Patriot Coal Provides Update on Q3

Patriot Coal Corporation PCX announced today that its 2010 third quarter sales volume is expected to be in the range of 7.5 to 7.7 million tons, down about 10 percent from earlier estimates. The expected shortfall in shipments is similarly split between thermal and metallurgical coal. Lower volume is primarily related to sporadic downtime at the Federal and Panther longwall operations, difficult geological conditions during the quarter at the Wells and Big Mountain complexes and continued heightened regulatory oversight.