WARRIOR MET COAL INC
HCC
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exclusion reasons
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This page is part of our public exclusion list — a transparency tool that shows which companies we screen out and why. It is not investment advice, and it is not an accusation. But it is subject to change as our understanding of the facts evolves.
Warrior Met Coal is a U.S.-based producer dedicated entirely to mining metallurgical coal, a critical input for steelmaking. Its operations are concentrated in Alabama, where it extracts and processes this non-thermal coal for export to steel manufacturers in Europe, South America, and Asia. The company’s business model is singularly focused on this commodity.
The company’s operational record is marked by significant and repeated federal safety violations. In April 2025, public reports highlighted that Warrior Met Coal’s Alabama mining complexes had accumulated thousands of federal safety violations issued by the Mine Safety and Health Administration under multiple administrations. This pattern of regulatory non-compliance extends to specific enforcement actions; in 2025, the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission upheld complaints against Warrior Met Coal for unlawfully disciplining and terminating miners.
Despite its corporate messaging as an “environmentally and socially minded supplier,” this documented history of systemic safety failures and labor disputes contradicts its stated commitments. The company’s core activity remains the extraction of metallurgical coal, an energy-intensive process with inherent environmental impacts, with no announced transition plan away from fossil fuel dependency.
Warrior Met Coal operates metallurgical coal mines in Alabama, an activity with inherent environmental impacts. The company has been the subject of litigation and regulatory scrutiny over water pollution from its operations. In September 2022, the environmental group Black Warrior Riverkeeper sued Warrior Met Coal over polluted runoff from its Mine No. 7 discharging into the Black Warrior River watershed. The lawsuit alleged violations of the Clean Water Act. In July 2024, a settlement was reached in that case, with Warrior Met agreeing to take measures to stop the pollution from that Tuscaloosa County mine.
Separately, federal regulators have initiated a full Environmental Impact Statement process for the company’s Mine No. 4 expansion, moving beyond a simpler environmental assessment, indicating the project's potential for significant environmental effects. While the company publishes sustainability reports highlighting methane capture efforts, its core business of coal mining continues to pose risks of soil contamination, habitat destruction, and water pollution.
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