Contract Operator

• In 1998 and 1999, BTI served as the contract operator for six integrated pond recovery / Section 29 briquette projects that were designed and owned by an investment subsidiary of a Michigan public utility. Each of the projects had a rated capacity of between 200 TPH and 300 TPH. The plants were sited in West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky.
• In our capacity as contract operator, we supervised the last few months of construction, hired and trained 11 foreman and 71 plant / equipment operators and brought each project into production of clean coal from the ponds and alternative fuel from the briquette plants.
• Due to some unresolved questions concerning the tax status of the projects, the owner elected to shut them down in 1999. It was recently announced that the tax status questions have been favorably resolved and that the Section 29 briquette plants will be moved to utility sites or mine mouth operations. The pond recovery plants have been dismantled, relocated or sold to other operators.

Owner/Operator

• Negotiations are continuing in the development of a pond recovery project located in southern West Virginia and the addition of a fine coal column plant to an existing preparation plant in the southern Appalachian coal field. For these projects, BTI will be the owner and operator of the slurry pond dredging system and the fine coal preparation plants that will produce a fine clean coal to blend with the mine site's clean coal reserves.
• The recovery project will be designed for 200 TPH raw feed to the fine coal preparation plant and 75 TPH to 150 TPH raw feed to the column plant addition. The fine coal preparation plants will be using state-of-the-art designs that incorporate the latest technologies available to fine coal processing the to handle unique characteristics of fine coal and fine coal tailings.
• The recovery project is tentatively scheduled to come on-line in first to second quarter of 2005. The column plant addition project is anticipated to start in the third to fourth quarter of 2004.

Commercial Vibra-core Drilling and Lab Services Continue to Give an Edge in Impoundment Evaluation
Come on Strong; Consulting Services Added

• BTI personnel have perfected the Vibra-core drilling technique over hundreds of drilling projects in recent years. At our in-house labs in Pittsburgh, we have developed unique batteries of tests and procedures designed specifically to evaluate slurry pond cores and quality control samples from operating slurry pond recovery plants and fine coal systems within existing preparation plants.
• Since we had developed accurate, quick and inexpensive methods of taking and analyzing slurry pond cores, in the second quarter of 1999 we decided to further streamline our equipment and procedures. We now offer these same services to commercial clients who either own slurry ponds or are developing or operating pond recovery projects.
• In the past, we had drilled core holes on dry pond surfaces by hauling our Vibra-core drilling rig from hole to hole with a four-wheel drive all-terrain vehicle. Wet pond surfaces were drilled from a Vibra-core rig mounted on a flat bottom boat. In May of 1999, we mounted the Vibra-core rig on an eight-wheel drive, amphibious, LGP vehicle that can quickly reach drill sites in the most difficult terrain, and can travel from dry pond surfaces right into deep water for soundings and wet-hole drilling. At about the same time we added an automated light-scattering small particle size analyzer to our labs that permits us to do 28M X 0 size distribution analyses in a fraction of the time required for conventional wet and dry screening techniques.
• We began soliciting commercial clients for our drilling and analysis services in June of 1999. The program has been fairly successful so far. In addition to the drilling and lab work for our own development projects in the second half of 1999, we drilled over 200 core holes and performed over 150 full blown core analyses for commercial clients. We hope to make a significant increase in our customer base for these unique services in 2000.

Development of a Dredge Designed Specifically
for Coal Slurry Pond Recovery Projects

• One of the major problems experienced by most slurry pond projects has been that the dredges used to move coal tailings from slurry ponds to the washing plants were originally designed for sand applications. Sand is usually much more coarser than fine coal tailings, and it has a much higher specific gravity.
• Dredge cutter heads and pump arrangements that historically have worked well on sand, do not always work well with coal tailings. Most coal slurry pond projects are now looking for dredging capacities of at least 200 TPH of dry material. In conventional designs, by the time you equip the dredge with enough power and pump capacity to deliver 200 TPH or more of dry material, the physical size and weight of the dredge increase substantially. This makes the launch, relocation and maneuvering of the dredge, on the slurry pond, very difficult, if not impossible.
• In late 1999, BTI began working with Innovative Material Systems and designed a dredge specifically for coal slurry pond applications. It is equipped with a unique cutter head designed to handle the fine particles and low specific gravity common to fine coal materials from slurry ponds. The concept may revolutionize the future design of dredges for the coal industry.
• The prototype dredge is scheduled to be put into service at the southern West Virginia project in mid 2001.