Ramaco Resources, Inc. (Ramaco) is an operator and developer of metallurgical coal in southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia.
The company is a pure play metallurgical coal company. The company’s development portfolio primarily includes the following properties: Elk Creek, Berwind, Knox Creek, and Maben. Each of these properties possesses geologic and logistical advantages that make its coal among the lowest delivered-cost U.S. metallurgical coal to the company’s domestic customer base...
Ramaco Resources, Inc. (Ramaco) is an operator and developer of metallurgical coal in southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia.
The company is a pure play metallurgical coal company. The company’s development portfolio primarily includes the following properties: Elk Creek, Berwind, Knox Creek, and Maben. Each of these properties possesses geologic and logistical advantages that make its coal among the lowest delivered-cost U.S. metallurgical coal to the company’s domestic customer base, North American blast furnace steel mills and coke plants, as well as international metallurgical coal consumers. The company also controls mineral deposits near Sheridan, Wyoming as part of the company’s initiatives regarding the potential recovery of rare earth elements and critical minerals, as well as the potential commercialization of coal-to-carbon-based products and materials.
The company’s operations include seven active mines at its Elk Creek mining complex (the ‘Elk Creek Complex’), two active mines at its Berwind mining complex (the ‘Berwind Complex’), one active mine at its Knox Creek mining complex (the ‘Knox Creek Complex’), and one active mine at the company’s Maben mining complex (the ‘Maben Complex’).
Development of the Elk Creek Complex commenced in 2016 and included the construction of a preparation plant and rail load-out facilities. The Elk Creek property consists of approximately 20,200 acres of controlled mineral rights and contains approximately 16 seams targeted for production. The Elk Creek Complex produces high-volatile A and B metallurgical coals.
Development of the Berwind Complex began in late 2017. In 2020, the company suspended development at the Berwind Complex due to lower pricing and demand largely caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. In early-2021, as pricing and demand improved, Berwind development was restarted. The company successfully reached the thicker Pocahontas No. 4 seam in late 2021. The Berwind property consists of approximately 62,500 acres of controlled mineral rights, including the December 2021 acquisition of ‘Amonate Assets’ from subsidiaries of Coronado Global Resources Inc. (‘Coronado’) in 2021. The Amonate Assets include a processing plant located in the company’s Berwind Complex, saving the company transportation costs to its Knox Creek plant 26 miles away. The Berwind Complex experienced an ignition event in 2022 that resulted in idling mining operations for one of the active mines. Production restarted for the idle mine in the first quarter of 2023. The Berwind Creek Complex produces low-volatile and mid-volatile metallurgical coal. The company continues to increase production at the main Berwind low-volatile mine.
The company Knox Creek Complex includes a preparation plant and 64,050 acres of controlled mineral rights. The complex currently produces mid and high-volatile metallurgical coal and also processes and ships coal from other third-party operators. The company closed its Jawbone mine during 2024, which was nearing the end of its mine life and experiencing higher costs of production.
The Maben Coal acquisition in 2022 provides the company with 28,000 leased acres of controlled mineral rights, which includes coal deposits that may be mined by surface and high wall mining methods as well as developed in the future through deep mining.
The company’s RAM Mine property is located in southwestern Pennsylvania. Following years of delays, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection issued a denial of the RAM Mine permit during 2023.
The company’s Brook Mine property consists of approximately 16,000 acres of controlled mineral rights and a research and development facility that were acquired as part of the purchase of Ramaco Coal in 2022. The mine is undergoing testing and analysis to assess the potential concentrations of rare earth elements and critical minerals.
As of December 31, 2024, the company’s estimated aggregate annual production capacity is approximately four to five million clean tons of coal. The company plans to complete development of its existing properties and increase annual production over the next few years to possibly as much as seven million clean tons of metallurgical coal annually, subject to market conditions, permitting, and additional capital deployment.
Strategy
The company’s business strategy includes developing and operating the company’s metallurgical coal properties; being a low-cost U.S. producer of metallurgical coal; enhancing coal purchase opportunities; demonstrating excellence in safety and environmental stewardship; and advancing its initiatives in rare earth elements, critical minerals, and advanced carbon products.
Projects
The company’s properties are primarily located in southern West Virginia, southwestern Virginia, southwestern Pennsylvania, and northeastern Wyoming.
Elk Creek Mining Complex
The company’s Elk Creek Complex in southern West Virginia began production in late December 2016. The Elk Creek property consists of approximately 20,200 acres of controlled mineral rights and contains 16 seams that are economically mineable. Nearly all the company’s seams contain high-quality, high-volatile metallurgical coal accessible at or above drainage. Additionally, almost all of this coal is high-fluidity, which is an important factor for high-volatile metallurgical coal.
The company controls the majority of the coal and related mining rights within the existing permitted areas and the company’s mine plans, as well as the surface for the company’s surface facilities, through lease agreements with McDonald Land Company among others. The company estimates that the Elk Creek Complex contains reserves capable of yielding approximately 29 million tons of clean saleable metallurgical coal, as well as measured and indicated metallurgical coal resource tons of 211 million. The company estimates that the mine life for the Elk Creek Complex is over 15 years.
The company markets most of the coal produced from the Elk Creek Complex as a blended high-volatile A/B product. When segregated, a portion of its coal can be sold as a high-volatile A product for a premium. The company markets for Elk Creek production is North American coke and steel producers, as well as European, South American, Asian and African customers, and occasionally to coal traders and brokers for use in filling orders for their blended products. Additionally, the company seeks to market a portion of its coal in the specialty coal markets that value low ash content.
The company processes its Elk Creek coal production through the preparation plant located on-site at the complex, which has a heavy-media vessel, large-diameter heavy-media cyclone, dual-stage spiral concentrators, froth flotation, horizontal vibratory and screen bowl centrifuges. The company’s rail load-out facilities at Elk Creek are served by the CSX railroad; however, the company also has the ability to develop on controlled property a rail-loading facility on the Norfolk Southern railroad, which would facilitate dual rail service. The company has not yet committed capital for the development of a Norfolk Southern rail facility.
The combined refuse capacity at the active disposal areas is expected to provide over 20 years of disposal life for the company’s operations with additional refuse areas being permitted. The company completed construction of a full complement of plate presses during 2020 to allow for dewatering of material which then was being pumped as slurry to the company’s impoundment. This equipment allows the company to process all waste material for placement in areas designed for combined refuse disposal and maximize the life for disposal of fine waste rock in the pool of the impoundment.
A large portion of the company’s-controlled reserves are permitted through existing, issued permits, and the company continues actively pursuing multiple new permits.
On January 3, 2020, the company entered into a mineral lease with the McDonald Land Company for coal reserves which, in many cases, are located immediately adjacent to the company’s Elk Creek Complex. This leased property became available after the former base lease with another party was terminated. The prior lessee, who controlled the property since 1978, did not produce commercial amounts of coal from the property during their possession of the lease. While it is unusual to have a metallurgical reserve in this part of Central Appalachia remain idle for such an extended period of time, the configuration and location of the tracts lend themselves to be mined and processed far more efficiently from the company’s Elk Creek property. The McDonald reserves have the same geologic advantages and low costs that are being experienced in the company’s Elk Creek mines.
During 2022, the company began work on a throughput upgrade at its Elk Creek Preparation plant. The upgrade, which was completed in 2023, increased the company’s annual processing capacity for this complex to approximately three million tons per year. In order to utilize the increased capacity, it also began development work on additional low-cost, high- volatile mines at Elk Creek, which were fully in production by the end of the third quarter of 2024.
Berwind Mining Complex
The company’s Berwind Complex is located on the border of West Virginia and Virginia and is well-positioned to fill the anticipated market for low-volatile coals. The Berwind property consists of approximately 62,500 acres of controlled mineral rights, including the Amonate acquisition. The company estimates that the Berwind Complex contains reserves capable of yielding approximately 19 million tons of clean saleable metallurgical coal, as well as measured and indicated metallurgical coal resource tons of 634 million. The company estimates that the mine life for the Berwind Complex is over 20 years.
Development of the company’s Berwind Complex began in late 2017 in the thinner Pocahontas No. 3 seam and has since sloped up to current mining in the thicker Pocahontas No. 4 seam. In 2020, the company suspended development at the Berwind Complex due to lower pricing and demand largely caused by the economic effects of COVID-19. In early 2021, as pricing and demand improved, Berwind development resumed, and the company successfully reached the Pocahontas No. 4 seam in late 2021. The Berwind Complex experienced an ignition event during the third quarter of 2022 that resulted in idling mining operations for one of the active mines. Production restarted for the idle mine in the first quarter of 2023. The company continues to increase production at the main Berwind low-volatile mine.
The company has the necessary permits for the Berwind Complex for the company’s current and budgeted operations. A permit for the company’s Squire Jim seam room-and-pillar underground mine was issued in 2020 and contains a large area of Squire Jim seam coal deposits. The Squire Jim seam of coal is the lowest known coal seam on the geologic column in this region, and due to the depth of cover has never been significantly explored. At this point, the company does not anticipate activating this mining permit.
In December 2021, the company acquired the Amonate Assets from Coronado, pursuant to an asset purchase agreement. The acquisition included a mine complex located in McDowell County, West Virginia and Tazewell County, Virginia adjacent and contiguous to the company’s existing Berwind Complex. The assets primarily consist of high-quality, low and mid-volatile metallurgical coal reserves and resources, much of which will be mined from the company’s Berwind Complex. Also purchased were several additional permitted mines and an idled 1.3 million ton per annum capacity coal preparation plant with a rail loading facility.
The company began mine development on the Amonate Assets shortly after acquisition, and production began in the first quarter of 2022. The preparation plant and rail loading facility were refurbished in 2022 and began operation in the fourth quarter of 2022. Rail service is provided by Norfolk Southern.
Knox Creek Mining Complex
The Knox Creek Complex consists of approximately 64,050 acres of controlled mineral rights, as well as a preparation plant, a coal-loading facility, and a refuse impoundment. Rail service is provided by Norfolk Southern.
In the fourth quarter of 2019, the company acquired multiple permits from various affiliates of Omega Highwall Mining, LLC. These permits are in close proximity to its Knox Creek preparation plant and loadout infrastructure and provide immediate access to two separate mining areas in Southwestern Virginia. One is a deep mine permit in the Jawbone Seam, a geologically advantaged metallurgical coal reserve and resource. The second is a metallurgical surface mine in the Tiller seam that is mined via surface and highwall mining methods.
In August 2021, the company began production at the Big Creek surface mine. The company added a highwall miner in the fourth quarter of 2021. The mine reached full production during 2023.
The company estimates that the Knox Complex contains reserves capable of yielding approximately 7 million tons of clean saleable metallurgical coal, as well as measured and indicated metallurgical coal resource tons of 277 million. The company estimates that the mine life for the Knox Creek Complex is approximately 12 years. The company closed its Big Creek Jawbone mine during 2024, which was nearing end of mine life and experiencing higher cost production.
RAM Mine
Following years of delays, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection issued a denial of the RAM Mine permit in southwest Pennsylvania.
Maben Complex
The Maben property is located in southern West Virginia and consists of approximately 28,000 acres of controlled mineral rights acquired from the purchase of Maben Coal in the third quarter of 2022. As part of the transaction, the company assumed existing mining permits issued by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, which authorizes mining by both surface and highwall mining methods as well as by underground methods. The property also has issued permits covering an existing haul road, as well as an active refuse disposal area together with a preparation plant and unit train loadout, neither of which had been constructed as of the closing date. During 2024, the company completed the purchase of an existing coal preparation plant and relocated the plant to the company’s Maben Complex, which was commissioned early in the fourth quarter. The addition of the preparation plant is expected to reduce trucking costs going forward.
The Maben property contains various areas of high-quality low-vol metallurgical coal in the Sewell, Beckley, Pocahontas 3, Pocahontas 4, and Pocahontas 6 seams of coal. The company expects that coal contained in the Sewell seam will be mined by surface and high-wall mining methods. Initial production of low volatile began in 2023, and the company will consider deep mine development of coal contained in Beckley, Pocahontas 3, 4, and 6 seams at a future point.
The company estimates that the Maben Complex contains reserves capable of yielding approximately 11 million tons of clean saleable metallurgical coal, as well as measured and indicated metallurgical coal resource tons of 230 million. The expected mine life for the Maben Complex is estimated to be 15 years.
Brook Mine
The property is located in northeastern Wyoming, near Sheridan, and consists of approximately 16,000 acres of controlled mineral rights and a research and development facility that were acquired as part of the purchase of Ramaco Coal during 2022. The property includes a thermal coal deposit, as well as a large unconventional deposit of rare earth elements and critical minerals sourced from coal and carbonaceous ore. This property is also being used to support the company’s possible expansion into the manufacture and commercialization of advanced carbon products and materials from coal.
The company continues to evaluate the commercial and technical feasibility of extracting critical minerals and rare earth elements within the current Brook Mine permit area. Preliminary findings indicate significant concentrations of critical minerals scandium, gallium, and germanium, as well as rare earth elements neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium.
Customers and Contracts
The company markets its production to North American integrated steel mills and coke plants, as well as international customers in Europe, South America, Asia and Africa. Additionally, the company markets limited amounts of its production to various premium-priced specialty markets, such as foundry cokemakers, manufacturers of activated carbon products, and specialty metals producers.
The company sold 4.0 million tons of coal during 2024. During 2024, sales to two customers accounted for approximately 22% of total revenue.
Patents
The company holds 76 intellectual property patents and pending patents related to the conversion of low-cost carbon ore into higher-value carbon products, as well as exclusive licensing agreements, all of which have a remaining duration of 14-20 years.
Competition
The company’s principal domestic competitors include Alpha Metallurgical Resources, Inc., Blackhawk Mining, LLC, Coronado Global Resources Inc., Arch Resources, Inc. (now a subsidiary of Core Natural Resources), Peabody Energy Corporation, and Warrior Met Coal, Inc.
Environmental, Health and Safety and Other Regulatory Matters
The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (the SMCRA) establishes comprehensive operational, reclamation and closure standards for the company’s mining operations and requires that such standards be met during the course of and following completion of mining activities. The SMCRA also stipulates compliance with many other major environmental statutes, including the Clean Air Act (the CAA), the Clean Water Act (the CWA), the Endangered Species Act (the ESA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (the RCRA) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 (the CERCLA). The company’s operations are located in West Virginia and Virginia, which have each individually achieved primacy to regulate and enforce surface mining and reclamation operations within the respective state to ensure compliance with SMCRA.
In addition, the company obtained from a third-party insurer a workers’ compensation insurance policy, which includes coverage for medical and disability benefits for occupational disease under the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 and the Mine Act. The company is required to comply with numerous other federal, state, and local environmental laws and regulations in addition to those previously discussed. These additional laws include but are not limited to the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.
History
Ramaco Resources, Inc. was founded in 2015. The company was incorporated in 2016.
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