The company said Thursday in a pre-earnings operations update that its coal division produced 14.7 million tons for the quarter ended September 30, including 1.4Mt of low-vol metallurgical product from its Buchanan mine in Virginia.

“Consol's mines ran well during the quarter," chairman and chief executive officer Brett Harvey said.

“We did have roof issues at both McElroy and Enlow Fork mines during the quarter but we were able to meet commitments by overproducing at our other mines. This is the advantage of having a portfolio of longwall mines: if one or two mines have an issue, the others can run a little harder.”

He said that the company’s re-engineering of the Buchanan operation, paired with the capital it had invested in projects such as overland belts, had significantly increased its operations’ reliability.

“Safety and reliability tend to run concurrently, and our focus on safety as a core value has also contributed to steady operations,” Harvey said.

Having produced nearer to the higher end of its initial guidance for the quarter just ended, Consol said with some “fine tuning” its current quarter outlook will result in a fourth quarter total production projection of 14.7-15.3Mt. That range reflects a normal seasonal pattern for the company, it said.

If that goal is achieved, it will leave Consol with whole-year coal production between 62 and 62.6Mt.

Should Buchanan hit its target of 1-1.2Mt for the final quarter, that would result in total annual production for 2011 of 5.3-5.5Mt for the operation.