November 15, 2019 - Contura Energy, Inc. (NYSE: CTRA), a leading U.S. coal supplier, today announced the temporary idling of certain support functions at its Cumberland longwall mine in Greene County, Pennsylvania. Due to adverse seam geology in the form of a soft fire clay bottom on the longwall section, and in an effort to reduce mine costs, management made the decision the afternoon of November 14 to temporarily idle support functions, including continuous miner development and preparation plant facilities, effective Friday, November 15. The partial idling of Cumberland mine is anticipated to end on or before Monday, November 18, when the mine is expected to return to more manageable bottom conditions. Support functions will resume once the temporary idling is complete.

Operations will continue at a reduced rate on Cumberland's longwall section during the temporary idling, and coal will continue to ship from both Cumberland's preparation plant and the Labelle river terminal.

"The team at Cumberland has been working through intermittent issues in recent days to get through a challenging, but temporary, routine issue in the seam geology," said chairman and chief executive officer, David Stetson. "The decision was made late yesterday afternoon to reduce support mine costs over the weekend while the longwall operation resolves these issues, and we expect support functions to resume their normal duties as soon as Monday once the longwall returns to more manageable bottom conditions."