Twentymile Mine shipped 7.9 million tons of low-sulfur steam coal with above average heat content in 2007. The operation employs approximately 470 employees and is located in northwest Colorado on 200,000 acres in the Uinta Coal Basin. Twentymile opened in 1983 and was purchased by Peabody Energy in April 2005 as part of an acquisition of three mines from RAG Coal International AG.

 

Coal is extracted from the Wadge seam, which averages 9 feet thick. The bituminous coal has a high heating value of 11,350 Btu per pound and low sulfur and ash content, which makes it ideal for utility customers to meet clean air requirements.

 

Twentymile is a longwall operation with one of the fastest, most powerful shearers in the world. Remotely controlled, the shearer moves at 140 feet per minute, cutting 36 inches of coal from the face. Longwall panels at Twentymile are 1,000 feet wide and more than two miles long. A 60-foot section of the panel is removed on each shift, producing an average of 22,000 tons of coal. The longwall panels are mined out about two times a year. Preparing the way for the longwall, three remote continuous miners develop more than 250 feet of entryway per shift, producing 1,700 tons of coal in the process. Twentymile has more than 34 miles of entryway.

 

Twentymile's innovative conveyor belt technology is known throughout the industry. With more than five miles underground and two miles on the surface, a 72-inch wide panel belt and high-speed 60-inch mainline belt have the capacity to move more than 12 million tons of coal a year to the surface. The mine was the first to develop a scissorveyor that allows flexibility of the belt structure and reduces the number of belt moves required.

 

Twentymile is on the Union Pacific Railroad line and daily loads two to three unit trains, each 100 to 115 cars long carrying 11,000 tons of coal per trip. The mine ships to customers in nearby Colorado communities and points as far away as Italy.

 

Twentymile's commitment to excellent employee safety, environmental protection and community involvement continues to win national honors. In 2004, the operation received the Reclamation Excellence Award for protecting water quality from the Colorado Mining Association (CMA) and the Colorado Division of Minerals. Twentymile also earned the Geology and the Pollution Prevention Award in 2006 from the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment and the Colorado Mining Association.

 

Twentymile Coal Company is a subsidiary of Peabody Energy, the world's largest private-sector coal company, with 2007 sales of 238 million tons and $4.6 billion in revenues. Its coal products fuel approximately 10 percent of all U.S. electricity and more than 2 percent of worldwide electricity. The company is serving global coal demand from electricity generators and steelmakers, and is growing to serve new global customers and emerging Btu Conversion markets.