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Anglo American expands B.C. coal mine with eye on Asia – Brent Jang (Globe and Mail – August 15, 2013)

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 — Anglo American PLC is expanding its northeastern B.C. mine, betting that the quality of the coal and the ease of transport to Asia will help the company win more contracts from steel makers in Japan, China and others in the region.

London-based Anglo American, one of the world’s largest mining companies, will make the expansion announcement Thursday at its operations near Tumbler Ridge, B.C., about 700 kilometres northeast of Vancouver.

The company has budgeted $50-million for the first phase of a $200-million, multiyear project to boost output of coking (or metallurgical) coal, a key ingredient in the production of steel.

Seamus French, head of Anglo American’s metallurgical coal division, said in an interview that its Tumbler Ridge coal is high quality, and that the rail line transporting it to the port of Prince Rupert for export is underutilized. “We see fantastic long-term potential,” he said in an interview, adding that the mining expansion will provide employment security for the 420 Anglo American workers in B.C. as well as generate 100 construction jobs.

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COLUMN-Australia’s coal industry enters the final stage of grief – by Clyde Russell (Reuters India – August 14, 2013)

http://in.reuters.com/

Clyde Russell is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own.

Aug 14 (Reuters) – Australian coal miners have been in mourning over the rapid loss of profitability and expansion opportunities, but the industry is entering the final stage of the grieving process.

The five stages of grief, as described by Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross on how people face events like terminal illness, are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

While not all of the attendees at the annual Coaltrans Australia conference this week have got past the depression stage, most were looking at how the industry deals with the reality of its myriad of issues.

These include an apparent structural shift to lower prices for the foreseeable future, rising public opposition to mining on the back of a well-funded and organised environmental lobby, lack of capital available for new projects, still high labour costs and an increasing burden of government red and green tape.

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Analysis: Poland to get dirtier as it leans towards lignite coal – by Agnieszka Barteczko and Henning Gloystein (Reuters India – July 31, 2013)

http://in.reuters.com/

WARSAW/LONDON – (Reuters) – Poland, one of the heaviest polluters in Europe, will become even dirtier now that its shale gas ambitions have faded and it turns to cheap domestic lignite coal to secure its energy supply.

Poland already relies on coal to produce more than 90 percent of its electricity and is home to the European installation that emits the most carbon dioxide – utility PGE’s lignite power plant in Belchatow.

Its choice of fuel now could determine its energy and environmental situation for decades to come, given that Poland needs to build new power stations to replace ageing plants and cope with future demand as its power system operates close to capacity.

The government and utilities, encouraged by firm popular support, are looking to domestic lignite reserves as a cheap way to fuel that new capacity and reduce imports of Russian gas.

“Looking at Poland’s limited reserves of gas and oil, lignite coal has to be perceived as the stabilizing factor for Poland’s energy safety,” Poland’s economy ministry said in an email, adding Poland’s lignite reserves will last for 200 to 300 years.

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Women coal miners to gather in Jonesborough this weekend Archives of Appalachia to document their stories – by Sue Guinn Legg (Johnson City Press – July 30, 2013)

http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/

Women coal miners from across the United States, Canada and England will gather in Jonesborough this weekend for a reunion at which their stories will be documented by the Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University.

The first international gathering of women coal miners conducted in nearly 15 years, the Saturday and Sunday reunion will include guests from former underground miners’ organizations that pioneered gender integration in the coal industry in the 1970s as well as representatives from Women Against Pit Closures in England.

On Saturday, representatives of the Archives of Appalachia and ETSU’s Office of University Relations will film interviews of women miners to add to the archives’ existing coal mining collections, to strengthen the public understanding of the histories of mining and labor and to foster a greater appreciation for women miners.

Amy Collins, director of the Archives of Appalachia, said interest in the history of women coal miners draws researchers from across the country and abroad to archived collections at ETSU that document women miners’ efforts in the areas of mine health and safety, pregnancy research, parental leave and pay equity.

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COLUMN-Pain of drop in China coal imports isn’t evenly shared – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – July 29, 2013)

http://www.reuters.com/

Clyde Russell is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own.

LAUNCESTON, Australia, July 29 (Reuters) – The sharp drop in China’s coal imports in June helped to finally bring growth in imports closer to that for power output and was validation of the view that inbound cargoes had been unsustainably high.

While a pullback in imports had been expected for several months, the breakdown of the customs data shows the pain hasn’t been evenly spread amongst China’s major suppliers. Total imports in June were 18.037 million tonnes, down 22 percent from May and 19.6 percent from the same month a year earlier.

This was enough to drag the year-to-date growth in coal imports down to 13.9 percent in June from May’s 22.3 percent. The rate is also less than half the 28.7 percent jump in imports achieved in 2012 over 2011.

Part of the reason imports had been strong in the first five months of 2013 was that prices were competitive with domestic producers. Falling domestic prices as demand for power generation eased caught up with imports in June. But it’s not necessarily the higher-cost suppliers that are being squeezed out of the market.

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India eyes B.C.’s coal reserves as it ramps up steel production – by Gordon Hoekstra (Vancouver Sun – July 28, 2013)

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

Delegation meets with B.C.’s premier, new international trade minister

India wants to buy a bigger chunk of B.C.’s vast metallurgical coal reserves to feed its growing steel industry, a potential boost to the province’s No. 1 export business, worth $5.7 billion a year.

A high-level delegation led by India’s Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma was in B.C. this month and met with Premier Christy Clark, International Trade Minister Teresa Wat and B.C. coal industry representatives.

The Indian government forecasts that by 2017 the country will need twice as much metallurgical coal. The additional 47 million tonnes of metallurgical coal India forecasts it’ll need every year is more than B.C.’s entire annual production of 24 million tonnes.

However, British Columbia sits on vast coal reserves of an estimated 13 billion tonnes with several proposed metallurgical coal mines in the environmental assessment process. Karina Brino, president of the Mining Association of B.C., said the province’s coal industry is paying close attention to the burgeoning Indian market.

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INDIA HUNTS FOR COAL IN BC (Asia Pacific Post – July 23, 2013)

http://www.asianpacificpost.com/

India has announced that it is exploring options for sourcing coal from British Columbia, including equity participation in assets and acquisition of mines just as Vancouver city council voted to ban the handling, storage and trans shipment of coal at its marine terminals and berths.

The ban, mostly symbolic, was passed as Port Metro Vancouver, the No. 2 exporter of coal in North America triggered controversy over planned expansion of its facilities. Vancouver city council has no jurisdiction over the port operations.

Even before the ink was dry on the 9 to 2 vote which aims to curb greenhouse gas emissions and set the air quality target to “breath the cleanest air of any major city in the world”, a high powered delegation from India met with British Columbia Premier Christy Clark to scour for coal resources.

The Indian delegation was led by Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma who is looking to feed India’s steel industry which is growing at a fast pace and needs additional quantities of coking coal. “The delegation held a series of discussions with the coal asset owners and various avenues for sourcing coking coal to India to meet its ever-growing requirement were discussed,” an official statement said.

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Alabama Coal Billionaire Battles Murder Suits as Prices Ebb – by Anthony Effinger & Matthew Bristow (Bloomberg News – July 16, 2013)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Gustavo Soler knew he was in trouble. It was 2001, and Soler was union president at a coal mine in Colombia owned by Drummond Co., which is controlled by the wealthiest family in Alabama.

Soler’s predecessor, Valmore Locarno, and Locarno’s deputy, Victor Orcasita, had been killed seven months earlier, and now Soler was getting threats, says his widow, Nubia, in an interview in Bogota. He told his family to pack up. They would leave the area as soon as he got home from the union office in Valledupar, a city in the country’s coal belt. He never made it.

Armed men stopped his bus, asked for him by name and abducted him. He was found under a pile of banana leaves with two bullet holes in his head, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its August issue.

After the killing, Nubia says, Garry Neil Drummond, chief executive officer of Drummond Co., sent a taxi to bring her to the Drummond offices near the coastal town of Santa Marta, where, in a meeting, he promised to put her children, Sergio and Karina, then 14 and 9, through school.

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Donkin mine project receives environmental approval – (Cape Breton Post – July 17, 2013)

http://www.capebretonpost.com/

DONKIN — Although residents of Donkin and surrounding areas are happy another aspect of the Donkin mine project has moved forward — the transportation proposal continues to be controversial.

Morien Resources Corp. of Dartmouth announced in a press release that Peter Kent has signed off on the environmental assessment of the Donkin mine project proposed by Xstrata Coal Donkin Management Ltd. Kent’s tenure as the federal environment minister ended this week, but the Donkin project received his approval after his review of a Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency report.

Hugh Kennedy, chair of the Donkin Xstrata community liaison committee, said the approval is good news which will move the project ahead and allow those involved to acquire permits. He believes this approval will help with the sale of the mine. “A company ready to invest hundreds of millions of dollars … into this mine is not going to do that unless they know it has environmental approval.” The province must also approve the environment assessment, explained Kennedy.

“I can’t see any roadblocks as the provincial and federal authorities have been working closely and sharing in the process. “Hopefully now with this out of the way Xstrata will continue with that work, to get approval from the provincial government on how to repair the tunnels and put a plan forward, get it approved and seek a permit for the mine.”

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Beware dire predictions on Obama’s war on coal – by Steve Hargreaves (CNN Money – July 3, 2013)

http://money.cnn.com/

When President Obama announced steps to rein in greenhouse gases last week, the condemnation was swift and fierce.

“It is astonishing that President Obama is unilaterally imposing new regulations that will cost jobs and increase energy prices,” House Speaker John Boehner said of Obama’s plan, which would heavily target emissions from coal-fired power plants.

How steep of a cost do critics fear? Some 500,000 jobs lost and $1.65 trillion shaved off the national income by 2030 if all coal plants have to close, according to a Heritage Foundation report released the day after Obama announced his plan.
Yet there’s reason to doubt these and similarly dire predictions.

Environmental clean up is a difficult thing to measure. Early estimates on how much it would cost to clean air or water have often turned out to be way off. The debate over acid rain is a good example. In the late 1980s, the nation was considering tough new rules on coal-fired power plants and other industrial emitters to curb what was then a major problem.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimated the new rules would total $6 billion in both retrofit costs and in knock-on effects to the economy — such as higher energy prices that cause manufactures to set up shop elsewhere — according to Robert Stavins, director of the Environmental Economics Program at Harvard University.

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Why the ‘War on Coal’ Campaign Will Likely Fall Flat—Again – by Coral Davenport (National Journal – July 3, 2013)

http://www.nationaljournal.com/

Within hours of President Obama’s sweeping climate speech last week, Republican campaign committees reignited the charge that the president has declared “War on Coal.” They blasted inboxes and airwaves with “War on Coal” talking points, now aimed squarely at Democrats running in Senate and House races in 2014.

The “War on Coal campaign” failed to unseat Obama in the 2012 presidential campaign. And despite the potency of the rhetorical attack, it’s unlikely to have much impact on the 2014 races.

It’s true that President Obama’s plan takes direct aim at the U.S. coal industry. At the heart of the plan are new regulations slashing carbon pollution from new and existing coal-fired power plants. It could well put thousands of coal miners out of work.

But it’s not a given that it will cost Democrats politically.

Here’s why: As National Journal reported last week, the political power of coal has fundamentally weakened, a shift laid bare by last year’s elections. Between 2008 and 2012, the coal industry nearly quadrupled its political contributions, directing 90 percent of its money towards Republicans. But Obama still won comfortably in the four key swing states that produce the most coal: Virginia, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

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Economy must return to sustainable footing after end of the mining boom – Brisbane Courier-Mail Editorial (June 29, 2013)

http://www.couriermail.com.au/

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday stepped up his rhetoric in relation to China and what he has now definitively called the end of the boom.

The halcyon days of ever rising commodity prices and demand for the things we dig out of the ground are finished; now comes the long, hard recalibration of an economy back to a broader, more sustainable footing was the line Mr Rudd prosecuted.

There may be an element of political overreach in the sense that while the peak of the boom appears to have well and truly crested, in historical terms the demand and price we receive for our commodity exports remains relatively healthy.

Coming off once in a generation highs to more sustainable levels does not constitute a crash after all, but it does give you the opportunity to paint yourself as the only party with clear policy to boost manufacturing, innovation and agriculture within a lower Aussie dollar paradigm.

Mr Rudd, possibly Australia’s most renowned Sinophile, should be heeded though, for events in China in recent weeks give cause for some alarm in a country as dependent on their economic well-being as Australia is.

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Coal companies adjust to new realities as gas insulates Queensland from worst of global downturn – by John McCarthy (Brisbane Courier-Mail – June 29, 2013)

http://www.couriermail.com.au/

ABOUT 7000 jobs have been lost from the state’s coal sector in the past 15 months as the boom ends and companies shut mines and scale back production, according to the industry.

In the past week about 1000 jobs disappeared as some of the world’s biggest miners, Vale, Glencore and Peabody, adjusted to the new realities of the market in which the cost of producing coal is ”line ball” with prices.

Thousands more jobs have disappeared from service companies or contractors. Unions said the central Queensland towns of Tieri and Glenden would be devastated by the loss of about 450 jobs this week at the Oaky and Newlands mines, but have rejected any suggestion that big pay increases had been a factor.

The cost of abandoned coal and infrastructure projects is now about $10 billion in lost investment and the numbers of jobs that won’t be created would be in the thousands.

A handful of massive coal projects are also now extremely doubtful, particularly in the Galilee Basin, not just because of poor prices but also because of a lack of investment funds.

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Insurgency threat may dim Mozambique’s shine for investors – by Marina Lopes and Pascal Fletcher (Reuters U.S. – June 20, 2013)

http://www.reuters.com/

MAPUTO/JOHANNESBURG – (Reuters) – An economic take-off in Mozambique driven by bumper coal and gas discoveries two decades after the end of a civil war is facing disruption from disgruntled former guerrillas who feel they have not benefited from the post-conflict dividend.

A public threat by the ex-rebel Renamo opposition party to paralyze central rail and road links has put the Frelimo government on alert and alarmed diplomats and investors.

A slide back into the kind of all-out war that crippled the former Portuguese southern African colony between 1975 and 1992 looks unlikely. Nevertheless, Mozambique’s rebirth as an attractive tourism and investment destination could lose some of its momentum after armed attacks in the last two months blamed on Renamo.

The raids in central Sofala province killed at least 11 soldiers and police and three civilians and came after Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama returned with his civil war comrades to the Gorongosa jungle base where they operated in the 1980s.

“It does bring back all those fears of the war,” said Joseph Hanlon, a senior lecturer at Britain’s Open University and an expert on Mozambique.

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B.C. Liberals accused of breaking election promise over Klappan open-pit coal mine – by Larry Pynn (Vancouver Sun – June 10, 2013)

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

Tahltan First Nation objects to environmental ‘fast-tracking’ of project

The B.C. Liberals risk breaking an important election promise by “fast-tracking” an environmental assessment of an open-pit coal mine in the so-called Sacred Headwaters of the Klappan in northwest B.C., Tahltan First Nation charged Friday.

“There has been opposition and resistance by our people,” said Tahltan Central Council president Annita McPhee said in an interview.

“To have an open-pit coal mine right in the headwaters … our people are opposed to development there. We want to see long-term protection that excludes having a coal mine in that area.”

The planned Arctos Anthracite Project would have a footprint of about 4,000 hectares, not including a railway line, and would produce an estimated three million tonnes per year of anthracite coal over the mine’s 25-year life span. Anthracite coal has a high carbon content and burns with a clean flame. It is primarily used in steel and metal making.

The project is a joint venture of Fortune Coal Ltd. and POSCO Klappan Coal Ltd., whose parent company is a South Korean steel giant.

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