Talk:Consol Energy/Archive 1

comment
I added information and sources about gas energy, divisions and areas of business, the financial standing, and the lobbying practices of the company Hoganeg2000 (talk) 03:56, 27 April 2019 (UTC) hoganeg

Corporate manipiulation of wikipedia
This page (13:42, 24 May 2006 revision) read suspiciously like a public relations text from CONSOL. In fact, the two paragraphs beginning with "CONSOL Energy Inc." are verbatim cut & paste from http://consolenergy.com -- which ironically isn't even linked to from the article under external links, let alone cited as a source.

I was curious who would add this to wikipedia, so I checked out the reverse DNS of the IP address associated with those changes in the history:

$ host 12.4.226.1 1.226.4.12.in-addr.arpa is an alias for 1.0/27.226.4.12.in-addr.arpa. 1.0/27.226.4.12.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer attila.consolenergy.com.

I'd say this presents some POV issues. Factual info, of course, should be cited, and we need some sources besides CONSOL's website.

Matt Toups 14:46, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 09:20, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

CONSOL Energy → Consol Energy — Manual of Style (trademarks) indicates that we should only use all-caps formatting when the word in question is an acronym. In this case, it is short for "Consolidated" and thus not an acronym. --Powers T 14:14, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Support the WP:MOSTM is clear on this.--76.66.180.54 (talk) 02:41, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

S&P500
As of March 4 2016 Consol is no longer on the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.87.117.230 (talk) 18:32, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Merge proposal
Propose to merge Consolidation Coal Company into this article as this is actually the same company. As this article misses history section, Consolidation Coal Company will make an excellent addition to this. Beagel (talk) 17:36, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Powers T 15:25, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Lede section
I noticed that some content in the lede section has been directly copied and pasted from the Hoovers company description referenced in the paragraph. There is also some other content that should be updated concerning their headquarter's location and what the company does - as far as I know, Consol is not involved in actual electricity generation. I also believe that Consol no longer operates in the Illinois Basin.

Accordingly, I've drafted a revised version of the lede addressing these issues. As noted on my user page, I have a WP:COI with this article, so I've posted my proposed revisions in the drop box below and will not move forward with any changes before reaching consensus with other editors.

Please feel free to comment on or make edits to the proposed draft of the lede section below. Thanks! CBuiltother (talk) 20:18, 12 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Suggestion- 1)You misspelled CONSOL Energy. You left an "n" out of Energy. 2)In the next sentence you have "at the" as one word. 3)I would put back in the part about the former name being The Consolidation Coal Company. 4)I would probably leave in this part too: "suburb of Cecil Township, in the Southpointe complex" Outside of that I think it looks good. Sabre ball (talk) 16:39, 14 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Hey Sabre ball, thanks for your edits and I apologize for the spelling mistakes. I've also reinserted the "suburb of Cecil Township, in the Southpointe complex" language. I'll allow some more time for any other interested editors to weigh in before moving forward with the revisions. Thanks again! CBuiltother (talk) 20:57, 14 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I've gone ahead and implemented the revisions to the lede section discussed above. Please feel free to comment here or on my talk page if there is any additional feedback.  Thanks! CBuiltother (talk) 16:35, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Converting bulleted timeline to prose, revisions to history section
When the Consolidation Coal Company article was incorporated into this page, the timeline from that article was added as a subsection of the now expanded history section. As noted on the current article, the bullet list format of the timeline does not comply with Wikipedia's style guidelines and I have accordingly drafted an alternative version of the history section in prose that incorporates some of the material covered in the timeline and provides additional substantiation.

As I have a WP:COI with this article, I will refrain from making these revisions before other editors have had a chance to weigh in. Please feel free to offer any thoughts or changes to this draft of the history section that I have included in the dropbox below. Thanks! - CBuiltother (talk) 16:13, 20 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Neutral to Approve, I don't see anything wrong with that as long as no facts are being deleted or abridged. I am not the most well versed on "wikistandards" and I wouldn't personally agree with the elimination of bullet points for every instance and article but on this article mho is that non-bullets would serve just as well or better. Hholt01 (talk) 20:37, 4 January 2012 (UTC)


 * By my understanding the proposed subsections are neutral and ready for the article page. Good work. Beagel (talk) 20:53, 4 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback Beagel and Hholt01, I'll provide some additional time for other editors weigh in before implementing the revision. - CBuiltother (talk) 17:53, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

{{Collapse|

Consolidation Coal Company (1860-1991)
Consol Energy was originally created in 1860 as the Consolidation Coal Company after several small mining companies in Western Maryland decided to combine their operations. The company was formally established in 1864 and headquartered in Cumberland, Maryland for the first 85 years (1864-1945), where the company became the largest bituminous coal company in the eastern United States.

Western Maryland's coal production rose about 1 million short tons in 1865, exceeded 4 million short tons by the turn of the century, and reached an all time high of about 6 million short tons in 1907. A small amount of the coal production in the early 1900s was premium smithing coal (as in blacksmith) that was specially processed and delivered in boxcars to customers throughout the United States and Canada. In 1945, Consolidation Coal Company was merged with Pittsburgh Coal Company and its headquarters were moved to Western Pennsylvania.

With growing demand for natural gas in the U.S. following World War II, Consolidation Coal Company was acquired by the Continental Oil Company, or Conoco, in 1966. By the mid 1970’s, Consolidation Coal Company operated 56 mines and employed nearly 20,000 miners. In 1981, Conoco along with Consolidation Coal Company was acquired by DuPont, which then sold some of its coal mining interests in Pennsylvania to the German energy company, Rheinbraun A.G.

Consol Energy (1991-Present)
Looking to invest in coal reserves in North America, Rheinbraun A.G offered Dupont stakes in coal mines and $890 million in 1991 to join in an equal part joint venture creating Consol Energy. Despite the cost of coal dropping in the 1990’s, Consol’s long-term contracts and investments in longwall mining techniques allowed the company to remain competitive. In 1998, Dupont sold the large majority of its stake in Consol, leaving it with only a 6 percent share and Rheinbraun A.G with a 94 percent interest. Consol also acquired Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company in 1998.

In 1999, Consol underwent a public offering (NYSE: CNX) in order to pay down some of the debt the company had incurred with the majority buy-out from Dupont and the acquisition of Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company. Due to uncertainty surrounding demand for coal in the early 2000’s, Consol began to place a greater emphasis on diversification, primarily into natural gas. Consol’s first major natural gas investment was through the acquisition of MCN Energy Group Inc.’s methane reserves in southeastern Virginia for $160 million. In 2001, Consol acquired Conoco Inc.’s coalbed methane gas production assets in southeastern Virginia.

Consol subsidiaries CNX Ventures and CNX Land Resources also began diversification efforts during this time into methane gas and timber and farming. In 2006, Consol spun off its subsidiary CNX Gas as a standalone company, but retained 83 percent of the new company’s shares. On June 28, 2006,Consol Energy entered the S&P 500 replacing Knight-Ridder. In 2007, CNX Gas also began investing heavily in natural gas exploration in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania. In 2010, Consol acquired Dominion Resources Inc.’s natural gas production and exploration assets for 3.74 billion dollars, which included nearly 500,000 acres of Marcellus potential, tripling Consol’s position in the Marcellus to approximately 750,000 acres. Consol also acquired all of the remaining publicly-owned shares of CNX Gas for a cash payment of $991 million.

In 2010 Consol was also named by Forbes as one of the “100 Most Trustworthy Companies.” in 2011, Consol entered into two separate joint venture agreements to expedite its natural gas production. The first, an agreement with Noble Energy, Inc. will jointly develop the company’s 663,350 Marcellus Shale acres in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The second joint agreement, with Hess Corporation, will jointly explore and develop Consol’s nearly 200,000 Utica Shale acres in Ohio.


 * 2=Updated draft of history section}}

After receiving feedback from other editors, I have gone ahead and implemented the revisions discussed above. CBuiltother (talk) 16:40, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Operations and financials
I thought it would be helpful to provide a more comprehensive synopsis of Consol's divisions and operations and have provided a draft of an expanded version of the operations section in the drop box below. I also felt that as the current financial results section is so short it could be subsumed as a subsection into an expended operations and financials section. However, I do not feel strongly about this merger of sections and if anybody has any other ideas they are certainly welcome.

In the interest of avoiding any WP:NPOV concerns, please feel free to review and make any necessary changes to the draft below. Thanks! - CBuiltother (talk) 15:27, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

{{Collapse|

Divisions and areas of business
Consol Energy operates as a producer of multiple energy sources, primarily for electric power generation. The company's largest assets consist of its coal and natural gas divisions, but Consol also maintains support services including Baltimore Marine Terminal, River Division, Research & Development, Land Division, and Fairmont Supply Company. Consol’s Coal Division operates 12 coal mining complexes in four states in the United States, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia and Utah. As of 2011, the company maintained an estimated 4.4 billion tons of proven and probable coal reserves and produced nearly 64 million tons of coal in 2010. The coal produced from these mining operations are sold from offices in Pittsburgh, PA, Philadelphia, PA, and Atlanta, GA. Consol’s coal division received the U.S. Department of the Interior's Office of Surface Mining National Award for Excellence in Surface Mining for the company's innovative reclamation practices in 2002, 2003, and 2004.

Consol’s Gas Division deals with natural gas exploration, development and production, producing nearly 128 billion cubic feet of coalbed methane in 2010. With the acquisition of the exploration and production business of Dominion Resources in 2010, the company has access to over 3.7 trillion cubic feet of proved clean-burning natural gas reserves in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, including coalbed methane and shale beds. The company currently has nearly 13,000 net producing wells.

As the owner of more than 430,000 surface acres in the U.S. and Canada, Consol Energy has a Land Division that oversees various projects, including selling reserve land that the company does not develop, land donation and conservation projects. Consol Energy has also been recognized for its reclamation efforts by national and state governments and has worked in partnership with several conservation groups on land reclamation projects. Consol’s River Division oversees transportation of coal and other products on the Monongahela, Allegheny, Kanawha, and Ohio Rivers with 22 tow and tugboats and over 620 barges. Consol’s Baltimore Marine terminal provides coal transshipment services from rail cars to ocean transport ships.

Consol also maintains the Fairmont Supply Company, dedicated to the sale and distribution of mining services and equipment. Additionally, the company operates the largest privately owned research and development facility in the industry that is devoted exclusively to coal and energy utilization and production.

Financials
In 2010, Consol Energy had an annual revenue of $5.236 billion. Customers primarily include electric utilities and steel mills in the U.S., but demand from European utilities has increased during the 2000’s. Consol Energy was ranked number 428 on the Fortune 500 list in 2011.


 * 2=Proposed operations and financials section}}


 * Approve - Looks good to me. --Sabre ball (talk) 18:00, 10 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback Sabre ball. I've gone ahead and implemented the revisions. I also added internal hyperlinks to the various rivers Consol's River Division operates on. - CBuiltother (talk) 19:04, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

NPOV concerns with controversies and political involvement sections
While I believe all the material was added in good faith, several of the issues discussed in the current controversies and political involvements sections, in my opinion, violate various WP:NPOV guidelines including WP:WEIGHT as well as WP:ORIGINAL, with the exception of the material dedicated to the Dunkard Creek Fish Kill - an issue clearly involving Consol that has received substantial third party coverage. I also feel that mention of a $2,000 donation by a VP at Consol does not merit discussion in an encyclopedic article.

Accordingly, I have proposed the following draft in the dropbox below that removes material I felt did not comply with WP:WEIGHT, i.e. discussion concerning the book at the bottom of the controversies section, and material that did not comply with WP:ORIGINAL, i.e. the claim that donations to Gov. Corbett were made in exchange for policy decisions. However, I have expanded the amount of content dedicated to the Dunkard Creek Fish Kill and added content concerning more general environmental criticism of coal and natural gas production. Additionally I included material at the end discussing recognition for Consol's reclamation efforts and renamed the controversies section environmental record as the political involvement section also deals with controversies.

I have done my best to adhere to WP:NPOV in this new draft, but as I have a WP:COI with this article and the material is controversial, I'm hoping to receive some feedback and am happy to implement any changes to the draft other editors think would be beneficial before moving forward with any revisions to the article. Thanks! - CBuiltother (talk) 17:46, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Good. My only comment is that I'd also add a sentence or two about Consol's ongoing environmental efforts in general alongside of citing those two particular events. Also, I'd add both of these sections under the umbrella section of "Public Affairs" or something similar. --Best, Weatherman1126  (  talk  ) 01:37, 29 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback Weatherman1126. I subsumed both sections under the heading Corporate responsibility based on what I've seen with other articles, but am happy to change it to Public affairs if you think that is more appropriate.  I also added some more general material on the company's environmental efforts.  I'll allow some additional time for you or any other interested editors to review before implementing.  Thanks again! - CBuiltother (talk) 18:08, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

{{Collapse|

Environmental record
In September 2009, several thousand fish were killed in Dunkard Creek, Monongalia County, West Virginia. While state officials attributed the fish kill to a golden algae bloom, an investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency claimed that mining discharges from Consol Energy’s Blacksville No. 2 mine created the conditions for the golden algae bloom. After halting operations at the mine following the fish kill, Consol was allowed to continue mining operations after coming to an agreement with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to submit a proposal for discharge treatment plants by April 15th of 2010. Consol also invested $200 million in a water treatment facility and paid a 5.5 million federal penalty to the U.S. Department of Justice and half to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection in 2011. The company maintains that it was never found liable for the fish kill.

As a producer of coal and natural gas, the environmental impact of coal mining and natural gas drilling has been a subject of controversy for Consol Energy. Despite this, the company has been recognized for its efforts at environmental protection and was awarded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Climate Protection Award in 2002. Additionally, Consol maintains ongoing environmental efforts aimed at restoring and enhancing property managed by the company and has worked with conservation groups including Ducks Unlimited and the National Wild Turkey Foundation on habitat restoration efforts.

Political involvement
An ad by the National Rifle Association critical of President Obama that was filmed on Consol’s Blacksville No. 2 coal mine in West Virginia became an issue of political debate in 2009. The National Rifle Association intended to ask miners the question "How do you feel about having your Second Amendment rights taken away if Obama becomes president." Word spread among pro-Obama miners who contacted their union, the United Mine Workers of America, resulting in 440 miners taking the day off to avoid appearing in the ad in a contract-sanctioned protest, halting production at Consol's Blacksville No. 2 coal mine.

Lobbying efforts on the part of Consol have also been an issue of controversy. In the first quarter of 2010, Consol spent $1.02 million dollars in lobbying expenses on issues relating to the coal mining and natural gas industries.

Proposed Water Division Addition to Divisions and Areas of Business Section
Hi, first off, I want to disclose that I have a WP:COI. Consol Energy is a client of my employer New Media Strategies. For that reason, I will solely suggest edits to the article but ask that other editors implement the changes once the community has reached WP:Consensus. I have a proposed addition to this section about Consol Energy's newly formed Water Division. The proposed addition is in the dropbox below. I would recommend that it be added to the divisions and areas of business section as the second to last paragraph. I welcome any edits or recommendations. Thanks. Namk48 (talk) 14:39, 12 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I too actually have a WP:COI; thus I limit my edits to trivial non-controversial things like "Update key figures in infobox." Given that, I see nothing wrong with what you've written. Very factual, unbiased. --Sabre ball t c 15:35, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll see if someone without a WP:COI can look it over. Namk48 (talk) 16:35, 13 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Seems fine for me. Beagel (talk) 11:17, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok sounds good. As I said earlier, I will not be implementing any changes to the article, so if the addition has reached WP:Consensus, can someone please add it to the article? Thanks. Namk48 (talk) 13:02, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Consol Energy. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20111127020437/http://online.wsj.com:80/article/APf52a87c5e1c34e5cac6b9a24e593fc6f.html to http://online.wsj.com/article/APf52a87c5e1c34e5cac6b9a24e593fc6f.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 18:14, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Proposed Revisions to Article
Given the changes Consol has seen in the past five years, we are providing factual change suggestions here. We have WP:COI with this article so we are submitting the following changes to be assessed. Thanks! --Gatesmanagency (talk) 21:43, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Suggested Edits for Lead section
Consol Energy Inc./kənˈsɒl/ is an American energy company with interests in coal [4] headquartered in the suburb of Cecil Township, in the Southpointe complex, just outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 2017, Consol formed two separate entities: CNX Resources Corporation and CONSOL Energy Inc. While CNX Resources Corp. focuses on natural gas, spin-off Consol Mining Corporation, now Consol Energy Inc. focuses on coal. In 2010, Consol was the leading producer of high-BTU bituminous coal in the United States and the U.S.’s largest underground coal mining company.[6] The company employs more than 1,600 people. 

Suggested Edits for Consol Energy (1991-present) section
In 2010, Consol was also named by Forbes magazine as one of the "100 Most Trustworthy Companies."[17] In 2011, Consol entered into two separate joint venture agreements to expedite its natural gas production. The first, an agreement with Noble Energy, Inc., jointly developed the company's 663,350 Marcellus Shale acres in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.[18] The second joint agreement, with Hess Corporation, jointly explored and developed Consol's nearly 200,000 Utica Shale acres in Ohio.[19] Consol also began an expansion of its Baltimore Terminal in 2011 to increase capacity from 14 million to 16 million tons to increase its revenue from sales of its metallurgical coal.[20]

In 2017, Consol Energy Inc. spun off from CNX Resources Group. Officially announced on November 29, 2017, this move marked the start of Consol Energy Inc. operating as an independent, publicly-traded company. 

Suggested Edits for Divisions and areas of business section
Consol Energy operates as a producer of coal, primarily for electric power generation. Consol also maintains support services including Baltimore Marine Terminal and Land Division.

Consol Energy’s flagship operation is the Pennsylvania Mining Complex, which includes three large underground mines capable of producing approximately 28.5 million tons of coal per year. Consol's coal division received the U.S. Department of the Interior's Office of Surface Mining National Award for Excellence in Surface Mining for the company's innovative reclamation practices in 2002, 2003, and 2004.[21]

The following paragraph is WP:IRRELEVANT and should be removed: Consol's Gas Division deals with natural gas exploration, development and production, producing nearly 128 billion cubic feet of coalbed methane in 2010. With the acquisition of the exploration and production business of Dominion Resources in 2010, the company has access to over 3.7 trillion cubic feet of proved clean-burning natural gas reserves in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, including coalbed methane and shale beds. The company currently has nearly 13,000 net producing wells.[6]

As the owner of more than 430,000 surface acres in the U.S. and Canada, Consol Energy has a Land Division that oversees various projects, including selling reserve land that the company does not develop, land donation and conservation projects. Consol Energy has also been recognized for its reclamation efforts by national and state governments and has worked in partnership with several conservation groups on land reclamation projects. Consol's Baltimore Marine Terminal provides coal transshipment services from rail cars to ocean transport ships. 

The following paragraph is WP:IRRELEVANT and should be removed: Consol also maintains the Fairmont Supply Company, dedicated to the sale and distribution of mining services and equipment. Additionally, the company operates the largest privately owned research and development facility in the industry that is devoted exclusively to coal and energy utilization and production.[26]

Suggested edits for Financials section
In 2018, Consol Energy had an annual revenue of $1.53 billion. Consol Energy was ranked number 428 on the Fortune 500 list in 2011.[27]

Suggested edits for Environmental record section
Caption for boat photo: Boat formerly operated by Consol Energy passes through downtown Pittsburgh, PA.

Suggested edits for Info Card
Key People: William P. Powell, Chairman Jimmy A. Brock, President & CEO Kurt R. Salvatori, Chief Administrative Officer Martha A. Weigand, General Counsel and Secretary

Products: Coal

The following products are WP:IRRELEVANT and should be removed: Natural gas Timber Electric power

Services: Transportation

Revenue: US $1.53 billion

Number of employees: 1,692

Edits looks fine to me Sabre ball t c 13:11, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Sabre ball! I've gone ahead and implemented the revisions as discussed above. Please feel free to comment here or on my talk page if there is any additional feedback. Thanks!Gatesmanagency (talk) 14:13, 18 April 2019 (UTC)