Surface Mining

For more than fifty years, Lehigh Coal & Navigation has participated exclusively in surface mining of its anthracite holdings.

Surface mining is defined as a form of mining used to extract mineral deposits that are close to the surface, eliminating the need for underground tunnels.

As in most forms of surface mining, heavy equipment is used to first remove the overburden - the soil and rock that's layered above the deposit. Once the overburden is removed, huge machines, such as hydraulic and dragline excavators, extract the coal from the exposed seam. The coal is then transported via off-highway haulers (essentially mammoth dump trucks) capable of carrying hundreds of tons of payload at one time.

Typically, the equipment used to extract and move these vast amounts of anthracite is among the largest, heaviest and most expensive in the world.

Coal Preparation

The world's finest anthracite is processed through LCN's newly renovated Greenwood breaker, one of the most efficient and modern preparation plants for processing coal in the anthracite industry.

After pre-screening and sizing in the field, the coal moves to the top of the breaker and down through a process of heavy media washing operations to separate the coal from rock, then to a series of screens that separate it into 8 industry-standard sizes from Stove (2-7/16") to Buckwheat #5 (3/64").

Several processing improvements have been incorporated into the new Greenwood breaker:

• The new breaker is used exclusively for the processing of coal less than 2-7/16" in size rather than breaking raw coal in larger sizes.
• The processing can be modified to produce coal in sizes in response to market demand.
• Heavy media for washing (magnetite) is reclaimed and reused repeatedly.
• Enhanced control of the washing process to reduce ash content for higher quality.
• The water for processing passes through a belt press which extracts silt that is formed into cakes for sale and use for energy production.
• 100% of the water is recovered, decanted, and goes back into the system for re-use.
• No waste water is discharged.

LCN maintains a quality assurance program with skilled technicians in an on-site laboratory to assure that the anthracite sent to market measures up to the high carbon, low ash content that is characteristic of Lehigh coal, the best anthracite in the world.