PITTSBURGH, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CONSOL Energy Inc. has acquired Tri-River Fleeting Harbor Services, Inc., and Tri-River Marine, Inc.
Terms of the purchase were not disclosed, and the deal was closed on October 3. With the arrangement, CONSOL Energy acquires control of eight towboats that operate along the Monongahela and Ohio rivers.
"The addition of eight additional vessels through this acquisition will increase our efficiency and expand our fleeting services for our traditional customers along the Upper Ohio River System," said James C. Grech, senior vice president - CONSOL Energy Sales Company. "It will also enable CONSOL to take advantage of Tri-River's current market of transporting aggregates and materials other than coal to a new customer base.
"CONSOL Energy's more than 125 years of experience along the inland rivers dovetails nicely with the successful operations of Tri-River's assets, especially when you include our purchase of Mon River and J.A.R. assets from the Guttman Group in 2006."
With the Tri-River acquisition, CONSOL Energy adds 60 new employees and increases its fleet of towboats to 27 vessels. With the purchase, no additional barges were added to CONSOL's current fleet of 650 barges.
"One synergy evident with the purchase is that Tri-River has experience transporting limestone used for scrubbers at power plants burning coal to generate electricity," said Grech. "As more such scrubber units come online in the next few years, that experience will be beneficial to CONSOL in terms of our existing and new markets."
During 2006, CONSOL Energy, through its river operations, transported 24.5 million tons of coal and other commodities, including 11.1 million tons of coal produced by company mines, to various customers, making CONSOL Energy a significant shipper along the inland waterways in southwestern Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia.
CONSOL Energy Inc., a high-Btu bituminous coal and coal bed methane company, is a member of the Standard & Poor's 500 Equity Index and has annual revenues of $3.7 billion. It has 20 bituminous coal mining complexes in six states and reports proven and probable coal reserves of 4.5 billion tons. In addition, the company is a majority shareholder in one of the largest U.S. producers of coalbed methane gas, CNX Gas Corporation. CONSOL Energy was named one of America's most admired companies in 2005 by Fortune magazine. It received the U.S. Department of the Interior's Office of Surface Mining National Award for Excellence in Surface Mining for the company's innovative reclamation practices in 2002, 2003 and 2004.
Also in 2003, the company was listed in Information Week magazine's "Information Week 500" list for its information technology operations. In 2002, the company received a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Climate Protection Award. Additional information about the company can be found at its web site: http://www.consolenergy.com/.
For purposes of this press release, references to "CONSOL Energy," the "company," "we," "our," or "us" or similar words (other than the legal names of companies) shall include CONSOL Energy Inc. and its respective subsidiaries.
Forward-Looking Statements
Various statements in this document, including those that express a belief, expectation, or intention, as well as those that are not statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements (as defined in Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995). The forward-looking statements may include projections and estimates concerning the timing and success of specific projects and our future production, revenues, income and capital spending. When we use the words "believe," "intend," "expect," "may," "should," "anticipate," "could," "would," "will," "estimate," "plan," "predict," "project," or their negatives, or other similar expressions, the statements which include those words are usually forward-looking statements. When we describe strategy that involves risks or uncertainties, we are making forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this document speak only as of the date of this document; we disclaim any obligation to update these statements unless required by securities law, and we caution you not to rely on them unduly. We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations and assumptions about future events. While our management considers these expectations and assumptions to be reasonable, they are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, regulatory and other risks, contingencies and uncertainties, most of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond our control. These risks, uncertainties and contingencies include, but are not limited to: an extended decline in prices we receive for our coal and gas affecting our operating results and cash flows; reliance on customers extending existing contracts or entering into new long-term contracts for coal; reliance on major customers; our inability to collect payments from customers if their creditworthiness declines; the disruption of rail, barge and other systems that deliver our coal, or pipeline systems which deliver our gas; a loss of our competitive position because of the competitive nature of the coal industry and the gas industry, or a loss of our competitive position because of overcapacity in these industries impairing our profitability; our inability to hire qualified people to meet replacement or expansion needs; coal users switching to other fuels in order to comply with various environmental standards related to coal combustion; the inability to produce a sufficient amount of coal to fulfill our customers' requirements which could result in our customers initiating claims against us; the risks inherent in coal mining being subject to unexpected disruptions, including geological conditions, equipment failure, timing of completion of significant construction or repair of equipment, fires, accidents and weather conditions which could cause our results to deteriorate; increases in the price of commodities used in our mining operations and could impact our cost of production; obtaining governmental permits and approvals for our operations; the effects of government regulation; the effects of stringent federal and state safety regulations; the effects of mine closing, reclamation and certain other liabilities; uncertainties in estimating our economically recoverable coal and gas reserves; we do not insure against all potential operating risks; the outcomes of various legal proceedings, which proceedings are more fully described in our reports filed under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; increased exposure to employee related long-term liabilities; our participation in multi-employer pension plans may expose us to obligations beyond the obligation to our employees; lump sum payments made to retiring salaried employees pursuant to our defined benefit pension plan; our ability to comply with laws or regulations requiring that we obtain surety bonds for workers' compensation and other statutory requirements; acquisitions that we recently have made or may make in the future including the accuracy of our assessment of the acquired businesses and their risks, achieving any anticipated synergies, integrating the acquisitions and unanticipated changes that could affect assumptions we may have made; the anti-takeover effects of our rights plan could prevent a change of control; risks in exploring for and producing gas; new gas development projects and exploration for gas in areas where we have little or no proven gas reserves; the availability of field services, equipment and personnel for drilling and producing gas; replacing our natural gas reserves which if not replaced will cause our gas reserves and gas production to decline; costs associated with perfecting title for gas rights in some of our properties; we need to use unproven technologies to extract coalbed methane on some of our properties; location of a vast majority of our gas producing properties in three counties in southwestern Virginia, making us vulnerable to risks associated with having our gas production concentrated in one area; other persons could have ownership rights in our advanced gas extraction techniques which could force us to cease using those techniques or pay royalties; the coalbeds from which we produce methane gas frequently contain water that may hamper production; and other factors discussed in our 2006 Form 10-K under "Risk Factors," as updated by any subsequent Form 10-Qs, which are on file at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
