Arch Coal Earns 10 State Safety, Environmental Awards for Operational Excellence in West Virginia and Colorado

ST. LOUIS, March 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Arch Coal, Inc. (NYSE:ACI) today announced that employees in Colorado and West Virginia recently earned a total of 10 statewide safety and environmental awards, including Colorado's top coal mine safety award.

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"Safety and responsibility are deep-rooted values at Arch, and these external recognitions highlight our employees' dedication and leadership," said John W. Eaves, Arch's president and chief executive officer. "Thanks to the hard work of our employees, Arch has led our major, diversified peers in safety for seven consecutive years."

On March 7 and 8, Arch Coal's Appalachian operations earned eight prestigious safety and environmental awards in West Virginia.

• Arch operations and facilities garnered five West Virginia Mountaineer Guardian Awards for exemplary safety records achieved during calendar year 2012: Mingo Logan's Mountain Laurel Mountaineer II mine and Cardinal preparation plant; Coal-Mac's Holden 22 mine and preparation plant; and Wolf Run's Sentinel preparation plant.
• Three of Arch's operations received environmental awards from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.  Coal-Mac earned the National Wild Turkey Federation award for developing wildlife habitat and sponsoring a guided hunt in 2012; Wolf Run earned an award for innovative reclamation of its Reed Hollow refuse area through the use of short paper fiber; and Mountain Laurel earned statewide praise for developing an automated water treatment system within its Monclo permit area.

On Feb. 26 and 27, Mountain Coal Company's West Elk mine in Colorado earned two state awards for safety and environmental excellence.

• The Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety presented the 2012 Excellence in Safety Award on Feb. 27 to West Elk mine, the state's leader in safety among large underground coal mines.  This marks the fourth consecutive year that West Elk has been recognized as Colorado's safest underground coal mine.  West Elk's 350 employees have worked more than 580,000 employee-hours and produced 4.9 million tons of low-sulfur coal without incurring a single reportable injury, as classified by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration.
• West Elk was honored on Feb. 26 by the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment (CDPHE) as a Senior Participant with Special Recognition for Environmental Stewardship and Pollution Prevention.  The award recognized the mine's exemplary community outreach efforts.  The mine donated nearly 1,000 air monitoring tubes for local university education and training, provided used conveyor belting for fairgrounds' walkways and livestock pens and donated soda lime to reduce E. coli bacteria in livestock sheds.  West Elk also was praised for investing more than $2.2 million to drain, reclaim and establish sediment control on an area adjacent to the mine facility.  West Elk has operated for more than 13 years with perfect SMCRA environmental compliance.

U.S.-based Arch Coal, Inc. is one of the world's top coal producers for the global steel and power generation industries, serving customers in 25 countries on five continents.  Its network of mining complexes is the most diversified in the United States, spanning every major coal basin in the nation.  The company controls a 5.5-billion-ton reserve base of high-quality metallurgical and thermal coals, with access to all major railroads, inland waterways and a growing number of seaborne trade channels.  Mingo Logan Coal Company, Wolf Run Mining Company, Coal-Mac, Inc. and Mountain Coal Company, L.L.C. are subsidiaries of Arch Coal, Inc.

Forward-Looking Statements:  This press release contains "forward-looking statements" — that is, statements related to future, not past, events.  In this context, forward-looking statements often address our expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," or "will."  Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain.  For us, particular uncertainties arise from changes in the demand for our coal by the domestic electric generation industry; from legislation and regulations relating to the Clean Air Act and other environmental initiatives; from operational, geological, permit, labor and weather-related factors; from fluctuations in the amount of cash we generate from operations; from future integration of acquired businesses; and from numerous other matters of national, regional and global scale, including those of a political, economic, business, competitive or regulatory nature.  These uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements.  We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by law.  For a description of some of the risks and uncertainties that may affect our future results, you should see the risk factors described from time to time in the reports we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SOURCE Arch Coal, Inc.