Judge Chambers Grants CONSOL Energy Request to Continue Mining PITTSBURGH, Dec. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CONSOL Energy Inc. (NYSE: CNX) has received notice that Judge Robert C. Chambers, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, Huntington Division, has ruled that CONSOL's Fola Operations near Bickmore, W.Va., can continue to operate past the judge's previously imposed deadline of January 23, 2010. Judge Chambers yesterday granted CONSOL subsidiary Fola Coal Company's motion for judicial relief of his previous ruling of November 24, 2009, that found deficiencies in the permit notification process by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. This resulted in the setting aside of a previously approved permit for Fola that had been issued in January, 2008. But at that same time, Judge Chambers also stayed his November 24th ruling for 60 days -- until January 23, 2010 -- to give Fola an opportunity to appeal or seek other relief. "We are very pleased by Judge Chambers' ruling, which is welcome news to our nearly 500 Fola employees and their families, especially during this Holiday Season," said Nicholas J. DeIuliis, CONSOL Energy executive vice president and chief operating officer. "This ruling will allow us to re-focus our attention on operating the Fola Complex safely, efficiently and in an environmentally sound manner." Due to the judge's November ruling, Fola Coal Company subsequently issued a WARN notice on December 8 to its approximately 500 employees at the Fola operations, that mining operations would cease on January 23, 2010 and layoffs would begin on February 7, 2010. Approximately 104 workers at the Little Eagle Mine and 378 at Fola's Ike Fork Mine would have been affected by the layoff. Fola's motion which was filed on December 17th sought Judge Chambers' approval to continue operating in six valley fills that were already being affected by surface mining operations under previous approvals issued from the court. These surface mining activities were allowed to continue by Judge Chambers during the litigation process in several orders issued since March 2008. Monday's order by Judge Chambers allows Fola to continue using these six valley fill areas. "We also want to give our sincere thanks to Governor Joe Manchin and his administration, along with U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller, U.S. Reps. Nick Rahall and Shelley Moore Capito for their efforts to keep Fola operating and to preserve jobs in central West Virginia," noted DeIuliis. "Most especially, we want to thank the employees and management of the Fola Operations for their diligence and support in this effort." CONSOL Energy Inc., a high-Btu bituminous coal and natural gas company, is a member of the Standard & Poor's 500 Equity Index and the Fortune 500. It has 12 bituminous coal mining complexes in six states and reports proven and probable coal reserves of 4.5 billion tons. It is also a majority owner of CNX Gas Corporation, a leading Appalachian gas producer, with proved reserves of over 1.4 trillion cubic feet. Additional information about CONSOL Energy can be found at its web site: http://www.consolenergy.com/. Forward-Looking Statements Various statements in this document, including those that express a belief, expectation, or intention, as well as those that are not statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements (as defined in Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995). The forward-looking statements may include projections and estimates concerning the timing and success of specific projects, our future production, revenues, income and capital spending. When we use the words "believe," "intend," "expect," "may," "should," "anticipate," "could," "would," "will," "estimate," "plan," "predict," "project," or their negatives, or other similar expressions, the statements which include those words are usually forward-looking statements. When we describe strategy that involves risks or uncertainties, we are making forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this document speak only as of the date of this document; we disclaim any obligation to update these statements unless required by securities law, and we caution you not to rely on them unduly. We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations and assumptions about future events. While our management considers these expectations and assumptions to be reasonable, they are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, regulatory and other risks, contingencies and uncertainties, most of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond our control. These risks, uncertainties and contingencies include, but are not limited to: the deteriorating economic conditions; an extended decline in prices we receive for our coal and gas affecting our operating results and cash flows; reliance on customers honoring existing contracts, extending existing contracts or entering into new long-term contracts for coal; reliance on major customers; our inability to collect payments from customers if their creditworthiness declines; the disruption of rail, barge and other systems that deliver our coal; a loss of our competitive position because of the competitive nature of the coal industry and the gas industry, or a loss of our competitive position because of overcapacity in these industries impairing our profitability; our inability to hire qualified people to meet replacement or expansion needs; coal users switching to other fuels in order to comply with various environmental standards related to coal combustion; the inability to produce a sufficient amount of coal to fulfill our customers' requirements which could result in our customers initiating claims against us; foreign currency fluctuations could adversely affect the competitiveness of our coal abroad; the risks inherent in coal mining being subject to unexpected disruptions, including geological conditions, equipment failure, timing of completion of significant construction or repair of equipment, fires, accidents and weather conditions which could impact financial results; increases in the price of commodities used in our mining operations could impact our cost of production; obtaining, maintaining and renewing governmental permits and approvals for our operations; the effects of proposals to regulate greenhouse gas emissions; the effects of government regulation; the effects of stringent federal and state employee health and safety regulations; the effects of mine closing, reclamation and certain other liabilities; the effects of subsidence from longwall mining operations on surface structures, water supplies, streams and surface land; uncertainties in estimating our economically recoverable coal and gas reserves; the outcomes of various legal proceedings, which proceedings are more fully described in our reports filed under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; increased exposure to employee related long-term liabilities; minimum funding requirements by the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (the Pension Act) coupled with the significant investment and plan asset losses suffered during the current economic decline has exposed us to making additional required cash contributions to fund the pension benefit plans which we sponsor and the multi-employer pension benefit plans in which we participate; lump sum payments made to retiring salaried employees pursuant to our defined benefit pension plan; our ability to comply with laws or regulations requiring that we obtain surety bonds for workers' compensation and other statutory requirements; acquisitions that we recently have made or may make in the future including the accuracy of our assessment of the acquired businesses and their risks, achieving any anticipated synergies, integrating the acquisitions and unanticipated changes that could affect assumptions we may have made; the anti-takeover effects of our rights plan could prevent a change of control; risks in exploring for and producing gas; new gas development projects and exploration for gas in areas where we have little or no proven gas reserves; the disruption of pipeline systems which deliver our gas; the availability of field services, equipment and personnel for drilling and producing gas; replacing our natural gas reserves which if not replaced will cause our gas reserves and gas production to decline; costs associated with perfecting title for gas rights in some of our properties; location of a vast majority of our gas producing properties in three counties in southwestern Virginia, making us vulnerable to risks associated with having our gas production concentrated in one area; other persons could have ownership rights in our advanced gas extraction techniques which could force us to cease using those techniques or pay royalties; our ability to acquire water supplies needed for drilling, or our ability to dispose of water used or removed from strata at a reasonable cost and within applicable environmental rules; the coalbeds and other strata from which we produce methane gas frequently contain impurities that may hamper production; the enactment of Pennsylvania severance tax on natural gas may impact results of existing operations and impact the economic viability of exploiting new gas drilling and production opportunities in Pennsylvania; our hedging activities may prevent us from benefiting from price increases and may expose us to other risks; and other factors discussed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2008 under "Risk Factors," as updated by any subsequent Form 10-Qs, which are on file at the Securities and Exchange Commission. DATASOURCE: CONSOL Energy Inc. CONTACT: Joseph A. Cerenzia, Director - Public Relations of CONSOL Energy Inc., +1-412-996-8823 Web Site: http://www.consolenergy.com/

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