In its Virginia operations, the company's Buchanan mine saw metallurgical coal prices continue to decline.

The Virginia operations average sales price per ton decreased during the quarter to $US51.82/t, compared to $70.57/t from the year-earlier quarter.

The Pennsylvania operations average sales price per ton decreased during the quarter to $56.99/t, compared to $61.35/t from the year-earlier quarter.

However, compared to the second quarter of 2015, the Pennsylvania operations’ average sales price per ton slightly increased due, in part, to lower exported spot sales in the third

quarter.

Consol CEO Nicholas J Deluliis said: “A testament to our premium assets and our coal marketing team, CONSOL continues to see a tremendous amount of contracting success in, what continues to be, a brutal coal environment.”

“The company now has a 2016 committed position of approximately 74% of total estimated Pennsylvania operations sales tons. The company now has in place multi-year commitments that secure Consol as the anchor supplier to the largest, most efficient, and most environmentally compliant coal power plants in the PJM and SERC regions.

“These power plants are expected to operate at high capacity factors for the coming years. In addition, Consol has secured multi-year commitments with key power plants in the upper Midwest and Southeast regions, which are markets that have historically been thought of as the domain of the Illinois, Central Appalachian, and Powder River Basins.”