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iii iiiiiiiiiiiii iii 999 New mine to open Somerset land 'GI h ' ily entinel A new company, Somerset Min- ing Co., has purchased -and plans within two years to reactivate - the now dormant Somerset coal pt'opetty 75 miles southeast of Grand Junction. iVhen the new mine is tLlly oper- ational; it will employ 50 to 100 people and preference will be giv- en to the hiring of local miners, ac- cotdingtoa Somersetspokesman. ¢urirtentiy, Somerset is proceed- ing3with environmental permitting for installation and operation of a new underground mine, from which it plans to extract up to 800,000 tons of coal per year, ac- cording to Frederick R. Chilton, executive vice president o4Pacific Basin Resources, a division of Ox- bawCarbon kMinerals Inc. The property has estimated reserves of more than 300 million tons. Chilton said his firm will handle sales of Somerset coal while a partner, Bear Coal Co. of Somerset, will manage the mine. The two partners have negotiated for more than a year to purchase the mine property from Kaiser Coal Corp., he said. - Kaiser acquired it in 1985 from U.S. Steel Corp., which had em- ployed more than 200 people and produced more than 600,000 tons a year to fuel a steel mill in Provo, Utah. Kaiser itself never produced coal at Somerset. 'The closure was a response to deterioration in coal prices which, said Chilton, "slid Cor so long that nobody knew where the bottom was." At!;14 to ;;2(I a ton now, they ha- III ~ ~j! vent risen, but demand is starting to grow, Chilton said. Timing for the mine's opening, he said, will depend mostly on con- tracts. "We do- not-have the-coal sold at this time, but we do have several interested parties, both do- mestic and foreign." The Lakewood-based Pacific . Basin Resources Division handles ~i sales, processing, and materials trading in the western United States and Canada for Oxbow Car- bon & Minerals Inc. of West Palm Beach, Fla., and Dedham, Mass. It also does some export business in the Far East and South America and will handle sales for both Som- ersetMining antl Bear. Geography makes for a costly ex- tra rail link before the coal can move east or west from Grand Junction, and that, said Chilton, means "we have to mine our coal cheaper in order to make'the mar- ket." On the plus side, he said, [hey product is high quality and the area lioasts a number of experi- encedand capable miners who ca make that happen. Robert Garcla/Daily Sentinel