Only One Coal Pit to Remain in Britain

The telegraph reported that Kellingley Colliery in Yorkshire and Thoresby Colliery in Nottinghamshire will close within the next year and a half as the mines are no longer commercially viable, leaving Hatfield Colliery in Ed Miliband’s Doncaster North constituency as the last remaining coal pit in Britain. Cheap imports of US shale gas have combined with a weak dollar to help make UK coal mines unprofitable.

As quoted in the publication:

Owner UK Coal is in talks with Government and the private sector to try to secure a bailout, understood to be worth close to £20m, to fund a so-called “managed” closure of the deep pits. If the talks fail, the pits will close imminently.

A bailout could also help save 700 jobs at UK Coal’s six remaining surface coal mines through a possible sale.