By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
A WARN Notice announced Thursday, January 29th, by Alliance Resource Partners, l.P., the parent company of Mettiki Coal, LLC, the pending closure of the last coal mine in Tucker County. 199 employees at the Mountain View Mine outside of Davis received notice that the mine would “fulfill its existing contractual commitments, which are scheduled to conclude in March 2026,” according to a statement by ARLP.
In the company’s statement, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Joseph W, Craft III attributed the closure to, “a series of planned and unplanned outages at a key customer’s plant negatively impacted their demand and our shipments in 2025. We have recently been informed that the plant expects additional outages during 2026 and based upon current demand projections and contractual commitments for 2026, they are not in a position to commit to purchase any additional tons from Mettiki for the foreseeable future.”
The statement goes on to explain that the company relied on the customer to purchase a minimum of 1 million tons of coal from the mine a year to remain viable and there is no other customer currently available that can fill the need the mine would have. In 2025, the Mettiki facility produced 1.2 million tons of coal with 300 thousand tons shipped to the export metallurgical market and the remainder to the key customer.
Tucker County Commission President Mike Rosenau said he spent most of Thursday in contact with Delegates, Senators, the Grant County Commission and other governmental entities about the closure, all of which had no idea it had been announced. Rosenau said he was working to try to find assistance for the workers as soon as possible.
“The employees were surprised, they didn’t know it was coming,” Rosenau said.
The most jobs lost at the plant are in the positions of Belt Person, Fire Boss – Examiner – Hourly, General Underground, Mechanic/Electrician – E 1 Underground, Roof Bolter Operator and Scoop Utility.
Rosenau said that Grant County will see the largest decrease in Coal Severance funding from the closure, should production cease entirely. Grant County averages around $400,000 a year in Coal Severance funding from the Mettiki operations, according to Rosenau.
“We don’t get a lot of the Coal Severance because the Coal Severance is in Grant County,” Rosenau said. “The coal reserves are basically in Grant County, they lie in Grant County.”
Tucker County, however, has much more to lose, according to Rosenau, in the form of Personal Property Taxes. Since the pit mouth is in Tucker County, the County is entitled to all tax from equipment and buildings and should Mettiki cease operations and pull everything out, the County could stand to lose approximately $440,350 a year in funds from taxing of mining equipment like miners, buggies, scoops and buildings.
“Its not only the tax revenue, but the loss of jobs,” Rosenau said. “Not only the 199 coal miners that are losing their jobs, its the spin offs from that. Its the contractors, its the trucking companies, its the little mom and pop gas stations that they stop at every day and get gas and buy their lunches and their snack cakes for work. Its going to be a trickle down effect for the whole community and its going to affect a whole lot more people than you think its going to affect.”
Mettiki in its statement said that it expects to fulfill its existing contractual commitments through March of 2026, primarily through existing inventory and that production would cease immediately. Focus would shift to evaluating its options concerning the mine’s future and the exact timing for permanent closure.
Any personnel not involved with reduced coal production is expected to focus of reclamation activities throughout the mine.
Mettiki Coal has operated in Tucker County for nearly 50 years.
