(The following story by Dustin Bleizeffer appeared on the Casper Star-Tribune website on January 6.)
CASPER, Wyo. — After a rebound year in 2006, Wyoming coal producers continued with a more moderate increase of 1.1 percent in 2007 with a record 451.3 million tons, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.
Although small in comparison to the 10 percent production spike in 2006, the industry’s increase in 2007 represented a return to stable growth.
Back-to-back derailments on the Powder River Basin’s main triple-track rail line in 2005 choked deliveries that year and spurred BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad to launch a massive effort to expand export capacity out of the region. A rush to replenish stockpiles of Powder River Basin coal at electric utilities in 2006 resulted in a 42.7 million-ton increase that year.
Wyoming Mining Association executive director Marion Loomis said the expanded capacity and reliability of rail delivery should promote continued growth this year.
“The railroads are now shipping for test burns again, and they hadn’t done that for several years,” Loomis said. “Now that they put so much effort into increasing their capacity it allows for new test burns, and I would hope that leads to new permanent demand for Wyoming coal.”
Total U.S. coal production for 2007 is expected to fall by 1 percent, according to the Energy Information Administration. The agency expects a bigger decline this year — 1.7 percent — with declines “in all coal producing regions.”