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INTERVIEW-India to rely on state miners to meet coal target – minister – by Tommy Wilkes (Reuters U.K. – March 28, 2016)

http://uk.reuters.com/

NEW DELHI, March 28 India will meet its target of doubling coal production by 2020 without the help of private miners, the country’s coal and power minister said, ruling out new measures to entice cash-strapped companies to begin mining the commodity.

India wants to produce 1.5 billion tonnes of coal by 2020 to power its economy and reduce imports. State-owned Coal India Ltd , the world’s largest coal miner, has raised production in line with reaching a target of 1 billion tonnes a year within four years and the government wants private miners to produce much of the remainder.

But only a few companies that won the right to mine coal for their power plants last year have started production as they struggle to recover their costs, while the ministry this month delayed plans to open up commercial mining to private firms because of weak demand and depressed coal prices.

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The Violent Remaking of Appalachia – by Jedediah Purdy (The Atlantic – March 2016)

http://www.theatlantic.com/

When mining a century’s worth of energy means ruining a landscape for millions of years.

Central Appalachia’s history is the story of coal. At its peak in the mid-20th century, mining employed more than 150,000 people in West Virginia alone, mostly in the state’s otherwise poor and rugged counties.

For decades, the United Mine Workers of America, a muscular, strike-prone union that allied itself with Franklin Roosevelt to support the New Deal, anchored the solidly Democratic highlands where West Virginia meets eastern Kentucky and Virginia’s western-most tip.

In 1921, during the fight to unionize the region’s mines, ten thousand armed miners engaged strike-breakers and an anti-union militia in a five-day gun battle in which more than a hundred people were killed. The Army arrived by presidential order and dispersed the miners, dealing a decade-long setback to the UMWA.

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Natural gas likely overtook coal as top U.S. power source in 2015 – by Scott Disavino (Reuters U.S. – January 20, 2016)

http://www.reuters.com/

NEW YORK – Last year looks like it was an unwelcome watershed for the embattled U.S. coal industry. Power companies in 2015 for the first time may have burned more natural gas than coal to generate electricity, according to analysts who attribute it to the cheapest gas prices in 16 years and a record number of coal-fired plants retired from service because of the high cost of meeting environmental regulations.

Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed that power plants used more gas than coal to produce electricity in five of the first 10 months of 2015, including the last four months data was available – July, August, September and October.

While EIA does not forecast that gas produced more electricity than coal in 2015, some analysts conclude it did because gas in November and December traded at the lowest levels for the entire year, prompting more substitution in what was already an unrivaled year for coal-to-gas switching.

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As Coal’s Future Grows Murkier, Banks Pull Financing – by Michael Corkery (New York Times – March 20, 2016)

http://www.nytimes.com/

Tens of thousands of miners were on strike and coal prices were skyrocketing in October 1902. Afraid of unrest, President Theodore Roosevelt sought the help of John Pierpont Morgan. The powerful banker, who held great sway over the coal industry, brokered a deal with the miners that ended the strike.

“My dear sir,” the president wrote to Mr. Morgan. “Let me thank you for the service you have rendered the whole people.” America’s coal industry is now facing another dark hour, but this time there are few financiers willing to save it.

Mr. Morgan’s bank, now JPMorgan Chase, announced two weeks ago that it would no longer finance new coal-fired power plants in the United States or other wealthy nations. The retreat follows similar announcements by Bank of America, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley that they are, in one way or another, backing away from coal.

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When Italian immigrants fueled the coal mining industry – by Rita Cipalla (L’Italio-Americano – March 17, 2016)

http://www.italoamericano.org/

A century ago in Black Diamond, Wash., the freight trains arrived empty twice a day and twice a day they left, loaded with coal. Railroad assistant Amos Ungherini would go down the line each day in a hand-pumped “speeder” to weigh the cars. Back then, the railroad was more than just a way to get coal to market. It was the lifeblood of the town.

Ungherini and others of Italian descent worked hard in and around the coal mines of Washington. And unfortunately, some paid the ultimate price.

On April 26, 1907, a methane gas explosion in a coal mine outside Black Diamond took the lives of seven men. Among the dead, as reported by the Seattle Daily Times, were three Italian miners: 23-year-old Joe Belmonti and 25-year-old Albert Domini, both unmarried, and Philip Domenico, married with one child.

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Hillary Tells it Like it Is … – by Tim Arnold (Huffington Post – March 17, 2016)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

“We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business…” so said Hillary Clinton at a town hall meeting in Columbus, Ohio, Sunday night, 13 March — creating an uproar amongst conservative Republicans, adding fuel to the raging fire Donald Trump was already fanning.

And despite pledging to generate clean energy jobs to replace them, and reaffirming her plan to invest $30 billion in protecting coal miners’ benefits and pensions, one could argue she put her presidential aspirations on the line with this kind of realistic honesty.

Abraham Lincoln took the same risk, nay, an even greater risk, in his historic Cooper Union speech in New York City in February, 1860, when he was a low-odds candidate for the Republican presidential nomination against Stephen Douglas who, three months earlier, had already soundly defeated Lincoln in their run for the Illinois senate.

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Anger in China’s coal country as miners feel left behind – by Gerry Shih (Seattle Times – March 18, 2016)

http://www.seattletimes.com/

The Associated Press- JUNDESHAN, China (AP) — Hanging from a highway overpass two hours’ drive from the Siberian border, a local government banner reads like a last-gasp exhortation to this exhausted coal community: “Improve our structure, change our methods, transform our city.”

This area has transformed in dire ways as China has retreated from coal and heavy industry. Li Jiuxian, who hasn’t been paid for half a year, sees only mounting debts and anger.

“I don’t even have anywhere left to borrow money from,” said the 51-year-old miner as he stepped outside a squalid mahjong parlor reeking of smoke and drink where miners while away days without work or pay. “There isn’t going to be change.”

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BHP Billiton invites coal to join new world order – by Matthew Stevens (Australian Financial Review – March 17, 2016)

http://www.afr.com/

Two weeks before Andrew Mackenzie extended his mission of simplicity to Australian industrial relations, the coal workers of Queensland were offered documentary evidence of exactly what the BHP Billiton chief executive might have in mind.

“BHP Billiton believes it’s in the national interest to simplify workplace agreements so that our teams have the flexibility to succeed in the global market,” Mackenzie told The Australian Financial Review Business Summit on Wednesday.

True to his politically moderate roots, Mackenzie went on to note that industrial relations in Australia posed nothing like the competitive risk that it did in some of BHP’s other global constituencies. Rather he suggested that our inability to put the relationship between capital and labour on a more productive footing was a competitive advantage surrendered.

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South African Miners Say Being Unduly Pressured Over Licenses – by Paul Burkhardt (Bloomberg News – March 17, 2016)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The Chamber of Mines of South Africa said it wants a probe into reports that mines are receiving notices from the government suspending operations because they don’t meet black ownership requirements. Those regulations are due to be ruled on by a court.

This week the High Court in Pretoria began hearing a case lodged by the Chamber, which represents companies including Glencore Plc, against the Department of Mineral Resources.

The judge is being asked to rule on the legality of a requirement added by the DMR to the mutually agreed mining charter in 2010 that requires mine assets to be at least 26 percent black-owned at all times even when black investors sell their stakes is legal. The Chamber also said safety stoppages are being issued improperly.

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Documentary captures life of Appalachian coal mining – by Emma Austin (WKU Herald – March 17, 2016)

 

http://wkuherald.com/

The term “overburden” is used for the rock, soil, trees and ecosystem that lie above a coal seam. It is also the title of Chad Stevens’ documentary about environmental devastation in the Appalachian coal mining region and the effect it has had on the area’s surrounding communities.

Stevens, director and cinematographer of the film “Overburden,” visited campus Tuesday night for Bowling Green’s first screening. Before the viewing, Stevens recounted the experience that inspired him to begin the project.

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Obama Administration Offering $66 Million To Help Coal-Reliant Communities – by Maria Gallucci (International Business Times – March 17, 2016)

http://www.ibtimes.com/

The Obama administration on Thursday offered nearly $66 million to boost communities battered by the coal industry’s downturn and a string of recent mining bankruptcies.

The funds are part of the Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce Development and Economic Revitalization (POWER) Initiative, a federal program to support coal-reliant communities in states like Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky where mines are shuttering and coal-fired power plants are closing due to rocky market conditions and tougher environmental regulations.

The Obama administration last year awarded around $14.5 million in POWER grants to a dozen states. In Ohio, which received $2 million, one of the biggest slices, the money is helping pay for retraining and education programs in high-demand industries, namely trucking.

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Coal’s ‘Last Man Standing’ Dragged to the Brink of Bankruptcy – by Tim Loh (Bloomberg News – March 17, 2016)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Welcome to the twilight of American coal. Peabody Energy Corp., the nation’s biggest miner, is on the verge of bankruptcy, crippled by $6.3 billion in debt. The company’s announcement Wednesday that it may file sent a decisive signal to the market: The U.S. coal industry is still too big.

“It’s the end of the era of publicly traded coal companies,” said Ted O’Brien, chief executive officer of Doyle Trading Consultants, an energy markets research group.

Peabody has lost 98 percent of its market value in 12 months and watched as its main rivals — Walter Energy Inc., Alpha Natural Resources Inc. and Arch Coal Inc. — all filed for bankruptcy, crushed by falling demand, massive debt loads, mounting environmental regulations and competition from cheap natural gas.

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HD Mining’s contentious Murray River coal project put on hold – by Wendy Stueck (Globe and Mail – March 14, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

VANCOUVER — A B.C. coal project that generated controversy over its plans to hire temporary foreign workers is being mothballed at least temporarily, with future operations hinging on test drilling results, environmental approvals and market conditions.

That means the 51 temporary foreign workers hired for HD Mining’s Murray River project over the past couple of years have left Tumbler Ridge and returned to China, marking the end of a journey that launched a federal court case and helped spur reforms to Canada’s temporary foreign worker program.

HD Mining has completed a bulk sample program and the extracted coal sample “is being tested for coal quality and marketability,” Jody Shimkus, HD Mining’s vice-president of environment and regulatory affairs, said Monday in an e-mail.

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Two Coal Barons, One Overdue Bond Payment and the End of an Era – by Jodi Xu Klein and Tim Loh (Bloomberg News – March 14, 2016)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Both men worked down in the mines, in helmet and headlamp, digging out the coal that would one day make them piles of money. As early as Tuesday, the mining empires the two men built from scratch could start to crumble.

Billionaire Christopher Cline, 57, hailed as the savior of the Illinois coal industry, is the founder of Foresight Energy LP, which has until March 15 to pay $23.6 million of overdue bond interest.

Industry champion Robert E. Murray, 76, would suffer with him. The company he created, Murray Energy Corp., paid $1.4 billion in April for a 50 percent stake in Foresight. A default would wipe out that investment.

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Labor Protests Multiply in China as Economy Slows, Worrying Leaders – by Javier C. Hernandez (New York Times – March 14, 2016)

http://www.nytimes.com/

GUANGZHOU, China — For nearly seven years, Li Wei rose before dawn for his 10-hour shift at the steel plant, returning home each night soaked in sweat, the clank of heavy machinery still ringing in his ears. But last month, the 31-year-old welder stood outside the plant with hundreds of co-workers, picketing against pay cuts and singing patriotic battle hymns.

Within a week, the authorities declared their strike illegal, threatening fines and imprisonment. The police descended on the plant by the hundreds, tearing down signs and ordering the protesters to go back to work. “I’ve sacrificed my life for this company,” Mr. Li told officers as they sought to disperse the workers. “How can you do this?”

As China’s economy slows after more than two decades of breakneck growth, strikes and labor protests have erupted across the country. Factories, mines and other businesses are withholding wages and benefits, laying off staff or shutting down altogether.

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