Wyoming mining industry hopes plants reopen, jobs brought back in 2021
(The Center Square) – As Wyoming’s mining industry confronts hundreds of job losses amid the COVID-19 economic downturn, concerns persist about when factories, and other production facilities, will return to normal operations and get people back to work.
“The coal industry is market-driven but Covid obviously impacted it as well,” Travis Deti, executive director of the Wyoming Mining Association (WMA), told The Center Square. “With other industrial minerals as well, with the shutdowns over the last eight months, when customers contract or close down, that shuts down production and so that’s had an across-the-board impact on our sectors.”
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Wyoming produced roughly 19.2 million tons of coal in November. That is down by 3.3 million tons from 2019, the Casper Star Tribune reported. For 2020, the state’s coal production fell by approximately 20%.
Wyoming has the world’s largest trona deposit, but demand has also fallen for this mineral amid the pandemic. Trona is processed into soda ash, a key compound used in glass making, much of which is used in auto manufacturing and the chemical industry.
Deti estimated the pandemic has cut roughly 150 jobs from Wyoming’s soda ash, uranium and other mineral sectors.
Less demand from overseas has contributed to the decline, which has led to idling plants, less production and fewer jobs.
Coal, widely used to generate electric power, has lost approximately 500 jobs in Wyoming, Deti said.
One of the bright spots has been bentonite, Deti said. It is used in well drilling and environmental construction, as well as a variety of consumer products like cat litter, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.
“As a country we’ve got to take precautions and take the virus seriously but we’ve got to get people back to work, get people back on the job,” Deti said.
“When people go back to work, the demand for products increases, that’s the real kicker right there,” Deti said.
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