Inventories at river plants better than elsewhere, but look out

摘要

Barge unavailability, not demand, is responsible for the current difficulties river utilities are having in getting coal shipments delivered in a timely fashion, "I have feeling that (inventories at) the river utilities are pretty good," one source close to the barge industry told U.S. Coal Review. The source cited U.S. Army Corps of Engineer data that show pretty remarkable strength in coal traffic since February, following the January crisis conditions in which traffic plummeted as repairs were made to the damaged Belleville Lock. The Corps data are created from a relatively small sample of locks primarily on the Ohio River, but they form a pretty reliable indicator of traffic. Coal and coke movements on the inland river system totaled just 9.1 million tons in January, according to the Corps' estimate, far below normal and the lowest month in a five-year span.