Published: October 3, 2016 |

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Less than a month after learning that it was losing its sole customer, Texas Westmoreland Coal Co. has confirmed that it is shutting down its 35,000-acre Jewett Mine located just a few hours northeast of San Antonio in Leon County.

The company’s human resources manager Harry Clark confirmed the closure in a Sept. 19 letter to the Texas Workforce Commission.

A copy of the letter was made public on Tuesday morning. In it, Clark confirmed that the strip mine’s sole customer, NRG Texas Power, had terminated their coal supply agreement. Clark wrote that the mine would cease production operations by the end of the year and would lay off its 250 employees between December and January.

“We regret this action, but it is unavoidable,” Clark wrote in his letter.

Originally opened in 1985, the Jewett Mine had four active pits that produced between 4 to 6 million tons of lignite coal per year and at its peak, employed around 350 people. The mine’s closure comes at time when coal companies are struggling to deal with stricter environmental regulations from the federal government and market competition from cheap natural gas. More than one dozen coal companies have filed for bankruptcy over the past two years.

Texas Westmoreland Coal Co. is a subsidiary of Colorado-based Westmoreland Coal Co., one of the oldest coal companies in the U.S. The decision to close Jewett Mine comes about one month after NRG announced that it would be switching its Limestone Electric Generating Station over to cleaner-burning powder river basin coal, which is mined in Wyoming.

NRG opted to end its supply contract with Texas Westmoreland two years early, with the final delivery date set for Dec. 31.

Although its supply contract will end, the mine may retain as many as 70 employees for other duties, Clark stated in his letter to the Texas Workforce Commission.

Westmoreland Coal Co. CEO Kevin Paprzycki revealed in an Aug. 24 statement that employees at the mine will perform several years worth of reclamation work on behalf of NRG.

“As NRG has decided to fuel its plant differently in response to current energy market conditions, we are shifting our focus to providing multiyear reclamation services,” Paprzycki stated. “We have an outstanding track record of operating the Jewett mine safely and cost efficiently and plan to build on this performance during the reclamation phase.”

Railroad Commission of Texas records show that Jewett Mine is one of 29 coal mines licensed to operate in the Lone Star State.

Source: (September 27, 2016) San Antonio Business Journal

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