Darn that vulture capitalism.
The coal industry was rocked by two massive bankruptcy filings this week that have put nearly 2,000 jobs at risk in Virginia, Kentucky, Wyoming and West Virginia.
Revelation Energy LLC., a West Virginia-based company that employs about 1,100 people in West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Southern District of West Virginia, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported. Cumberland, Kentucky, Mayor Charles Raleigh told the outlet that the company has already shut down its nearby mines and workers were told not to show up for work.
The move comes as Revelation’s parent company, Blackjewel LLC, shuttered two coal mines in Wyoming amid its own bankruptcy filing, leaving 700 workers unemployed, The Casper Star-Tribune reported. The two mines, Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr, are the fourth- and sixth-largest producing coal mines in the country.
In a bankruptcy filing Monday, Blackjewel owner Jeff Hoops cited declining demand for coal and increased consumption of renewable energy as causes for the company’s fall. “The entire industry either has gone through, or is currently going through, a period of financial distress and reorganization,” Hoops wrote.