CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia University researchers predict that state coal production will drop 39 percent compared with the industry’s last high point in 2008 — less-than-encouraging news for more than 1,800 coal miners who learned last week they would likely lose their jobs.

Already-struggling southern coalfield counties would bear the brunt of the industry’s downturn, with an expected 29 percent production drop in 2035, compared to 2014. The dwindling coal industry has ravaged that region with job losses, and has even necessitated cuts to government services.

The report rattles off a combination of familiar economic, geological and regulatory challenges: weak export demand; less use of coal for electricity amid competition from natural gas; changes in rules for power plants; and worsening geological conditions that make extracting southern West Virginia coal less productive.

The dismal projections don’t even account for a federal proposal to stem carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The report also draws a stark divide between the state’s two coal-producing regions.

Even when assuming a stronger market for exports, in southern West Virginia “some reserves would become too depleted or fragmented to recover at nearly any price,” the report says.

The northern coalfields’ production would remain “relatively stable” by 2035, but that would change with the carbon proposal added to the formula. The northern region has remained more productive, while the south has struggled to keep mines open. But because northern West Virginia coal is predominantly sourced to domestic power plants, its production would fall by 28 percent by 2035, compared to 2014.