West Kentucky Minerals

Western Kentucky Minerals employs modern surface mining techniques that recover a large portion of the shallow coal deposits locally within the Illinois Coal Basin.

In surface mining, blasting is first used to fracture rock layers of the present natural strata. The overburden is removed via shovels or front-end loaders and large haul trucks. The exposed coal is then extracted and transported to the processing area to be crushed and possibly washed before being transported directly to market.