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Collection: Northwest Coal & Oil Exports

Recent Coal Export Trends: Q3 2011

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Here’s a look at the latest coal report from the US EIA, taking us up through the third quarter of 2011. In this chart, you see the past 15 years of quarterly data.

I’m showing Customs Districts here, not ports. The Port of Seattle does not move coal. But some coal does get exported out of the Seattle Customs District region by way of the rail crossing at Blaine, Washington. It is, by all accounts, Powder River Basin coal heading to BC’s Westshore Terminal for onward shipment to Asia.

Somewhat surprisingly, the third quarter of 2011 saw a decline in coal export volumes in both the Seattle and Los Angeles Customs Districts, as well as in the West overall. The Seattle District moved 1.25 million tons of coal in the third quarter, down 13 percent from the second quarter. Los Angeles District exports were down 25 percent. Right now, it looks like the Seattle District will ship just a bit more than 5 million tons in 2011. (Final 2011 numbers are due out in March, and I’ll report them here.)

It may look as though the West has been experiencing a coal export boom in 2011, but the volumes here are really nothing compared to what coal companies are planning. For context, here’s the same data plotted against the plans for the Cherry Point project alone:

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Four Pictures of International Coal

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In the course of looking into some larger questions about the global coal trade, I stumbled upon several fascinating pictures of world coal production and consumption during the last three decades. Here’s what global coal “production” (i.e. mining) looked like in 2010:

I wasn’t able to embed the animated image here, but you can watch 30 years of coal production play out here.

Now here’s a closer look at trends within Asia, the world’s dominant coal producer:

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Why Railroads Care About Coal Exports

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Here are three pictures that help explain why American railways seem to be supporting coal export proposals in the Northwest. It’s because railways are very closely connected to the coal industry. Consider:

Coal so dwarfs every other rail-hauled commodity that it is almost as important as all the other commodities combined. (N/B, this picture excludes “intermodal” freight.)

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Some Basic Facts About Coal Exports

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Arguments over Northwest coal exports have been hot and heavy in 2011. As one might expect, there’s been plenty of disagreement about values, but there’s also been quite a bit of disagreement over facts. After nearly a year of wrangling, here’s my attempt to establish a few foundational and un-contestable basics about coal export dynamics. Even if we disagree, we can at least argue from a common view of reality.

So here’s a fact: the US currently exports about 80 million tons of coal per year, including both thermal coal and metallurgical coal. That figure was sometimes higher during the 1980s and 1990s, but it’s been even lower in recent years.

In other words, plans for Northwest coal exports—moving 60 million tons from Longview, Washington plus 50 million tons from Bellingham, Washington—would more than double the existing total volume of US coal exports.

Here’s another fact: only a fraction of US coal exports go to Asia.

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Video: Coal Export Threatens the Northwest

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Columbia Riverkeeper has a new video out showing the impacts of proposed coal export terminals in Oregon and Washington. It’s definitely worth four minutes of your time: The video looks at the affected communities, the health impacts of coal dust, and the other impacts in the Northwest. Here at Sightline, we’ve created a new repository … Read more

Recent Coal Export Trends

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I’ve finally had a chance to absorb the US EIA’s latest quarterly coal report, which takes us up through the middle of 2011. As I’ve shown before (here and here) coal exports in the West have had a volatile history. In this chart, you can see the last 15 years of quarterly data, complete with upward spikes in the last few quarters.

Keep in mind that these are Customs Districts, not ports. Seattle itself doesn’t export any coal, but the Seattle Customs District does move some volume via the rail crossing at Blaine, Washington as the coal makes its way from the Powder River Basin to BC’s Westshore Terminal for onward shipment to Asia.

So what’s new in the data?  In the second quarter of 2011, about 1.4 million tons of coal were exported from the Seattle District. That was a 21 percent increase from the previous quarter, and a whopping 103 percent from the second quarter of 2010. Yet even at the current pace, 2011 coal exports from the Seattle District will only reach about 5.3 million tons — an order of magnitude smaller than what’s planned for Cherry Point.

For some perspective, here’s the same data plotted against the Cherry Point plans:

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Coal Exports Are Bigger Threat Than Tar Sands Pipeline

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The planned Keystone XL oil pipeline has earned major national attention for the damage it would do to the climate. At the same time, another climate drama is playing out with much less attention as coal companies make plans to export huge quantities to Asia by way of Pacific Northwest ports. It’s pretty clear that both projects are environmental horror stories, but I’ve been wondering: which one is worse?

So, from the “King Kong versus Godzilla” files, here’s my analysis of their carbon impacts. It turns out, coal exports are actually the bigger problem—and that’s really saying something.

The result surprised me: coal exports look to be an even bigger climate disaster than the pipeline. There are, in fact, quite a bit more direct emissions from burning the coal than from the oil. That’s true even when one counts the energy-intensive tar sands extraction and processing—and, of course, there are plenty of upstream emissions associated with coal mining that I’ve left out of the equation here. (In order to make a roughly direct comparison, I also omitted emissions associated with both products’ mining, refining, transportation, and so forth.) Clearly we can ill afford either one of these projects, but until we have a clear energy policy that respects climate science we’ll be wrestling with these kind of killer projects one at a time.

Now, for all the energy and math geeks out there, here’s the methodology I used to generate these numbers.

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Coal Company Destroys Key Argument for Coal Terminal

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Cloud Peak Energy says they will ship 4 million tons of coal from British Columbia’s Westshore Terminal this year. That means Cloud Peak is almost solely responsible for current US coal exports to Asia via BC. (See here and here for US Customs figures.) Yet in a new investor report, Cloud Peak says they can’t increase coal shipments to Asia because there’s not enough room at BC export terminals.

This is precisely the opposite of what Washington coal terminal supporters claim. They say that if Washington doesn’t build coal terminals, the coal will just go out from BC instead. In an August research memo, Coal Exports From Canada, I showed there is simply not enough room at BC’s ports, not even if they undergo planned expansions. But terminal supporters just keep repeating the falsehood anyway. (See here, for example). Now, the coal industry itself is knocking down supporters’ claims.

Here’s what Cloud Peak’s latest investor report says:

…next year’s exports will again be limited by available terminal capacity. In 2012, we will aim to export similar tonnage [4 million tons] through Westshore by working to maximize shipments as opportunities arise through the year. There are currently 0.3 million tons contracted to go through the Ridley terminal in 2012. As previously disclosed, exports through the Ridley terminal incur significantly higher rail costs than through Westshore due to the longer multi railroad haul.

In other words, the coal industry is weighing in on my side: if Washington doesn’t build coal export terminals, the coal can’t go.

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The Instability of Coal Exports II

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Following up on my last analysis of the instability of coal exports historically, here’s another look at the data. It’s confirmation that the Western US has had a rocky run in international coal markets. The following chart depicts annual export volumes by Customs District over the last two decades.


In the past, at least, coal has clearly been a volatile commodity. (The quarterly picture is even more ragged.)

Only three of the Western region’s nine customs districts have registered meaningful levels of coal exports since the early 1990s. The Los Angeles district’s trend line shows the spectacular implosion of the LAXT coal terminal. The Anchorage line shows the fairly modest but still unpredictable shipments from Seward. And the Seattle line shows the sudden rise in Powder River Basin coal making its way north to British Columbia’s Westshore Terminal for shipment to Asia.

Yet as volatile as the past has been, it’s nothing compared to what the future may hold.

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The Instability of Coal Exports

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When the Port of Vancouver, Washington rejected a recent coal export proposal the Port’s operations manager, Mike Schiller, explained that the economic fundamentals of coal are bad.

“Coal is the most risky bulk mineral market,” is how Schiller put it.

To find out what he meant, I did a little digging into the US Department of Energy’s quarterly coal export figures, which are kept online for each customs district in the country as far back to 1995. Here’s what the last 15 years has looked like for the region that covers the whole of the West Coast:

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It’s not exactly the picture of stability. There’s a tremendous amount of volatility from quarter to quarter—suddenly doubling or tripling in volume, only to come crashing down just as quickly. The long-term trend is hardly more comforting.

Let’s take a closer look at the individual customs districts within the Western region:

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