Press Release
Salt Lake City, Utah—The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will conduct a Competitive Coal Lease Sale for a tract of Federal coal in Sanpete and Sevier Counties, Utah. The tract is located approximately 10.5 miles west of Emery, Utah, under lands managed by the Manti-La Sal and Fishlake National Forests. The Federal coal tract, known as the Greens Hollow Tract, is located in in the Wasatch Plateau Known Recoverable Coal Resource Area.
The 6,175-acre tract contains approximately 55.7 million tons of recoverable coal adjacent to and northwest of the existing SUFCO Mine. That mine is operated by Canyon Fuels, LLC, a subsidiary of Bowie Resource Partners, LLC. The BLM intends to offer the tract to the highest qualified bidder at a competitive coal lease sale being held at 1 p.m. MDT on September 22, 2016. The sale will be conducted using sealed bids as outlined below. Contact the BLM-Utah State Office, Public Room, 440 West 200 South, Suite 500, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84101 or (801) 539-4000 for the sale location.
This sale is consistent with Secretarial Order 3338, which exempted from its leasing pause lease sales being held in connection with pending applications “for which the environmental analysis under NEPA has been completed and a Record of Decision or Decision Record has been issued by the BLM or the applicable Federal surface management agency” prior to the date of the Order. Here, the NEPA analysis was completed in February 2015 and the U.S. Forest Service issued its Record of Decision consenting to the sale of the tract on October 5, 2015. A Federal Register Notice of the BLM’s decision authorizing the lease sale will be published next week.
Sealed bids must be sent by certified mail to the Collections Officer, BLM Utah State office, return receipt requested, or be hand-delivered to the public room Contact Representatives, BLM Utah State Office on or before 10:00 a.m. MDT on the day of the sale—September 22, 2016. Any bid received after the time specified above will not be considered and will be returned. The outside of the sealed envelope containing the bid must clearly state that the envelope contains a bid for Coal Lease Sale UTU-84102 and is not to be opened before the date and hour of the sale.
Once a coal lease is issued, an annual rental payment of $3 per acre is required, along with a royalty payment of eight percent of the value of coal produced by underground mining methods. The Greens Hollow Tract will be mined using underground methods. For more information or to obtain further bidding instructions, please contact Jeff McKenzie at (801) 539-4038.
The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land, the most of any Federal agency. This land, known as the National System of Public Lands, is primarily located in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. The BLM’s mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America’s public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. In Fiscal Year 2015, the BLM generated $4.1 billion in receipts from activities occurring on public lands.