Aug 1, 2013 2 min read

An above-ground coal conveyor belt system that feeds Consol Energy Inc.’s Bailey Preparation Plant in Greene County collapsed again Tuesday, exactly one year to the day as a previous failure on the same system.

Production at Bailey and Enlow Fork mines was immediately halted, although Consol officials do not expect this week’s partial collapse of the conveyor belt system to take as long to fix as it did last year.

Consol spokeswoman Lynn Seay said the malfunction happened near the preparation plant within the system of conveyor belts that carry coal from the mine to the trains for delivery.

No mine workers were injured in the incident and operations were immediately stopped, Seay said. The incident idled the longwall mining production at both mines, but the continuous miner units inside Bailey and Enlow Fork continue to operate, she said.

The company expects to complete an engineering assessment on the belt system by the weekend and hopes to resume production at both mines by Aug. 12. Seay said Workers are still investigating what caused the failure.

Company officials think they will be able to make repairs faster than in 2012, when the conveyor system collapsed in the same area and caused lengthy and costly delays in production. The company did not resume full production at the two mines for more than a month while it rebuilt the conveyor system.