Spanish drought is lifeline for coal miners

摘要

Spain's worst drought in twenty years has assured the short-term survival of a mining sector on the brink, as utilities fire up older coal units and place orders for domestic coal. Severely low hydroelectric stocks and the prospect of restricted fourth-quarter power imports from France have led Italian utility Enel's Iberian unit Endesa - which owns two-thirds of the power plants that can burn Spanish coal — to buy an initial 90,000t cargo of coal from troubled mining firm Astur Leonesa.