Massey Energy Co history

A.T. Massey acquired its first mining operation in 1945 and expanded its business to include coal mining and processing.

According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, ATM acquired its first mine in West Virginia in 1949.

Morgan Massey's uncle became president of ATM in 1962, as the company continued to expand its mining interests.

In 1972, Morgan Massey, now 46 years old, took over as president of ATM. Two years later Massey, along with his brother and uncle, sold ATM to St Joe Minerals Corp. for 14 percent of St Joe stock, valued at approximately $56 million.

In 1974 ATM bought Rawl Sales & Processing Co.

In 1974 ATM bought Rawl Sales & Processing Co. It acquired the Tennessee Consolidated Coal Company in 1976.

ATM launched two businesses in 1978: Massey Coal Services and Elk Run Coal Company.

St Joe in 1980 sold half of ATM to an oil company, Royal Dutch/Shell Group, resulting in a new entity: Massey Coal Partnership.

In 1981, the Fluor Corporation acquired St Joe Minerals.

The ATM asset the UMW singled out for a strike beginning in the autumn of 1984 was the operation run by Blankenship: Rawls Sales & Processing Co.

A 1985 Business Week profile of Massey maintains that after he graduated from college and joined the family business he "asserted his independence by pushing to move the brokerage company into the profitable but troublesome mining business.

Fluor and Royal Dutch Shell dissolved the Massey Coal Partnership in 1987, with each entity assuming ownership of half of the operations.

While many rival coal companies abandoned the central Appalachian area, ATM, starting in 1988, began to snap up reserves at reasonable prices.

After running two more of ATM's mining operations since his strike-breaking days at Rawls Sales, Blankenship became ATM's president in July 1990.

In 1992, Don Blankenship was appointed President, Chairman and CEO of A.T. Massey Coal Company; he served as the Chairman and CEO of Massey for 18 years.

His bet on low-sulfur coal paid off, as demand rose and with it ATM's profits, making the company one of Fluor's crown jewels by 1997 when the engineering and construction side of the business suffered through difficult times.

The investigation, which began on the eve of the 2000 presidential election, had within a month begun to collect evidence that Spadaro’s team believed could prove negligence on the part of Martin County Coal.

To make matters worse, several months later, in June 2001, a pump in another ATM mine developed a leak and before it was shut down it allowed 30,000 gallons of sludge to pour into a nearby stream.

As explained by ATM CEO and Chairman Don Blankenship in a 2002 interview: "The general view was that small contractors could pay less because the union wouldn't focus on them.

Early in 2003 Massey lost $10 million in an arbitrated case with Duke Energy over a coal supply contract, then a few days later announced that its corporate financial filings were being reviewed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company was fined $2.5 million last year after pleading guilty to 10 criminal violations at its Aracoma Coal Co. mine in West Virginia, where two miners died in a 2006 fire.

As of 2010, Massey Energy produced, processed, and sold bituminous coal of steam and metallurgical grades, primarily of low sulfur content, through its 22 processing and shipping centers, called "resource groups," many of which received coal from multiple coal mines.

On June 1, 2011, shareholders of Alpha Natural Resources agreed to buy Massey Energy for $7.1 billion, making it the nation's largest metallurgical coal company.

Donald Blankenship Sentenced to a Year in Prison in Mine Safety CaseThe sentencing of the former chief executive of Massey Energy Company comes six years after an explosion tore through the Upper Big Branch mine, killing 29.By Alan BlinderApril 6, 2016