India’s total annual coal demand exceeds 1 billion tons.
Ernie Thrasher, CEO of Xcoal Energy & Resources LLC, said Tuesday’s collapse of a major bridge in Baltimore could disrupt coal exports from the port for up to six weeks and lead to the loss of up to 2.5 million tons of coal. Transportation is blocked.
Last year, the United States exported about 74 million tons of coal, with Baltimore being the second-largest port for the commodity. Blocking a major coal hub could disrupt global energy supply chains, which are finally beginning to address the issues left behind by the pandemic slowdown.
“You will see some cargo being diverted to other ports, but other ports are very busy,” said Thrasher of Xcoal, a Pennsylvania coal trading company that works with multiple suppliers. “There are limits to the amount you can transfer.”
Thrasher said Baltimore’s seaborne coal volume accounts for less than 2% of the world’s total seaborne coal volume, so the bridge collapse will have little impact on global coal prices. Coal shipments out of Baltimore include large shipments of thermal coal to India, where it is used to generate electricity, he added.
“From a supply chain perspective, this is going to cause some disruption or disruption,” Thrasher said. “But the biggest problem is that the impact is greater in India than globally.”
India’s annual coal demand totals more than 1 billion tons, and the country imported about 238 million tons of the fuel in the most recent fiscal year, about 6% of which came from the United States. Baltimore imports about 12 million tons, according to a research report from analytics firm Energy Aspects.
The Energy Side report also predicts that marine traffic in Baltimore will be disrupted for up to two to three weeks. The report added that some coal shipments may be temporarily rerouted to other ports, including the Port of Norfolk, Virginia.
A report from commodities analytics firm DBX said supply disruptions would have a greater impact on the Asian coal market than the European market because much of the coal exported from the port has high sulfur content and is unsuitable for European power stations.
Shares of companies that mine and transport U.S. coal fell on Tuesday. Consol Energy Inc. shares fell 6.8% and CSX Corp. shares fell 1.9%. The Consol Marine Terminal in the bridge area is used to load coal onto large ocean-going vessels and is serviced by CSX.
CSX said in a statement Tuesday that it has the ability to send more trains to the Baltimore coal terminal it serves until space constraints are reached and that CSX customers should expect shipment delays. CSX is also working to find alternatives for shipping cargo through Baltimore, the statement said.
European coal prices edged higher on Tuesday, rising less than 1%.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
