Moorcroft Leader - The Voice of the Community Since 1909, Serving Moorcroft and Pine Haven, Wyoming

GILLETTE — Given the choice of what to hear first, good news or bad news, Powder River Basin coal producers and the thousands of people who work the mines are used to asking for the good news – only to be told there is none.

Five years of working through a historically swift decline, thermal coal regions like Campbell County and the PRB have settled for most of the mines still operating at any level as the best news they could reasonably hope for.

Now for the first time in nearly six years, when electing to hear the good news first, PRB producers are reporting increased production, lowe...