United Coal Company


United Coal Company, a nonunion coal mining company headquartered in Blountville, Tennessee, is a producer of high grade metallurgical coals. It has operations in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

History

Foundation

In 1970, Jim McGlothlin, along with his father Woodrow W. McGlothlin and five other investors, founded United Coal Company in Grundy, Virginia. McGlothlin first sold UCC in 1997 and later repurchased the company in 2004. The McGlothlins also founded The McGlothlin Foundation, which funds a variety of education-related causes in Southwest Virginia and The United Company Charitable Foundation.

The 2006 "McGlothlin Energy Policy"

While speaking at the industry-sponsored 2006 Virginia Coal Conference held at the Meadowview Convention Center in Kingsport, Tennessee, McGlothlin described the United States energy policy as being "America's Achilles heel" and compromising national economic independence due to both losing manufacturing jobs to relaxed labor, environmental, and saftety costs in China and to America being energy dependent upon Islamic nations "with the most extreme and hostile people on earth."
McGlothlin laid out the following framework of his self-described "McGlothlin Energy Policy" during the 2006 Virginia Coal Conference:

  • implementing a nationwide U.S. blue law prohibiting work on Sundays except for truly vital businesses and industry;
  • imposing an additional federal gas tax of $1 more per gallon on fuel sold on Sundays and Mondays to curb "weekend driving larks";
  • requiring every vehicle to get at least 30 miles per gallon within five years;
  • expanding the federal government by creating a U.S. Office of Nuclear Power Production;
  • expediting the construction of new nuclear power plants across the United States;
  • preserving natural gas reserves "for the long haul" and;
  • banning the use of natural gas for power production in the United States;
  • federal subsidizing coal-to-liquid fuel plants ;
  • passing federal legislation guaranteeing a minimum floor price $55 per barrel for coal-to-liquid fuels, and;
  • placing tariffs on stocks of imported crude oil arriving in the United States.

Ownership changes

In 2006, former King Pharmaceuticals executives John M. Gregory and Joseph "Joe" Gregory invested in the company. The Gregory brothers are its first investors outside the McGlothlin family.
During April, 2009 Ukrainian business group Metinvest, controlled by Rinat Akhmetov, purchased the company for an estimated $1 billion. In August 2009, United Coal Company moved into its new corporate headquarters at 110 Sprint Drive in Blountville, Tennessee. A staff of thirty four employees work out of the Blountville UCC office, which combines all corporate activities and executives in one location, including legal counsel, risk management, accounting, purchasing, information technology, human resources and sales – departments previously located in Teays Valley, West Virginia, and Bristol, Virginia.

Holdings