By Brad Johnson, The Inter-Mountain
PHILIPPI, W.Va. — Officials say the Leer South Mine, which was closed after an underground fire in January, is on schedule to reopen this year.
The quarterly report for Core Natural Resources, the company that owns the mine, provides an update on the Leer South facility.
“On Jan. 15, 2025, Core announced that it was sealing Leer South’s active longwall panel to extinguish isolated combustion-related activity there,” the report states. “Since that time, the Leer South team — in close collaboration with federal and state regulators — has safely re-entered the mine and resumed development work with continuous miner units.
“Additionally, the team has assessed – via the deployment of infrared cameras and other monitoring activities – that the mine’s longwall equipment was largely unaffected by the event.”