The company has also laid off 200 staff of the coal mines at Buckeye complex in Knott and Perry counties and is expecting to resume operations in 2014, if market conditions improve.
In September, several other mines in eastern Kentucky were also idled, affecting 525 full-time employees and by James River reduced production at others in March.
James River Coal chief executive Peter Socha told Reuters on a post-earnings conference call, "I feel relatively optimistic about where we are right now but at the same time I also need to be cautionary that a lot of agreements need to be reached and a lot of negotiating that still has to take place."
