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Commitments and Contingencies | 12 Months Ended
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Dec. 31, 2018
Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract] |
Commitments and Contingencies | Commitments and Contingencies Commitments Unconditional Purchase Obligations As of December 31, 2018, purchase commitments for capital expenditures were $110.3 million, all of which is obligated within the next three years, with $94.2 million obligated in the next year. In Australia, the Company has generally secured the ability to transport coal through rail contracts and ownership interests in five east coast coal export terminals that are primarily funded through take-or-pay arrangements with terms ranging up to 24 years. In the U.S., the Company has entered into certain long-term coal export terminal agreements to secure export capacity through the Gulf Coast. As of December 31, 2018, these Australian and U.S. commitments under take-or-pay arrangements totaled $1.3 billion, of which approximately $148 million is obligated within the next year. Contingencies From time to time, the Company or its subsidiaries are involved in legal proceedings arising in the ordinary course of business or related to indemnities or historical operations. The Company believes it has recorded adequate reserves for these liabilities. The Company discusses its significant legal proceedings below, including ongoing proceedings and those that impacted the Company’s results of operations for the periods presented. Litigation Relating to the Chapter 11 Cases Ad Hoc Committee. A group of creditors (the Ad Hoc Committee) that held certain interests in the Company's prepetition indebtedness appealed the Bankruptcy Court's order confirming the Plan. On December 29, 2017, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri (the District Court) entered an order dismissing the Ad Hoc Committee's appeal, and, in the alternative, affirming the order confirming the Plan. On January 26, 2018, the Ad Hoc Committee appealed the District Court's order to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (the Eighth Circuit). In its appeal, the Ad Hoc Committee does not ask the Eighth Circuit to reverse the order confirming the Plan. Instead, the Ad Hoc Committee asks the Eighth Circuit to award the Ad Hoc Committee members either unspecified damages or the right to buy an unspecified amount of Company stock at a discount. The Company does not believe the appeal is meritorious and will vigorously defend it. Litigation Relating to Continuing Operations Peabody Monto Coal Pty Ltd, Monto Coal 2 Pty Ltd and Peabody Energy Australia PCI Pty Ltd (PEA-PCI). In October 2007, a claim was made against Peabody Monto Coal Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary, and Monto Coal 2 Pty Ltd, an equity accounted investee of Macarthur Coal Limited (Macarthur), now known as PEA-PCI. The claim alleged that the Macarthur companies breached certain agreements by failing to develop a mine project. The claim was amended to assert that Macarthur induced the alleged breach of the Monto Coal Joint Venture Agreement. The Company acquired Macarthur and its subsidiaries in 2011. These claims, which are pending before the Supreme Court of Queensland, Australia, seek damages of up to $1.1 billion Australian dollars, plus interest and costs. The Company asserts that the Macarthur companies were never under an obligation to develop the mine project because the project was not economically viable. The Company disputes all of the claims brought by the plaintiffs and is vigorously defending its position. Trial is currently set to commence on April 8, 2019. Berenergy Corporation. The Company has been in a legal dispute with Berenergy Corporation (Berenergy) regarding Berenergy’s access to certain of its underground oil deposits beneath the Company’s North Antelope Rochelle Mine and contiguous undisturbed areas. Berenergy contends the Company should not be able to mine the area where Berenergy and Peabody hold conflicting leases. Berenergy also contends that if the Company does mine the area, then the Company should be liable to Berenergy for the cost of certain special procedures and equipment required to access the secondary deposits remotely from outside the Company’s mine area, which has been estimated at $13.1 million by Berenergy. The Company believes that it should be allowed to mine the area conflicting with Berenergy’s leases so long as it pays for the reasonable value of the oil reserves under Berenergy’s wells that sit on its four leases, which the Company estimates to be approximately $1.0 million. The parties entered into an interim agreement that allows Peabody to plug certain of Berenergy’s wells to allow Peabody to mine certain areas where the two parties hold conflicting leases. This dispute currently has proceedings before the Wyoming Supreme Court and a federal court in Wyoming. The Company will vigorously defend its position in both proceedings, as it believes Berenergy’s claims are without merit and that the likelihood of a material loss resulting from the matter is remote. County of San Mateo, County of Marin, City of Imperial Beach. The Company was named as a defendant, along with numerous other companies, in three nearly identical lawsuits. The lawsuits seek to hold a wide variety of companies that produce fossil fuels liable for the alleged impacts of the greenhouse gas emissions attributable to those fuels. The lawsuits primarily assert that the companies’ products have caused a sea level rise that is damaging the plaintiffs. The complaints specifically alleged that the defendants’ activities from 1965 to 2015 caused such damage. The Company filed a motion to enforce the Confirmation Order in the Bankruptcy Court because the Confirmation Order enjoins claims that arose before the effective date of the Plan. The motion to enforce was granted on October 24, 2017, and the Bankruptcy Court ordered the plaintiffs to dismiss their lawsuits against the Company. On November 26, 2017, the plaintiffs appealed the Bankruptcy Court’s October 24, 2017 order to the District Court. On November 28, 2017, plaintiffs sought a stay pending appeal from the Bankruptcy Court, which was denied December 8, 2017. On December 19, 2017, the plaintiffs moved the District Court for a stay pending appeal. The District Court denied the stay request on September 20, 2018, and the plaintiffs appealed that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals from the Eighth Circuit. The parties are waiting for a decision on the merits of the appeal and on the appeal of the stay. In the underlying cases pending in California, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted plaintiffs’ motion for remand and decided the cases should be heard in state court. The defendants appealed the order granting remand to the Ninth Circuit and sought a stay of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California decision pending completion of the Ninth Circuit appeal. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted defendants’ request for a stay pending completion of the Ninth Circuit appeal. The plaintiffs filed a motion to dismiss part of the appeal. The parties are now litigating at the Ninth Circuit whether a state or federal court should hear these lawsuits. Regardless of whether state court or federal court is the venue, the Company believes the lawsuits against it should be dismissed under enforcement of the Confirmation Order. The Company does not believe the lawsuits are meritorious and, if the lawsuits are not dismissed, the Company intends to vigorously defend them. 10th Circuit U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Appeal. On September 15, 2017, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the District Court of Wyoming’s decision upholding BLM’s approval of four coal leases in the Powder River Basin. Two of the four leases relate to the Company’s North Antelope Rochelle Mine in Wyoming. There is no immediate impact on the Company’s leases as the Court of Appeals did not vacate the leases as part of its ruling. Rather, the Court of Appeals remanded the case back to the District Court of Wyoming with directions to order BLM to revise its environmental analysis. On November 27, 2017, the District Court of Wyoming ordered BLM to revise its environmental analysis. BLM published its draft environmental analysis on July 30, 2018. The Company, along with the National Mining Association, the Wyoming Mining Association and Arch Coal, Inc., submitted comments on the draft environmental analysis by the comment deadline of October 4, 2018. BLM’s recent status report filed with the District Court of Wyoming indicated it would not issue a final environmental analysis until the spring of 2019 and will refine that estimate in a future report. The Company’s operations will continue in the normal course during this period since the decision has no impact on mining at this time. The Company currently believes that its operations are unlikely to be materially impacted by this case, but the timing and magnitude of any impact on the Company’s future operations is not certain. Central Arizona Water Conservation District (CAWCD). On May 1, 2018, the Company, along with the Hopi Tribe and the UMWA, filed a lawsuit against the CAWCD. CAWCD operates, on behalf of the Bureau of Reclamation, the Central Arizona Project (CAP), an aqueduct system that brings water from the Colorado River to three counties in Arizona. CAWCD historically obtained most of CAP’s power requirements from the Navajo Generating Station (NGS), which is served by a single Peabody mine. NGS is owned by several private companies and one governmental entity. The owners of NGS issued a statement that they do not currently intend to be the operators of the plant beyond December 2019. Recently, CAWCD made the decision to obtain a portion of CAP’s power requirements from sources other than NGS for 2020 and thereafter. The lawsuit seeks a determination that federal law requires CAWCD to obtain CAP’s power requirements from NGS. A motion to dismiss filed by CAWCD is currently pending. Other At times the Company becomes a party to other disputes, including those related to contract miner performance, claims, lawsuits, arbitration proceedings, regulatory investigations and administrative procedures in the ordinary course of business in the U.S., Australia and other countries where the Company does business. Based on current information, the Company believes that such other pending or threatened proceedings are likely to be resolved without a material adverse effect on its financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

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