Walter Industries, Inc., a leading producer and exporter of U.S. metallurgical coal for the global steel industry, announced today that its Board of Directors has approved a plan to expand the Company’s United Land subsidiary’s surface mining operations by opening a new coal mine with 0.4 million tons of annual capacity.
The Board also approved a [...]

National Coal Corp., which operates coal mines in Tennessee and Kentucky, said Friday it agreed to buy all Mann Steel Products Inc.’s stock for $55 million.
Mann Steel Products, based in Birmingham, Ala., produces steam and industrial coal.
National Coal will add more than 1 million tons of capacity to National Coal’s existing annual production capacity of [...]

A coal mine has reopened in Jefferson County after being shut down for five months to undergo renovations and its new owners expect to produce 200,000 tons a year.
Headwaters Inc., owner of Covol Engineered Fuels LC, has completed work at the Jim Walter Resources Mine No. 3 in Adger, located just outside of Bessemer. Headwaters [...]

An Alabama mining company on Thursday denied having any relationship with right-wing death squads in Colombia and said it has no intention of settling a related U.S. lawsuit.
A federal judge in Alabama last month allowed a civil suit to go forward against Drummond Co. Inc. for allegedly paying a hit squad to kill three [...]

ASHVILLE — More than 250 people showed up for a special hearing held by the state Oil and Gas Board on Friday to discuss the development of a big new energy field in St. Clair County.
The crowd packed into the Old Courthouse in Ashville heard plans proposed by natural gas field operator Dominion Resources to [...]

A Shelby County coal mine has been shut down after state investigators found it had been pouring coal slurry into a tributary of the Cahaba River intermittently for as long as a decade.
“It’s located in a very remote area, and it’s not something you would find very easily,” said Randall Johnson, director of the Alabama [...]

Energy companies are scrambling for drilling rights in north-central Alabama, where geologists have discovered a natural gas formation with the potential to rival any in the country.
Drillers have bought gas rights on 500,000 acres in and around St. Clair County during the past two years, paying up to $500 an acre plus a share of [...]

Energy companies are scrambling for drilling rights in north-central Alabama, where geologists have discovered a natural gas formation with the potential to rival any in the country.
Drillers have bought gas rights on 500,000 acres in and around St. Clair County during the past two years, paying up to $500 an acre plus a share of [...]

‘Mining in the Philippines - Concerns and Conflicts’ Fact Finding Mission to the Philippines Report
Former British Minster for International Development, Clare Short MP, will launch a report, critical of destructive mining practices in the Philippines, at 11am in the Jubilee Room, Westminster Hall, London, on 25th January 2007. A simultaneous launch will be held in [...]

DEVELOPMENTAL
Cherokee County
# Marathon Oil will drill the Dixon “A” Well No. 5 in the White Oak Creek (Travis Peak) Field to 12,500 feet, 7.2 miles west of Alto in the Self, I Survey, A-793.
# The Barnes Gas Unit 1 Well No. 4 will be drilled by Southwestern Energy Production in the Overton (Cotton Valley [...]