After Obama reelection, Murray Energy CEO reads prayer, announces layoffs

Paul Fraughton/AP - In this 2007 file photo, Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray waits to be interviewed by a television news program in Utah. On Nov. 7, 2012, the day after the presidential election, Murray laid off 156 employees.

By Steven Mufson, WashPost, Published: November 9

For the chairman and chief executive of Murray Energy, an Ohio-based coal company, the reelection of President Obama was no cause for celebration. It was a time for prayer — and layoffs.

Robert E. Murray read a prayer to a group of company staff members on the day after the election, lamenting the direction of the country and asking: “Lord, please forgive me and anyone with me in Murray Energy Corp. for the decisions that we are now forced to make to preserve the very existence of any of the enterprises that you have helped us build.”

On Wednesday, Murray also laid off 54 people at American Coal, one of his subsidiary companies, and 102 at Utah American Energy, blaming a “war on coal” by the Obama administration. Although that charge was repeatedly leveled during the election, energy analysts say that the coal-mining business is suffering because of competition from low-cost natural gas and rising production costs of coal, especially in the Appalachian region.

Murray Energy is the country’s largest privately owned coal mining company, with about 3,000 employees producing about 30 million tons of bituminous coal a year, according to its Web site.

(More here.)