Wait...ILB cutting production while CAPP production hangs on?

摘要

Alpha Natural Resources allowing WARN notices to expire is great news for the miners involved and their families, and a relief in the lead-up to Christmas. Alpha's justification for keeping the mines open, essentially, is that the cuts to date have effected a lowering of their average cost of production. Implicit is that Alpha has adequate sales levels to support the production. It's great news for families and it's a good news story for the coal industry, in a way. But this is Central Appalachian coal, and fundamentally we're going to need less CAPP coal next year, we're going to need less still in 2016 and less again in 2017. And so on.