Pleasant Valley Coal Mines
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The Kinney Project (Kinney No. 2)
This page was last updated on March 28, 2025.
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Overview
In December 2005, Carbon Resources, LLC, was granted permission to begin exploring for coal in the area near Scofield. The permitting process was begun in February 2008 to develop the resources of what was known as the Kinney No. 2 mine, located on 448 acres either at the same location, or immediately adjacent to the location of the original UP Mine. Known as Utah Oil Gas & Mining permit area no. C0070047. The development was proceeding by Carbon Resources LLC of New Mexico.
(Read more about the original Union Pacific mine, first developed in the 1880s)
Known as the Kinney No. 2 mine, the site is just north and east of the town of Scofield, Utah, immediately adjacent to UP's Scofield Branch, also known as the Pleasant Valley Subdivision. It is the site of the old Jones mine, originally known as the Columbine Mine, and later as the Kinney Mine, the Jones Mine, and the Monay Mine, depending of the name of the persons holding the lease. The land itself is owned by Carbon County, which had taken ownership of the land in the mid 1930s due to non-payment of back taxes. The original owner, Union Pacific Coal Company, a subsidiary of Union Pacific Railroad, abandoned the property at some time after 1932, stating that the taxes owed far exceeded any potential income from rental fees or royalties. Union Pacific had used the coal solely as locomotive fuel for steam locomotives operating across its entire rail system.
The Kinney No. 2 Mine permit area, and the general area has an extensive coal mining history. The mine site to be developed has been used by of least three mines in the past, the Kinney Mine, the Jones Mine and the Columbine mine. All of these mines were closed before 1980, and the area was reclaimed by the Utah Division of Oil Gas and Mining Abandoned Mine Reclamation program in the early 1980s. Very little is left of the historic mining, and since the area is private property, there has been little public interest, or visitorship of the site. Approximotely 74 percent of the area to be disturbed has previously been disturbed and reclaimed.
Kinney Coal Company operated the Kinney Mine from 1918 to 1956, and was known from 1946 through 1956 as the Monay Mine. The Columbine Mine was operated from 1960 through early 1971. The Jones Mine was operated by the Spring Creek Coal Company from 1960 to about 1970.
The initial permit for the new mine, known as Kinney No. 2, C0070047, was submitted in February 2008 by Carbon Resources, LLC, of New Mexico. The application was found to be incomplete and was returned. Several items were addressed in the application and it was resubmitted. The final permiting and approval process by numerous state and federal agencies was completed in June 2011.
In October 2010, Carbon Resources was forced into bankruptcy due to the collapse of its funding. A purchase agreement was made to sell all assets, including the (pending) permit to the Kinney No. 2 mine, to a new company named Wasatch Natural Resources, LLC, controlled by Delta Coal Fund PTY Ltd, an Austrailian mining company. The purchase price was reported as being $25 million, and the sale became final in September 2011.
In September 2011, Delta Coal Fund PTY and its Wasatch Natural Resources, LLC subsidiary, was acquired by New Horizon Minerals, Ltd, and the new company was renamed to New Horizon Coal, Ltd.
On February 2, 2012, New Horizon Coal announced that they had an underground mineable resource of 26.1 million tonnes, with a potential for a coal operation that can produce up to 2 million tonnes per annum. The permit application itself shows that the company plans on a maximum production of approximately 800,000 tons per year. The zoning change request from 2007 showed a projected annual production of about 2 to 3 million tons per year.
"The permit process was successfully completed in June 2011 and targets initial production to commence in 2013. The project plan includes underground mining of two major coal seams using conventional, continuous miner sections. Entry will be via an exposed coal seam outcrop within the permitted area."
The following comes from Platts news service, February 20, 2012:
New Horizon Coal is targeting first production from its recently acquired Kinney coal project in the US state of Utah in late 2013 and is planning further mine acquisitions with the stated aim of becoming a "mid-tier coal producer with multiple mines in America."
New Horizon Coal's Kinney project lies in a mature coal producing region, the Uinta Basin in Utah, and has a JORC-compliant coal resource of 26 million mt which the company has the opportunity to increase by acquiring nearby leases. (JORC is the Austrailian government's Joint Ore Reserves Committee)
Kinney thermal coal has a relatively high calorific value of 6,500-6,780 kcal/kg on a net as-received basis, ash of 7-9.5% and sulfur of 0.5-0.9%, according to New Horizon's presentation.
The Kinney project lies 500 meters from the Union Pacific transcontinental railway.
Two US coal producers, Arch Coal with its 3 million mt/year Skyline mine and America West Resources' mine producing 250,000 mt/year are located within 10 km of the Kinney project.
"The Union Pacific spur line provides rail access to most existing and proposed ports throughout North America, and also interchanges traffic with the Canadian rail systems," said the company.
Union Pacific has recently completed a feasibility study on expanding coal train traffic on its Utah railway.
The Perth-headquartered company outlined the potential for its Utah thermal coal to be railed to US or Canadian ports for shipment to Asian customers, or for its coal to be railed to ports in Mexico and Texas for dispatch to Europe or South America.
March 28, 2012
New Horizon announced the launch of a prefeasibility study for the Kinney project, with the study to be completed by third quarter 2012. The study will look at mine planning and scheduling, infrastructure and transport logistics, capital and operating cost assessments, projected capacity, and transportation and market price forecasts. The mine "has the potential to develop a high quality thermal coal suitable for both domestic and export markets." (Mining Weekly.com, March 28, 2012) (Proactive Investors, Australia, March March 28, 2012)
As of August 2012, exploration activity by the Kinney project was inactive.
January 8, 2015
"The New Horizon Coal, Ltd., transferred its 100 percent interest in the
permit comprising the Kinney Coal Project,
located in Scofield, Utah, USA back to Carbon
Resources and no longer has an interest in the
permit, or any other permits." (2017 New Horizon Coal, Ltd., prospectus)
(Since the original Carbon Resources' Kinney Project was based on the company leasing the property from Carbon County, and extracting the coal, by this time in 2015 the project apparently collapsed due to the declining market for Utah coal.)
By 2020, the Kinney No. 2 mine was owned by the Coal Energy Group, which also leased the abandoned Wildcat Loadout near Helper, Utah, with plans to truck the coal from the Kinney mine near Scofield, to the Wildcat loadout near Helper. Coal Energy Group had leased the Wildcat loadout from Intermountain Power Agency in November 2018. (Utah Division of Oil, Gas & Mining files)
(Read more about the Wildcat Loadout, south of Helper)
January 28, 2025
The
Coal Energy Group 3, LLC (note the slight change in name, from Coal Energy Group), filed an application with the Utah
Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil, Gas and Mining for a permit to mine coal pursuant to the Utah Coal Program Regulations. (Utah Division of Oil, Gas & Mining files)
March 26, 2025
Several news media stories made reference to a coal mining permit being considered for the Kinney No. 2 coal mine. In fact, the permit was still (since 2008) in process, with little or no progress. The emails and telephone numbers for the most recent "Coal Energy Group 3, LLC" have all been found to be inactive and unresponsive.
The local newspaper for Carbon and Emerey counties wrote, "The Carbon County Board of Commissioners stated that there would still be a lot of hoops to jump through even if this permit is granted, such as finding a customer to buy the coal. Another layer of approval that will be needed is for a conditional use permit, which would need to be approved by the county planning commission down the road. So while there is progress on developing a mine in Scofield, there are still a number of steps that need to be taken before it actually happens."
(Recall that the land has been owned by Carbon County since late 1973 when the Colombine mine on the same site shut down and the property was taken by Carbon County for back taxes. The site was originally the Union Pacific mine, then the Kinney mine, then the Monay mine, then the Colombine mine.)
(Read more about the succession of coal mines in the area immediately east of Scofield)
(As of March 2025, the lack of any meaningful activity since the first proposals for the so-called "Kinney No. 2" mine almost 20 years ago, other than limited exploratory drilling and engineering studies, is the result of the cost to develop a coal mine, as well as the fact that there really is no market for the coal once it is mined, especially with so many already existing active coal mines in the area. Research suggests that the project is merely an "investment opportunity" with no real projected completion. Of course, various mining engineering companies are always willing to continue the effort to study the mine's potential.)
More Information
Sun-Advocate, August 5, 2010 (approval by Carbon County Planning Commission)
Sun-Advocate, September 7, 2010 (approval by full Carbon County Commission)
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