347 NEW JOBS FOR EMERY COUNTY
Brice Wallace
The revival of an underground coal mine in Emery County is expected to result in 347 new jobs and an investment of $286 million over five years.
Wolverine Fuels LLC, based in Sandy, plans to restart mining at the Fossil Rock development. It acquired the mine from PacifiCorp several years ago and has been studying its return to operations for the past five years, according to Marc Maglione, Wolverine’s chief financial officer. It currently is rehabilitating and developing the mine, he said.
“We are committed to safety, environmental stewardship and community engagement in all our operations, which makes Utah a great fit for our expansion,” Carson Pollatro, the company’s chief executive officer, said in a prepared statement.
Maglione discussed the project with the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity board, which awarded a tax credit of up to $8.9 million over five years for the project. He said the mine probably will have about 400 employees at full operation. The company has found employee recruitment to be a challenge, so it is going outside Utah to find the qualified, skilled workers it needs, he said.
Most of the coal the mine will produce will be used at PacifiCorp’s Hunter power generation plant. The mine’s expected life is 10 to 15 years, which coincides with that of the remaining years of the plant. “So, these assets will kind of roll off into the sunset together, if you will,” Maglione said.
Wolverine also operates the Skyline mine near Scofield and the Sufco mine in Sevier County, the latter producing coal since 1942, first as a room-and-pillar mine but as a longwall operation since 1985. Wolverine’s primary market for its high-BTU, low-sulfur coal is domestic utilities, although it also has coal shipped to Japan, and it also has industrial customers. GOEO documents indicate the company contributes approximately $220 million to state and federal revenues per year via payroll taxes, excise taxes, property tax payments, sales and use taxes and other contributions.
“Historically, given the quality specifications of Wolverine’s product, it has been able to blend with coal produced by other producers to create a saleable product which has enabled supply to utilities and industrial customers in Utah and abroad,” GOEO documents say.
The company has over 1,000 employees, of which 95 percent are in rural Utah.
“In terms of support roles, for every single role we create, our studies in the past have identified that we create a ratio of 3-to-1 to 5-to-1 extra roles within the community,” Maglione said, referring to truck drivers, vendors and workers who service equipment. “So, when we say we employ 1,000 people directly, there are probably about 4,000 to 5,000 involved in what we’re doing.”
“We’re excited about this project,” Jordan Leonard, an Emery County commissioner, told the GOEO board. “Carbon and Emery county have always been energy-based and want to support the state and other states with their energy production. … I think it’ll be a huge impact economically, not only with mineral lease monies but employment and other growth that might come from it.”
The state incentive is part of the Rural Economic Development Tax Increment Financing (REDTIF) program.
The project is expected to result in new total wages of nearly $334.7 million over five years and new state tax revenue of over $55.1 million during that time. The new jobs are expected to pay an average of $84,768.
“Utah’s rich resources make this a great place to welcome Wolverine Fuels’ expansion,” Ryan Starks, GOEO’s executive director, said in a prepared statement. “The company’s commitment to safety, sustainability, and community aligns well with the state’s supportive regulatory environment and skilled workforce. We’re especially pleased to see companies like Wolverine Fuels stimulating rural Utah’s economy.”