Standby Letters of Credit

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2012

Standby Letters of Credit [Abstract]

STANDBY LETTERS OF CREDIT

NOTE 12: STANDBY LETTERS OF CREDIT

We provide certain third parties with irrevocable standby letters of credit in the normal course of business. We use commercial banks to issue such letters of credit to back our obligations to pay or perform when required to do so according to the requirements of an underlying agreement. The standby letters of credit listed below are cancelable only at the option of the beneficiaries who are authorized to draw drafts on the issuing bank up to the face amount of the standby letter of credit in accordance with its terms. Our standby letters of credit as of March 31, 2012 are summarized in the table below:

in thousands	March 31 2012
Standby Letters of Credit
Risk management requirement for insurance claims		$44,083
Payment surety required by utilities		130
Contractual reclamation/restoration requirements		8,169
Financial requirement for industrial revenue bond		14,230
Total		$66,612

Since banks consider standby letters of credit as contingent extensions of credit, we are required to pay a fee until they expire or are canceled. Substantially all of our standby letters of credit have a one-year term and are automatically renewed unless cancelled with the approval of the beneficiary. All $66,612,000 of our outstanding standby letters of credit as of March 31, 2012, is backed by our $600,000,000 bank line of credit which expires December 15, 2016.