MINE DETAILS
Superior Surface Mine
MSHA MINE ID4608838
LOCATION
Mine location
1 of 1 mine with usable MSHA coordinates. Select a marker to open a mine.
Mine coordinates
- Superior Surface Mine37.72861, -81.97722Open map ↗
Quarterly trends
2025 Q1 – 2026 Q4
Database snapshot · 2026-10-13. MSHA quarterly production and employment reports.
Coal production
0reported short tons
Hours worked
112reported employee hours
Tons per hour
0.00production ÷ hours worked
Missing values appear as —. Totals use available reports. Tons per hour requires production and hours for the same quarters and a nonzero hours total. * Striped bars mark partial mine coverage or an incomplete quarter. See the table for coverage.
Quarterly data and reporting coverage
| Quarter | Coal (short tons) | Hours worked | Tons / hour | Avg. employees | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 Q1 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 1/1 mines reporting |
| 2025 Q2 | 0 | 10 | 0.00 | 1 | 1/1 mines reporting |
| 2025 Q3 | 0 | 90 | 0.00 | 1 | 1/1 mines reporting |
| 2025 Q4 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 1/1 mines reporting |
| 2026 Q1 | 0 | 12 | 0.00 | 1 | 1/1 mines reporting |
| 2026 Q2 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 1/1 mines reporting |
| 2026 Q3 | — | — | — | — | No report |
| 2026 Q4 | — | — | — | — | No report |
Safety and enforcement
2025-01-01 – 2026-10-13
Violations
60 significant & substantial (S&S)
Accident records
00 records classified as fatality
Proposed penalties · USD
964.006 of 6 violations with amounts
On-site inspection hours
48.509 inspections · 9 with hours
Counts are published records, including contractor records. * The quarter was incomplete at the snapshot date; recent counts may rise as reports arrive. — means no reported amount or hours. Portfolio totals use current membership.
Quarterly safety data
| Quarter | Violations | S&S | Proposed USD | Accident records | Fatality records | Inspections | On-site hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-Q1 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1.0 |
| 2025-Q2 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | 1 | 7.5 |
| 2025-Q3 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2025-Q4 | 5 | 0 | 813.00 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 20.8 |
| 2026-Q1 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3.5 |
| 2026-Q2 | 1 | 0 | 151.00 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 10.8 |
| 2026-Q3 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2026-Q4 * | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5.0 |
Most cited CFR sections
All violations issued in the selected period. Counts combine subsections.
Safety activity
Health Technical Investigation · 5.0 on-site hours
77.1713(a) · $151.00 proposed
Regular Safety and Health Inspection · 10.8 on-site hours
Impoundment Spot Inspection · 1.5 on-site hours
Impoundment Spot Inspection · 2.0 on-site hours
Spot Inspection · 3.0 on-site hours
Impoundment Spot Inspection · 2.5 on-site hours
77.216-4(a) · $151.00 proposed
77.216(d) · $151.00 proposed
71.209(a) · $151.00 proposed
77.410(c) · $209.00 proposed
77.502 · $151.00 proposed
Regular Safety and Health Inspection · 15.3 on-site hours
Regular Safety and Health Inspection · 7.5 on-site hours
Impoundment Spot Inspection · 1.0 on-site hours
Safety sources and definitions
MSHA Violations (issue date), Accidents (accident date), and Inspections (begin date). Snapshot 2026-10-13.
Counts describe published rows, including contractor records; accident records are not distinct incidents or numbers of people injured.
Zero means no matching records in the imported sources, not proof of no events. Historical coverage differs by source; absence before a source begins reporting is not a zero incident rate. Invalid or absent dates and records after the snapshot are excluded.
S&S means SIG_SUB=Y. Fatality records use DEGREE_INJURY_CD=01. Proposed penalties are not final assessed or paid amounts; missing dollar values are omitted.
Inspection hours are SUM_TOTAL_ON_SITE_HOURS attributed to the inspection start date, without supervisor/trainee hours. Missing hours are omitted; a started inspection may still be open.
Portfolio totals use current mine membership, including events before the current owner or operator's tenure.
CFR headings link to the current Title 30 index; they are not historical legal determinations.
EIA-923 · COAL RECEIPTS
Coal shipments and quality
Receipts reported by power plants and terminals, matched by MSHA mine ID.
No receipts matched this mine in the selected period. EIA-923 does not cover all mine sales, exports or metallurgical coal shipments.
Delivered cost includes transport and is not mine revenue. Missing prices remain blank. * Fewer than three months are published in the selected quarter. Receipts reflect the months EIA has published; an unfinished quarter is not comparable with a full quarter. Portfolio matches use current ownership.
Coverage, sources and calculations
- Reported coal receipts at EIA-923 power plants/terminals; this is not a census of mine shipments, exports or metallurgical sales.
- Matches use only the published MSHA ID, normalized to seven digits. Unidentified mine origins remain in the source table but are not assigned to a mine.
- Portfolio attribution uses current MSHA ownership, not ownership at the shipment date. Receipts and production can differ because of timing, stocks and coverage.
- Quality means are weighted by positive reported tons with that measurement. Delivered cost uses only rows with published cost, positive heat and positive tons; missing/withheld costs are never zero-filled.
- USD/ton = (cents/MMBtu ÷ 100) × MMBtu/ton. This is plant delivered cost, not mine sales price or revenue.
- Receipt month is as published, including records supplied by annual respondents. Recent months are preliminary and subject to revision. Missing rows do not prove zero shipments.
Imported releases start 2008-01. This window includes 12 published months. EIA releases · Survey instructions
- 2026 · preliminary · EIA923_Schedules_2_3_4_5_M_07_2026_21SEP2026.xlsx · Page 5 Fuel Receipts and Costs
- 2025 · final · EIA923_Schedules_2_3_4_5_M_12_2025_Final.xlsx · Page 5 Fuel Receipts and Costs
EIA ANNUAL COAL REPORT · 2024
Coal prices and estimated revenue
Annual county prices and a production-based allocation of county coal sales.
The estimate assumes each eligible mine receives its county-average price and shares county sales in proportion to production. Actual sales and prices can differ substantially. Unavailable estimates are excluded; this is not a total for the whole portfolio. 1 current coal members have no matching annual record; their coverage is unknown. Annual price data uses a separate window from the MSHA charts.
| Mine / county | Annual production · tons | County FOB · USD/ton | Est. sales · tons | Est. coal revenue · USD | Basis / availability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Superior Surface Mine4608838 · Location unavailable | — | — | — | — | No matching annual production record |
Method, assumptions and source records
- This is an annual county-sales allocation, not reported mine or company revenue. Currency is nominal USD in the source year; quantities are short tons.
- Mine share = same-year annual mine production / eligible same-county production. Estimated sales = published county sales × share. Estimated coal revenue = estimated sales × published county average FOB price.
- The model assumes eligible mines share county sales in proportion to production and receive the county-average price. Matching mine counts is a check, not proof of identical respondents. Mine quality, contracts and sales timing can differ substantially. No statistical confidence interval is implied.
- FOB excludes transport and insurance. EIA-923 delivered costs do not enter this model. No grade premium, state/national fallback, quarterly apportionment or carry-forward to a later year is applied.
- Eligibility follows the source's production threshold and excludes preparation-only and refuse operations. Withheld values, inconsistent county counts and missing/ambiguous locations produce no estimate.
- County sales are published in thousands of tons and prices to cents. Calculations retain precision, but the inputs are rounded and the allocation is approximate.
- Portfolio attribution uses current MSHA ownership, not ownership during the sales year. Covered-mine sums exclude unavailable estimates and must not be read as whole-company revenue. Coverage denominators use the annual EIA mine-production release.
Sales-reporting threshold: 50,000 short tons per mine in 2024. Withheld sales or prices stay unavailable.
EIA Table 30 · county sales and FOB prices · EIA annual mine production · Release index
Annual report released November 19, 2025. Method: county-sales-allocation-v1. JSON and CSV preserve source row numbers and file checksums.
OWNERSHIP
Operator and controller history
Current ownership comes from MSHA Mines. Historical start and end dates come from MSHA Controller and Operator History.
—
John Mitch PottercontrolsCoal Mac, LLCoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838—
Ashland Inc et alcontrolsCoal Mac, LLCoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838—
Arch Resources InccontrolsCoal Mac, LLCoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838—
Alpha Metallurgical Resources InccontrolsRoad Fork Development CompanyoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838—
Alpha Metallurgical Resources InccontrolsAlex Energy IncoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838—
Alpha Metallurgical Resources InccontrolsHighland Mining CompanyoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838—
Lexington Coal Holdings, InccontrolsLexington Coal Company, LLCoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838—
Alpha Natural Resources Holdings, InccontrolsRoad Fork Development CompanyoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838—
Alpha Natural Resources Holdings, InccontrolsAlex Energy IncoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838—
Alpha Natural Resources Holdings, InccontrolsHighland Mining CompanyoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838—
Alpha Natural Resources, Inc.controlsHighland Mining CompanyoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838—
Massey Energy CompanycontrolsHighland Mining CompanyoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838—
Alpha Natural Resources, Inc.controlsWhite Flame Energy IncoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838—
Donald NicewondercontrolsWhite Flame Energy IncoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838—
Alpha Natural Resources, Inc.controlsRoad Fork Development CompanyoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838—
Alpha Natural Resources, Inc.controlsAlex Energy IncoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838—
Massey Energy CompanycontrolsAlex Energy IncoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838—
Massey Energy CompanycontrolsRoad Fork Development CompanyoperatesSuperior Surface Mine
msha-controller-operator-history · controller/operator co-tenure derived on mine 4608838Other historical summaries · source-specific periods
RECORD SUMMARY
Production, safety and enforcement
These summaries use the periods stated on each card, independently of the reporting period above.
01 / SAFETYwatch
Accidents and injuries
35 historical accident/injury rows; 0 coded fatalities and 1,079 lost days across the published record.
ACCIDENT + INJURY RECORD1 since 2021
accidentsmine-production-quarterly02 / COMPLIANCEwatch
Violations and penalties
390 violation rows across the full record; 160 carry an S&S flag and $391,314 appears in current assessed amounts.
ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY36 since 2021
inspectionsviolationsassessed-violationsorders-107a03 / HEALTHwatch
Occupational health samples
201 coal dust; 13 coal quartz; 52 noise. 0 personal-sample rows have a published C/E ratio above 1; 2 noise rows have an action-level or PEL dose above 100%. These are separate measures, not a silica exceedance count. Silica results and sample status are shown separately.
OCCUPATIONAL EXPOSURE266 samples
coal-dust-samplesquartz-samplesnoise-samples04 / PRODUCTIONcontext
Quarterly production and employment
0 employee hours and 0 summed average employees across reported subunits in the latest published quarter.
2026-Q20 tons
mine-production-quarterlymine-production-yearly05 / LEGALwatch
Contests, conferences and decisions
81 contested-violation rows, 81 civil-penalty docket/decision rows, and 19 conference records linked by issuance number.
POST-ISSUANCE LIFECYCLE181 linked rows
conferencescontested-violationscivil-penalty-dockets-decisions06 / CONTRACTORScontext
Contractors
Contractors are linked through this mine’s violation or accident records. Their production and hours cover all their operations, so they are not included in this mine’s totals.
ENTITY-LEVEL CONTEXT21 linked entities
contractor-production-quarterlycontractor-production-yearlyaccidentsviolations07 / INSPECTIONScontext
Inspections
120 inspection events and 3K published inspection hours across the historical record.
OVERSIGHT COVERAGE28 since 2021
inspectionsviolationsHEALTH SAMPLING
Silica and quartz
Coal quartz, metal/nonmetal personal samples and area samples. Snapshot Oct 13, 2026. 13 silica records across the mine’s published history.
Coal quartz concentration
Quarterly mean · µg/m³ · not-voided samples
— No eligible measurements. * Quarter in progress. Means describe the available samples, not average exposure across the mine.
Quartz % is the sample’s quartz content; µg/m³ is its reported concentration. Personal C/E is the ratio to the limit published with that sample. Personal and area concentration units and void status are not specified in those source files.
| Date / sample | Dataset / analyte | Occupation / area | Measurement | Sample status | Published action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No silica records match these filters. Missing samples do not establish safe conditions. | |||||
Sources and interpretation
- Coal means use numeric concentrations from samples marked not voided, excluding control/invalid sample types and dates after the snapshot. Missing values remain null; reported zeroes remain zero.
- Quarterly means describe available samples, not mine-wide or worker-average exposure. Quarters with no eligible measurements remain empty; the current quarter is partial.
- Personal C/E is MSHA's published concentration-to-limit ratio. A value above 1 is not by itself a citation or a determination under the 2024 silica rule. Personal and area files do not publish a void-status field.
- Area records include bulk-dust analyses and are kept separate from personal exposure results. Their concentration units are not specified in the source dictionary.
- Missing samples do not establish safe conditions. Coal quartz percentage and concentration are separate measures. No compliance threshold is inferred for coal samples.
Coal quartz field definitions ↗Metal/nonmetal personal field definitions ↗Metal/nonmetal area field definitions ↗
EIA + TITLE 30
EIA production and cited regulations
EIA annual figures are reported separately from MSHA. Regulation links use the current eCFR snapshot.
Not present in the 2024 EIA coal workbook.
This can mean the operation is non-coal, inactive for the annual period, or outside the EIA-7A reporting population.
30 CFR 77.1713Daily inspection of surface coal mine; certified person; reports of inspection.1 recent row ↗30 CFR 77.216-4Water, sediment or slurry impoundments and impounding structures; reporting requirements; certification.1 recent row ↗30 CFR 77.216Water, sediment, or slurry impoundments and impounding structures; general.1 recent row ↗30 CFR 71.209Status change reports.2 recent rows ↗30 CFR 77.410Mobile equipment; automatic warning devices.1 recent row ↗30 CFR 77.502Electric equipment; examination, testing, and maintenance.1 recent row ↗30 CFR 77.208Storage of materials.2 recent rows ↗30 CFR 77.200Surface installations; general.1 recent row ↗
RECENT PUBLIC RECORDS
Recent violations and samples
Latest records retained for inspection; aggregates above use the full source history.
513363477.1713(a)Citation
984345577.216-4(a)Citation
984345477.216(d)Citation
518603871.209(a)Citation
518603777.410(c)Citation
518603677.502Citation
956517571.209(a)Citation
956516777.208(d)Citation
Coal dust, noise and other contaminants. Silica records above ↑
Coal dustBULLDOZER OPERATOR
.037 mg/m³Not voided
Coal dustHIGHWALL DRILL OPERATOR
.068 mg/m³Not voided
Coal dustBULLDOZER OPERATOR
.262 mg/m³Not voided
Coal dustBULLDOZER OPERATOR
.137 mg/m³Not voided
Coal dustHIGHWALL DRILL OPERATOR
.07 mg/m³Not voided
Coal dustREFUSE TRUCK DRIVER/BACKFILL TRUCK DRIVE
.425 mg/m³Not voided
Coal dustREFUSE TRUCK DRIVER/BACKFILL TRUCK DRIVE
.077 mg/m³Not voided
Coal dustHIGHWALL DRILL OPERATOR
5.865 mg/m³Voided · INVALID OR MISSING TIME
SOURCE COVERAGE
Reporting dates and coverage
17 datasets contain linked records. Missing datasets are listed below.
DATASETROWSWINDOWSTATUS
Accident, Injuries, and Illnessessafety · contractors35Apr 22, 2004—Oct 12, 2021mine-keyed
Addresses of Recordidentity · logistics1Nov 15, 2021—Nov 15, 2021mine-keyed
Assessed Violationscompliance · legal386Mar 15, 2004—Apr 23, 2026mine-keyed
Civil Penalty Dockets and Decisionscompliance · legal81Jan 7, 2009—Oct 26, 2015mine-keyed
Coal Dust Sampleshealth · safety201Sep 23, 2004—Sep 28, 2026mine-keyed
Conferencescompliance · legal19Feb 8, 2007—Jun 21, 2018mine-keyed
Contested Violationscompliance · legal81Feb 1, 2007—Jan 23, 2014mine-keyed
Contractor Employment and Production — Quarterlycontractors · production · safety2,805Not published—Not publishedentity-linked
Contractor Employment and Production — Yearlycontractors · production · safety561Not published—Not publishedentity-linked
Controller and Operator Historyidentity · compliance18Jul 1, 2000—Jul 23, 2024mine-keyed
Mine Employment and Production — Quarterlyproduction · safety · compliance215Not published—Not publishedmine-keyed
Mine Employment and Production — Yearlyproduction · safety · compliance38Not published—Not publishedmine-keyed
Inspectionssafety · compliance120Feb 13, 2004—Oct 7, 2026mine-keyed
Minesidentity · production · logistics1Not published—Not publishedmine-keyed
Metal and Nonmetal Area Sampleshealth · safety—No published rowsabsent / not applicable
Metal and Nonmetal Personal Health Sampleshealth · safety—No published rowsabsent / not applicable
Noise Sampleshealth · safety · equipment52Jun 16, 2005—Jul 8, 2021mine-keyed
Quartz Samples — Coalhealth · safety13Feb 16, 2005—Nov 17, 2020mine-keyed
Violationscompliance · safety · legal390Mar 15, 2004—Apr 23, 2026mine-keyed
107(a) Orders Issuedsafety · compliance—No published rowsabsent / not applicable
NOTES
Limitations
- Contractor production is entity-level and is never represented as mine-attributable.
- Missing rows can mean no event, publication delay, identity mismatch, or inapplicability.