Richard John Budge (19 April 1947 – 18 July 2016) was a coal mining entrepreneur and chairman of the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation (CISWO).

Early life

He went to

Boston Grammar School The Boston Grammar School is an 11–18 boys selective grammar school and sixth form college located in Boston, Lincolnshire, England. By October 2021, a total of 812 pupils attending the school, 201 of which were in the sixth form provision ...

in Lincolnshire. He studied Fine Arts at the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

Career

He entered the coal mining industry when he joined the company of

Retford Retford (), also known as East Retford, is a market town in the Bassetlaw District in Nottinghamshire, England. It lies on the River Idle and the Chesterfield Canal. Retford is located east of Sheffield, west of Lincoln, Lincolnshire, Linco ...

-based A.F. Budge, owned by his brother Tony (1939–2010), which ran opencast mines. It was also involved in civil engineering schemes such as the construction of motorways. The company also sponsored the

December Gold Cup The December Gold Cup (run since 2024 as the Nyetimber December Gold Cup) is a Premier Handicap National Hunt racing, National Hunt Steeplechase (horse racing), steeplechase in Great Britain which is op ...

horse race at

Cheltenham Racecourse Cheltenham Racecourse at Prestbury Park, near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, hosts National Hunt horse racing. Racing at Cheltenham took place in 1815, but comprised only minor flat races on Nottingham Hill. The first racing on Cleeve ...

from 1988 to 1991. In February 1992, Richard Budge bought the opencast coal and Plant division from the family business with venture capital backing from Schroder Ventures for circa £103m, a transaction approved by Charterhouse Ventures and Prudential Ventures which were preference shareholders of A. F. Budge. A.F. Budge was majority owned by his elder brother Tony Budge.

RJB Mining

When the UK coal industry was privatised in 1994, Budge bought most of the pits for £815m, forming RJB Mining, which he had started in 1992 after buying his brother's opencast business division for £102.5m. This led to Budge being christened ''King Coal''. He bought three out of five packages of the UK coal industry (17 deep mine pits) on 30 December 1994 for around £700m. At the time there were 19 deep mines left in the UK. The last of these remaining deep mine pits,

Kellingley Colliery Kellingley Colliery, known affectionately as ''the 'Big K, was a deep coal mine in North Yorkshire, England, east of Ferrybridge power station. It was owned and operated by UK Coal. The colliery closed on 18 December 2015, marking the end ...

, closed on 18 December 2015. When the Labour government came to power, Budge informed the government that the pits would have to close unless he secured long-term contracts from the electricity generators

National Power National power is defined as the sum of all resources available to a nation in the pursuit of national objectives. Assessing the national power of political entities was already a matter of relevance during the classical antiquity, the Middle Ages ...

and Powergen (now called E.ON UK). On 14 July 2001 he quit as CEO of RJB Mining, which later became known as

UK Coal UK Coal Production Ltd, formerly UK Coal plc, was the largest coal mining business in the United Kingdom. The company was based in Harworth, in Nottinghamshire. The company was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. The successor company that c ...

Coalpower

He formed the company, Coalpower, in 2001. It bought the Hatfield Colliery, at Stainforth, in April 2004 from Hatfield Coal Company, helped by £7m of state aid. In late 2003, Coalpower went into administration.

Powerfuel

His company, Powerfuel, was 48% owned by Budge and 52% owned by KRU, Russia's second biggest coal company. In April 2007, he re-opened the pit at Stainforth, at a cost of £100m. financed by £50m from

VTB Bank VTB Bank (; formerly known as ''Vneshtorgbank'', , lit. 'International Trade Bank') is a Russian majority state-owned bank headquartered in various federal districts of Russia; its legal address is registered as St. Petersburg. As of 2022, ...

. Powerfuel went into administration in December 2010 owing £80 m to a combination of VTB Bank and

ING Group ING Group N.V. () is a Dutch multinational corporation, multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam. Its primary businesses are retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, whol ...

Personal life

In 1968 he married Rosalind White and lived at Wiseton in north

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated ''Notts.'') is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. The county is bordered by South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. Th ...

near Gringley-on-the-Hill, close to the A631. He was a member of the

Worshipful Company of Fuellers The Worshipful Company of Fuellers is one of the livery companies of the City of London. It is now associated with the whole energy sector, but has its roots in coal: the fuellers, or coal traders, were originally members of the Woodmongers' Co ...

.. Richard Budge died of prostate cancer on 18 July 2016 in Retford, Nottinghamshire.

References

External links

''Independent'' article August 2007

''Yorkshire Post'' December 2006 article

NUM 2006 article

* ttp://powerassetmodelling.co.uk/html/hatfield_igcc_.html Hatfield IGCC Project {{DEFAULTSORT:Budge, Richard 1947 births 2016 deaths Alumni of the University of Manchester British construction businesspeople British mining businesspeople English chief executives People educated at Boston Grammar School People from Wiseton People from Boston, Lincolnshire 20th-century English businesspeople