Southwestern Electric Power February coal purchases down 22% on month: filing

Houston — Southwestern Electric Power Company, or SWEPCO, bought 344,622 st of Powder River Basin coal at a price of $12.75 million in February, down 22.2% from 442,985 st purchased for $16.26 million in January, according to a regulatory filing published Thursday.

Coal purchases, which averaged $37/st, were down 60% from 862,265 st bought at an average $36.27/st in the year-ago month, according to the filing published by the Public Utility Commission of Texas.

In February, the Columbus, Ohio-based utility generated 430,442 MWh of power from coal at its three plants in Arkansas and Texas, down from 448,205 MWh in January and 867,855 MWh in February 2019.

Coal's generation mix was at 22.6% in February, down from 22.9% in January and 40.7% in the year-ago month. Lignite made up 10.9% of the total power generation in February, while natural gas and purchase power was at 19.6% and 46.9%, respectively.

At the three coal-fired plants, coal's capacity factor was at 35.1% in February, up from 34.2% in January but down from 70.9% in the year-ago month.

On a cost per MWh basis, coal was at $22.28/MWh in February, up from $22.20/MWh in January and $21.95/MWh in the year-ago month.

In February, the utility bought 122,974 st of coal at an average price of $40.12/st for its Welsh power plant in Titus County, Texas, down from 185,442 st at an average $39.37/st in January and 409,679 st at $38.22/st in the year-ago month. Average heat content for the coal delivered from Peabody Energy was 8,600 Btu/lb.

For the Flint Creek plant, in Benton County, Arkansas, the utility bought 75,150 st of coal at a price of $31.50/st in February, down from 76,410 st at $31.21/st in the prior month and 225,664 st at an average price of $30.36/st in the year-ago month. Average heat content for the coal, which was sold by Peabody and Blackjewel, was 8,654 Btu/lb.

The Turk power plant, based in Hempstead County, Arkansas, purchased 146,498 st of coal from Peabody at an average price of $37.20/st, down from 181,132 st at $36.28/st in January and 226,923 st at an average price of $38.63/st in the year-ago month. Average heat content for the coal delivered to the Turk plant was 8,725 Btu/lb.

In 2019, the utility took delivery of over 6.78 million st of PRB coal at an average delivered price of $34.63/st, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration. Over 85% of the coal was from Peabody's Wyoming-based North Antelope Rochelle mine.