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Largest Philippine Coal Miner Plans $400 Million Plant Boost – by Cecilia Yap (Bloomberg News – June 24, 2014)

 http://www.bloomberg.com/

Semirara Mining Corp. (SCC), the Philippines’ largest coal producer, plans to spend $400 million to boost power plant capacity, forecasting that two-thirds of profit will come from generation in three years.

The company may sign a syndicated loan for 70 percent of the cost of the expansion as early as next quarter, Chief Executive Officer Isidro Consunji said in an interview.

Fresh supply is being added as the Southeast Asian nation saw power demand rise by 50 percent in the 10 years to 2012, more than three times the 16 percent increase in generation capacity over the same period, according to government data.

“It’s more logical to grow the power business,” Consunji said in a June 20 interview. “It’s simpler to run and is more profitable. We do what’s easy for us and we forget what’s not.” Semirara fell 1.3 percent in Manila yesterday. The stock has risen 27 percent this year, overtaking the benchmark stock index’s 15 percent advance.

The expansion will increase the Calaca coal-fired power plant’s capacity by 350 megawatts to 1,200 megawatts, Consunji said. It bought the plant from the government in 2009 for $362 million.

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UPDATE 2-Australia cuts 2015 iron ore, met coal price forecasts – by James Regan (Reuters India – June 25, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

SYDNEY, June 25 (Reuters) – Australia revised down its 2015 iron ore and metallurgical coal price forecasts as rising output of two of the country’s biggest export earners outstrips demand, raising concerns for mining companies already struggling with shrinking profit margins.

Robust growth in export tonnages meant Australia would still post an 11 percent rise in total export earnings for mineral and energy comodities in 2013-14, the Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics (BREE) said in a quarterly update.

Analysts warn, though, that Australia’s powerful mining industry is facing a prolonged stretch where commodities will fetch prices well below those of the now-defunct mining boom years. BREE lowered its price forecast for iron ore to an average $94.60 a tonne in 2015 from a previous forecast of $100.80, citing growing competition to sell into China’s steel market.

Although steel production in China is forecast to increase in 2015, competition among iron ore exporters to sell their additional production is expected to intensify, it said, while a strong Australian dollar would also drag on local miners.

“This will draw a sharp focus towards managing costs and enhancing productivity in the sector,” said Wayne Calder, deputy executive director of BREE.

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Coal mines in Ukraine could close as fighting continues – by Sam Dodson (World Coal – June 24, 2014)

http://www.worldcoal.com/

As fighting continues between Ukrainian military forces and pro-Russian separatists, coal mines in the country face possible shutdowns, according to DTEK, Ukraine’s largest mining and power group.

Months of hard fighting

The insurgency in the largely Russian-speaking east erupted in April after street protests in the capital Kiev toppled the Moscow-backed leader Viktor Yanukovich. Russia subsequently annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and the West has accused Russia of supporting the insurgency.

Following months of hard fighting, on Monday 23 June, pro-Russian rebel leader Alexander Borodai said the separatists would observe a ceasefire for five days. However, attacks on both Ukrainian military forces – and on civilians – were reported as recently as the 22 June.

With the continued fighting, the country’s resources have been threatened repeatedly. DTEK issued a statement a day after the separatists attacked its Komsomolets Donbassa, one of the largest coalmines in Ukraine, detaining the coal mine’s top management and confiscating assets, including coalminers’ monthly pay, 22 vehicles and office equipment.

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UPDATE 1-“King Coal” in Australia faces rising investment backlash – by James Regan (Reuters India – June 24, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

MAULES CREEK, Australia, June 24 (Reuters) – A farmer’s habit of rising before dawn finds Cliff Wallace alone most mornings while a rag-tag army of anti-coal activists camped in tents and tee-pees on his land catch a few more hours sleep.

When the protest camp finally awakens, talk around a makeshift mess hall over coal’s impact on global warming competes with analysis of plunging coal prices or the latest bank to come out against investing in fossil fuel extraction.

“It’s a diverse group we’ve got here and in their own way they all want to save our trees from the coal companies,” says Wallace, 62, who grows wheat on land bordering the Leard State Forest, where bulldozing of endangered Box-Gum Woodland trees to develop an open pit coal mine has drawn national attention.

Wallace is happy to host the anti-coal protesters as he is concerned about the impact the mine will have on his farm’s groundwater and says he is “deeply saddened” by the disruption to the region’s animal habitats.

Taking on Australia’s powerful coal sector was once left to environmentalists like Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund, but now the anti-coal movement is attracting wider support, from farmers to banks and investment funds striving to be seen as ethical investors and not contributing to global pollution.

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COLUMN-Can we really do without coal? – by John Kemp (Reuters India – June 23, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

John Kemp is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own.

(Reuters) – Two-thirds of the world’s already discovered reserves of oil, coal and natural gas must remain unburned if the rise in average global temperatures is to be limited to 2 degrees Celsius by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency.

But coal miners and oil and gas companies round the world allocated $674 billion to finding even more reserves and new ways of extracting them in 2012/13. Much of this investment risks being wasted, according to the Carbon Tracker Initiative, which is campaigning to get investors to think again. (“Unburnable carbon 2013: wasted assets and stranded capital”)

“It is possible that much of this additional spending would prove fruitless. At worst, these assets might be ‘stranded’ forever,” Martin Wolf, the celebrated chief economics commentator of the Financial Times, wrote in a sympathetic review recently. (“A climate fix would ruin investors” June 17)

Carbon Tracker Initiative is part of a broader divestment movement pressing universities, pension funds and other socially responsible investors to boycott shares and loans in fossil fuel companies to force them to leave the oil, gas and coal “down there”. (“Stranded assets and the fossil fuel divestment campaign: what does divestment mean for the valuation of fossil fuel assets?” Oct 2013)

The divestment campaign has drawn a swift response. Major oil and gas companies such as Exxon and Shell reject the claim that their exploration and development spending is being wasted.

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Coal mining could make comeback in Crowsnest Pass – by Sam Dodson (World Coal.com – June 19, 2014)

http://www.worldcoal.com/

Straddling the border of Alberta and British Columbia, just south of Calgary, the Crowsnest Pass boasts a rich history of coal mining, dating back to opening of the first mine in 1900. Over the course of the 20th Century, all the coal mines on the Alberta side of the Canadian municipality closed, as the companies that operated the mines struggled with fluctuating coal prices, bitter strikes and industrial action, as well as fallout from underground accidents. A single coal mine operates just across the British Columbia border in Sparwood.

All this could be set to change, however, after a Calgary-based company received regulatory approval to begun exploratory drilling.

Altitude Resources Inc. has been granted permission from the Alberta Energy Regulator to drill four to six core holes for the purpose of coal quality analysis. The drilling programme, with an estimated budget of C$ 1.5 million, will begin as early as August or September.

“It’s the first step in a long process of technical work that we need to do,” said Altitude president and CEO Gene Wusaty. “If the coal quality is what we believe it is, then the next step is go out there and try to prove our resource target tonnage by doing a bunch more drilling.”

In 2013, Altitude Resources announced the formation of an alliance with Elan Coal Ltd, a privately-owned Canadian coal exploration and development company.

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OPINION: It’s not Obama’s war on coal, it’s geology’s war on coal – by Leslie Glustrom and Zane Selvans (Denver Post – June 13, 2014)

http://www.denverpost.com/

Leslie Glustrom is a long-time coal industry watcher. Zane Selvans is director of research and policy at Clean Energy Action.

As the Environmental Protection Agency moves ahead with limits on carbon pollution from the nation’s coal plants, you’ll hear a lot of industry outrage about Obama’s “war on coal.” Don’t believe it.

The truth is, the U.S. coal industry is already in dire straits, including here in Colorado — and it is due primarily to geology, not politics.

Coal is undeniably a non-renewable substance. We have been mining the easily accessible deposits for the last 150 years, and the planet isn’t making any more on a time scale that matters to humans.

As a result, the U.S. coal industry is in serious financial distress — right now — months, and likely years, before any EPA carbon regulations actually go into effect.

Even if the EPA were to be eliminated tomorrow (not something we advocate), the U.S. coal industry would still likely be largely winding down in the next decade or so.

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Hillcrest: Canada’s forgotten disaster – by Valerie Berenyi (Calgary Herald – June 13, 2014)

http://www.calgaryherald.com/index.html

 100 years ago 189 died in the depths of an Alberta coal mine

They say you don’t go
Say you don’t go down in the Hillcrest Mine
‘Cause it’s one short step

You might leave this world behind
And they say you don’t go
Say you don’t go down in the Hillcrest Mine

—James Keelaghan’s ballad Hillcrest Mine

Coalminer Charles Elick may have thought himself a lucky man. He survived the Frank Slide in 1903 when a massive rockslide buried part of the little town of Frank in southwestern Alberta. He and co-workers at a nearby mine were trapped by the rubble, but managed to free themselves after digging for 13 frantic hours.

Charles then relocated his growing family to the nearby mining town of Hillcrest and went back underground. His luck ran out on the sunny morning of June 19, 1914, when he said goodbye to his wife Julia, pregnant with their fifth child, and went off to work at the Hillcrest Mine. Two hours after the morning shift began, a methane gas and coal dust explosion ripped through the mine, killing Charles and 188 other men.

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India spy agency says Greenpeace endangers economic security – by Sanjeev Miglani (Reuters India – June 12, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

NEW DELHI – (Reuters) – India’s domestic spy service has accused Greenpeace and other lobby groups of hurting economic progress by campaigning against power projects, mining and genetically modified food, the most serious charge yet against foreign-funded organizations.

The leak of the Intelligence Bureau’s report comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new administration seeks way to restore economic growth that has fallen to below 5 percent, choking off investment and jobs for millions of youth entering the workforce.

Greenpeace denied it was trying to block economic expansion, saying the allegations were an attempt to silence dissent and that it stood for sustainable growth.

The government report is likely to intensify the debate over whether Asia’s third largest economy will pursue the path of fast growth under the Modi administration or try a more balanced strategy that the previous government sought.

It has also turned the spotlight on the role of foreign funded organizations, some of whom said they feared a crackdown by the new regime, seen as more friendly to business.

“A significant number of Indian NGOs funded by donors based in US, UK, Germany and Netherlands have been noticed to be using people-centric issues to create an environment, which lends itself to stalling development projects,” the Intelligence Bureau said.

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UK hits 30-year anniversary of miners’ strike – by Alasdair Soussi (Al Jazeera.com – March 6, 2014)

http://www.aljazeera.com/

The strike led to a humiliating and lasting defeat for the miners and a political triumph for Margaret Thatcher.

Glasgow, United Kingdom – Few confrontations in the history of modern Britain come close to the industrial dispute that gripped England, Scotland and Wales in March 1984. Fracturing communities, pitting workers against the forces of law and order and even causing lives to be lost, the bitter clash became one of the greatest trade union struggles since the British General Strike of 1926.

That struggle was the British miners’ strike and today marks 30 years since the head of Britain’s Coal Board, Ian MacGregor, announced plans to cut production – the equivalent of 20 pits or 20,000 jobs – leading to a year-long walkout that would see British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) President Arthur Scargill come to blows and change the face of Great Britain forever.

“It was the longest industrial dispute in Britain in the 20th century and directly involved roughly 120,000-130,000 workers from March 1984 onwards,” Dr Jim Phillips, a senior lecturer of economic and social history at the University of Glasgow, told Al Jazeera.

“It might be seen as pivotal in the sense of Britain’s economic trajectory – moving out of an industrial economy into a more service, finance, and capital-related economy. Some of the 150 or so pits that operated in 1984 were, in narrow economic terms, loss-making and so required some degree of cross subsidy from more financially viable pits to remain in operation… The coal industry was also losing business during the recession of the early 1980s.”

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Turkey needs new coal mining law after disaster -commission head – by Gulsen Solaker (Reuters India – June 10, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

SOMA, Turkey, June 10 (Reuters) – Turkey needs a new coal mining law to prevent a repeat of its worst ever industrial disaster in which 301 workers were killed, the head of a commission investigating the incident said on Tuesday.

The miners were killed last month in a mine fire in Soma, a small town 480 km (300 miles) southwest of Istanbul, fuelling anger in a nation which has long had one of the world’s worst workplace safety records.

The disaster highlighted gaps in Turkish regulation, not least the lack of specific rules for the coal industry, as well as insufficiently stringent inspections, local mining experts told Reuters after of the fire.

Ali Riza Alaboyun, a deputy from the ruling AK Party who heads the parliamentary commission investigating the accident, said the highly-complex nature of coal mines required a separate set of regulations.

“By doing this, we will be able to regulate inspections and training related to coal mines separately,” Alaboyun told reporters during a visit to Soma.

Eight suspects including the chief executive of Soma Mining, which operates the facility, have been provisionally charged with “causing multiple deaths by negligence”. The company has denied any negligence on its part.

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Coal isn’t dying – it just can’t compete – by Christina Simeone (Penn Live: The Patriot News – June 9, 2014)

http://www.pennlive.com/#/0

Christina Simeone is the director of the PennFuture Energy Center at PennFuture, a Harrisburg-based advocacy group.

Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a proposal to reduce carbon pollution from existing power plants, the nation’s number one source of these emissions. In Pennsylvania, opponents of the rule are saying this is a “war on coal” aimed at killing the coal industry and destroying jobs. So, what is really going on?

First off, coal isn’t dying.

Coal is being out-competed in the domestic electric power markets by cheaper, relatively cleaner natural gas. However, at the same time, coal is breaking records in the international export markets, indicating economic viability.

Second, there is no “war on coal.”

There is a market correction under way. Historically, energy markets have been artificially cheap because the economic costs of pollution have not been factored into market prices — rather, these costs have been externalized to the public in the form of health-harming pollution. This externalization is called a market failure. If you like competitive markets, then you should support correcting market failures.

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Under attack, coal maintains its political muscle – by Adam Beam (Minneapolis Star Tribune – June 8, 2014)

http://www.startribune.com/

Associated Press – FRANKFORT, Ky. — The coal industry is shedding thousands of jobs and facing the government’s most severe crackdown on carbon emissions yet. But king coal still flexes its political muscle in Kentucky and West Virginia, where Republicans and even Democrats try to out-coal one another by cozying up to the industry and slamming President Barack Obama.

In other coal-producing areas such as Ohio and Virginia, Democrats have been able to win even with the industry against them. That’s not an option for politicians in the heart of Appalachia.

Many people here still cling to coal as a source of work and cultural pride, so almost everyone running for office seeks the mantle of coal savior, or at least defender.

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Republican up for re-election, chided his Democratic opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, for accepting money from “anti-coal activists,” including a group that worked closely with the Obama administration on the regulations. Grimes counters that McConnell and his super PAC have taken campaign money from a group whose goals include reducing the number of coal-fired power plants in Texas.

After the new emissions rules were announced June 2, she took out radio and newspaper ads to criticize Obama’s “war on coal.”

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Indonesia considers new restrictions on coal output, exports – by Fergus Jensen (Reuters India – June 6, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

JAKARTA, June 6 (Reuters) – Indonesia, the world’s top exporter of thermal coal, is considering new regulations to limit coal production and tighten controls on exports, government officials said on Friday, and could introduce the rules by early next month.

The country currently exports around 70 percent of its coal production, much of it to China and India, but the government says output must be capped as domestic demand for the power station fuel is expected to rise by 13 percent this year and next.

“Technically we are already restricting (coal production) through discussions on companies’ work plans and budgets, but formally we need a ministerial regulation on mines,” Coal Enterprise Director Edi Prasodjo told Reuters, referring to an output cap for producers his team is working to release soon.

In March, Prasodjo said Indonesia hoped coal production would remain at or below 421 million tonnes this year, but the government’s ability to restrict output has yet to be proven.

Many of Indonesia’s biggest coal mines, such as Bumi Resources and Toba Bara Sejahtera, are owned by politically connected figures, and with presidential elections fast approaching in July the government may face difficulties imposing new rules on the sector.

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U.S. coal curbs would boost B.C.’s Westshore Terminals traffic – by Wendy Stueck (Globe and Mail – June 4, 2014)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

VANCOUVER — B.C.’s biggest coal export facility, Westshore Terminals Ltd., is operating at full capacity and regularly turns away business from U.S. coal producers that want to get their product to export markets. A $275-million upgrade now under way may provide some breathing room.

But it likely won’t be enough to suit American producers keen to find new customers if proposed U.S. regulations reduce domestic demand. “Westshore is running at capacity right now,” Greg Andrew, director of environmental and engineering services at Westshore Terminals, said Tuesday.

“It’s a function of our ability to receive trains, store coal and move it out to ships. And we are pretty much operating at capacity in both the receiving of coal and loading of ships right now.”

The push for export options through Westshore and other existing and proposed export terminals on the West Coast of Canada and the U.S. could become more pronounced as a result of regulatory changes in the U.S., where President Barack Obama on Monday announced plans to curb emissions from coal plants by 30 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.

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