Coal Mines

The country's fourth-largest coal producer, Massey Energy Co., has agreed to pay a landmark $20-million fine to settle federal charges that it repeatedly dumped dangerous amounts of mine waste and sediment into creeks and rivers in three Appalachian states over a seven-year period.

On 120 isolated acres of northern New Mexico's high mesa, Connie and Sam Taylor have turned the labor of their forefathers into the art of their contemporaries. Connie Taylor raises sheep to make designer wool destined for chic boutiques, while her husband welds abstract steel sculptures for galleries worldwide.

The burly, tattooed high school mascot wears a helmet and wields a pick. Monster trucks compete during King Coal Days. A ramshackle diner serves Coal Miner burgers with greasy fries down by the tracks. Born of the black rock more than a century ago, this south-central Wyoming town of about 1,000 could die by it now that Wyoming's last underground coal mine is closing. Nearly one out of 10 residents will lose his or her job.

As expected, Occidental Petroleum Corp. announced Monday that it was selling its 25% interest in China's largest open-pit coal mine back to the Chinese government, bringing to an end the biggest foreign joint venture in that sprawling nation. Under terms of the deal, the country's Bank of China Trust & Consultancy Co. agreed to pick up Occidental's share of loan guarantees on the project, amounting to $145 million, leaving the Los Angeles energy company free to walk away.

BELLAIRE, Ohio - The four miners who gathered one blustery morning at the United Mine Workers of America hall know that, so far, they are lucky. Their coal mines along the West Virginia state line are still working, having survived a painful 30-year decline in the industry. But a new threat has pushed into Ohio, imperiling the primacy of coal here and all over the country.   "I feel worried about the future, that natural gas is a threat to us," said Tim Merryman, 54. "Some of those coal plants will convert [to natural gas]

Standing in the dispatch office of the North Antelope Rochelle Mine near Gillette, Wyo., Scott Durgin pointed at a flat-panel display. The regional vice president for Peabody Energy smiled. The most productive coal mine in the world was on target. Since midnight, about one train an hour had been loaded, each carrying about 16,000 tons of coal. I asked Durgin how long Peabody could continue mining in the region. Easily for five more decades, he replied. "There's no end to the coal here.

The oil company reported that it is selling its interests in several coal mines in Colorado and Utah to Cyprus Minerals for undisclosed terms. Texaco said the properties are part of Getty Oil's assets, which Texaco acquired in 1984. Texaco said it signed definitive agreements to sell the Plateau underground mine near Price, Utah; the Yampa surface mine and the Twentymile underground mine near Steamboat Springs, Colo., and a 50% interest in the Skyline underground mine near Scofield, Utah.

Explosions in two Chinese coal mines left at least 53 workers dead and six missing, the state Xinhua News Agency and safety officials said today. In the Yuanhua Coal Mine in Jixi, a city in northeast Heilongjiang province, the remains of 21 miners had been found, and six miners were still missing today. Four escaped. In Fuyuan County in the southwestern province of Yunnan, at least 32 miners were killed and 28 injured.