Robert Murray, president and CEO of Murray Energy, speaks during the Wheeling Rotary Club meeting on Tuesday.
WHEELING, W.Va. — For Robert Murray, winning is personal – at least when it comes to the war against coal.
Murray, president and CEO of St. Clairsville-based Murray Energy Corp., spoke during Tuesday’s Wheeling Rotary Club meeting at WesBanco Arena. He stressed to Rotarians America’s need for electricity generated by coal – energy that is affordable, reliable and abundant.
The alternative, he said, will be higher electricity prices that will lead to a substantial loss of jobs, less disposable income for Americans and an energy grid that will be strained to its limit, each and every day.
Murray Energy has 12 underground coal mines in six states including West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, Illinois and Kentucky; operates 13 longwall mines and 46 continuous mining sections; and employs 7,400 people. The company produced about 64 million tons of underground coal worth about $3.6 billion in 2014.
Locally, Murray Energy owns and operates the Century Mine in Beallsville, the Ohio County Coal Co. in Benwood, the Marshall County Coal Co. in Cameron and Powhatan No. 6 in Alledonia.
Murray, who was born in Martins Ferry and lived in various Belmont County communities during his childhood, said he grew up in a poor family. When he was offered a $6,500 scholarship from a coal company to become a mining engineer, his father, who was paralyzed from a coal mining accident, and his mother, who was stricken with cancer, urged him to accept the money. During this same time period, he had won a Rotary scholarship to attend medical school. But he had to make a choice between the two offerings.
The rest, as they say, is history.
“Mom and dad had never seen $6,500. And even though my dad was paralyzed from the neck down, he was conscious. He said, ‘Take it. Take the money, son.’ So I became a mining engineer,” Murray said.
Murray urged Rotary members to take seriously the government’s stance on coal, noting because of its environmental policies the cost of coal-fired electricity will continue to increase.
“It doesn’t make any difference if you’re a Democrat or a Republican. It used to be both parties were for jobs, for people creating a living, for people growing up and enjoying the American dream. It’s not that way anymore,” Murray said. “We now have an administration in Washington, D.C., that is the most destructive group of individuals in my 75 years.
“We are in the crosshairs of our government here in the Ohio Valley. Of those 7,500 (Murray Energy) employees, about 4,500 of them are here in this tri-state area.”
Murray noted a university study shows for every one direct coal mining job, 11 indirect jobs are created. This means his coal mining operations in the Ohio Valley alone account for nearly 50,000 spin-off jobs, he said.
“You take 50,000 to 60,000 jobs out of here … what are you going to have? You are going to have empty malls,” Murray said. “It’s a human issue to me. I worked in those mines 16 years.”
Murray said electric power is “the staple of life.”
“Did you know (President Barack Obama) is doubling the cost of your electricity? Did you know that people who manufacture a product for the global marketplace are not going to be able to compete because the electricity prices are going to be so high?” he said.
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