Alpha plans to shed 1,200 jobs in next few months
September 18, 2012 ·
Four-hundred Alpha employees got pink slips on Tuesday but more than half were offered jobs in other locations.
America’s second largest coal company, Alpha Natural Resources, released a strategic repositioning plan. With it, comes an announcement that the company plans eliminate 1200 jobs over the next few months.
It started by idling 8 mines, four of those are in West Virginia including Alloy deep and surface mines in Fayette County, Premium highwall mine in Mingo County and White Flame surface mine also in Mingo County.
Three more are in Virginia and one was shut down in Pennsylvania.
Alpha’s Samantha Davison says the company blames a mild winter, stricter regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, and increased competition for the cutbacks.
Davison says Alpha will focus on metallurgical coal, which is used in steel production, because the demand for met coal remains steady.
The new strategy will cut production by 16 million tons by early 2013.