Coal – Page 91 – Republic of Mining

Two thirds of world’s coal output is loss-making, Wood Mackenzie estimates – by Peter Ker (Sydney Morning Herald – December 10, 2015)

December 10, 2015

http://www.smh.com.au/

More than 65 per cent of the world’s coal production is estimated to be unprofitable as prices for both thermal and coking coal head for their fifth consecutive year of declines.

The estimate, which was provided by commercial intelligence company Wood Mackenzie, applies to both types of coal. It would be even higher if sustaining capital spent by miners on things like engine maintenance was taken into account.

The extraordinary estimate illustrates the parlous state of the coal industry, which has been battling slowing demand in Asia and structural challenges surrounding coal’s place in an increasingly carbon-conscious world.

The Wood Mackenzie data includes coal mined for export markets and domestic energy supplies around the world.

As World Debates Climate, Czechs Embrace Heavy Pollutant (Associated Press/New York Times – December 7, 2015)

December 7, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/

CSA MINE, Czech Republic — While world leaders try to reach a deal to limit climate change, one of the most polluting fossil fuels, brown coal, is enjoying a revival in the Czech Republic, where entire villages are threatened by new plans for mining.

The Czech Republic is one of a group of countries that is turning to coal, a cheap but dirty energy source, as its economy slows. Neighboring Poland, which has big deposits, is doing so, as is China, the world’s biggest energy consumer.

The Czech variety of the coal, called brown coal or lignite, is a particularly bad source of greenhouse gases and pollutants.

Kellingley colliery: The pit that survived Margaret Thatcher prepares for closure – by Dean Kirby (Independent – December 6, 2015)

December 7, 2015

http://www.independent.co.uk/

The North Yorkshire colliery, Britain’s last deep coal mine, will close on 18 December

The miners look almost otherworldly as they burst from the cage that has carried them from deep under ground – their white eyes shining from faces black with coal dust.

The 40 men are shouting and swearing and appear euphoric at being back in the daylight after eight hours working nearly seven miles from the surface in the dark.

But their only welcome, as they march quickly into the lamp room and remove their lanterns and turn into a cavernous changing room to scrub themselves human again, is a grey December fog that has fallen on the world outside like a shroud.

Reckoning in Appalachia: Why Coal Mining Outlaw Don Blankenship’s Conviction Matters – by Jeff Biggers (Huffington Post – December 3, 2015)

December 4, 2015

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

The landmark conviction of former Massey Energy CEO and coal baron Don Blankenship today on a misdemeanor conspiracy charge to violate mine safety laws is a small, but historic first step in holding mining outlaws accountable for their reckless operations.

For the first time in memory for those of us with friends, family, miners and loved ones living amid the toxic fallout of the coal industry, this conviction may only serve as a tiny reckoning of our nation’s complacency with a continual state of violations, but it could begin a new era of justice and reconciliation in the devastated coal mining communities in Appalachia and around the nation.

Ragtag Activists Push Banks to Dump Coal – by Zeke Faux (Bloomberg News – December 3, 2015)

December 4, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The anti-coal protest outside Morgan Stanley’s 42-story tower in New York attracted only three people—four if you count the infant one of them happened to be baby-sitting.

The few bankers who walked outside to meet restaurant deliverymen appeared to barely notice as the activists sang, “Go tell it on the mountain. Your bank poisons us.” It was all over in 15 minutes.

The Nov. 19 demonstration hardly seemed like the kind of thing that would lead an investment banking behemoth to stop putting money into fossil fuels. But the movement that sponsored it is getting results.

Former Massey Energy C.E.O. Guilty in Deadly Coal Mine Blast – by Alan Blinder (New York Times – December 3, 2015)

December 3, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Donald L. Blankenship, a titan of the nation’s coal industry whose approach to business was scrutinized and scorned after 29 workers were killed at the Upper Big Branch mine in 2010, was convicted Thursday of a federal charge of conspiring to violate mine safety standards, part of a case that emerged after the accident, the deadliest in mining in the United States in decades.

The verdict reached by a federal jury here made Mr. Blankenship, 65, the most prominent American coal executive ever to be convicted of a charge connected to the deaths of miners. He had been accused of conspiring to violate mine safety regulations, as well as of deceiving investors and regulators; prosecutors secured a conviction on only one of the three charges.

Europe’s Coal Curtain Is Complicating the Climate Fight – by Ladka Mortkowitz Bauerova (Bloomberg News – November 30, 2015)

December 1, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

At the Bilina mine 50 miles north of Prague, excavators the size of 10-story buildings claw at the earth and scoop out 2,700 tons of brown coal a day to feed the smoke-belching power station on the horizon. After the Czech government relaxed environmental regulations this fall, they’ll be able to keep going for another 40 years.

Some 130 miles away, in eastern Germany, Vattenfall AB’s Jaenschwalde coal pit is preparing to scale back production as the country shifts away from coal and the oldest units of the adjacent power station are scheduled to shut down by 2019.

The two mines highlight Europe’s growing divide on cutting greenhouse gases as global leaders descend on Paris for the biggest climate conference in history.

BHP sees coal price getting worse before it gets better – by Mark Ludlow (Australian Financial Review – November 25, 2015)

November 27, 2015

http://www.afr.com/

A senior BHP Billiton executive has warned the market for Australian resources will get a lot worse before it gets better, saying it would be “dangerous” to invest in a new mine based on the assumption coal prices will recover.

As big miners continue to cut costs following a plunge in international coal prices, BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance asset president Rag Udd painted a bleak picture of the resources sector in Australia.

“I think it’s dangerous to try and align a business around prices improving in metallurgical coal. I personally think it will get worse before it gets better,” Mr Udd told a Queensland Resources Council forum in Brisbane on Wednesday.

Rio Tinto says licence to operate will ‘make or break’ miners – by Amanda Saunders (Sydney Morning Herald – November 26, 2015)

November 26, 2015

http://www.smh.com.au/

Rio Tinto coal and copper boss Jean-Sebastien Jacques says thermal coal prices are likely to stay depressed for five to seven years but copper could stage a recovery in two years.

Thermal coal is languishing near US$51 ($70) a tonne, down 20 per cent this year, and a huge drop on the $US150 a tonne it was trading at during the peak of the boom in 2011.

Metallurgical coal prices, like thermal coal, also had “a long way to go” before there was any light at the end of the tunnel, Mr Jacques said.

Rio Tinto has been readying to bow out of coal, restructuring its Hunter Valley business and kicking off its staggered exit two months ago with the $US606 million ($867 million) sale of a minority stake in Bengalla, one of its three mines in the New South Wakes region, to New Hope Group.

Coal communities see bleak future as Obama agenda speeds industry decline – by Ben Wolfgang (Washington Times – November 24, 2015)

November 24, 2015

http://www.washingtontimes.com/

ST. CLAIRSVILLE, Ohio — Frank Stupak got his start in the coal business just as it was beginning its steep decline, and while there’s little chance the industry will ever return to its glory days, the 27-year-old safety manager isn’t giving up hope.

“We know what our industry did for this country. Hopefully someday we’ll get back there,” he said while deep inside an Ohio County Coal Company mine along the Ohio-West Virginia border, coal dust filling the air around him and the sound of machinery nearly drowning out his voice.

Mr. Stupak came to work for the Ohio County Coal Company — a subsidiary of Murray Energy Corp., the nation’s largest coal-mining operation — after briefly attending college but deciding “it wasn’t really my thing.”

[Alberta] Coal industry warns of mine closures, blasts NDP government’s climate plan – by Colette Derworiz (Calgary Herald – November 23, 2015)

November 24, 2015

http://calgaryherald.com/

Alberta’s coal industry fired back at the Notley government’s climate change plan, suggesting the province should be working with the companies to find cleaner ways to burn coal for electricity — rather than speeding up the phase out.

The NDP’s climate change strategy unveiled on Sunday will see the province eliminate pollution caused by burning coal and a shift to more renewable energy and natural gas power generation by 2030. Although it’s being touted as a benefit to public health, the plan raises concerns for the coal industry.

“It has been single-handedly targeted to resolve all of the issues of greenhouse gases in Alberta,” said Robin Campbell, president of the Coal Association of Canada, noting 90 per cent of coal in the province is used for power generation.

India opposes deal to phase out fossil fuels by 2100 at climate summit – by Tommy Wilkes (Reuters India – November 24, 2015)

November 24, 2015

http://in.reuters.com/

NEW DELHI – India would reject a deal to combat climate change that includes a pledge for the world to wean itself off fossil fuels this century, a senior official said, underlying the difficulties countries face in agreeing how to slow global warming.

Almost 200 nations will meet in the French capital on Nov. 30 to try and seal a deal to prevent the planet from warming more than the 2 degrees Celsius that scientists say is vital if the world is to avoid the most devastating effects of climate change.

To keep warming in check, some countries want the Paris agreement to include a commitment to decarbonise — to reduce and ultimately phase out the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas that is blamed for climate change — this century.

Why 2015 will go down as a year to forget for North American coal miners – by Peter Koven (National Post – November 21, 2015)

November 23, 2015

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Plenty of coal industry insiders have spoken out about the collapse of the business in the United States. But nobody does it with quite the same fervor as Robert Murray.

“We have the worst president the United States has ever had in its history,” said the founder and chief executive of Ohio-based Murray Energy Corp., one of the largest coal producers in the U.S.

“He has stacked the government with hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats who are on a regulatory rampage (against coal) that are carrying out the desires of those who got him elected,” Murray said in an interview.

Sealing off New Zealand’s Pike River Coal mine tragedy – by Ean Higgins (The Australian – November 19, 2015)

November 19, 2015

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

It consumed $NZ290 million in investment, huge amounts of sweat and tears, and five years ago today, the lives of 29 men, including two Australians. Now the Pike River Coal mine is starting to disappear back into the primordial forest of the moody Paparoa Ranges, having produced hardly any coal in commercial quantities.

The bodies of the Pike 29, as they are known locally, and the secrets of how they met their end are in the process of being locked away forever.

But for many of the families of those who died, and the New Zealand union movement, there’s no closure. Many who lost loved ones feel betrayed by the government of John Key, who committed to “getting the boys out”.

Teck enduring worst financial squeeze since the recession – by Brent Jang (Globe and Mail – November 19, 2015)

November 19, 2015

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 — Teck Resources Ltd. is facing its worst financial squeeze since the recession, forcing the company to retrench during a mining industry slump that has hammered coal exports from Canada.

Vancouver-based Teck is cutting 1,000 jobs and lowering its semi-annual dividend to only 5 cents a share as it seeks to corral expenses amid depressed commodity prices.

The diversified mining company will eliminate the jobs at its offices and operations worldwide through layoffs and attrition, representing almost 10 per cent of its current work force.