Published: September 15, 2009 |

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Beckley WV Facility
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Delta CO Facility
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It’s been a busy year for Beckley, W.Va.-based Phillips Machine Service.

Phillips Machine is the largest independently owned rebuild and repair facility in the U.S., according to the company’s Web site.

Services offered at the Beckley location include a fully staffed machine shop; welding and fabrication shop; continuous miner repair shop; longwall repair shop; highwall miner repair shop; and haulage and conveying repair shop.

Phillips Machine’s vast welding machining and fabrication facility builds machine frames, cutter booms for continuous miners, fabricates cutter drums and much more.

In its equipment line, Phillips Machine offers the Freedom Car, continuous miners, shuttle cars, roof bolters and other underground equipment.

Earlier this year, the company completed construction on an additional 12,000-square-foot facility in Beckley.

Phillips Machine has four locations around the globe – Beckley; Delta, Colo., which has been online for a few months now; South Africa, which should be completed later this month or early September; and two joint ventures in China.

“We’re growing,” said Sales Manager C.R. Allen. “Even having this downturn (in the coal industry), our owners are allowing us to get prepared for when it gets better.”

Company President Jack Phillips said he has every expectation of a rebound in the U.S. coal market, since “to date, there isn’t anything out there to replace coal as a source of energy.”

Still, global expansion is an important step for the company.

While coal has many detractors here stateside,  “in all other developed nations, coal is a good thing,” Allen said.

“Getting our feet planted in other places is important,” he said of the international growth plans.

And there are other emerging markets, Allen said. Phillips Machine has presences in Canada and Mexico, and is working on projects in Russia as well.

Coal-to-liquid technology also is important, Allen said. While it’s still relatively new in the U.S., Allen noted that China already has CTL facilities online, and South Africa essentially powered the country with CTL through the apartheid years.

Chief Financial Officer Rennie Hill said he was somewhat surprised that the price of coal fluctuates as much as it does in the U.S., given the fact that not only is there an abundant supply, but the demand is always there.

But that’s why being involved in other countries is so important.

“The international marketplace has been a good factor for us, because when the U.S. market is low, like it is now, we have the international market,” Hill said.

Leo Porreca, inside sales coordinator, is of the opinion that the domestic coal industry has seen the bottom and should be seeing a general upturn in the last quarter of 2009 or first quarter of 2010. While he doesn’t expect the industry to be where it was a year ago, he said he does anticipate increases.

One problem for the coal industry as a whole, Phillips said, is that it’s more difficult for companies to find and raise capital for new ventures.

“The U.S. is probably the only major country in the world that is not coal-friendly,” he said.

But what other choices are there? So far, solar and wind power have not proven to be viable economic energy sources. And Hill noted that America consumes roughly 1.1 billion tons of coal every year, with about 40 percent of that coming from underground mines.

“It’s easy (for detractors) to paint our industry in a negative way, but our industry is pretty steady,” Allen said.

And with the growth in 2009 – the new rebuild shop in Beckley, and the Colorado and South African facilities – Phillips Machine is poised to take advantage of a domestic rebound.

“We offer some unique services,” Allen said. “Everything we do in 2009 is set up to increase our market share in 2010. There are still a lot of places in the world to go and establish ourselves, and we are looking at them.

“Now is the time to reap the benefits from the money spent and the time spent,” he said.

by Jim Fisher
EDITOR

For more information:
Phone - West Virginia Location: (304) 255-0537
Phone - Colorado Location: (970) 870-9907
Web site: http://www.phillipsmachine.com/