South Yorkshire Coal Report.

[John]

I've found British Coal's annual report for 1988/89. makes interesting reading, especially productivity and profitability of pits in that area.
If I had a business operating at such high profits with record breaking faces, I'd be extremely happy.
I'll copy the report and post it on the Coal, Collieries and Mining website when I get a chance.

[John]

Here's the link to that report, should have posted it way back...

www.stainforthonline.co.uk/hatfieldcolliery_900mw/media/pdfs/report_1988-89.pdf

[bulwellbrian]

You say the mines were profitable. In one sense they were, but in no year did the operating profit pay for the capital expenditure. Where did that money come from?

South Yorks was one of the best areas others were much worse. The NCB/BCC could only get the money from goverment, if they didn't pay then the pits would die as there would be no further development. The industry couldn't provide for its long term future.

[John]

At a guess Brian, I'd stick my neck out and say the Kent coalfield, most of South Wales coalfield, the Fife coalfield, Cumberland, most of the Lancs fields collieries were unprofitable, some to the point of "bankruptcy"
I'd love to locate some other area reports like the linked one, but there doesn't seem to be any published on the internet.

I'd also like to find reasons for closure of collieries that could have been turned around like Cotgrave, Calverton and Hucknall.
From all reports I've read on Hucknall, it was "driven" to closure by forcing development into a known problem area, ie it was well known about the sandstone problems before developing the faces..... Too many of those decisions seem to have been made to make out a colliery was unprofitable.
Same with Cotgrave, the Blackshale was a thick seam, I don't know what geological problems they encountered, but reading the Managers report for the setting up of the second face in that seam looked good and he was hoping for the same or better results than the first face from B62's.
Then there were plans to re enter a destressed Deep Soft development, that never happened.
Plus why so many of the upper seams that were pretty thick and of good steam raising properties?

Then some of the Derbyshire pits where Area went out of their way to drown those pits in red ink!!

I'm aware of investment capital and where it came from...Development costs in thins seams are astronomical, Australia is lucky in that score with roads driven in seam at seam height makes a development more full production, where as most UK developments were in up to 75% rock, much slower drivages and in mineral thats just doesn't have a market...LOL

[bulwellbrian]

So many years later my memory of what i saw in the 1960's to 1990 is a bit dim.

The Kent pits Betteshanger & Tilmanstone produced good quality coal and were no worse than many others. South Wales some pits produced high value anthracite and coking coal so could run with higher costs per ton. Cumberland was finished by about 1970.

I remember that Leicestershire & South Derbyshire had high OMS.

One of the industry's big problem was the increasing proportion of low quality low price coal going to power stations. The Higher price markets either disappeared (Railways, Gas Works), reduced (House Coal) or was subject to increased international competition (Coke Ovens, Exports). Once the electricity industry was de nationalised it was subject British Coal was subject to competition from low cost, mainly opencast coal from abroad.

[Clive]

When you look at the OMS it is woefull back in 81. 2 point summat tonnes, even by the end of the report it's only 4 point summat.

Now I know we could never produce the quantities of coal in the private mines, the NCB would have more falling off the belt in spillages than we could hew, but our OMS was a different story, even for low seams.

Back in the 80s, we were on a stint of 17 5cwt tubs a day. That was the min you could fill before you went home. Most would fill around the 20 mark, maybe more depending on the skill of the collier and the conditions.

There would be 8 colliers, 4 drawers. One UG haulage, 1 pit Top and a fireman. If you averaged out say 3.5 tonne a collier, it would be higher, then that gives an OMS of 1.8 tonnes and that is pick and shovel in a 20" seam with an investment of a few thousand on gear.

consider the investment on a long wall face back in the 80's. Why the big difference?

The men I worked with who had worked the yard mine were on a min stint of 40, 3 and a half cwt tubs a day. They could usually fill 50 or so.

[John]

OMS at some mines is now well over 200 Clive. Looking at a few of the charts in books, face OMS was pretty high on hand got faces pre NCB, but the blokes only got paid by what they produced. Back then colliery overall OMS was a lot lower, as mines employed many more workers both underground and surface.

[Clive]

your right John. piece work was always a good insentive to speed up the shovel.

I was watching about Craghead closure on youtube back in 68. On looking at the men around the pit, the workforce appeared to be a lot older. Another factor as well i guess

[John]

Apr 30, 2013 12:39:02 GMT -5 Clive said:

your right John. piece work was always a good insentive to speed up the shovel.

I was watching about Craghead closure on youtube back in 68. On looking at the men around the pit, the workforce appeared to be a lot older. Another factor as well i guess

I've never worked under piecework Clive, but when I first started with the NCB, face colliers were on contracts, ie they had to cut a "norm", which was agreed upon before the contract was signed and the new face started. A "norm" could be a shear, shear and a half, or two shears, after that the men earned money for every shear cut...Pretty close to piece work.

Elecs and Fitters were on day rates, paid by the shift and weren't involved in the contract.
Rippers too were on contract, they got paid by how many rings they set.

I've been on bonus, and our bonus was tied to tonnage, used to pee the blokes off as our belt line was rated 600 tonnes an hour and we had a face that was capable of 1000 tonnes per hour!!!
Our bonus could have been double the $A480 a week we used to make!!