Digging into the reserves

The mine has 30 million tonnes of reserves

An estimated 30 million tonnes of coal reserves remain in the Longannet colliery in Fife and miners argue that they should be able to continue producing it.

However, the "catastrophic" flood of 17 million gallons of water into the mine has led its operators to conclude that production of coal should cease.

Miners claim that money should be found to keep Scotland's last deep mine open.

They say a new seam in which the eco-friendly low sulphur coal is buried will prove to be a "long term asset".

Longannet has experienced a number of problems

Nicky Wilson, president of the National Union of Mineworkers in Scotland, said: "We are continuing to argue that there are long term assets of coal reserves."

He said that only two other collieries in the whole of Britain have a similar level of reserves.

"Therefore that asset should be exploited for the good of the energy needs of this nation," he added.

Scottish Coal (Deep Mine) said the geological problems at the mine had made it unviable.

Mr Wilson does not deny that there have been many difficulties at the mine in the last few years.

Walk away

It has received more than £40m in government grants over the past two years to overcome the problems.

Mr Wilson said: "The reason the government did that was that they could see the long term assets of reserves in the colliery."

And he warned: "You do not simply walk away from a coal mine.

"There will have to be substantial amounts of money spent even if the closure takes place.

"The money they would have to use to close it would be better used to get back into production and get all the assets for many years to come."