The February issue of Trains Magazine has an article about eastern coal traffic being down. It says one bright spot, is metallurgical coal shipping from the east coast to China. I recall reading a couple years ago, that high quality met. coal was mined in Canada, shipping west on CP(?) to Port Rupert, for delivery to China.
Is Appalachian met. coal that much better than the Canadian met. coal, that it could support another half a world’s worth of ocean shipping, and still be competitive?
Most of the Coal mined in Pennsylvania is bituminous coal with some anthracite mines in the eastern part of the state. I now some coal coming out of Central City and Winber, PA goes to Germany.
Hi
You are right, much of the East Kootenay coal does go to China. It’s shipped by CP from Fernie/Sparwood BC to Point Roberts BC bulk terminal, just south of Vancouver, BC. I would wonder about the economics of shipping met coal from the Appalachians to a west coast port. I’m not sure how it could compete effectively unless the Appalachian mining companies have a much lower contract cost or higher quality met coal to ship in the first place and/or the US railways have a lower shipping cost than does CP. I have none of the answers to these questions.
I do know that the Chinese and Japanese have had very sharp pencils re: coal cost, especially in the past 5-6 years. The contract cost of BC met coal, IIRC, decreased accordingly. IIRC freight rates were reduced at the same time. I can’t for the life of me, remember who the competition was at the time. Also, I was through Golden, BC in mid December and saw several coal trainsets sitting idle and without power. They had been there for a while. Made me wonder accordingly if traffic was down a bit.
Haven’t seen the Feb Trains issue yet so will be interested to see what the writer has to say about the economics of Appalachian coal that makes it an attractive commodity to the Chinese. Also, in what amounts are they shipping same?
Charlie
Chilliwack. BC