Massey Given More Time In Mine Probe Standoff

Methane monitors are mounted on 30-foot-long continuous miners like this one because methane gas collects in pockets near the roofs of mines.

Massey is required by federal law to conduct its own investigation of the accident.

The company is especially concerned about a crack in the mine floor that it believes is the source of the fuel for the explosion. That crack and what might have come out of it is central to an ongoing battle between Massey's hired experts and federal and state investigators.

"MSHA appears reluctant to allow any investigation that may reach a conclusion different than the one MSHA reached mere days after the explosion on April 5," Harvey adds.

MSHA officials have said they believe the explosion was triggered by methane gas and was then fed by coal dust. Until last week, Massey also blamed the blast on methane, claiming a massive infusion of the gas poured in from the crack in the mine floor near the shearer on the longwall mining machine. Massey's theory also suggests the explosion was unavoidable and cannot be blamed on poor safety practices.

Early Wednesday, Massey CEO Don Blankenship repeated the company's new theory about the explosion's cause in a speech at an industry gathering in New York. Blankenship said natural gas, and not methane, poured from the crack before the explosion.

"That's not something you would normally be guarding against," Blankenship said, because natural gas is not typically released during coal mining.

Harvey said later Wednesday that the company's own "analyses show that [gas] ... emissions [at the mine] contain constituents consistent with natural gas as opposed to coal bed methane. The company's experts currently believe that this natural gas inundated the mine on April 5 and provided the fuel for the explosion."

Methane is a primary component of natural gas, according to the Natural Gas Supply Association, but natural gas also includes other combustible gases.

MSHA has yet to comment on Massey's new theory about the cause of the blast.

Blankenship also told the industry gathering Wednesday that the Massey board of directors, which he chairs, is considering a takeover by another company. He called it "a bigger possibility as part of deliberating on shareholder value."

The Massey board is scheduled to meet next week to consider several reported buyout offers. But neither Blankenship nor Harvey would say more about a possible company sale. "We're always looking at [merger and acquisition] opportunities," Harvey says. "But we never discuss them until they're complete."