Arch Coal Earns Sentinels of Safety Award as Safest Coal Facility in United States

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Arch Coal Inc. (NYSE: ACI) today announced that its ACI Hazard subsidiary earned the national Sentinels of Safety award for achieving the best 2012 safety record among the largest coal processing facilities in the United States.

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The prestigious Sentinels of Safety awards were presented at a banquet yesterday evening in the nation's capital. This is the eighth Sentinels of Safety award earned by an Arch subsidiary operation since 2002.

"The best-in-class safety recognition was hard earned by our dedicated Hazard loading employees," said Arch President and CEO John W. Eaves. "This is true safety excellence to accomplish a perfect safety rate for more than three years while shipping millions of tons of American coal."

In 2012, employees at Hazard's Kentucky River loading facility worked 184,859 hours with an incident rate of zero, compared to the national average of 1.39 incidents per 200,000 employee-hours among U.S. coal processing facilities.

"We're honored to be recognized as the nation's safest in our class," said Greg Feltner, Hazard president and general manager. "The dedicated employees at Hazard's loading facility have operated safely for more than half a million employee-hours."

The Sentinels of Safety awards program is sponsored by the National Mining Association. Sentinels of Safety award recipients represent mining operations that have worked the most employee hours in each category without a lost-time incident. Six award winners are chosen from large and small operations in three category types, with a minimum of 4,000 hours logged without a lost-time incident.

Sentinels of Safety awards were initiated in 1925 by then-Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover and remain the nation's most prestigious awards for recognizing safety in coal, metal and nonmetal mines. More information on the Sentinels of Safety awards is posted at www.nma.org.

U.S.-based Arch Coal Inc. is one of the world's top coal producers for the global steel and power generation industries, serving customers on five continents. Its network of mining complexes is the most diversified in the United States, spanning every major coal basin in the nation. The company controls more than 5 billion tons of high-quality metallurgical and thermal coal reserves, with access to all major railroads, inland waterways and a growing number of seaborne trade channels. Arch's 2012 lost-time safety rate was one-third the national coal industry average. For more information, visit www.archcoal.com.

Forward-Looking Statements:  This press release contains "forward-looking statements" – that is, statements related to future, not past, events.  In this context, forward-looking statements often address our expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," or "will."  Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain.  For us, particular uncertainties arise from changes in the demand for our coal by the domestic electric generation industry; from legislation and regulations relating to the Clean Air Act and other environmental initiatives; from operational, geological, permit, labor and weather-related factors; from fluctuations in the amount of cash we generate from operations; from future integration of acquired businesses; and from numerous other matters of national, regional and global scale, including those of a political, economic, business, competitive or regulatory nature.  These uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements.  We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by law.  For a description of some of the risks and uncertainties that may affect our future results, you should see the risk factors described from time to time in the reports we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SOURCE Arch Coal Inc.