LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Wyoming: Coal
built 199 days ago
Wyoming’s mineral commodities include coal, natural gas, coalbed methane, crude oil, uranium, and trona. Wyoming ranks highest in mining employment in the U.S. In fiscal year 2002, Wyoming collected over $48 million in sales taxes from the mining industry.
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Once the tracks for the transcontinental railroad had been laid across Wyoming, coal mines opened to supply the locomotives with fuel. Many of the earliest mines were owned by the Union Pacific Railroad or its subsidiary company. Because of the vast land grants deeded to the railroad as alternate sections twenty miles in both directions from the tracks, the railroad became (and remains) the largest private landowner in Wyoming, with an initial holding estimated at approximately 4.1 million acres. Because of its landholdings and its historic control over coal mining, the railroad was a significant force in Wyoming politics well into the twentieth century.
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The Fort Union gas gathering system is located in the Powder River Basin and gathers coal bed methane gas from wells in northeast Wyoming, including the Big George coals. The expansion project will cost approximately $110 million and will occur in two phases: 240 MMcfd by Oct. 1, 2007, and 409 MMcfd by Jan. 1, 2008. This additional capacity has been fully subscribed for 10 years, beginning with the in-service date of the expansion.
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Mineral development, starting with coal in the 1860s, remains a significant part of Wyoming's economy. The state has led the nation in coal production every year since 1988, with most of the coal coming from surface strip mines in the Powder River Basin in northeastern Wyoming.
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