Note 3. Income Taxes

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2012

Income Tax Disclosure [Text Block]

Note 3.   Income Taxes

Major components of our income tax provision for the three months ended March 31, 2012 and 2011 are as follows (in thousands):

	Three Months Ended March 31,
	2012		2011
Current:
Federal	$	3,672	$	—
State		551		—
Foreign		115		115
Total current income tax provision		4,338		115
Deferred:
Federal and state deferred income tax provision		2,977		23,381
Total income tax provision	$	7,315	$	23,496

Our ability to utilize our deferred tax assets depends on future taxable income generated from operations. For the three months ended March 31, 2012, there were no circumstances that caused us to change our assessment of the ability to generate future taxable income to realize the currently recognized deferred tax assets.  After utilization of $3.0 million during the first three months of 2012, the net deferred tax asset at March 31, 2012 was $113 million. It is possible that the valuation allowance on our deferred tax asset will change in the future as a result of the analysis of our long-range forecasts, with a resulting tax provision or benefit.

The current income tax provisions for the three months ended March 31, 2012 and 2011 vary from the amounts that would have resulted from applying the statutory income tax rate to pre-tax income primarily due to the effects of percentage depletion for all periods presented and the change in valuation allowance related to foreign operations during the three months ended March 31, 2011.