The US power market may be in for another wave of coal-to-gas switching this summer as potential replacement fuel demand from Western Europe drives global coal prices higher. Receive daily email alerts, subscriber notes & personalize your experience. Register Now The price pressure could come following a recent but potentially extended suspension of natural gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria, and potentially other Western European countries, by Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom. In recent years, the continued retirement of coal-fired generating capacity in the US has already forced many domestic power generators to become “price takers” in the US gas market. Last summer, as domestic gas prices zoomed past $4/MMBtu, power burns continued at near-record levels. This winter, the same trend continued even as gas prices averaged closer $4.50/MMBtu, data from S&P Global Commodity Insights shows. Over the past 16 months, the US power industry has retired nearly 6.4 GW of […]