Routt County. The Foidel Creek Mine is the fourth largest underground mine in the U.S., producing about 8.6 million tons in 2006. Peabody has previously stated that its goal is to increase capacity at the mine to 12 million tons per year, which could potentially place it as the largest underground mine in the nation. In 2006, the company added a new longwall mining system and also began revamping surface facilities, including a truck coal loading station and a run-of-mine rock belt extension (First reported by Industrial Info in August 2005). These projects are now nearing completion.

Next on the books is the addition of a new coal prep/wash plant with an estimated cost of $18 million. Peabody Energy has selected Taggart Global LLC (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), formerly Sedgman USA LLC, to engineer and construct the prep plant. Taggart Global has awarded the electrical contract to Robertson D&E Incorporated (Nitro, West Virginia). Robertson is completing electrical engineering and will release electrical subcontractor bid packages in the next month. Some of the electrical equipment involved with the project includes an Allen-Bradley ControlLogix control system, programmable logic controllers (PLC’s), motor control centers, and transformers. Some of the electrical equipment will be fabricated in Robertson’s Nitro fabrication shop and transported to the site for installation starting in June 2007.

On a fast-track construction schedule, civil/site work is scheduled to begin in mid-May 2007, with completion by November 2007.

Taggart Global has subcontracted the structural steel fabrication and erection on the project to Pacific Central Steel Fabrication Incorporated (Price, Utah). Mike Dover Corporation (Harrisburg, Illinois) is also involved as a mechanical contractor.

The 1,300 ton per hour prep plant will supplement an existing prep plant. About 78% of the mine’s coal is shipped out by rail, the rest by truck. The Foidel Creek mine produces high-quality, low sulfur western bituminous coal including supply to nearby Hayden Generating Station, a 446-megawatt coal-fired power plant owned by Public Service Company of Colorado (Denver, Colorado).

Earlier this year, Peabody announced that capital expenditures would range between $425 and $525 million in 2007, comparable to 2006 expenditures at its mines

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