Elite Roller Mfg.

06/04/2026

06/04/2026

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06/04/2026

Karl Simich built his name on one of the cleaner mining turnarounds in modern Australia.

Not through a family empire.

Not through iron ore.

Through a junior explorer that nearly ran out of road.

In 2009, Sandfire Resources was still fighting for relevance in Western Australia’s Bryah Basin. Cash was tight, the share price was down around a few cents, and market interest was almost dead. Then DeGrussa changed everything.

The discovery turned Sandfire from a struggling explorer into a serious copper-gold producer. Production began in 2012, barely three years after the discovery hole. By 2019, DeGrussa had already produced more than 438,000 tonnes of copper and 254,000 ounces of gold, while the mine life had been stretched from about seven years to roughly eleven.

That became Simich’s signature.

He wasn’t a geologist. He came from commerce, accounting and corporate finance. But he understood the mining equation: geology only creates value when someone can fund it, build it and operate it.

Under his 15-year Sandfire run, DeGrussa generated more than ten years of profitable production, then funded the next chapter. Sandfire pushed into Botswana with Motheo, targeting up to 55,000 tonnes of copper a year after expansion, and into Spain through the US$1.865 billion MATSA acquisition.

By the time Simich stepped down in 2022, Sandfire had gone from a micro-cap hopeful to an international copper miner with assets across three continents.

His story is simple, but rare.

He took a discovery, survived the dangerous middle, and left behind a real mining company. Not just a stock-market story. A built one.

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06/03/2026

Johnson Industries is one of those companies that could only come from coal country.

Based in Pikeville, Kentucky, the manufacturer grew out of real underground mining experience. Its roots go back to 1974, when five brothers, Greg, Garla, Gwendel, Garnie and George Johnson, established Johnson Brothers Coal Company.

Before they built equipment for miners, they worked beside miners.

That became the company’s advantage.

The brothers understood the daily problems underground because they had lived them. Their coal operation was not small in ambition either. The Kinney Branch Company, supervised by Garnie, became the highest ton-per-man-hour coal producer in the United States, according to the company’s history.

Then a back injury changed George Johnson’s path.

His mining life was cut short, but the setback pushed him deeper into design and manufacturing. In 1981, Johnson Industries was born.

The first products included an industrial duty car and the Super Low Tail Piece. Then came the Slimm-Jim Laser, a patented underground alignment tool that gained fast acceptance in the mining industry.

But one of the company’s defining products was the Stinger, an MSHA-permissible, explosion-proof personnel carrier that became a top seller.

From there, Johnson Industries kept building around the same idea: equipment designed by people who understood the job.

Today, the company manufactures AC and DC electric mining vehicles, diesel personnel carriers, tunnel cars, rail runners, burden carriers, utility vehicles and coal auger sampling systems.

Its Uni-Sampler became another major step. Unlike older sampling systems requiring large buildings, belts and shakers, Johnson’s patented design was made to be faster, simpler and less expensive. The company says its sampling systems operate in the United States, China, India, Russia and Ukraine.

Johnson Industries now serves mining, tunneling, construction, airports, municipalities, industrial plants, parks and public attractions.

But its identity still feels rooted in the same place.

A Kentucky coal company became a manufacturer because miners saw problems that needed fixing.

That’s the story.

Not outsiders guessing what the industry needed.

Miners building for miners.

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06/03/2026

Saying no to the wrong things is how you protect the right ones.🇺🇸🪨🇺🇸

06/03/2026

The Mountaineer stripping shovel, a Marion 5760, worked for 23 years in Ohio before being retired in 1979.

From there, the giant machine sat idle and became an attraction for enthusiasts, but not just that.

While it waited nine years for a decision to be made about its future, the Mountaineer was literally trashed by vandals.

Graffiti, busted windows, stolen wiring and even gunshots. The big mining machine, once seen as an Appalachian coal mining staple, had been reduced to a playground for drunks and a**holes.

In 1988, the decision was finally made to dismantle it, putting the shovel out of its quiet and long misery.

Looking at it, you’d think that kind of mentality only fits today’s society. But even then, such problems were already part of everyday life.

Maybe nothing changes, after all...

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06/03/2026

January 29, 1991.

That was the day Big Muskie was officially retired, after roughly 22 years removing millions of tons of overburden in Ohio.

But for almost a third of its existence, starting in January 1991, Big Muskie sat idle, waiting for a decision about its future.

We know what that future was, sadly.

But for eight years, hope stayed alive.

A few groups tried to save the giant dragline from its misery, hoping to turn it into something more than a pile of steel. A museum, maybe. But a simple tourist attraction would have been alright, too.

It almost happened.

While contracts were being written, AEP refused to let the machine go for less than $2 million.

That was too much.

And time was running out.

In March 1999, while negotiations were still ongoing and funds were still being gathered, demolition of the world’s largest dragline began.

A few weeks later, Big Muskie was gone.

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06/03/2026

06/03/2026

U.S. coal exports are projected to rise about 5% in 2026, an increase of roughly 4 million short tons, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's May Short-Term Energy Outlook. Those exports include both the metallurgical coal that makes steel and the thermal coal that powers plants overseas.