In the years following the 1974 Plan for Coal and the implementation of the need for consistent energy supply, to be based on continuing coal usage, a further plan was being devised by the Conservative Party. This involved privatisation of the energy generation and supply followed by the privatisation of the coal industry. The twelve electricity utility companies were privatised in 1990 and became two huge companies called Power Gen and National Power. The nuclear industry was removed and was kept under state ownership until 1995 where it was merged with Scottish Nuclear to become British Energy. In 1991 the Scottish energy generator became Scottish Power and Scottish and Southern Electricity.
Up to 1990 the generation of energy from gas was not allowed but in 1992 this changed when the restriction was removed allowing the generators to use the the North Sea Gas reserves. This resulted in a huge increase in gas generation called the ‘Dash for Gas’. At privatisation in 1990 the fossil fuels used for generation of base load was 92% coal, 7% Oil and 1% gas. The UK coal used for generation was over 73 million tonnes in 1990. The newly privatised energy industry signed contracts with British Coal to supply 65 million tonnes of coal up to 1993. Due to the impending loss of coal market with the new energy producers, the government minister Michael Heseltine announced a closure plan of 31 mines with three pits being left out of the announcement. One of the mines was Whitemoor in the Selby Coalfield.
This left 19 mines ready for the privatisation of the industry planned for 1994. After 1993 coal contracts with the two new energy companies reduced to 35 million of UK produced coal. Due to the huge building program of Combined Cycle Gas Turbine power stations, the import of cheaper, often subsidised coal from Russia, orimulsion and petcoke from the U.S. the writing was on the wall for the coal industry and the closure of coal fired power stations was the obvious next step.
The closure of the 31 coal mines with the loss of 37,000 miners in 1993 and the perceived concern over the potential closure of the Selby Coalfield had a fundamental effect on the staff with a daily shout in the pit head baths of ‘Have you heard owt’ meaning when are we closing. Mining contractors became more commonplace for even small jobs and staff changes were happening as the men from the closing pits saw Selby as the place to be for at least a few years anyway and staff leaving due to the mistrust of the new owners, RJB Mining.
The Selby Coalfield reached full production in 1992/93 with an output of 10.8 million tonnes. The following year, 1993/94, the production peaked at 12.1 million tonnes. the next 4 years were 8.2 million (9 months), 11.4 million, 10.3 million and 8.5 million tonnes respectively. In 1997, the merger of North Selby and Stillingfleet Mine along with closure of Whitemoor Mine was announced. RJB Mining took a very risk averse strategy on production faces from 1995 onwards. In 1997, the developments at the South West and the North East of the mine were abandoned at Riccall Mine with long life developments ceasing at Wistow and Stillingfleet Mines. Due to the closure of Whitemoor and North Selby Mines the number of faces being worked dropped and therefore output from the complex fell to 7.14 million tonnes. The original concept of the coalfield was to produce 10 million tonnes of coal from five mines. The closure of 2 mines and subsequent planned loss of production ensured the complex could never run at a profit due to the standing cost of Gascoigne Wood Mine. At the end of 1997 an announcement was made at Riccall Mine that the complex had a maximum of 7 years production left if we were lucky. All the readily available coal faces in the Selby Coalfield were worked along with a new development to work 9 million tonnes of Stanley Main coal at Riccall Mine to honour the coal contracts up to 2004 and the closure of the coalfield. In the year of closure the coal produced in the UK was down to 13 million tonnes per year, a figure the Selby Coalfield alone had almost achieved in 1994.
Selby Superpit 