WRIGHT—What’s the value of a new 440 million ton federal coal tract in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin mining district in today’s market?
Pretty low, according to some Powder River Basin coal producers and those familiar with the industry.
Yes, Antelope coal mine operator Navajo Transitional Energy Company would like to add more tonnage to its legally mineable coal reserve, Technical Services Manager Blake Jones told WyoFile. But only if the price is right.
Another Powder River Basin coal producer and, conceivably, a potential competitive bidder, CORE Natural Resources, told federal officials that today’s fair-market value for the coal is far below past bids and valuations in the region.
“Even though the [Trump] administration is working hard to improve the market, it will take some time to dig out of the current hole,” CORE’s Thunder Basin Coal Co. Manager of Environmental Affairs Jamie Olson told U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials on Wednesday.
“For that reason,” Olson said, “the fair-market value of coal in the Powder River Basin will remain soft for the next number of years.” The BLM should give “little weight” to past coal tract valuations, she added.
Olson was among about a dozen who attended the federal agency’s public meeting here — a step in the BLM’s expedited action on the West Antelope III coal lease-by-application project. The BLM resurrected the 10-year-old lease request in July after years of limbo due to a lack of interest on behalf of NTEC and a Biden-era leasing moratorium in the basin. The 440 million ton federal coal tract spans some 3,500 acres in Campbell and Converse counties. The intent of the meeting, according to the BLM, was to gather public comment regarding “the project’s fair-market value and maximum economic recovery.”
Though companies like NTEC and CORE suggested the fair-market value is much lower than comparable coal tracts in the past, they — along with other industry supporters — suggest the real value is not entirely wrapped up in the purchase price, but in the various taxes that apply once the coal is leased and mined, as well as the jobs and lucrative mining service industry sector that the massive coal tract would support.
“The other part of the fair-market value is the job component,” Wyoming Mining Association Executive Director Travis Deti told WyoFile. “You’re keeping companies operating, you’re keeping the resource under development and you keep people employed, and that’s part of the fair return.”
Conservation groups, however, worry the BLM, under pressure from the Trump administration’s Unleashing American Energy and Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry executive orders, might be tempted to undervalue the coal tract. Even if it is sold, they doubt whether a coal company can line up enough buyers for the estimated 20-25 years it would take to mine the coal.
“The thing that is really frustrating is that the federal government is going out of its way to throw lifelines to the private coal industry,” Sierra Club Wyoming Chapter Climate and Energy Organizer Emma Jones told WyoFile.
Jones noted that even if a coal company offers a successful bid to buy the federal coal tract, Wyoming stands to earn less revenue from mining it. That’s because a provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill reduced the federal royalty rate for coal from 12.5% to 7% — an estimated $50 million annual revenue loss to Wyoming coffers. Wyoming lawmakers this year also reduced the state’s severance tax rate for surface-mined coal from 6.5% to 6% — an estimated revenue loss of about $10 million in 2026 and potentially lower each year afterward, if coal production continues to decline, according to state figures.
“It makes it even less clear how this is actually going to be beneficial to Wyoming,” Jones said. “If the only way to keep this industry alive is for the federal government to basically give away coal for free, how does that make any sense?”
Cash cow goes to slaughter
The decades-long march of coal shovels in the Powder River Basin has required continuous access to new tracts of coal, most of which are owned by the federal government and managed by the BLM. In that time, the agency refined a federal coal “lease by application” process specific to the basin and subject to the National Environmental Policy Act to weigh the environmental and socioeconomic implications for each leasing action.
To obtain the right to mine federal coal, a qualifying operator typically nominates a specified tract of coal. If approved, the operator makes an offer in a competitive, sealed-bid lease sale. The tract goes to the highest bid if it meets the BLM’s undisclosed fair-market value for the coal tract.
Winning “bonus bids” ranged from 11 cents-per-ton to 38 cents-per-ton in the 1990s, according to federal data. Bids then crept up more than $1 in the 2010s — the height of competition for new federal coal tracts here.
There’s a lot of coal in each tract, so a bonus bid payment typically amounts to tens of millions of dollars, and the money is split between the federal treasury and the state where the coal is mined. Federal coal tracts in the basin began selling for more than $100 million in the 1990s and topped out in 2012 with a 721 million ton tract that sold for $793 million, going to the North Antelope Rochelle mine.
During his tenure, former Gov. Dave Freudenthal commonly encouraged Powder River Basin coal companies to bid vigorously, noting the enormous revenue coal bonus bids provided to the state — most of which was dedicated to K-12 school capital construction. From 1992 to 2012, coal bonus bid payments generated some $5.4 billion, about half of which went to Wyoming.
But that all began to change about 10 years ago with a shrinking coal market and a series of coal company bankruptcies.
Flipping the switch
Cloud Peak Energy, which owned and operated three mines in the basin, including the Antelope mine, nominated the 440 million ton West Antelope III federal coal tract in 2015, and the BLM initiated the leasing and environmental review process. But the company went bankrupt in 2019 and the mines were eventually sold to NTEC. The company, for years, didn’t ask the BLM to reinitiate the leasing process, but mulled it over more after the election of Donald Trump, according to NTEC’s Blake Jones.
It was the BLM that approached NTEC just days after the One Big Beautiful Bill passed in July, he said, adding that the company is considering taking on the tract.
While NTEC weighs the risks and benefits, Wyoming officials are cheering the BLM’s swift action to put the tract up for bid.
“In today’s electric power demand market and economy, and in consideration of the current and future national power generation need alone, this leasing action should move forward through the [environmental impact statement] and Record of Decision process, based on a fair market value assessment,” Wyoming Energy Authority’s Director of Fossil Fuel Development Kyle Wendtland told BLM officials.
In fact, Wendtland worked for Cloud Peak Energy when it initiated the West Antelope III coal lease-by-application in 2015, he said.
“So I’m pretty familiar with this lease,” Wendtland told BLM officials. “I therefore feel it is important to speak to the facts when discussing or commenting on a mineral leasing action. First and foremost, ensuring that Wyoming and the nation have an uninterrupted, adequate and competitively priced coal-fuel supply based on accurate valuation has never been more important.”
The BLM is moving quickly on the lease.
After restarting the process in July, the BLM published a Final Environmental Impact Statement for the project on Aug. 15. It includes two alternatives: to deny the West Antelope III coal lease-by-application or to offer it for competitive lease sale.
Go to the BLM National NEPA Register for additional information and planning documents. Written comments must be received no later than Sept. 21. Go to this website to submit a comment.
The really sordid aspect about burning Fossil Fuels and rampaging Climate Change is politically they are two sides of the same coin . Wyoming politicians Barrasso Lummis Hageman and Gordon et al are promoting coal to the bitter end . No end of life plans , no Plan B/C for Wyoming beyond carbon , absolutely no willingness to embrace renewables and non-atomic alternatives. They refuse to engage proactively what is obviously the preeminent issue of our time. EVERYTHING lines up behind doing something about the ravages of climate change . Everything. Local to global. Yet they deflect, obfuscate, or blockade any efforts perceived to harm a few thousand jobs and some meager millions of dollars in Wyoming without regard for the health and wealth of billions of other humans and trillion$ in economic churn worldwide. How selfish ; how shortminded. How Republican. Fossil thinking.
Climate Change and Fossil Fuels are two sides of the same coin now. I believe it a safe thing to say that our Wyoming policymakers will not openly acknowledge climate change even exists and admit they were wrong until that coin is spent and there is no new revenue from coal around here. Take away the money and the GOP has nothing left to defend. They will have to come around. Something they should have started doing 20 years ago, actually. They’ve known all along but their political pride would not let them act on it.
I was thinking the other day that once the world is largely done with fossil fuels in favor of sustainable energy, there should be a criminal tribunal not unlike the Nuremberg Trials after WWII. The big oil & gas corporations, the coal miners, the global banking cabals that financed them and the politicians that enabled them will be tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity for refusing to let go of hydrocarbons. Wyoming politicos and leaders will be prosecuted as defendants. You know who you are.
I find it very ironic that trendy, GenZ-esque phenomenons like AI and crypto mining are requiring so much electricity that gas, wind and solar can’t keep up with the demand… ergo, coal, whose mining and use goes back 3,600 years in human history. That predates the Egyptian New Kingdom that gave us King Tutankhamun. I wonder if King Tut would have been an edgy hipster with on TikTok and an OnlyFans account on his “tablet”.
Giving the salesman speech, because we all know coal is never ever coming back from “the current hole”. They always talk about the what if, the wait and see because they wanna make money by selling the tract but they all know the truth, we know the truth, its cheaper and cleaner today to use anything BUT coal to power America. Lets imagine coal was clean, the cost per therm would still make it the worst option in the energy industry, economics killed coal not the tree huggers.
Reflect on the potential solar power generation that could be installed on the same area as those miles of railroad corridor. All of the rail steel, concrete, and access roads could well have served to build panel foundations and supports. Generation, requiring ZERO fuel, almost ZERO water consumption, ZERO operational wastes to deal with, and far less “heads per MWh”. Yes, the sun doesn’t shine all the time, but realize it is highly predictable. The grid can manage that very well.
The nuclear industry payroll per KWH is brutal. Vogtle Nuclear power has a parking lot with hundreds and hundreds of spots. $80,000 on average for each of the 1600 employees…not including benefits and worker comp. That same KWh produced by solar is handled by a pickup truck worth of maintenance workers on a solar farm. For the entire installation. Fossil fuel is cheaper, but not by that much.