Road Fork 52 Mine

This article is part of the Global Coal Mine Tracker, a project of Global Energy Monitor.

Download full dataset

Report an error

Sub-articles:

Global coal mines Coal mines in China Coal mines in India Coal mines in the United States Coal mines in Australia Coal mines in Russia Coal mines in Indonesia

Related-articles:

Largest coal mines in the world Coal mine impacts from Covid-19 Environmental issues of coal Coal mining Coal reserves Coal terminals

Road Fork 52 Mine is an operating coal mine in Pineville, Wyoming County, West Virginia, United States.

Location

Table 1: Project-level location details

Mine Name	Location	Coordinates (WGS 84)
Road Fork 52 Mine	Julian, Wyoming County, West Virginia, United States	37.578056, -81.57 (exact)

The map below shows the exact location of the coal mine:

Project Details

Table 2: Project status

Status	Status Detail	Opening Year	Closing Year
Operating	–	2020	–

Table 3: Operation details

Note: The asterisk (*) signifies that the value is a GEM estimated figure.

Capacity (Mtpa)	Production (Mtpa)	Year of Production	Mine Type	Mining Method	Mine Size (km2)	Mine Depth (m)	Workforce Size
–	1.533142143	2025	Underground	–	–	373*	593

Table 4: Coal resources and destination

Total Reserves (Mt)	Year of Total Reserves Recorded	Total Resources (Mt)	Coalfield	Coal Type	Coal Grade	Primary Consumer/ Destination
22.1	2024	54.9	–	Bituminous	Met	–

Table 5: Ownership and parent company

Note: To access more comprehensive data on energy ownership, please visit the Global Energy Ownership Tracker.

Owner	Parent Company	Headquarters
Spartan Mining Company [100.0%]	Alpha Metallurgical Resources	USA

Table 6: Historical production (unit: million tonnes per annum)

ROM or Saleable	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
ROM	–	–	–	0.36	1.47	1.81	1.96	–	1.53

Reported Methane Emissions Data

Global Energy Monitor collates facility-scale methane emissions data reported by government and company sources collected in a systematic fashion. This mine is associated with the following methane emissions reports:

Table 7: Methane emissions

Reported Coal Mine Methane Emissions (thousand tonnes CO2 equivalent)	Reported Coal Mine Methane Emissions (thousand tonnes CH4)	Year of Reported Coal Mine Methane Emissions	Reported Coal Mine Methane Emissions (thousand tonnes) Reference	Reference type
0.6031599999999999	50.06228	2020	​	national government data

Note: The above sections were automatically generated and are based on data from the Global Coal Mine Tracker August 2026 release.

Reported Methane Emissions Data

Global Energy Monitor collates facility-scale methane emissions data reported by government and company sources collected in a systematic fashion. This mine is associated with the following methane emissions reports:

Table 7: Methane emissions

Reported Coal Mine Methane Emissions (thousand tonnes CO2 equivalent)	Reported Coal Mine Methane Emissions (thousand tonnes CH4)	Year of Reported Coal Mine Methane Emissions	Reported Coal Mine Methane Emissions (thousand tonnes) Reference	Reference type
0.603	50.062	2020	​	national government data

Note: The above sections were automatically generated and are based on data from the Global Coal Mine Tracker May 2026 release.

Ownership Tree

This ownership tree is part of the Global Energy Ownership Tracker, a project of Global Energy Monitor.

Coal Mine Boundaries and Methane Sources

Global Energy Monitor researchers have identified coal mine boundary/boundaries and potential sources of coal mine methane (CMM) for this mine. These research results can be used to drive CMM attribution and mitigation efforts, particularly when combined with remotely sensed methane plume locations and mine ownership data. Explore the results with the embedded map at the top of this page by clicking on the mine boundary polygon or the CMM placemarkers to reveal more details. A detailed description of this research can be found in Coal Mine Boundaries and Methane Sources. This data is also available as a downloadable companion dataset to the Global Coal Mine Tracker and the Global Methane Emitters Tracker.

Table SMP1: Coal mine boundaries and methane sources data

ID	Mine feature category	Mine feature subcategory	Description	Coordinates precision	Data source date
M3608.B1	mine boundary	underground	Road Fork 52 detailed underground mining boundary	extracted	Unclear - according to https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.wvgs.wvnet.edu/www/coal/cbmp/coalims.html, "Updates to the data set occur as new data becomes available."
M3608.P1	ventilation system	shaft	ventilation shaft	extracted	2020-10-06 00:00:00
M3608.P2	other	slope access or production shaft	production shaft	extracted	2020-10-06 00:00:00
M3608.P3	other	preparation plant	coal handling and preparation plant	extracted	2020-10-06 00:00:00
M3608.P4	ventilation system	vent	possible ventilation vent shaft	extracted	2015-10-18 00:00:00

Table SMP2: Coal mine boundaries and methane sources data (continued)

Coal mine boundaries and methane sources were last researched for this mine on Oct 13, 2025

ID	Notes
M3608.B1	The boundary is the complex underground mining area polygon extracted from the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey (WVGES) resource at https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://atlas.wvgs.wvnet.edu/arcgis/rest/services/Coal_Web_Mercator/All_Mining_WM/MapServer. This resource was filtered for mine_name = ROADFORK NO 52, and the resulting polygon was simplified using distance-based simplification with a tolerance of 25m. The area of this boundary is 5.5 sq km. The mine mines the Pocahontas_3 seam. Important note: the following mine boundaries overlap the mine boundary and care should be taken when attempting methane source attribution: NATIONAL POCAHONTAS (Pocahontas_3 seam), NO. 1 MINE (Sewell seam), SARAH K NO 2 (Sewell seam), WYOMING & MARIANNA MINES (Sewell seam), UNKNOWN (Sewell seam), ISLAND CREEK (Sewell seam), UNKNOWN (Sewell seam), UNKNOWN (Sewell seam), MIRACLE NO 2 (Sewell seam), MIRACLE NO 1 (Sewell seam)
M3608.P1	Identified visually from Google Earth Pro satellite imagery.
M3608.P2	Identified visually from Google Earth Pro satellite imagery.
M3608.P3	Identified visually from Google Earth Pro satellite imagery.
M3608.P4	Identified visually from Google Earth Pro satellite imagery.

Associated Coal Mine Methane Mitigation Projects

Some coal mines have installed infrastructure which can use and/or destroy some methane emissions associated with mining. In 2024, the Global Methane Initiative reported that this mine had a mitigation project associated with it. This methodology page describes how GEM classified these projects and linked them with coal mines in the Global Coal Mine Tracker.

Table MM1: Methane mitigation projects

Mitigation Project Name	Project Type	GMI Reported Status	GMI Reported Start Year
Road Fork #51 Mine Gas Sales to Pipeline - United States	utilization	Unknown	2008

Articles and Resources

Additional data

To access additional data, including an interactive map of world coal mines, a downloadable dataset, and summary data, please visit the Global Coal Mine Tracker on the Global Energy Monitor website.