Mettiki Coal

For the past 29 years, Mettiki (MD) has operated an underground longwall mine located near the city of Oakland in Garrett County, Maryland. Underground longwall mining ceased at this mine in October of 2006 upon the exhaustion of the economically minerable reserves, and the longwall mining equipment and manpower were transitioned from the Mettiki (MD) operation to the Mettiki Coal (WV), LLC (Mettiki (WV)) operation. Medium-sulfur coal produced from two small-scale third-party mining operations (a surface strip mine and an underground mine in Bakerstown seam) on properties controlled by Mettiki (MD) and another of our subsidiaries, Backbone Mountain, LLC, will continue to be processed at the Mettiki complex and supplement the Mettiki Coal (WV) production, providing blending optimization and allowing the operation to take advantage of market opportunities as they arise.

The preparation plant, which has a throughput capacity of 1,350 tons of raw coal an hour, will continue coal processing activities. A portion of the Mettiki (WV) production will be transported to this preparation plant for processing, and then trucked to a newly constructed blending facility at the Virginia Electric and Power Company (VEPCO) Mt. Storm Power Station. The Mettiki (MD) preparation plant also is served by the CSX railroad, providing the opportunity to capitalize on the metallurgical coal market.

In July 2005, Mettiki (WV) began continuous miner development in the Mountain View mine located in Tucker County, West Virginia. Upon completion of mining at the Mettiki (MD) longwall operation, the longwall equipment was relocated to the Mountain View mine and put into operation in November 2006. Production from the Mountain View Mine will be transported by truck either to the Mettiki (MD) preparation plant or to the coal blending facility at the VEPCO Mr. Storm Power Station.

Our primary customer for the medium-sulfur coal produced at Mettiki (MD) is VEPCO, which purchases the coal for use in the scrubbed generating units at its Mt. Storm Power Station in West Virginia. A seven-year agreement to supply coal to the VEPCO Mt. Storm Power Station from the Mountain View Mine was negotiated and finalized in June of 2005.

Mettiki Coal
293 Table Rock Road
Oakland, MD 21550
Phone: (301) 334-3952
Fax: (301) 334-1602