San Juan Mine 1

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San Juan Mine 1 is a mothballed coal mine in San Juan County, New Mexico, United States.

Location

Table 1: Project-level location details

Mine Name	Location	Coordinates (WGS 84)
San Juan Mine 1	San Juan County, New Mexico, United States	36.8, -108.43 (exact)

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

Loading map...

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Project Details

Table 2: Project status

Status	Status Detail	Opening Year	Closing Year
Mothballed	–	1997	–

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
16	0	2024	Surface	–	–	373.0*	140

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
10.0	–	–	Other Western	Bituminous	–	–

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
Westmoreland San Juan Mining LLC [100%]	Westmoreland Coal Co [100.0%]	USA

Note: The above section was automatically generated and is based on data from the Global Coal Mine Tracker May 2025 release.

Ownership Tree

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

Background

San Juan coal mine supplies the San Juan Generating Station in located 25 kilometers west of Farmington, New Mexico, United States. The mine is operated by San Juan Coal Company, a subsidiary of New Mexico Coal, which in turn is wholly owned by BHP Billiton. It produces close to 7 million short tons of coal annually. It was created to replace the San Juan and La Plata surface mines.

BHP Billiton states that the mine, which employs 576 people, "consists of an underground mine accessed via the high wall of the now closed open cut mine ... The underground mine is a single longwall operation. Reclamation of the closed surface mines will continue for three years."

In May 2015 BHP Billiton said it had a tentative agreement to sell the San Juan Mine to Colorado-based Westmoreland Coal Company by the end of the year. BHP's agreement to supply coal to the San Juan Generating Station expires in 2017. The in-principle "Coal Supply Agreement" with Westmoreland would expire in 2022.

• Owner: San Juan Coal Company
• Parent company: Westmoreland Coal
• Location: 25 km west of Farmington, New Mexico
• GPS coordinates: 36.801262 N, 108.431025 W
• Annual Production: 6,898,040 short tons
• Reserves: 10.38 million tonnes (Proven and Probable, 2017)
• Type of coal:
• Mine type: underground
• Equipment:
• Number of employees: 576

CO2 emisisons

The San Juan Mine released more than 600,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent in 2012, according to EPA records.

Under new guidelines released in 2010, mines that release more than 100,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide equivalent are required to obtain a Clean Air Act Title V permit. The permit also requires them to disclose various air pollution releases.

A reporting permit was issued in December 2013 to BHP Billiton for the mine - among the first ever proposed for a coal mine. The permit does not currently require any controls in emissions, but offers more transparency and greater scrutiny of mine releases, and helps environmental groups ensure company compliance with the Clean Air Act.

Fire

On September 10, 2011 an underground fire broke out in the San Juan Mine, at which point the mine was evacuated by miners. BHP Billiton believed they had was attempting to confirm that an underground coal fire that began three days earlier at San Juan Mine was extinguished.

"We are progressing in a methodical and cautious manner," Norman Benally, BHP Billiton New Mexico Coal spokesman, said in a prepared statement. Nobody was injured during the fire.

Water contamination

In December 2009, the Sierra Club issued notice of their intent to sue San Juan Coal Company for contaminating the groundwater near the San Juan mine. The Sierra Club alleges that more than 40 million tons of coal ash and sludge have been illegally dumped into unlined pits, resulting in contamination of nearby waterways and wells.

Methane emissions

In 2022, emissions monitoring company GHGSat observed methane emissions near the mine "spewing at a rate of 440.4 kilograms per hour." The mine owner, Westmoreland, did not respond to reports.

Methane Plumes Detected Nearby

Global Energy Monitor researchers analyze satellite-detected methane plumes in order to determine whether they have been observed at or near the site of GEM energy assets. CarbonMapper provides satellite imagery of individual methane plumes and estimates their emission rates at the time of observation. GEM has reviewed many of these plume detections against Google Earth imagery and GEM’s own energy infrastructure tracker data. (A full description of the analysis process is available in the Global Methane Emitters Tracker methodology wiki page.) The following table lists methane plumes which were observed within the footprint of the energy asset or facility (or, in the case of oil and gas extraction areas, within 10 meters of a well).

Table M1: Plume Details

For additional details on this individual plume identification and others, see the Global Methane Emitters Tracker.

Observation date	Satellite data provider	Location of plume origin	Methane emissions rate	Additional plume information
2020-08-04 17:14:01	CarbonMapper, GAO20200804t171401p0000-A	36.792565, -108.388968	345.0369395 kg/hr	New Mexico Methane Observation 2020-08-04, 1
2022-03-23 18:47:23	CarbonMapper, ang20220323t184723-A	36.792961, -108.389035	165.1700403 kg/hr	New Mexico Methane Observation 2022-03-23, 2
2022-03-23 19:04:01	CarbonMapper, ang20220323t190401-A	36.79295, -108.389	472.1054 kg/hr	New Mexico Methane Observation 2022-03-23, 3
2022-03-25 17:39:25	CarbonMapper, ang20220325t173925-A	36.793308, -108.389105	219.0224808 kg/hr	New Mexico Methane Observation 2022-03-25, 1
2022-05-01 16:32:31	CarbonMapper, ang20220501t163231-A	36.792667, -108.389029	891.6221753 kg/hr	New Mexico Methane Observation 2022-05-01, 9
2022-05-02 17:05:37	CarbonMapper, ang20220502t170537-A	36.792583, -108.388953	533.5202298 kg/hr	New Mexico Methane Observation 2022-05-02, 1

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.