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YTD coal rail traffic, production edge down in latest week

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YTD coal rail traffic, production edge down in latest week

Total U.S. coal rail traffic for the week ended March 3 inched up by less than 1% year over year to 85,300 carloads, according to data from the Association of American Railroads.

Year-to-date coal rail traffic declined 4% through the week, while total rail traffic increased 5.8% year over year to 544,194 carloads and intermodal units.

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BNSF Railway Co.'s coal shipment volumes clocked in at 33,945 carloads in the week ended March 3, down 5.7% from last week's 36,013 carloads and down 11% compared to 38,160 carloads in the year-ago week.

Union Pacific Corp.'s coal shipment volumes this week were at 23,035 carloads, up 6.1% from 21,703 carloads last week and up 2.7% from 2017's weekly volume of 22,429 carloads.

Eastern railroad CSX Transportation Inc.'s shipment volumes of coal stood at 15,699 carloads, down 4% from last week's 16,354 carloads, but up 11.5% compared to 14,086 carloads during the same week in 2017.

Norfolk Southern Corp.'s coal shipment volumes totaled 20,813 carloads for the week, climbing 10% from last week's 18,913 carloads and up 12.7% compared to 18,467 carloads of the same week a year ago.

Kansas City Southern Railway Co.'s latest weekly coal shipment volume showed 2,805 carloads, a gain of 10% from 2,549 carloads the previous week. The railroad serves 10 U.S. states and Mexico.

YTD coal output slides 6.3%

According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, total U.S. coal production for the week fell 2.4% year over year to 15.1 million tons, compared to 15.5 million tons during the same period in 2017.

For the 52 weeks ended March 3, production was reported at 761.5 million tons, representing a slight increase of less than 1% year over year, while year-to-date coal output dropped 6.3% year over year to about 130.9 million tons.

The western region's coal production for the week reached 8.4 million tons and posted a 1.2% year-over-year contraction from the prior year's 8.5 million tons. Data for the Western region covers Powder River Basin mines.

Coal production from Appalachian mines totaled 4.0 million tons, a minimal cutback of less than 1% from the year-ago week.

The interior region's production fell 8% to 2.8 million tons, compared to 3.0 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.