The company that purchased Westmoreland Coal Co.'s Ohio assets plans to cut more than half of its workforce starting at the end of October, according to The Daily Jeffersonian, an Ohio-based newspaper.
CCU Coal and Construction LLC, which bought the mines earlier this year, told the state it intends to cut 205 jobs in late October, the paper reported. After the reductions, the company would only have about 150 employees.
The staff reductions stem largely from American Electric Power Co. Inc.'s decision to close coal-fired units at its Conesville power plant in Coshocton County.
The mining company is seeking to lease about 432 federal acres in the state containing an estimated 1.4 million tons of subsurface coal reserves in Morgan and Perry Counties, according to an Aug. 19 notice in the Federal Register.
