Maggard Sales & Service

07/06/2026

07/01/2026

🇺🇸 Happy Independence Day from Maggard Sales and Service! 🇺🇸

In observance of the 4th of July, Maggard Sales and Service will be closed Saturday, July 4th, so our team can spend the holiday with family and friends.

We sincerely appreciate your business and the hardworking mining and industrial communities we are proud to serve throughout Appalachia.

Have a safe, enjoyable, and patriotic holiday weekend! 🎆

06/17/2026

POWER Magazine is flagging a coal story few people expected to see again in the United States.

A proposed 1.6-GW coal-fired energy campus in Grant County, West Virginia, has landed up to $18.5 million from a federal coal-revival program.

The TerraSpark Energy Campus would sit near Mt. Storm and use four 400-MW supercritical boilers supplied by Babcock & Wilcox.

It isn't construction money yet.

The award is for front-end engineering, permitting and technical studies. With $21.5 million in non-federal cost share, the design phase is valued at roughly $40 million.

TerraSpark is aiming for the first 400-MW unit to begin commercial operation in 2030, with the other three units following in stages.

The big claim is carbon capture.

The developer says Mantel Capture’s molten borate system would be built into the plant from day one, targeting 95% to 98% CO2 capture. Captured carbon would be handled through geologic storage, unmineable coal seams, enhanced oil recovery and later industrial use.

That is the part supporters see as a new model.

That's also where critics will look hardest.

The total project cost hasn't been released. Neither have the planned power buyers, final financing structure or levelized power cost.

TerraSpark says the plant is being designed for contracted industrial customers, not open-market power sales.

For coal country, the pitch is direct: reliable power, carbon management and 500 permanent jobs at full buildout.

-

06/14/2026

Nobody is saving Appalachian coal by trying to turn the clock back.

That version is gone.

The old formula of giant domestic steam-coal demand, endless utility burn and broad-based mining payrolls across the mountains has been fading for years. What still has real life in it now is narrower and tougher: metallurgical coal, export business, disciplined operations and companies that can survive when weaker players fold.

That’s where Mitch Potter comes in.

Potter built his reputation in the rough years, not the easy ones. A second-generation eastern Kentucky coal man, he became known through Blackhawk Mining, one of the more serious coal rebuild stories to come out of the post-2008 wreckage. When others were trying to unload Central Appalachian assets, Potter was willing to buy, organize and keep them moving. More recently, his name has stayed tied to Coal-Mac and to the broader idea that Appalachian coal can still work if the mines are run carefully and the product still has a market. He is not selling nostalgia. He is selling coal that still earns its place.

Randall Atkins is fighting a similar battle from another flank.

Through Ramaco Resources, Atkins built a modern metallurgical coal company around southern West Virginia, southwestern Virginia and eastern Kentucky. That distinction matters. He is not banking on old-school thermal coal to save the region. He is leaning into coking coal, the kind used in steelmaking, the kind that still feeds blast furnaces, heavy industry and export demand. Atkins has also tried to give coal a broader future by tying Ramaco to critical minerals, rare earths and carbon-product ideas. Some of that may sound ambitious. But ambition is part of the equation now. Coal companies that want to survive have to prove there is still another chapter left in the ground.

Then there is Jimmy Brock.

Brock is one of the stronger examples of an operator who came up through the work itself. He started with CONSOL in 1979 and spent decades in mine-level and operating roles before moving into top leadership. That gives him a different feel from a pure finance-side executive. In 2025, after the CONSOL and Arch merger formed Core Natural Resources, Brock became a central figure in one of the most important coal companies left in the country. His role is not about grand speeches. It is about making coal lean enough, efficient enough and market-focused enough to keep attracting customers and investors. In a harder coal era, that may be one of the most important jobs in the business.

These three are not saving all of Appalachian coal.

Nobody can do that.

But they are helping save the part that still has a reason to exist.

Potter represents the tough, asset-level survival game. Atkins represents the metallurgical and future-products angle. Brock represents disciplined large-scale operating coal.

That is what Appalachian coal looks like now.

Smaller than it used to be. Harder than it used to be. Less sentimental, more selective.

The easy coal story is over.

The men still standing are fighting for the version that can still pay, still ship and still matter in steel, industry and exports.

-

05/31/2026

One of the best operators in the business.

Richard Gilliam’s coal story started quite far from Wall Street.

He grew up in Wise, Virginia, on an apple orchard, in the same Southwest Virginia country that later became the base of his mining fortune.

By the 1980s, Gilliam was building Cumberland Resources, an Abingdon-based coal company tied to the steep seams of Southwest Virginia and eastern Kentucky. It wasn’t a flashy public-market machine at all. It was a private Appalachian producer built around bituminous coal, underground work, preparation plants, trucking, families and towns where coal checks still decided the week.

Cumberland grew into one of the region’s serious operators. By 2010, it had more than 1,000 miners and support staff, about 416 million tons of estimated coal reserves, and a business strong enough to attract Massey Energy.

Then came the deal.

In March 2010, Massey agreed to buy Cumberland for $960 million, split between $640 million in cash and $320 million in stock. It was a major Central Appalachian coal transaction at a time when metallurgical coal still carried heavy weight.

But Gilliam’s name didn’t spread only because of the sale price.

It spread because of what happened after.

He shared more than $80 million with employees, including workers in Virginia and Kentucky, through cash bonuses and retirement-fund contributions. In an industry often remembered for bankruptcies, layoffs and bitter court fights, the Cumberland sale became one of the rare coal stories where the people underground got a piece of the exit.

Gilliam later moved further into philanthropy through the Gilliam Family Foundation, focused on Southwest Virginia community projects, education, health, economic development and local giving.

Coal made him wealthy.

But in Appalachia, where fortunes were often extracted and carried away, Richard Gilliam’s defining line was different.

When the big check cleared, he didn’t keep it all.

-

05/25/2026

On Memorial Day all of us at Maggard Sales pause to honor and remember the brave men and women who gave everything in service to our country.

Their sacrifice is the reason we enjoy the freedoms we often take for granted each day. Today, we remember the fallen, honor their legacy, and extend our deepest gratitude to the military families who continue to carry that sacrifice with them.

From our family at Maggard Sales — thank you to all who have served and especially to those who never made it home. 🇺🇸

05/19/2026

At the University of Kentucky's Center for Applied Energy Research, Matthew Weisenberger and his team are turning Kentucky coal into the synthetic graphite inside every lithium-ion battery — about 165 pounds per EV, ten to fifteen times more graphite than lithium in every phone and cordless drill. The seams that fueled a century of Kentucky industry are fueling the batteries we plug in now.