The Eagle Butte mine is a coal mine located 7 miles (11.3 km) north of Gillette

Gillette, Wyoming

Gillette is a city in and the county seat of Campbell County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 29,087 in 2010. Gillette is a city centrally located in an area involved with the development of vast quantities of American coal, oil, and coal bed methane gas...

, Wyoming

Wyoming

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

 in the United States in the coal-rich Powder River Basin

Powder River Basin

The Powder River Basin is a geologic region in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming, about east to west and north to south, known for its coal deposits. The region supplies about 40 percent of coal in the United States. It is both a topographic drainage and geologic structural basin...

. The mine is an open pit

Open-pit mining

Open-pit mining or opencast mining refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow....

, "truck and shovel", mine producing a low-sulfur, sub-bituminous coal from the Roland and Smith seams that is used for domestic energy generation. Coal produced by the mine is shipped to its customers via railroad. The mine is currently owned and operated by Alpha Natural Resources

Alpha Natural Resources

Alpha Natural Resources is a large American producer of metallurgical and thermal coal. It also provides services relating to equipment repairs, road construction and logistics . It doesn't produce all of the coal it sells, some is purchased and resold. Alpha operates in Virginia, West Virginia,...

 after being acquired in a merger with Foundation Coal

Foundation Coal

Foundation Coal Holdings, Inc. was a large American coal mining company. Until its July 31, 2009 merger with Alpha Natural Resources to form the third largest American coal company, the company was publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol FCL...

 in 2009.

As of 2009, Eagle Butte had reserves of 471000000 short tons (420,534,434.9 LT) of sub-bituminous coal and a maximum permitted production capacity of 35000000 short tons (31,249,904.9 LT) per year. Typical annual production has been in 20-25 million ton range for the last several years though. The average quality of the coal shipped from Eagle Butte is 8,400 BTU/lb, 0.34% Sulfur, 4.50% Ash, and 1.90% Sodium (of the ash). Train loading operations at the mine are done with a batch weigh bin system that is coupled to a "weigh-in-motion"

Weigh in motion

Weigh-in-motion or Weighing in Motion devices are designed to capture and record axle weights and gross vehicle weights as vehicles drive over a measurement site...

 track scale system. Silo capacity at the mine's rail loop, which can accommodate up to 5 unit trains, is 48,000 tons. In 2008, the mine produced just over 20500000 short tons (18,303,515.7 LT) of coal, making it the 9th-largest producer of coal in the United States.

History

The Eagle Butte Mine shipped its first train of coal in 1978 after beginning pre-production work in 1976. Since mining operations began, the mine has shipped over 521000000 short tons (465,177,156.2 LT) of coal to its customers. Eagle Butte mine has changed hands many times through mergers and sales. Previous owners include AMAX, Cyprus AMAX, RAG and Foundation Coal.

In 2005, the Eagle Butte mine was awarded two awards from the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality for Excellence in Surface Mining Reclamation and Innovation. Eagle Butte was selected to receive these awards because of the superior quality of shrub patches that the mine had established on its reclamation.

Production

Year	Coal Production (short ton Short ton The short ton is a unit of mass equal to . In the United States it is often called simply ton without distinguishing it from the metric ton or the long ton ; rather, the other two are specifically noted. There are, however, some U.S... s)	Employees
2009	21,496,124	280
2008	20,443,413	274
2007	25,010,089	275
2006	25,355,158	270
2005	24,137,448	242
2004	22,997,687	238
2003	24,549,824	236
2002	24,888,124	236
2001	24,826,910	236
2000	18,622,992	181
1999	24,826,910	186
1998	18,074,546	184
1997	17,921,000	188
1996	15,642,744	184
1995	16,942,000	180
1994	17,161,000	201
1993	16,838,000	227
1992	13,669,000	217
1991	13,922,000	219
1990	15,402,000	246
1989	13,606,000	265
1988	12,915,000	271
1987	12,977,000	299
1986	12,000,000	299
1985	11,808,000	314
1984	13,365,000	310
1983	11,030,000	308
1982	9,100,000
1981	8,400,000
1980	8,500,000
1979	4,500,000
1978	500,000