The company said that shipments from the direct ship loadout would start in the first half of August, while the plant should be fully operational by the middle of September.

Once construction is completed, the facility will be renamed Zigmond Processing, after longtime employee Richard Zigmond.

The heavy media vessel, heavy cyclone, spiral and froth flotation plant will have a 1200 ton per hour processing facility.

Zigmond will serve four underground metallurgical mines and two surface steam coal operations, all of which are part of Massey’s Logan County resource group.

“Zigmond Processing will be a state-of-the-art preparation plant,” a spokesperson said, noting that the facility will also feature a new batch-weigh flood loadout capable of loading a 15,000t train in four hours.

The former Bandmill plant caught fire in the early hours of August 27 last year. None of the facility’s 72 workers were injured.

State and federal officials said at the time that the blaze had started inside the structure and some of the top floors in the five-story structure had collapsed. To date, a cause has not been publicly reported.