ST. LOUIS/ August 15, 2005– CIO magazine today announced that Arch Coal, Inc. (NYSE:ACI) earned the prestigious 2005 CIO 100 award. This marks the second time in the last three years that the program has recognized Arch Coal for exemplifying the highest level of operational and strategic excellence in information technology.

"The Bold 100 honorees stand out because they have dared to take on risk for the chance of reward in an extremely conservative business climate," says Abbie Lundberg, editor-in-chief, CIO. "The executives leading these organizations are smart, inventive and determined – I offer them my warmest congratulations."

According to CIO magazine, this year's award theme, the Bold 100, recognizes organizations that embrace great risk for the sake of great reward. Arch Coal was recognized primarily for the cooperative effort between its purchasing and I.S. departments in creating and implementing an e-procurement strategy. There were two prongs to this strategy. First, Information Services deployed e-hubs from Advanced Data Exchange and Mincom that allow field operations to send purchase orders to suppliers and then receive invoices completely electronically. Then, the purchasing group strongly encouraged key suppliers to sign up for the program. The vendors have responded so well that by 2006, Arch expects to have 50% of its non-services invoices moving electronically.

The recipients of this year's CIO 100 award were selected from an international pool of applicants. Teams of CIO magazine editors and writers reviewed the applications in depth, looking for unique practices and substantial results, and then met for a day-long meeting to debate the merits of each nominee and vote on the final 100.

Arch Coal was the only company based in Missouri to make the CIO 100 list this year. In 2003, Arch Coal received the CIO 100 award for improving efficiencies and adding shareholder value through the resourceful use of information technologies.

The 2005 CIO 100 awards will be presented at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego, California, on August 23 at the conclusion of the seventh annual CIO 100 Symposium® and Awards Ceremony. Complete coverage of the 2005 CIO 100 awards is detailed in the August 15 issue of CIO magazine and available online at www.cio.com.

St. Louis-based Arch Coal is the nation's second largest coal producer and mines low-sulfur coal exclusively. Through its subsidiary operations in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, Arch provides the fuel for approximately 7 percent of the electricity generated in the United States.