Lee Ranch Coal Mine

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Located near the town of Grants, Lee Ranch shipped nearly 6 million tons of coal last year, recovering coal from 26 seams that lace a 170-million-ton reserve from the San Juan Basin. The mine employs about 240 workers and annually injects more than $34 million into the New Mexico economy in royalties, taxes, wages and charitable contributions.

Opened in 1984 by Santa Fe Pacific Minerals to supply coal to Western Fuels Association and Tucson Electric Power under long-term contracts, other customers include Arizona Public Service and Arizona Electric Power Cooperative. Unit trains shift the coal to power plants in New Mexico and Arizona. Lee Ranch mine owns or controls approximately 144 million tons of recoverable low sulfur coal reserves.

A workforce of approximately 30 uses a combination of dragline, and truck and shovel for overburden removal to uncover between three and five coal seams ranging from one- to six-feet thick. Coal loading is done by front-end loaders. The coal is hauled from the pit by truck to the processing plant for sizing, sampling, analysis and blending to customer specifications. The trains are loaded from three 15,000-ton silos. A 60-inch belt conveyor delivers the coal from the silos to a batch weighing system that loads each car to capacity. It takes approximately four hours to load a 100-plus car unit train.

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