British Coal

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The British Coal Corporation was a nationalised corporation in the United Kingdom responsible for the extraction of coal. It existed, in various forms, between 1946, with the passing of the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act, and 1997, when it was officially wound up.

[edit] History

British Coal was formed on 12 July 1946 as the National Coal Board (NCB), which was responsible for the organisation and running of coal extraction. It was under the responsibility of the Minister of Fuel & Power, who presented the Board's reports to Parliament.

The vesting date for nationalised coal was 1 January 1947 when the assets of approximately 800 private colliery companies, the Coal Commission, the service contracts held by the colliery companies, and all staff from the district selling schemes that operated in the United Kingdom were transferred to the NCB.

The NCB formed two holding companies in 1973 to handle non-core (deep and opencast mining) activities: NCB (Coal Products) Limited and NCB (Ancilliaries) Limited.

In 1987 the NCB became the British Coal Corporation.

With the passing of the Coal Industry Act in 1994 the industry-wide administrative functions of British Coal were transferred to a new Coal Authority. Its economic assets were privatised, the English mining operations being merged with RJB Mining to form UK Coal plc.