Laid off from Wellmore Energy.

What Wellmore Energy layoffs have meant for employees

Wellmore's notices to Virginia were written for particular operations, and each tied the operations it named to a separation window. The company's operations, as United Coal's website describes them, have included two company-operated underground mines, a surface mine, seven contract mines, three shops, two preparation plants, a lab and an administration office, and the 2025 letters named mines, a preparation plant and administrative operations. Even within the summer of 2025 the windows differed, with the Elk Creek letter and the first surface minerals letter setting one and the letter that added the Big Rock preparation plant a later one, Virginia Business reported. If you're working out which dates covered your group, it's worth matching your site to its entry on Virginia Works' list, which gives each notice's date, impact date and location.

What Wellmore and United Coal said that fall points in opposite directions, and it bears on whether to wait for a callback. United Coal's general counsel told Cardinal News the operations would remain on hot idle, prepared for an improving met coal market. The letters themselves told the state the company expected the job losses to be permanent, that the workers had no right to bump into another position, and that they worked without union representation, Virginia Business reported. If you're deciding between a job elsewhere and the chance of a restart, those letters are the company's own written expectation, and neither United Coal's statement nor Metinvest's April 2026 results presentation puts a date on a restart.

By United Coal's count, Wellmore would employ 171 people once the summer layoffs were done, Cardinal News's August report said. The October letters then covered 118 more, about seven in ten of that staff, and by Cardinal's arithmetic they'd leave 53 if nothing else changed. The reasons the company gave weren't the same each time. In August its general counsel tied some cuts to mine operations that had been completed and others to a weak met coal market, and the paper pointed to an S&P Global report from that May linking falling met coal prices to weaker steel demand and trade-policy uncertainty. By October his statement turned on the market, which he said had been challenging for all U.S. coal operators for 16 months.

For crews at some sites, 2025 wasn't the first round. By the state's entries, the July 2023 notices had already named Paw Paw 2 South for 39 jobs and Elk Creek for 58, alongside a laboratory, a trucks, safety and engineering group and a shop and central warehouse. Both mines came back in the 2025 letters, Elk Creek for 27 that summer and Paw Paw 2 South for 95 in October. If you stayed on at either mine after 2023, the 2025 letters were the second set to name it.

Dates on the paperwork and dates in public didn't always line up for Wellmore's notices. One of the July 7 letters, the one for Elk Creek, didn't reach the state until Aug. 4, by Virginia Business's account, and the October letters were dated Oct. 6, while Cardinal's report came at the end of the month, after Virginia Works updated its online listing. If you're checking dates against the state's list, a letter's date, the day the state received it and the day the news reported it sat weeks apart for some of these 2025 notices.

If you're looking for mining work close to home, it's worth knowing that WVVA counted more than 300 mining positions eliminated in Buchanan County in 2025, Wellmore's among them. The summer letters came from United Coal's human resources staff, and Virginia Works posts the layoff notices the state receives. Our WARN tracker carries the Wellmore Energy Company filings and the December 2020 Wellmore Coal Company notice that Virginia's records link to them.

A sourced history of Wellmore Energy layoffs

• October 2025, layoff letters and a hot idle

  Letters dated Oct. 6 scheduled 118 layoffs for Dec. 6 to 19, 95 of them at the Paw Paw 2 South mine, Cardinal News reported. An Oct. 31 notice added 9 Big Rock jobs, per Virginia Works.

• July and August 2025, three layoff letters

  Letters dated July 7 and Aug. 4 covered 72 jobs at Elk Creek, a surface minerals site and a Big Rock preparation plant, Virginia Business reported. United Coal cited completed mine work and a poor met coal market, per Cardinal News.

• July 2023, layoff notices for eight operations

  Notices dated July 11 set Sept. 10 layoffs at eight operations in Grundy, Hurley and Big Rock, and their entries on Virginia Works' list add up to 150 jobs. The count was 135 in WCYB's August 2023 report.

• December 2020, Wellmore Coal Company closing notice

  Wellmore Coal Company, the name United Coal's website says it gave the operation in 2006, filed a closing notice for 61 Buchanan County jobs, per Virginia Works, giving the same Grundy contact and street number as Wellmore Energy's 2025 state entries.

What to do if you're laid off from Wellmore Energy

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Wellmore Energy's biggest hubs: Virginia. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
• Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what Wellmore Energy's hub states run: Virginia, and every other state is here.
• Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
• Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
• Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.