Three hundred miners and other workers are being laid off in Montana and Wyoming--including at Navajo operations--as the struggling western U.S. coal industry contends with diminished electricity use during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Navajo Transitional Energy Company says 73 workers at the Spring Creek mine in southeastern Montana and 57 at the Antelope mine in northeastern Wyoming are losing their jobs.
St. Louis-based Peabody Energy meanwhile announced Thursday it is laying off 170 workers at Wyoming’s largest coal mine, North Antelope Rochelle.
Both companies cited economic conditions and declining coal demand.
NTEC, a Navajo Nation company, acquired its two mines from Gillette-based Cloud Peak Energy last year in a bankruptcy sale.
