Coal – Page 88 – Republic of Mining

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

March 15, 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.

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)

March 15, 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.

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

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.

Oregon becomes first state to pass law to completely eliminate coal-fired power – by Oliver Milman (The Guardian – March 3, 2016)

March 7, 2016

http://www.theguardian.com/

Oregon has become the first US state to pass laws to rid itself of coal, committing to eliminate the use of coal-fired power by 2035 and to double the amount of renewable energy in the state by 2040.

Legislation passed by the state’s assembly, which will need to be signed into law by Governor Kate Brown, will transition Oregon away from coal, which currently provides around a third of the state’s electricity supply.

At the same time, the state will also require its two largest utilities to increase their share of clean energy, such as solar and wind, to 50% by 2040. Combined with Oregon’s current hydroelectric output, the state will be overwhelmingly powered by low-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels.

Editorial How do we ditch dirty coal power without sending miners to the unemployment line? (Los Angeles Times – March 4, 2016)

March 4, 2016

http://www.latimes.com/

The nation — in fact, the world — needs to wean itself from fossil fuels if it is to have any hope of managing climate change. Burning coal is particularly bad for the environment, pumping far higher quantities of global-warming compounds into the atmosphere than natural gas, oil or other carbon-based products do.

So it’s heartening that the U.S. has been using less coal to generate electricity in recent years. An unrelated drop in coal-fired steel production in China has also reduced the amount of coal U.S. firms have scratched out of the ground and shipped overseas. Yet more needs to be done to speed up the shift to cleaner, more sustainable energy sources.

Though transitioning away from fossil fuels is absolutely necessary, it’s also vitally important to recognize the human and economic cost that such a change entails. That includes a significant number of jobs lost in northern Appalachia, Indiana and Illinois, and Wyoming, where the vast majority of the nation’s existing coal mines are found.

Statistics From China Say Coal Consumption Continues to Drop – by Edward Wong (New York Times – March 4, 2016)

March 4, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/

BEIJING — China has released new statistics indicating that it used less coal last year than in 2014, lending support to the view that the country, the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, may have reached a peak in coal consumption.

That would be a boon for global efforts to limit climate change, since industrial coal burning is the primary source of greenhouse gases. The new data, released on Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics, said coal consumption had fallen 3.7 percent in 2015 compared with the previous year. It was the second straight year of decline, according to the bureau, which said coal use had dropped 2.9 percent in 2014.

Much of the world is watching China’s actions on carbon emissions, since it is responsible for about half of the world’s coal consumption. President Xi Jinping has said that China intends for its greenhouse gas emissions to stop growing around 2030. Some climate experts in China say the peak could come earlier, closer to 2025.

Responsibility For Black Lung Outbreak Being ‘Dodged’: CFMEU – by Sam McKeith (HuffPost Australia – March 4, 2016)

March 4, 2016

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/

The union for coal miners says the screening process for picking up the potentially lethal black lung disease “is a mess” after revelations up to 1,000 Queensland mine workers could have contracted the crippling condition.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) said 6 cases of coal miner’s pneumoconiosis — caused by long-term inhalation of coal dust — were already confirmed in the state, while an unknown number were yet to be diagnosed.

That actual number could reportedly be as high as 1,000.

The union said it was likely many former miners could have gone undiagnosed with the crippling disease because symptoms often developed many years following exposure and long after miners have retired.

Khan Resources asks Ottawa to stop Mongolian aid pending settlement for mine given to Russians – by Lee Berthiaume (Financial Post – March 3, 2016)

March 3, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

OTTAWA — A Canadian mining company wants the federal government to suspend millions of dollars in foreign aid to Mongolia until the Asian country pays for taking the firm’s uranium mine and giving it to the Russians.

The request, made Tuesday, comes exactly one year after a trade tribunal told Mongolia to give Toronto-based Khan Resources Inc. more than $100 million in compensation for the lost uranium mine, and is the latest gambit in a long-running dispute sparked by Cold War-era geopolitics.

It also coincides with a major mining convention in Toronto next week, where Mongolian officials plan to pitch their country as a great place for mining companies from Canada and the rest of the world to invest.

High life, low coal price sends Australian mining baron bankrupt – by James Regan (Reuters U.S. – March 3, 2016)

March 3, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

SYDNEY – Rags-to-riches coal baron Nathan Tinkler, who rode the mining boom to become Australia’s youngest billionaire before losing it all when coal prices collapsed, has been declared legally bankrupt after failing to pay off a private jet.

The bankruptcy order comes 10 years after the 40-year-old scraped together a A$1 million ($728,700) deposit for a rundown coal mine that returned a profit of A$442 million 18 months later. At that time, coal was at the forefront of a boom in Australian mining, with rising orders from fast-industrializing Asia creating a rush of development and consolidation.

Tinkler quickly parlayed a series of audacious deals into a fortune, far removed from his days as an apprentice at one of BHP’s coal mines, where he is said to have spent much of his free time scouring share prices in newspapers.

Talking climate is cheap. Action is expensive – by Jeffrey Simpson (Globe and Mail – March 3, 2016)

March 3, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the premiers gather on March 3 in Vancouver, they need to get their heads around some inconvenient truths.

They understand, correctly, one inconvenient truth: that global warming is happening and needs, over the long-term, to be combatted. The other inconvenient truths they have yet to acknowledge freely, let alone confront.

Greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change have risen in Canada since the 2008-2009 recession. They are rising with sufficient speed that to keep them level will require a huge effort, to say nothing of what would be required to reduce them drastically to meet the emission-reduction goal the Trudeau government set for Canada at the Paris climate conference in December.

Glencore positive on coal turnaround – by Martin Creamer (Mining Weekly – March 1, 2016)

March 1, 2016

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Diversified mining and marketing company Glencore, which plays a leading role in the global seaborne steam coal market, including being the major exporter of the mineral out of South Africa’s Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT), spoke positively on Tuesday on the outlook for a coal turnaround.

“Coal is looking interesting. Supply has been cut. There’s a tightness in Richards Bay at the moment and I see even in February there were certain vessels waiting to load coal. “A lot of changes. A lot of dynamics. A lot happening in the coal market,” Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg said in response to Creamer Media’s Mining Weekly Online during a media conference call.

Earlier, the head of the London-, Hong Kong- and Johannesburg-listed company had also made it clear in response to analysts that his company was giving consideration to acquiring the coal stake that Anglo American is selling in Cerrejon in Colombia, where Glencore is already a third shareholder.

China Expects 1.8 Million Coal, Steel Layoffs on Capacity Cuts (Bloomberg News – February 29, 2016)

February 29, 2016

http://www.bloomberg.com/

China will lay off about 1.8 million steel and coal workers as President Xi Jinping drives efforts to cut the country’s industrial overcapacity and reform it’s bloated state-run enterprises.

About 1.3 million workers in the coal industry and 500,000 in steel will be cut, Yin Weimin, human resources and social security minister, said Monday, according to a transcript posted on the government’s website. The employees would be reallocated, Yin said, without providing further details.

The world’s largest steel and coal producer is seeking to ease a glut of industrial capacity as its economy shifts toward consumer-led growth and as it tries to curb pollution. The government has set up a 100 billion yuan ($15.3 billion) fund to be spent over two years to help companies resettle workers cut during restructuring.

Russian Coal Mine Accident Kills 36, Including 5 Rescuers (Associated Press/New York Times – Februray 28, 2016)

February 29, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/

MOSCOW — A methane gas leak at a coal mine in Russia’s far north triggered three explosions that ignited fires and partially collapsed the mine, killing 36 people, officials said Sunday.

The dead included five rescue workers and a mine worker who were killed early Sunday when the third explosion rocked the Severnaya mine in Vorkuta, a town north of the Arctic Circle in the Komi region, the emergency services said.

The first two explosions struck late Thursday, killing four miners and trapping 26 others. Denis Paikin, technical director for mine operator Vorkutaugol, said Sunday that given the level of gas in the mine, the degree of destruction and the trajectory of the fire, which continued to burn, all the missing miners were presumed dead.

Green Illusions – Why Wind and Solar Power Cannot Displace Coal – by John Petersen (InvestorIntel.com – February 22, 2016)

February 22, 2016

http://investorintel.com/

We live in a crazy mixed-up world where half-truths abound as politicians, stock promoters, forecasters and advocates of all stripes blithely ignore the vulgar exigencies of objective truth when it comes to the energy supplies that make our industrialized economies and comfortable lives possible. It’s a golden age of green illusions, a/k/a alternative energy fairy tales.

Since this series of articles will focus on the contrast between objective truths and green illusions, I can’t think of a better way to kick it off than a quote from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass:

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said, “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

How the Coal Industry Flattened the Mountains of Appalachia – by the Editorial Board (New York Times – February 16, 2016)

February 17, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/

As the destructive coal mining process known as mountaintop removal ebbs in Appalachia, it is leaving behind what amounts to its own grim field of tombstones: A grossly disfigured landscape pocked with decapitated mountains standing flat as mesas and inhospitable to forest restoration.

The blight is more than vertical, for millions of tons of slag waste have been bulldozed down into the surrounding countryside for more than 40 years. The rubble has clogged countless streams and waterways and devastated the Appalachian environment with pollutants, rerouting rain torrents through homes and hamlets below.

The destruction, shocking to anyone flying across the scarred mountain remains, has now been measured in all three dimensions in a survey by researchers at Duke University. It presents a timely reminder of what has been lost to King Coal’s furious bulldozing swaths across the mountains of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia.