Pennsylvania coal operators are "cautiously optimistic" about the industry in 2017, with the state preparing to see as many as three new underground metallurgical coal mines, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Coal Alliance said Wednesday.
Both Rosebud Mining and Corsa Coal expect to open new room-and-pillar met coal mines next year, Rachel Gleason said in an interview. She succeeded John Pippy as head of the state trade group in August.
Gleason said Cresson and Acosta could add 400,000 st or so annually as Pennsylvania operators attempt to take advantage of rising global demand and prices for met coal.
"That's an optimistic increase from the past few years," she said.
It also is possible that AK Coal Resources will place its new Polaris deep met coal mine in operation in Somerset County next year, Gleason said.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection finally approved a state mining permit for Polaris in October after reviewing the company's application for more than a year.
Polaris will be AK Coal's second underground met coal mine in the state. The North Fork mine, also in Somerset County, produced 268,590 st in the first nine months of 2016 and is on track to approach last year's total of 365,225 st, US Mine Safety and Health Administration figures show.
North Fork's coal is sent to parent company AK Steel's plant in Middletown, Ohio. Blends of met coal are used to produce petcoke, used in the production of molten iron in blast furnaces.
AK Coal officials have declined to discuss development plans for Polaris.
HOPEFUL ABOUT TRUMP
Gleason said she and other industry officials are hopeful that President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration can overturn or water down a raft of regulations emanating from the US Environmental Protection Agency, including the newly unveiled Stream Protection Rule.
"That is detrimental to our longwall operators and would expand to our room-and-pillar operators," she warned.
Gleason also wants the new administration to address President Obama's controversial Clean Power Plan that aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from coal-burning power plants.
Gleason is undaunted by the fact that most of Trump's early energy-related appointees hail from the natural gas or oil sectors, not coal. "I think we need some time to see what that snapshot is going to look like," she said.
While Gleason would like to see coal production in Pennsylvania, which fell to 51 million st in 2015, bounce back and enjoy moderate growth in 2017, she said she would settle, for now, "for some leveling, dependability in the market."
