Skip to main content


Company bids less than a penny per ton in biggest US coal sale in over a decade


A Navajo tribe-owned company bid $186,000 to lease 167 million tons of coal on federal lands in southeastern Montana on Monday in the biggest U.S. coal sale in more than a decade.

The offer from the Navajo Transitional Energy Co. (NTEC) equates to one-tenth of a penny per ton, underscoring coal’s diminished value even as President Donald Trump pushes to mine and burn more of the heavily polluting fuel.

Federal officials did not immediately say if they would accept the offer. It was the only bid received. Two NTEC representatives attended the sale at the Bureau of Land Management local office in Billings, Montana. They declined to comment after it was over.

At the last successful government lease sale in the region, a subsidiary of Peabody Energy paid $793 million, or $1.10 per ton, for 721 million tons of coal in Wyoming.


https://apnews.com/article/trump-coal-sales-public-lands-montana-b2dbbdc81e7afbf24947b9a4b32fa417

backup: https://archive.ph/ogKHG

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.

in reply to Lisa Stranger

Maybe this is hopium, but wondering if they bid so they could just let the land be.
in reply to Lisa Stranger

That's my guess as well.

I also guess they'll get treated like debt jubilee buyers, and frozen out of the market because they want to make a purchase at market price for non-dastardly purposes 😒