This year has been a very difficult one for the North American coal industry. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) is now forecasting export coal volumes to fall from 97.3 Mst (million short tons) to 83.4 Mst this year. US domestic consumption is expected to fall by nearly 60 Mst as power generators respond to the implementation of Mercury and Air Toxics Standards regulations and reduce coal-fired generation. As the EIA notes, when prices fall, US exporters lose ground to lower-cost Australian producers, and this has been made worse by the recent spike in the value of the US dollar. As prices plummeted, producers have been forced to close marginal mines, and Patriot Coal and Walter Energy have recently filed for bankruptcy. One of the hardest hit ports has been Prince Rupert in Canada, where Ridley Terminals Inc (RTI) serves some of the higher-cost coal producers. RTI has gone from profitability to losing money, and Canada's federal government has quietly shelved plan to sell the state-owned facility. RTFs latest quarterly report showed its rail unloading volume (inward coal supply) down nearly 50% in Ql to 1.08 Mt. Shiploading volume fell 43% or 880,000t to 1.163 Mt. "As a result of decreased handling volumes, net operating profit for the terminal turned to losses in the first quarter of 2015, for a loss of C$2.979M (Q1 2014: C$4.840M profit), a decrease of C$7.819M, or 161.55%, over the previous year's comparative quarter," stated RTI.
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