Overseas steel companies are snapping up coal interests

CHARLESTON, West Virginia: It has been more than a century since J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie and other U.S. steel barons built mining empires that dominated life across wide swaths of Central Appalachia’s coalfields, securing essential fuel for their mills.

Bits of that history are starting to repeat themselves. Decades after tough economic times forced steel makers to abandon company towns and sell their coal mines, 21st century steelmakers are back in the hunt for coal.

This time, rather than the Carnegies and Morgans, it is the Mittals and the Mordashovs.

International Herald Tribune