June 27, 2025 - Coal industry officials said more than a thousand miners’ jobs are at risk this summer as demand for West Virginia’s steel-making coal tanks overseas.

Civil LLC has sent WARN notices required by law to multiple coalfield counties that nearly 300 miners could lose their jobs in 60 days. Those are among the 1,200 coal jobs across West Virginia that are at risk as demand for steel-making coal has dropped.

Metallurgical or steel-making coal has been the bright spot in the Mountain State’s coal business as electric power generation has moved to natural gas or renewables.

Now, plunging met coal prices are being blamed on China dumping cheap steel in overseas markets, an impact that is being felt in West Virginia.

“I think there’s about a thousand miners, maybe 1,200, that have received some indication that there may be a slowdown in schedules for the near future,” West Virginia Coal Association President Chris Hamilton said.

The final impact of the WARN notices is still a little fuzzy, but no matter how you look at it, there’s not been a lot of good news lately for West Virginia’s metallurgical coal producers.

Coal industry officials said the steel dumping by China has slashed demand for U.S. coal.

“So what that’s doing is affecting our metallurgical coal shipments ot the entire European community and around the world, frankly, where we ship this high-grade metallurgical for steel-making,” Hamilton said.

Civil LLC’s notice impacting nine locations comes not long after Core Natural Resources announced a layoff of 200 workers in a WARN notice for operations in Wyoming County.

Eyewitness News reached out to Civil LLC for comment. Some workers indicated they were hopeful a new owner could continue operations at the Fayette County site.