U.S. Coal Miner Backed by Bankrupt Murray Is Losing Its Listing

(Bloomberg) -- Foresight Energy LP, the U.S. coal miner backed by bankrupt Murray Energy Corp., has been told by the New York Stock Exchange that it’s facing a delisting.

The St. Louis, Missouri-based miner received notice on Friday that trading of the company’s common units was being suspended and that the exchange had begun the process of delisting the stock because it was “no longer suitable for listing” due to “abnormally low” prices.

Foresight, which said it won’t fight the delisting, has been trying to keep afloat for months in the face of a coal market collapse that has already forced Murray Energy, which bought a controlling stake in the company, into bankruptcy. Their struggles underscore how deeply cheap natural gas and renewable energy resources have cut into coal’s share of the U.S. power market. At least five miners including Cloud Peak Energy Inc. and Blackjewel LLC have filed for Chapter 11 this year.

Foresight has already missed a deadline for making a payment its creditors, but lenders agreed to a grace period.

(Michael R. Bloomberg, the founder and majority stakeholder of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, has committed $500 million to launch Beyond Carbon, a campaign aimed at closing the remaining coal-powered plants in the U.S. by 2030 and slowing the construction of new gas plants.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Lynn Doan in San Francisco at ldoan6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Doan at ldoan6@bloomberg.net, Patrick McKiernan

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