"Walking" Dragline

This one of 4 draglines operating at this mine. If you look close you can see the circular patterns and tracks on the side from when this dragline "walked" to it current position.


Jewett Mine
Texas Westmoreland Coal Co.’s Jewett Mine is a 35,000-acre surface mine complex located between Dallas and Houston. It currently operates five active pits. It supplies lignite (a grade of coal) under a full lignite requirements contract to the adjacent two-unit Limestone Electric Generating Station owned by NRG Texas. A low-cost, base-load power plant utilizing emission control technologies, Limestone was designed and built specifically to burn lignite from Jewett.

Limestone enjoys a solid position in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) regional power market, which is heavily weighted with natural gas-fired power generation and thus more expensive and price-volatile than a market more dependent on coal-fired power. The contract between Jewett and Limestone runs through 2018. The Jewett Mine has in-place capacity currently up to 6.5 million tons of lignite annually.