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US coal rail traffic, production up in latest week

Total U.S. coal rail traffic for the week ended March 10 inched up 5.2% year over year to 83,696 carloads, according to data from the Association of American Railroads.

Year-to-date coal rail traffic declined 3.1% through the week, while total rail traffic increased 6.2% year over year to 534,282 carloads and intermodal units.

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BNSF Railway Co.'s coal shipment volumes clocked in at 36,476 carloads in the week ended March 10, up 7.5% from last week's 33,945 carloads and up 3.6% compared to 35,195 carloads in the year-ago week.

Union Pacific Corp.'s coal shipment volumes this week were at 21,224 carloads, down 7.9% from 23,035 carloads last week but up 8.4% from 2017's weekly volume of 19,579 carloads.

Eastern railroad CSX Transportation Inc.'s shipment volumes of coal stood at 15,491 carloads, down 1.3% from last week's 15,699 carloads, but up 4.3% compared to 14,848 carloads during the same week in 2017.

Norfolk Southern Corp.'s coal shipment volumes totaled 18,092 carloads for the week, sliding 13.1% from last week's 20,813 carloads and down 3.6% compared to 18,776 carloads of the same week a year ago.

Kansas City Southern Railway Co.'s latest weekly coal shipment volume showed 1,511 carloads, a slump of 46.1% from 2,805 carloads the previous week. The railroad serves 10 U.S. states and Mexico.

YTD coal output slides 5.5%

According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, total U.S. coal production for the week edged up 2.4% year over year to 14.8 million tons, compared to 14.5 million tons during the same period in 2017.

For the 52 weeks ended March 10, production was reported at 761.9 million tons, representing a slight increase of less than 1% year over year, while year-to-date coal output dropped 5.5% year over year to about 145.7 million tons.

The western region's coal production for the week reached 8.2 million tons and posted a 3.6% year-over-year increase from the prior year's 7.9 million tons. Data for the Western region covers Powder River Basin mines.

Coal production from Appalachian mines totaled 3.9 million tons, rising 4.8% from the 3.7 million tons of year-ago week.

The interior region's production fell 4.1% to 2.7 million tons, compared to 2.8 million tons a year ago. Interior region data covers mines in the Illinois Basin.

The EIA's production data is derived from rail carload estimates.

Data collected by S&P Global Market Intelligence from railroads indicate both cars originated on their lines during the week and cars received from a connecting railroad during the same week.