ROYALTON - No jobs will be lost when Knight Hawk Coal closes its Royal Falcon mine later this year.

"Everybody's going to move to one of our other Southern Illinois locations here," said Director of Operations Josh Carter. "We're not laying anyone off; we're just reallocating resources."

When operations at the mine, located near the Jackson-Franklin county line, begin winding down later this week, the about 50 employees there will move to one of the company's three other mining locations. Knight Hawk also has another mine in the process of being opened.

Geological challenges at Royal Falcon and a coal market affected by the economy were cited in a news release as reasons the company chose to shift its focus to other mine locations.

Knight Hawk has maintained an employee base of about 350 employees through the economy and pro-jects a 10 percent growth next year, Carter said.

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