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Coal

US thermal coal exports hit 5-year highs and top $5 billion in 2023 – by Gavin Maguire (Reuters – February 1, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

LITTLETON, Colorado, Feb 1 (Reuters) – United States exporters of thermal coal earned more than $5 billion in 2023 as they shipped out more than 32.5 million metric tons of the high-polluting power fuel, data from ship-tracking firm Kpler shows.

The thermal coal export earnings were the second-highest since 2017, following 2022’s $5.7 billion. The total volumes were the highest since 2018 and came as U.S. power producers cut the amount of coal used in electricity generation to the lowest this century, data from energy think tank Ember shows.

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How Miners Are Still Paying the Costs of Pursuing an ‘American Dream’ – by Taylor Sisk (Good Men Project – January 19, 2024)

https://goodmenproject.com/

They went into the mines to secure a better life for their loved ones. Unfortunately, they emerged with ravaged lungs and damaged psyches.

“I’ve loaded more coal in my sleep than I have in the mines,” says Terry Lilly. The words don’t come easy. Though retired, Lilly remains ever a coal miner. It’s said coal miners are a stoic sort. Inner revelations aren’t in Lilly’s nature. But it’s also physically difficult for him to share those words.

Black lung has seen to that. Lilly went underground in 1975, at 18. Thirty years in, shortly after returning from hernia surgery, he was buried in a collapse. “I broke a leg, both knees, a hip, my back. And while I was in the hospital, I had blood clots go through my lungs. I lay in ICU for 18 days. Should have died.”

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Poland plans to set end date for coal power – by Kate Abnett (Reuters – January 15, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

BRUSSELS, Jan 15 (Reuters) – Poland plans to set an end date for coal-fuelled power, the country’s Secretary of State for Climate Urszula Zielinska said on Monday, marking a shift from the previous government’s stance on climate change.

Poland’s October 2023 election ended eight years of Law and Justice (PiS) party rule, and led to a new government that Zielinska said was increasing environmental efforts – including a phase out date for coal power.

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2024 is the year the world could reach peak coal use. But it’s a tough habit to quit – by Kyle Bakx CBC News Calgary – January 12, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/

Forecasters have been wrong before about discounting coal’s staying power

With the COP28 climate summit now in the rearview mirror, some researchers say the moment is here when coal consumption in power plants around the world will finally peak before beginning a perpetual fall. For more than a century, coal has been used to produce electricity, and to this day remains the workhorse of the global power sector and a critical part of the world’s economy.

Coal is the dirtiest, most-polluting fossil fuel, but it has proven difficult for the world to turn its back on the stalwart source of energy. Energy research firm Wood Mackenzie is forecasting 2024 as the year when the world’s consumption of coal will hit a final inflection point before decreasing.

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Coal miners in North Dakota unearth a mammoth tusk buried for thousands of years – by Jack Dura (Associated Press/MSM.com – January 7, 2024)

https://www.msn.com/

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — The first person to spot it was a shovel operator working the overnight shift, eyeing a glint of white as he scooped up a giant mound of dirt and dropped it into a dump truck. Later, after the truck driver dumped the load, a dozer driver was ready to flatten the dirt but stopped for a closer look when he, too, spotted that bit of white.

Only then did the miners realize they had unearthed something special: a 7-foot-long mammoth tusk that had been buried for thousands of years.

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Teck ditches coal, flags lower copper output in Chile – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – January 4, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

Teck Resources (TSX: TECK.A, TECK.B) (NYSE: TECK) has kissed coal goodbye after closing the sale of its minority stake in steelmaking coal operations to Japan’s Nippon Steel Corp. and South Korean steelmaker Posco.

Nippon Steel now has a 20% interest in Teck’s coal business, known as Elk Valley Resources. In exchange, the Japanese firm gave up its prior 2.5% stake in one of Teck’s coal operations and has paid $1.7 billion in cash.

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Coal financing is still booming – led by China (Bloomberg/Mining Weekly – December 20, 2023)

https://www.miningweekly.com/

The amount of bank financing going to mining coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel of them all, remains at surprisingly high levels. Most of it is coming from China.

A new report from researchers at BloombergNEF shows that all funding for coal projects and coal-exposed companies needs to drop precipitously to limit the chances of global temperatures rising more than 1.5 °C by midcentury.

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Newsmakers 2023: End of an era for Vancouver mining giant Teck – by Nelson Bennett (Business In Vancouver – December 21, 2023)

https://biv.com/

Vancouver-based Teck Resources sacrifices most profitable assets on altar of ESG

One of the biggest B.C. business news stories of 2024 was the announcement Teck Resources (TSX:TECK.B, NYSE:TEK), B.C.’s biggest miner and Canada’s only diversified mining major, will sell its most profitable assets – its B.C. coal mines – to an even bigger diversified mining major: Switzerland’s Glencore plc (LSE:GLEN).

For $9 billion, Glencore will acquire a 77 per cent interest in Teck’s four steelmaking coal mines in B.C., collectively called Elk Valley Resources (EVR), with Nippon Steel and South Korea’s POSCO owning the balance in a deal totalling $12 billion. EVR will also own 46 per cent of Neptune Terminals in North Vancouver.

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Alberta hit with $10.8-billion lawsuit by coal companies over policy changes – by Emma Graney (Globe and Mail – December 13, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Five coal companies are suing Alberta for a combined $10.8-billion, claiming the government’s coal policy reforms have cost them billions in lost investment and potential revenues and have made mining the land they leased all but impossible.

At the same time, the government and the Alberta Energy Regulator are facing questions about why an Australian company was allowed to apply for exploration licences to pursue a potential coal mine at Grassy Mountain when a joint federal-provincial regulatory panel rejected an application for the same site in 2021. The regulator is still assessing the new applications, submitted by Northback Holdings Corp., but critics are pushing the government to do more to boost environmental protections.

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Glencore’s prized Canadian coal mines come with rising environmental scrutiny – by Nia Williams and Divya Rajagopal (Reuters – December 14, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

Dec 14 (Reuters) – A Glencore-led (GLEN.L) consortium’s successful $9 billion bid for Teck Resources’ (TECKb.TO) steelmaking coal unit could face tougher environmental clean-up obligations, as water pollution from the mines comes under increasing scrutiny in the U.S. and Canada.

Canada’s Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault told Reuters that Ottawa and Washington are close to requesting a study of selenium contamination from Teck’s Elk Valley mines in southeast British Columbia.The research would be carried out by International Joint Commission (IJC), a bi-national organization set up under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty between the U.S. and Canada to prevent and resolve disputes over shared waters.

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How to detox coal country – by Kate Morgan (Vox.com – December 11, 2023)

https://www.vox.com/

To clean up poisoned streams, Appalachian researchers are turning acid mine drainage into something unexpected.

The most striking thing about the water tumbling out of the ground behind a small cluster of houses in southeastern Ohio isn’t the smell — a sharp, unmistakable sulfur. It’s also not the color, a vibrant red-orange. The weirdest thing about the Truetown Discharge is the silence.

Just before dark on a warm autumn night, there should be a cacophony of crickets and cicadas in the tall grass along the water. Frogs should be singing and splashing into the shallows. Bats should be circling, owls calling, small mammals and salamanders skittering in the leaves.

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Thermal coal prices diverge as Japan, South Korea buy more, China, India less – by Clyde Russell (Reuters – December 11, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Dec 11 (Reuters) – The prices of differing grades of seaborne thermal coal in Asia are diverging as strong demand for high-quality fuel coal by Japan and South Korea drives a rally, but lacklustre imports by China and India mean lower grades stagnate.

Japan and South Korea are the main buyers of thermal coal linked to the Newcastle Index, which assesses coal with an energy content of 6,000 kilocalories per kilogram (kcal/kg) from Australia, the world’s second-largest exporter of the power station fuel.

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Critics slam N.S. Labour Department over lack of Donkin coal mine inspections – by Tom Ayers (CBC News Nova Scotia – December 4, 2023)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/

Province says its 3 dedicated inspectors are capable, but outside expertise was needed this summer

Nova Scotia’s Labour Department is coming under fire for not inspecting the underground coal mine in Donkin after it shut down following two roof falls in the main access tunnel in July. Instead, the province’s inspectors did site visits and relied on two third-party reviews before saying the Cape Breton mine can reopen.

Critics say the use of outside expertise has dragged out the shutdown unnecessarily. “We just have one problem and that is a regulator that is not equipped to regulate this mine,” said Dawson Brisco, CEO of Morien Resources, a company with a royalty stake in the Donkin mine.

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Rare earth discoveries mean coal mines could have a key role to play in the energy transition – by Anmar Frangoul (CNBC.com – November 24, 2023)

https://www.cnbc.com/

From Pennsylvania to the north of England, coal mines helped to power the Industrial Revolution, turbocharging the economic growth of countries around the world. Today, however, the production and use of coal has become a thorny issue, with critics slamming the fossil fuel’s huge impact on the environment.

Organizations like Greenpeace describe coal as “the dirtiest, most polluting way of producing energy.” From the UN Secretary General to the International Energy Agency, talk of phasing out coal is becoming increasingly common.

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OPINION: Teck’s inessential coal sale makes it smaller and more vulnerable to takeover – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – November 24, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

After two decades of evisceration, the Canadian diversified mining industry had one big name standing – Teck Resources. The company was not among the half-dozen giants that dominate the global mining industry, but it was the biggest we had left. With a smart strategy, disciplined spending and more than a little luck, Teck could emerge as a homegrown champion, perhaps not among the industry’s A-team players, but near the top end of the B list.

That was the vision, at least. What happened instead was self-evisceration. On Nov. 14, Teck sold its vast coal assets, all of them in Canada, to Glencore of Switzerland, Japan’s Nippon Steel and South Korea’s POSCO, in an US$8.9-billion deal. The sale of Teck’s coal made sense on one level, perhaps, and no sense on others.

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