Weekly US coal production reaches new low in 2020: EIA

Houston — Weekly US coal production was estimated at 10.6 million st in the week that ended March 7, down 6.1% from the previous week, US Energy Information Administration data said Thursday.

It was the strongest week-on-week decline in five weeks. Across the board, all basins hit their lowest level of weekly output in 2020 in the most recent week. Output dropped 24% from a year ago.

Through 10 weeks of the year so far, output was about 120 million st, down 18.2% compared with the same period last year. Additionally, from the five-year average for week 10 of 14.6 million st, the most recent week was down 27.8%, the largest deficit in 2020 so far.

The Illinois Basin led declines both week on week and from the year-ago week, down 9.8% and 28.4%, respectively, with output of almost 1.6 million st.

Over 10 weeks, IB output was over 18.2 million st, and on an annualized basis production would be 94.9 million st, down 7.9% year on year.

Production from Wyoming and Montana, which is largely made up of Powder River Basin coal, was an estimated 4.5 million st, down 4.7% from the previous week and down 21.6% from the year-ago week.

Production from the two states was about 50.1 million st over 10 weeks. Annualized, output would be nearly 261 million st, down 14.9% from 2019.

Northern Appalachian output in the most recent week was about 1.7 million st, down 4.6% from the week before and down 18.6% year on year.

NAPP output was estimated at 18.6 million st in the year so far, and annualized it would be about 97 million st, down 5.6% from the previous year.

Output from the Central Appalachian basin was estimated to be 1.3 million st, down 6.5% from the previous week. From the year-ago week, production was down 25.4%.

CAPP production was about 14.9 million st over 10 weeks. Annualized, it would be about 77.4 million st, down 11.2% from 2018.