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Profit of China’s largest coal producer falls 9.9%

China Shenhua Energy, the country’s largest coal producer, posted a decline in first-quarter net profit compared with a year earlier, citing falling coal prices. Net profit went down 9.9 percent to 10.4 billion yuan (about 1.66 billion U.S. dollars) in the first three months, said a report on the website of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Saturday. During the January-March period, Shenhua Energy’s revenue dipped 0.1 percent on an annual basis to 60.9 billion yuan, it added. The Beijing-based company attributed the poor performance mainly to rising production costs and falling coal prices. While the cost of producing every tonne of coal increased 4.6 percent on an annual basis to 127.8 yuan, the Bohai-Rim Steam-Coal Price Index, a key indicator of coal prices in China, plummeted from 631 yuan per tonne at the end of last year to 530 yuan at the end of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Profit of China's largest coal producer falls 9.9%

China Shenhua Energy, the country’s largest coal producer, posted a decline in first-quarter net profit compared with a year earlier, citing falling coal prices. Net profit went down 9.9 percent to 10.4 billion yuan (about 1.66 billion U.S. dollars) in the first three months, said a report on the website of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Saturday. During the January-March period, Shenhua Energy’s revenue dipped 0.1 percent on an annual basis to 60.9 billion yuan, it added. The Beijing-based company attributed the poor performance mainly to rising production costs and falling coal prices. While the cost of producing every tonne of coal increased 4.6 percent on an annual basis to 127.8 yuan, the Bohai-Rim Steam-Coal Price Index, a key indicator of coal prices in China, plummeted from 631 yuan per tonne at the end of last year to 530 yuan at the end of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Light Goes Out on U.K. Coal Industry

The U.K. coal industry is at the point of fizzling out following the planned closure of two of its three remaining deep mines in northern England. Among the beneficiaries: Russian exporters of the commodity. U.K. production of coal—still a major source of power in the country—has been in long-term decline since Margaret Thatcher ‘s government defeated a miners strike in the 1980s. When Mrs. Thatcher came to power in 1979, Britain produced 122 million tons of coal from 219 underground and 58 open-cast mines. Last year production was one-tenth that amount, the lowest to date. A further drop when the closures are completed in 18 months will underline how reliant the U.K. has become on foreign suppliers. Since 2002, annual imports of coal used in U.K. power generation have doubled. The country now imports nearly four times as much coal as it produces domestically. Problems for the U.K. coal […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Is This The End Of China’s Coal Boom?

“ The End Of China’s Coal Boom ,” is a new, must-read chart-filled report from Greenpeace. It documents the response of China to the almost unimaginable  life-shortening  air pollution caused by its rapid growth in coal use. One of its charts highlights the stunning statistic that over half of the growth in  global  carbon pollution in the past decade has come just from China’s increase in coal! But that kind of growth of coal has more than just climate impacts. It is “draining the country’s arid west of precious water resources,” as Greenpeace itself  noted . And then there is the air pollution. Climate Progress has  pointed out  “when eight-year-olds  start getting  lung cancer that can be attributed to air pollution, you’ve got a problem. When  smog forces  schools, roads, and airports to shut down because visibility is less than 50 yards, you’ve got a problem. When a  study […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Appeals Court Upholds EPA Rule on Power-Plant Emissions

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the nation’s first-ever national standards requiring power plants to cut emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollution. The federal rules, scheduled to take effect in April 2015, require the nation’s 600 coal and oil-fired power plants to comply with emissions limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency. The standards are a notable environmental accomplishment for President Barack Obama and a blow to the coal industry, which is the biggest source of mercury emissions in the U.S., according to EPA. A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a 61-page ruling rejected several legal attacks raised by challengers. These challengers include more than 20 states with utilities that depend heavily on coal for energy production, and several industry groups and companies, including Peabody Energy Corp. , Corp. , and the National Mining Association. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Peak Coal

Comments about coal are usually not complimentary. Despite our dependence on it as a source of heat for electric power generation, environmentalists wish it would go away. On the other hand, advocates like to claim we have more than 110 years of coal left – “at present rates of consumption”. Both sides are overlooking crucial points. Let’s see if we can clarify the future use of coal as a fossil fuel resource. To begin with, it is important to understand not all coal is of equal quality. When I was in grade school, we lived in a house that had a coal furnace. For those who could get it, the coal of choice of home heating applications was anthracite coal because it was the cleanest burning form of coal and provided – ton for ton – the most heat. Unfortunately, we humans have used up most of the readily […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Seeking Consensus on the Internalized Costs of Coal

What is meant by “internalized costs”? Internalized costs are the costs which can be accurately accounted for in our current systems. In energy production, these costs typically consist of capital costs, financing costs, operation and maintenance costs, and exploration costs. Some energy options incur these costs in various stages such as extraction, transportation and refinement. Profits and taxes are excluded wherever possible in order to isolate the pure cost of production. Internalized costs related to coal can become very low. That is one of the main reasons why coal has thus far proven itself to be the standout energy source of the 21 st century ( figure below ) despite rising prices, decades of talk about climate change and huge hype about alternatives. We will seek to better quantify these low internalized costs in this article. Internalized costs of coal The International Energy Agency has complied the cost curve […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Coal’s Best Hope Rising With Costliest U.S. Power Plant

The facility will be the only U.S. commercial power plant that will capture its own carbon emissions. Close Close Open Photographer: Gary Tramontina/Bloomberg Cranes stand at the construction site for Southern Co.’s Kemper County power plant near Meridian, Mississippi, on Feb. 25, 2014. The facility will be the only U.S. commercial power plant that will capture its own carbon emissions. Rising from the scrub pines of central Mississippi is a $5.2 billion construction project that may determine the future of coal in the age of global warming. It’s here in Kemper County, 90 miles southwest of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that utility Southern Co. is building the first large-scale power plant in the U.S. designed to transform coal into gas, capture the carbon dioxide and pump it underground. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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James River Coal Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

Appalachian coal miner James River Coal Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday as it continues its search for a buyer or investor. The Wall Street Journal in February reported that the Richmond, Va., company , an effort the company will continue in Chapter 11. "We took this action to restructure under Chapter 11 because it will allow us to adjust the balance sheet and improve our liquidity in a controlled and definitive manner," James River Chairman and Chief Executive Peter T. Socha said Monday in a statement. "We will also continue to explore and evaluate potential strategic alternatives for the company, such as a capital investment through a plan of reorganization or a sale of one or more portions of the company." The company, which sells coal to electric utilities and industrial customers, said it has secured a $110 million bankruptcy loan to help it fund its […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Power Stations Switch to Gas, But Coal Stays on the Menu

Power utilities American Electric Power Co. and Southern Co. say the U.S. needs to keep coal in the mix for electricity generation because it’s cheap and plentiful. “Coal has to be part of the puzzle,” Nick Akins, chairman and chief executive of power giant AEP said Thursday at The Wall Street Journal’s ECOnomics conference in Santa Barbara, Calif. The dirtiest of the fossil fuels, coal has lost major market-share to natural gas in recent years as power generators switching to burning gas to create electricity. Columbus, Ohio-based AEP plans to shut down up to 6,000 megawatts of coal-fired power plants by 2016 – enough to light between 3 million and 6 million homes – mostly so it can comply with tighter federal pollution limits. By 2020, the company will generate about 46% of its electricity from coal, down from 60% today. But Mr. Akins argued the U.S. has so […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple