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$290M coal mine could create at least 200 jobs <br /> <br />$290M coal mine could create at least 200 jobs <br />By GARY HARMON <br />Thursday, February 05, 2009 <br />Page 1 of 2 <br />C? PRINTTHIS <br />Out on the snow-capped sea of rolling, gray adobe, Corey Heaps gestured toward the Bookcliffs <br />looming a few miles behind him. A,AJ The sun, peeking over the south rim of Grand Mesa, lit the red <br />sandstone in the barren, distant cliffs. A,A¶ "Of all the places you could choose," Heaps said, "This is <br />the place for a coal mine." <br />Heaps is the project manager for Rhino Energy's Red Cliff Mine, which the company hopes to have <br />open in about four years. <br />The location of the mine portal, once it's cut into the clay that covers the Bookcliffs, is hidden in a back <br />bowl and tucked behind a ridge. <br />Passersby on Colorado Highway 139 might see lights from the mine, but not the portal itself, Heaps <br />said. <br />The waste, or gob pile, will look like an extension of the ridge, Heaps said. <br />Otherwise, the only hint that there's more back there against the cliffs will be a road, rail spur and some <br />outbuildings. <br />The rail spur route is plotted to hug the base of bluffs along its route from the mine site to Mack. It <br />might at one point be distantly visible from Highline Lake State Park, Heaps said. <br />The actual size of Red Cliff Mine will depend on a lease sale still to be scheduled that could decide <br />whether Red Cliff is a small mine or a large one, Heaps said. <br />Rhino Energy has leases underlaying about 6,000 acres that it will mine, but an adjacent 14,446 acres <br />will go up for lease eventually and Rhino, which nominated the land to the Bureau of Land Management <br />for coal leasing, expects there will be other bidders for the right to mine there. <br />In all, the coal underlaying the 23,000 acres that Rhino hopes to pull out using the Red Cliff Mine could <br />last 30 years, the company and BLM estimate. <br />Red Cliff Mine will supply two daily trips of a coal train of 100 to 120 cars, each car hauling 100 to 120 <br />tons of coal to customers still unknown. <br />In all, Rhino Energy is poised to pump $160 million into all the surface facilities needed to dig out and <br />transport millions of tons of low-sulfur coal and $130 million for equipment to be used inside the mine. <br />http://cox.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=%24290M+coal+mine+could+... 2/6/2009