Coal Mining And Rail Traffic In Wyoming

WYOMING - MAY 5: An electric shovel operator loads a coal hauling truck from a coal face wall at the Buckskin Coal Mine May 6, 2004, 12 miles north of Gillette, Wyoming. The open pit Buckskin Mine is a relatively small operation in eastern Wyoming. Owned by the New Vulcan Capital Equity of Delaware, the mine produces 20 million tons of low sulfur and low BTU coal per year. Wyoming coal sells for $6 per ton (average) compared with high sulfur, high BTU Appalachian coal, now at $60 per ton. Wyoming coal is transported by rail east to St. Louis, Detroit, Chicago and eventually the eastern US for power generation. With declining reserves and high cost of Appalachian coal and diminishing US natural gas reserves, Wyoming (and western coal) is seeing maximum demand. While little profit is earned with $6 per ton coal, the price is expected to remain steady enough in Wyoming for all coal mines to be fully active. Large deals for Wyoming mines are currently underway after seeing a boom in the early 1980's fade away. People in Gillette, Wyoming are fully employed in either coal mining or coal-bed methane gas drilling. Campbell County, where Gillette is located, is flush with funds from the coal and gas industry and Wyoming is one of two states operating in the black (with New Mexico). (Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)