Feds grant Utah's largest coal producer a royalty discount worth up to $19 million

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Slashed royalty rates! Publicly-funded lawsuits! No tax payments, no problem!

A snapshot of how federal, state and local governments are subsidizing dirty #coal in Utah.

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Feds grant Utah’s largest coal producer a royalty discount worth up to $19 million for mining hard-to-reach deposits

By Brian Maffly

Published: 1 day ago
Updated: 22 hours ago

Utah’s largest coal mine is getting a fee discount worth up to $19 million after the Bureau of Land Management authorized a royalty reduction in recognition of unspecified difficulties the company faces in extracting certain deposits of coal.

The BLM quietly granted the reduction on March 6, lowering the standard 8 percent royalty rate to 5 percent on 15.1 million tons of coal extracted from the Sufco Mine on the Wasatch Plateau, where Utah’s Sevier, Sanpete and Emery counties come together.

The BLM decision, which represents a substantial loss of revenue that would otherwise go to local governments, cited “significant and unique adverse geologic conditions,” but gave no further explanation of why such a generous reduction is warranted, presumably to protect propriety information submitted by the mine’s owner, Bowie Resource Partners.

The rate reduction is retroactive to Nov. 1, 2017, and expires after six years, according to the decision notice BLM Utah state director Ed Roberson sent to Sufco general manager John Byars. The document was recently filed with the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining (DOGM), which oversees coal mining.
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