On Monday the company said production had been halted May 13 at 7pm local time. There were no injuries associated with the stoppage, which involved the conveyor used to move raw coal out of the longwall operation.

“[ARLP subsidiary] White County Coal has begun efforts to repair the vertical belt system but is currently unable to estimate a completion date,” the company said.

“The actual time required to repair the vertical belt system will be impacted by, among other factors, availability of materials and equipment.”

ARLP is working to mitigate production loss during the repair by expanding at other mines in the region, including the addition of seventh and eighth production units at the new River View mine in Union County, Kentucky.

Thanks to its mitigation plan, ARLP does not anticipate that the belt failure will have a material adverse impact on the master limited partnership as a whole.

The room-and-pillar Pattiki mine, which extracts from the Illinois No. 6 seam, produced about 220,000 tons monthly in the first quarter.

Constructed in 1980, the mine employs about 323 workers and in 2009 produced 2.5 million tons.