{"id":8120,"date":"2015-05-14T06:12:31","date_gmt":"2015-05-14T11:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=8120"},"modified":"2015-05-14T06:12:31","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T11:12:31","slug":"the-latest-casualty-in-energys-hardest-hit-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=8120","title":{"rendered":"The Latest Casualty In Energy\u2019s Hardest Hit Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Latest Casualty In Energy\u2019s Hardest Hit Industry<\/a><\/h3>\n

Another coal company bites the dust. Again.<\/p>\n

Patriot Coal<\/a>, a miner of coal in several Appalachian states,\u00a0filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy<\/a>\u00a0on May 12. Patriot said it is \u201cin active negotiations for the sale of substantially all of the Company’s operating assets to a strategic partner.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move comes just a year and a half after the company\u00a0emerged<\/a>\u00a0from its previous bankruptcy. At the time, some secured creditors received repayments, but shareholders bore the brunt of the restructuring.<\/p>\n

The initial bankruptcy came as Patriot struggled with high costs during a downturn in the coal industry. But after the company came up with a restructuring plan that included a cut in labor costs and the closure of high-cost mines, Patriot thought it would rebound. But it wasn\u2019t to be. As Taylor Kuykendall of\u00a0SNL Energy<\/a>\u00a0notes, \u201cPatriot was plagued by a union strike, infrastructure failures, fatal accidents and persistently weak coal markets that ultimately resulted in the company again filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related:\u00a05 Solar Stocks That Should Be On Your Radar<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

In one sense, the problems at Patriot Coal were unique to the company. It was originally a\u00a0spin off<\/a>\u00a0from Peabody Energy, which unloaded healthcare liabilities onto the newfound Patriot Coal. That weighed down the company from the start, freeing Peabody from the costs. SNL\u2019s Kuykendall chronicles a series of mishaps in 2014, from lawsuits for environmental damages to a series of safety accidents. Patriot\u2019s CEO called it \u201cone of the worst years in Patriot’s recent history.\u201d<\/p>\n

The poor performance affected output. In the first three months of this year, Patriot produced 4.1 million tons of coal, a 15.1 percent decline from the first quarter in 2014.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Latest Casualty In Energy\u2019s Hardest Hit Industry Another coal company bites the dust. Again. Patriot Coal, a miner of coal in several Appalachian states,\u00a0filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy\u00a0on May 12. Patriot said it is \u201cin active negotiations for the sale of substantially all of the Company’s operating assets to a strategic partner.\u201d The move […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[1361,147,4292,151,1851,195,200,2605,328,5424],"class_list":["post-8120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","tag-bankruptcy","tag-coal","tag-coal-industry","tag-commodities","tag-commodity-price-collapse","tag-debt","tag-default","tag-energy-industry","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-patriot-coal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8121,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8120\/revisions\/8121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}