Appalachian History Series – Blackjewel: How One Coal Company Turned Appalachian Mines Into Bankruptcy Assets
On strip mine benches above eastern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia, Blackjewel looked like any other late era coal operator. Conveyor belts crossed hollow mouths. Rusting loaders sat beside black ponds. Permit numbers were nailed to posts at the edge of steep, gray highwalls.
On paper, though, Blackjewel was something different. In federal court filings it was a “multi state coal producer” with hundreds of permits, dozens of affiliates, and a business plan built around buying mines that other companies no longer wanted. At its height it controlled more than five hundred mining permits in Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming, and ranked among the largest coal producers in the United States.
When Blackjewel collapsed into bankruptcy in July 2019, it left miners without paychecks, communities with idle tipples and uncollected taxes, and regulators staring at a spreadsheet full of orphaned mine permits. What happened to this company is now scattered across legal dockets in West Virginia and Kentucky, federal enforcement files in Washington, and news dispatches from mountain towns in Harlan County and Wise County. Pieced together, it offers one of the clearest case studies of how coal’s corporate endgame has played out in Appalachia.
From Revelation Energy To Blackjewel
The story begins with Revelation Energy, a company founded by West Virginia native Jeffrey A. Hoops in the mid 2000s. Revelation started as a Central Appalachian operator, leasing and buying mines in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia and marketing itself as a low cost supplier that could squeeze value out of properties other companies had passed over.
Over the next decade, Revelation Energy and a growing constellation of affiliated companies took advantage of a new kind of coal deal. As larger firms like James River Coal, Alpha Natural Resources, and Arch Coal went through their own bankruptcies, Revelation bought mines, preparation plants, and reserves at steep discounts. In filings later summarized for the Blackjewel bankruptcy court, the company described a business model built around acquiring distressed assets from other operators, often with complex financing arrangements and layers of limited liability subsidiaries in several states.
Blackjewel L.L.C. entered that structure as a closely related affiliate. Court disclosures and later federal enforcement documents identify Blackjewel and Revelation as part of the same corporate family, sharing leadership, overlapping ownership, and operational ties. By 2017, Hoops and his companies were moving beyond Central Appalachia.
In December 2017, Contura Energy sold its two massive Powder River Basin mines in Wyoming, Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr, to Blackjewel. The deal gave the company western production and the chance to ship tens of millions of tons of coal each year, but it also added more legacy costs and regulatory oversight to a portfolio already heavy with risk.
By 2018, a joint investigation by Mountain State Spotlight and ProPublica noted that Blackjewel boasted more than five hundred mining permits across four states and had grown into the sixth largest coal producer in the country. In Kentucky alone, attorneys for the state later told the bankruptcy court that Blackjewel hoped to abandon 187 mining permits, 150 of which already carried 587 outstanding environmental violations. At one point, state regulators calculated that the company and its affiliates accounted for roughly thirty percent of all outstanding coal mining violations in Kentucky.
From the outside, the company appeared to be growing. Inside, its own disclosure statement shows a web of secured debt, trade obligations, and intercompany transfers, along with mounting tax, wage, and reclamation liabilities in Appalachian counties.
An Emergency Bankruptcy And Bounced Paychecks
The breaking point arrived on July 1, 2019. In the early hours of the morning, Blackjewel and Revelation filed an emergency Chapter 11 petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. The filings described a liquidity crisis and warned that without immediate financing the company would have to halt operations.
Financing did not materialize. Within days, mines shuttered in four states. Miners in Harlan County learned they no longer had jobs when they arrived for their shifts and were turned away at the portals. Paychecks written the previous week bounced, and bank accounts for many already under strain dropped into the red.
In Appalachia, Blackjewel’s workers saw the company not as a line in a federal docket but as the employer who had just withdrawn their last pay. In Cumberland, Kentucky, that anger turned into a camp on the rails when laid off miners and their families blocked a coal train loaded with Blackjewel coal from leaving the valley, refusing to move until they had assurances they would be paid what they had already earned.
The blockade became an international symbol of coal country’s new labor battles, but it was only one result of a deeper corporate failure. Behind the scenes, bankruptcy filings and emergency motions showed a company that had continued operating and expanding while falling further behind on reclamation work, payroll obligations, retirement contributions, and health insurance bills.
Permits, Bonds, And The Cleanup Gap
The heart of the Blackjewel story, at least for Appalachian communities, lies in its mine permits and the bonds that were supposed to secure their cleanup.
Under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, companies are required to post performance bonds for each permit, money that regulators can use to reclaim a site if the operator walks away. In practice, state regulators in Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia have long relied on bond formulas that assume operators will finish reclamation themselves, using bond money only as a backstop.
Blackjewel exposed how fragile that assumption had become.
In June 2020, the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet filed a motion in the Blackjewel bankruptcy case asking the court to compel the company to comply with its environmental obligations. The motion and attached exhibits cataloged unreclaimed highwalls, untreated water discharges, and dangerous conditions at Blackjewel’s Kentucky sites. The Cabinet warned that the bonds on those permits were “inadequate” and estimated that reclamation costs could exceed bond amounts by twenty to fifty million dollars, a shortfall that would fall on state taxpayers if the company was allowed to walk away.
Regulators were not alone in sounding that alarm. Environmental groups and local advocates, including Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center and Appalachian Voices, filed letters and status reports urging the court to prioritize reclamation and to ensure that any asset sales or permit transfers did not strand problem mines without owners. A 2022 Appalachian Voices analysis described Blackjewel’s bankruptcy as “catastrophic” for the mine cleanup system and called it a warning for how bond programs could fail in a wave of coal company insolvencies.
By January 2021, an industry trade publication reported that Blackjewel’s plan contemplated abandoning 187 Kentucky permits outright, leaving 150 of them with those 587 outstanding environmental violations. Later federal environmental justice materials and investigative reporting noted that the bankruptcy court ultimately allowed Blackjewel to immediately walk away from thirty three permits in Kentucky, with many more across the region left in limbo while regulators searched for successor operators or faced the prospect of bond forfeiture.
A 2023 ProPublica analysis tried to quantify the larger pattern. Looking at 210 Blackjewel mines, nearly all in Kentucky and West Virginia, reporters found that mines that had passed through multiple owners and bankruptcies had more than twice as many environmental violations as mines with a single owner. Blackjewel itself had built much of its portfolio by acquiring such troubled sites, and then its own bankruptcy multiplied the problem.
The Plan Of Liquidation And The Blackjewel Liquidation Trust
The turning point inside the case came in late 2020. On October 21, 2020, Blackjewel and its affiliates filed an amended disclosure statement and an amended Chapter 11 plan of liquidation. Those documents, running hundreds of pages, laid out the company’s capital structure, its web of subsidiaries, its major secured creditors, and the proposed treatment for each class of claim.
The plan did not reorganize Blackjewel into a leaner operating company. Instead, it converted the case into an orderly unwinding. Sale motions and earlier bidding procedures had already carved off some of the company’s mines and preparation plants to buyers like Kopper Glo Mining and other regional operators, who took selected permits and assets through section 363 sales. Many of the remaining permits, especially those with heavy reclamation burdens, had no buyers.
To manage what was left, the plan created the Blackjewel Liquidation Trust. The trust, overseen by a court appointed trustee, received certain remaining assets and the right to pursue lawsuits against lenders, insiders, and other parties on behalf of unsecured creditors. In March 2021, the bankruptcy court confirmed the plan, and on paper Blackjewel ceased to exist as an operating coal company even though its permits and environmental obligations remained very real on the ground.
The liquidation trust has since become a central player in the post Blackjewel landscape. It has brought adversary proceedings over property disputes, such as a 2024 Barton Doctrine case in the Eastern District of Kentucky that describes the chain of sales from Blackjewel to INMET Mining and on to another buyer for Kentucky assets. It has also pursued claims against Blackjewel’s former lenders and executives, hoping to recover money for creditors left behind in the collapse.
Allegations Of Self Dealing And Federal Enforcement
As bankruptcy lawyers fought over mine sales and permit transfers, another set of cases focused on how Blackjewel had handled workers’ benefits and corporate finances in the years leading up to 2019.
Complaints filed by the liquidation trust and reported by outlets like the Lane Report in Kentucky accused former CEO Jeff Hoops of “intentional, willful self dealing,” including moving money through a network of affiliated companies and building a luxury resort project in West Virginia while Blackjewel fell behind on taxes, wages, and reclamation work. Separate adversary proceedings in the bankruptcy court examined the company’s relationship with United Bank, its main lender, and the financing arrangements that collapsed just before the Chapter 11 filing.
Federal regulators have since added their own findings.
In January 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that a federal court in West Virginia had entered a consent judgment ordering the trustees of Blackjewel’s 401(k) plan to pay more than six hundred thirty seven thousand dollars in restitution to workers after investigators found that employee contributions and matching funds in the months leading up to the bankruptcy were never forwarded to the plan. Instead, those payroll deductions had been diverted to company expenses. The judgment permanently barred Hoops from serving as a fiduciary to any ERISA governed plan.
That same day, the department publicized a settlement agreement resolving more than 1.2 million dollars in unpaid medical bills under a health care plan sponsored by Revelation Energy and affiliated employers. Investigators determined that the companies failed to fund their self insured health plan, leaving workers with stacks of medical debt even before the bankruptcy case. Under the agreement, Hoops and related employers were required to negotiate with providers and reimburse employees and former employees for costs that should have been covered.
These enforcement actions, coming years after the mines went quiet, underscore how deeply the company’s financial distress cut into the lives of miners and staff. Retirement savings and health coverage, cornerstones of long promised security in coal country, had become just another pool of cash in a failing corporate structure.
After Blackjewel: Orphaned Mines And Ongoing Litigation
Today, the core Blackjewel bankruptcy is no longer front page news, but its effects continue to shape Appalachian landscapes and court dockets.
In Virginia, reporters have documented how a post bankruptcy settlement left the state holding coal mining permits that no bidders wanted, forcing regulators to decide whether to forfeit bonds and take over long term water treatment and reclamation themselves.
In Kentucky, state officials eventually revoked thirty three Blackjewel permits and began the process of bond forfeiture, while other sites were transferred to smaller operators or left in a kind of limbo while ownership questions were sorted out. The Kentucky cabinet and advocacy groups have warned that those orphaned mines feed into a broader crisis of “functionally abandoned” strip mines across the state.
Nationally, policy analysts and journalists use Blackjewel as a bellwether of coal’s late stage corporate strategy. An InsideClimate News piece in 2021 described the case as one in which a bankruptcy judge effectively allowed the company to shed environmental responsibilities, with “national implications” for how courts treat cleanup obligations relative to financial creditors. A 2022 In These Times feature framed the case as proof that the mine cleanup system in Appalachia has “collapsed” under the weight of repeated bankruptcies.
Meanwhile, the Blackjewel Liquidation Trust continues to pursue claims, including property disputes and creditor recoveries, and new adversary filings still reference the original July 1, 2019 petition as they argue over who owns which sliver of coal country.
What Blackjewel Means For Appalachian History
For more than a century, coal company names have come and gone in Appalachia. Company towns like Lynch, Benham, or Helen shifted from one corporate owner to another as markets changed. Blackjewel fits into that longer history, but it also represents something distinct about the twenty first century coal economy.
First, it shows how the geography of coal corporations no longer matches the geography of coal communities. The workers who blocked a train at Sand Hill Bottom Road in Cumberland understood Blackjewel as a local employer. The decisions that shaped their jobs, their wages, and the fate of the mines they worked were being made instead in financial institutions and federal courtrooms far from Harlan County.
Second, it illustrates what happens when coal companies treat cleanup obligations as negotiable line items. The layers of distressed asset acquisitions that built Blackjewel’s portfolio meant that many of its permits already carried a history of incomplete reclamation and prior bankruptcies. When Blackjewel itself entered Chapter 11, that history did not disappear. It landed on regulators, bond pools, and mountain communities who had already seen several corporate logos painted on the same tipple.
Finally, Blackjewel stands as a reminder that bankruptcy is not just a technical legal process. It is a way of deciding whose losses count. In the Blackjewel case, banks and secured creditors fought over assets and liens. The company’s executives negotiated their positions. Miners had to camp on a railroad track to secure back pay they had already earned, while the question of who would repair highwalls and treat polluted water was pushed into later hearings and separate enforcement actions.
The name Blackjewel has now largely disappeared from letterhead. On the ground, its legacy is still visible in idle belts, unreclaimed benches, and the memories of miners who remember both the jobs it brought and the way those jobs ended. For historians of Appalachia, the company offers a clear window into how corporate strategies, federal law, and local lives intersected in coal’s long decline, and how communities were left to live with the consequences when a major coal producer used bankruptcy as its final business plan.
Sources & Further Reading
Kroll Restructuring Administration. “Blackjewel L.L.C., et al.” Case information website for Chapter 11 proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, Case No. 19-30289. https://cases.ra.kroll.com/blackjewel/.
In re Blackjewel L.L.C., et al. “Amended Disclosure Statement for the Debtors’ Joint Chapter 11 Plan of Liquidation.” U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, Case No. 19-30289, October 21, 2020. Accessible via Kroll Restructuring Administration case site. https://cases.ra.kroll.com/blackjewel/.
In re Blackjewel L.L.C., et al. “Amended Chapter 11 Plan of Liquidation of Blackjewel L.L.C. and Its Affiliated Debtors.” U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, Case No. 19-30289, October 21, 2020. Accessible via Kroll Restructuring Administration case site. https://cases.ra.kroll.com/blackjewel/.
In re Blackjewel LLC, et al. Memorandum Opinion and Order, No. 3:23-cv-00439 (S.D.W. Va., December 21, 2023). Summary and opinion text available via law and docket aggregators. https://law.justia.com/.
In re Blackjewel L.L.C. and Cumberland River Coal L.L.C., et al. Memorandum Opinion and Order, No. 3:20-cv-00866 (S.D.W. Va., 2021). Docket and opinion available via PACER and commercial docket services. https://pacer.uscourts.gov/.
Blackjewel, L.L.C. v. United Bank (In re Blackjewel, L.L.C.), Adv. Pro. No. 20-ap-03007 (Bankr. S.D.W. Va., September 2, 2022). Opinion on financing and collateral disputes in the Blackjewel bankruptcy. https://www.casemine.com/.
In re Blackjewel, L.L.C., et al. Memorandum Opinion, Adv. No. 24-07002-grs (Bankr. E.D. Ky., July 30, 2024). Opinion discussing application of the Barton doctrine and Kentucky-focused fallout of the bankruptcy. https://www.govinfo.gov/.
Commonwealth of Kentucky, Energy and Environment Cabinet. “Motion to Compel Compliance with Environmental Obligations,” filed June 16, 2020, in In re Blackjewel, L.L.C., Case No. 19-30289 (Bankr. S.D.W. Va.). https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6953668.
Debtors’ Status Report Enclosing Letter from Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet, January 31, 2020, Doc. 1742, In re Blackjewel, L.L.C., Case No. 19-30289 (Bankr. S.D.W. Va.). https://appvoices.org/resources/blackjewel/blackjewel_1742.pdf.
Powder River Basin Resource Council et al. “Letter to OSMRE Regarding Blackjewel Bankruptcy,” July 16, 2019. https://www.powderriverbasin.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Blackjewel-bankruptcy-letter-to-OSMRE-7-16-19.pdf.
U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration. “Federal Court Orders Coal Producer Retirement Plan Trustees to Pay More Than $445K in Restitution.” News release, January 30, 2024. https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ebsa/ebsa20240130-0.
Bruggers, James. “A Bankruptcy Judge Lets Blackjewel Shed Coal Mine Responsibilities in a Case with National Implications.” InsideClimate News, March 19, 2021. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19032021/a-bankruptcy-judge-lets-blackjewel-shed-coal-mine-responsibilities-in-a-case-with-national-implications/.
Olalde, Mark, and Joe Yerardi. “While ‘Zombie’ Mines Idle, Cleanup and Workers Suffer in Limbo.” Center for Public Integrity, September 4, 2019. https://publicintegrity.org/environment/while-zombie-mines-idle-cleanup-and-workers-suffer-in-limbo/.
Radmacher, Dan. “In Appalachia, the Mine Cleanup System Has Collapsed.” In These Times, March 23, 2022. https://inthesetimes.com/article/appalachia-coal-mining-bankruptcy-cleanup-failure.
Radmacher, Dan. “Blackjewel’s Catastrophic Bankruptcy and the Collapse of the Mine Cleanup System.” Appalachian Voices (The Appalachian Voice), March 3, 2022. https://appvoices.org/2022/03/03/bankruptcy-mine-cleanup-collapse/.
Radmacher, Dan, and Willie Dodson. “How the Coal Mine Cleanup System Is Failing.” Appalachian Voices, August 24, 2022. https://appvoices.org/2022/08/24/coal-mine-cleanup-failing/.
Marshall, James. “Blackjewel Bankruptcy: 33 Coal Mine Permits Abandoned.” E&E News, March 22, 2021. PDF hosted by Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center. https://aclc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/BUSINESS_-Blackjewel-bankruptcy_-33-coal-mine-permits-abandoned-Monday-March-22-2021-www.eenews.net_.pdf.
Olalde, Mark, Alex Mierjeski, and Ken Ward Jr. “How Bankruptcy Helps the Coal Industry Avoid Cleanup Costs.” ProPublica, April 26, 2023. https://www.propublica.org/article/west-virginia-coal-blackjewel-bankruptcy-pollution.
Mierjeski, Alex, Mark Olalde, and Ken Ward Jr. “How We Measured the Environmental Cost of Bankrupt Mines.” ProPublica, April 26, 2023. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-we-measured-environmental-cost-bankrupt-mines.
Vogelsong, Sarah. “After Blackjewel Settlement, Virginia Has Coal Mining Permits No One Wants.” Virginia Mercury, March 26, 2021. https://virginiamercury.com/2021/03/26/after-blackjewel-settlement-virginia-has-coal-mining-permits-no-one-wants/.
Wright, Will. “KY Might Get Bill for Blackjewel’s Environmental Violations.” Lexington Herald-Leader, January 23, 2020. https://www.kentucky.com/news/state/kentucky/article239560658.html.
Wright, Will. “Bankrupt Coal Firm Blackjewel Approved to Transfer KY Mines.” Lexington Herald-Leader, March 23, 2021. https://www.kentucky.com/news/state/kentucky/article250112599.html.
Sargent, Emily. “Blackjewel Properties Risk Abandonment in Bankruptcy Case.” Harlan Enterprise, July 1, 2020. https://harlanenterprise.net/2020/07/01/blackjewel-properties-risk-abandonment-in-bankruptcy-case/.
Tan, Caitlin. “Looking at the Blackjewel Bankruptcies Four Years Later.” Wyoming Public Radio / Wyoming Public Media, July 28, 2023. https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/open-spaces/2023-07-28/looking-at-the-black-jewel-bankruptcies-four-years-later.
Tan, Caitlin. “A Year Later: The Blackjewel Bankruptcy.” Wyoming Public Radio / Wyoming Public Media, July 1, 2020. https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/natural-resources-energy/2020-07-01/a-year-later-the-blackjewel-bankruptcy.
Graham, Andrew. “Analysis: A Breakdown of the Blackjewel–ESM Deal.” WyoFile, October 5, 2019. https://wyofile.com/analysis-a-breakdown-of-the-blackjewel-esm-deal/.
Boles, Sydney. “Blackjewel Coal Moves to Liquidate, Leaving Millions Unpaid to Workers and Regulators.” WKU Public Radio / Ohio Valley ReSource, December 2, 2020. https://www.wkyufm.org/economy/2020-12-02/blackjewel-coal-moves-to-liquidate-leaving-millions-unpaid-to-workers-and-regulators.
Patterson, Brittany. “Major Appalachian Coal Company Files for Bankruptcy Protection.” WOUB / Ohio Valley ReSource, July 2, 2019. https://woub.org/2019/07/02/major-appalachian-coal-company-files-for-bankruptcy-protection/.
Boles, Sydney. “Blackjewel Miners Block Railroad to Demand Pay from Bankrupt Coal Company.” WKU Public Radio / Ohio Valley ReSource, July 30, 2019. https://www.wkyufm.org/economy/2019-07-30/blackjewel-miners-block-railroad-to-demand-pay-from-bankrupt-coal-company.
Boles, Sydney. “‘Bloody Harlan’ Revisited: Blackjewel Miners Draw on Labor History While Facing Uncertain Future.” Ohio Valley ReSource, August 9, 2019. https://woub.org/2019/08/09/bloody-harlan-revisited-blackjewel-miners-draw-on-labor-history-while-facing-uncertain-future/.
Boles, Sydney. “No Pay, We Stay: A Look Back at the 2019 Protest That Rocked Appalachia.” WOUB / Ohio Valley ReSource, July 24, 2020. https://woub.org/2020/07/24/no-pay-we-stay-a-look-back-at-the-2019-protest-that-rocked-appalachia/.
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Lane Report Staff. “Lawyers Liquidating Blackjewel Coal Company Accuse Founder of Improper Transactions.” Lane Report, December 16, 2020. https://www.lanereport.com/135942/2020/12/lawyers-liquidating-blackjewel-coal-company-accuse-founder-of-improper-transactions/.
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Author Note: As a historian who writes about coal, law, and landscape in the central Appalachian region, I am drawn to moments when a company’s balance sheets collide with railroad blockades and kitchen table budgets. I hope this piece helps you see Blackjewel’s bankruptcy not just as a tangle of court filings, but as a story about miners, communities, and mountains left to carry the costs.