Idled Tucker County Coal Mine Set to Restart, Bringing Nearly 150 Miners Back to Work

Some good news is headed up the mountain to Tucker County. The idled Mountain View Mine near Davis is set to start producing coal again, and nearly 150 miners are expected to head back to work.

Alliance Resource Partners, the parent company of mine operator Mettiki Coal, shared the plan during its third-quarter earnings call with investors. Joseph W. Craft III, the company's chairman, president and CEO, said a new deal is what made it possible.

"We are pleased to announce a new multiyear coal supply agreement with our largest historical customer that will allow the mine and nearly 150 miners to return to coal production operations," Craft said.

A tough year, and a turnaround

It has been a hard stretch for the folks who work that mine. The company issued a WARN notice, the federal advance warning required before mass layoffs, and idled production in the first quarter of this year. At the time, it pointed to a lack of contracted sales for the mine's coal.

Now the outlook is a lot brighter. According to the company, the mine has been moving away from longwall mining and toward two room-and-pillar sections, a method that lets crews be more selective about the coal they cut. The plan is to have those two sections running two shifts a day by the end of the first quarter of 2027.

The company expects the mine to produce about 550,000 more tons of coal in 2027 than it did in 2026.

Who is buying the coal?

In its announcement, Alliance described the buyer only as its "largest historical customer." Historically, more than 90 percent of the coal from the Tucker County operation has been trucked just a few miles down the road to Dominion Energy's Mount Storm Power Station in neighboring Grant County. Company leaders have also pointed to growing electricity demand, including from data centers, as part of the reason customers are lining up coal supply.

The company has not announced an exact date for when every miner will be back underground, but the target of two full sections running two shifts a day by early 2027 gives families in Tucker and Grant counties something solid to plan around.

For a small mountain county where good-paying jobs don't grow on trees, nearly 150 paychecks coming back is a big deal. Here's hoping the next few months bring those miners home to the work they know best.