FT/CC - Last Planned West Coast Coal Export Terminal Now Bankrupt; US Exports Peaked In 2012
US coal miners’ last-ditch hope for shipping big volumes to Asia has crumbled as the developer of a sprawling export terminal abandons its project on the Pacific coast. The Millennium Bulk Terminal would have loaded 44m metric tonnes a year of thermal coal for export to electric utilities — a potential boost for producers reeling from the decline of coal-fired power generation in the US.
But the project’s bankrupt owner on Saturday pulled the plug, making it the last of more than half a dozen proposed west coast coal ports never to be built. “It’s the end of the pipe dream that Asia can save the US coal industry,” said Clark Williams-Derry, analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a research group that favours clean energy.
The terminal’s demise is a victory for climate activists who fought to hinder coal exports and their associated carbon emissions. It is a blow to the economies of Wyoming and Montana, whose open-pit mines in the Powder River Basin would have supplied the facility on the Columbia river in coastal Washington state.
It also runs counter to the pro-coal agenda of outgoing president Donald Trump. “About 10 years ago there were maybe a half-dozen major terminals proposed for the west coast because of some excitement about PRB coal. All those have fallen through,” said Matt Preston, research director for North American coal markets at Wood Mackenzie, a consultancy. US coal exports peaked at 125.7m short tons in 2012. In 2019 they had fallen to 93.7m short tons and the majority was metallurgical coal used in steelmaking, not thermal coal burnt by power plants to generate electricity, according to the US Energy Information Administration. In the first nine months of 2020 US coal exports were down 32 per cent on the year.
EDIT
https://climatecrocks.com/2021/01/11/us-coals-last-lifeline-evaporates/
= new reply since forum marked as read
