Britain's coal-mining industry turns to open-cast

By David Jones

ABERDARE, Wales (Reuter): Britain's battered coal industry is turning to open-cast sites and away from less economic deep mines as the industry faces heightened competition in the run-up to privatization.

As the number of British collieries dwindles because of geological problems and high cost, state-owned British Coal is hitting on a rich seam of low-cost fuel from vast open sites where excavators chew up the earth to uncover the "black gold".

But in the coalfields where generations have grown up against a backdrop of pit heads and colliery slag heaps, local inhabitants are protesting against the noise and dirt and the spoiling of the countryside from open-cast sites.

The contrast is clear at the condemned Tower colliery at the head of the Cynon Valley, near Aberdare, in South Wales. While the pit is set to close by mid-April, ending deep mining in the Welsh coalfield, the adjacent open-cast coal site is thriving.

When the 250 Tower miners emerged from underground to hear of the pit's closure plans in early April, they could see an array of excavators and trucks removing coal more easily and quickly than the underground workings.

"Open-cast mining may produce a lot of employment, but it's devastating the countryside," said opposition Labor Party local member of parliament Ann Clwyd, who is also a junior party spokesman on employment.

Clwyd adds that local inhabitants are now more environmentally conscious, and the reward of cheaper coal is little recompense for the extra noise, dirt and damage to the surrounding area.

The tightly-knit old mining communities suffered from a number of human tragedies in the past, such as the Aberfan disaster of 1966 when a slag heap engulfed a school, killing 116 children and 28 adults, in a neighboring valley to Cynon.

Now they have seen the slag heaps removed and the scars of the industry's past covered over, but many in the South Wales valleys do not want heavily-laden coal trucks driving through their narrow streets.

British Coal admits there is considerable environmental disruption from the large earth-moving process, but these sites are usually derelict areas and the coal industry does restore them back to either farmland or local amenity sites.

The economics of British Coal's 40 open-cast sites compared with its 16 deep pits are clear. They produce 20 percent of total output but a third of profits, and while open-cast output has been stable over the last decade, deep-mined coal production has halved.

"Open-cast coal is inherently a lot cheaper compared to deep mines with their need for specialized equipment," said British Coal spokesman Keith Beeston.

He added that British Coal is competitive with world coal prices and it supplies the bulk of coal to the power generators. The real competition has come from generators switching to gas- fired power stations, Beeston added.

British Coal sells more than 85 percent of its 76.7 million tons of annual coal production to the generators, but at the beginning of April Britain's two largest generators cut their annual needs by a quarter to 30 million tons.

Some dispute British Coal arguments. Tower pit mining union leader Tyrone O'Sullivan claims Tower coal is cheaper than many open-cast sites, and says the real reason for the pit's closure is the drive to privatization.

The British government hopes to set up an administrative body for the coal industry around mid-year, and then start offering pits to the private sector by the end of 1994.

Mining union leaders believe the massive slimming down of the coal industry is intended to leave mass-production pits and huge open-cast sites as a more attractive proposition for the private sector to buy.

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