United States--Black Thunder mine, Thunder Basin Coal Co., Arch Coal Inc

摘要

Arch Coal's Thunder Basin Coal Co., Wyoming, completed the construction of its new Black Thunder mine loadout in November 2008. This modern loadout facility is located nearer to the mine's future reserve base. The facility includes two 17,500 t silos, a truck dump, conveyor corridor, rail spur, yard and loop. The total build-out cost was approximately 100 million US dollars. The new loadout and belt conveyor system will reduce the truck haulage requirements at the mine and has a significantly higher capacity than the 24 million tpa south loadout, which was transferred to Peabody at the end of 2008. The sale of the south loadout to Peabody in 2006 essentially pre-financed Arch's construction costs of the upgraded facility.