The Mountain Eagle
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Alpha hopes to emerge from bankruptcy in June




Alpha Natural Resources Inc.’s bankruptcy proceedings can be complete by June 30 if a bankruptcy judge approves the reorganization plan the company submitted this week, the company said this week.

Alpha, which still has operations in Letcher County, said in a statement that it has filed a proposed Chapter 11 Plan of Reorganization and a related Disclosure Statement with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Together with the recently filed motion seeking approval of a marketing process for Alpha’s core operating assets, these filings provide for the sale of Alpha’s assets, detail a path toward the resolution of all creditor claims, and anticipate the emergence of a streamlined and sustainable reorganized company able to satisfy its environmental obligations on an ongoing basis, the company said, adding that the “path will allow for a conclusion of Alpha’s bankruptcy proceedings by June 30, 2016.”

The process includes a “stalking horse” credit bid of existing secured debt submitted by the company’s first lien lenders. As a stalking horse bid, it is subject to higher or better offers, but provides Alpha with a backstop bid for its core assets in the amount of $500 million (plus the lenders’ assumption of certain liabilities).”

Unless a higher offer is received prior to the bid deadline, Alpha said, the company plans to sell its core businesses and related assets to the company’s first lien lenders pursuant to the terms of the stalking horse bid. This and all asset sales are subject to Bankruptcy Court approval.

The stalking horse bid identifies the core assets to be auctioned by Alpha. The bid does not include Alpha’s Enterprise Mining Company LLC operations in Letcher and Knott counties. Specifically, the stalking horse bid contemplates the purchase of:

• the company’s Alpha Coal West mine complexes in Wyoming;

• the company’s Mc- Clure, Nicholas and Toms Creek mine complexes in West Virginia and Virginia;

• all of the company’s coal operations and reserves located in Pennsylvania;

• the company’s interest in a natural gas business in the Marcellus Shale owned by Alpha entity Pennsylvania Land Resources Holding Company, LLC;

• the company’s interest in Dominion Terminal Associates, a coal export terminal in Newport News, Virginia; and certain other assets.

The first lien lenders are led by Citicorp North America, Inc., as administrative and collateral agent under Alpha’s first lien prepetition credit agreement.

A hearing to consider approval of the proposed bidding and sale procedures is scheduled before the Bankruptcy Court on March 10.

Alpha and certain of its wholly-owned subsidiaries, including Enterprise Mining, filed voluntary petitions to reorganize under Chapter 11 on August 3, 2015.



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