The company claims the workers were casualties of Barack Obama’s “war on coal”, according to the Deseret News.

The paper says UtahAmerican Energy blames the Obama administration for instituting policies that will close down “204 American coal-fired power plants by 2014” and for drastically reducing the market for coal.

“Without markets there can be no coal mines and no coal jobs,” it quotes the company as saying.

Murray Energy chief executive officer Robert Murray was an ardent supporter of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Coal demand from US power generators is down 17% this year according to the US Energy Information Administration’s most recent figures.

It is due to a number of factors, not least of which are the tough regulations made by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

It has also been affected by a warmer than normal winter and a natural gas glut that has created very low gas prices.

So low, in fact, that it has been worth generators’ while to convert to gas-fired generation in some cases.