US coal carload volumes fell in the final week of 2016, putting year-end totals 20.1% below 2015 counts, railroad and Association of American Railroads data showed Wednesday.
For the week that ended Saturday, the AAR reported 68,939 coal carloads traveled US railways, down 12.5% from the previous week but up 3.3% from the same week a year ago.
Total 2016 volumes of nearly 4.1 million carloads slid 1.03 million st, or 20.1%, from the previous year.
Canadian railroads -- which include the US operations of Canadian National, which serves several mines in the Illinois Basin, and Canadian Pacific -- originated 7,176 coal carloads for the week, up 2.7% from the prior week and 6.4% from the same week a year ago.
Total 2016 Canadian volumes of about 365,000 carloads fell 11% from the previous year.
SECOND-HALF SURGE
While coal volumes for the four major US railroads were down, the late-summer revitalization of the export metallurgical market brought more coal business to railroads -- especially CSX and Norfolk Southern, serving the eastern ports -- in the second half of the year. Those coal volume increases were magnified further compared with counts from the year-ago period, as in late 2015 thermal coal demand plummeted with historically low natural gas prices and seasonably warm winter weather.
Many utilities in late 2015, especially in the East, deferred coal shipments as cheap gas from the Marcellus and Utica shales flooded the market and limited coal generation. Coal stockpiles grew and continued to limit railroad shipments through the first-half 2016.
Total CSX coal volumes for 2016 slid 19.5% year on year to 765,846 carloads from 951,155 carloads. but fourth-quarter volumes for CSX actually topped 2015 totals as carloads increased 7.6% to 207,961.
CSX was the only major US railroad to show coal volume growth in any quarter compared with the previous year.
CSX second-half coal volumes of 403,379 carloads fell only 6.6% compared with 2015, while first-half volumes of 362,467 carloads dropped 30.2%.
NS coal shipments were down 17.8% year on year to 835,622 carloads from about 1 million. Second-half volumes slid 10.9% to 440,105 carloads, while first-half volumes fell 24.3% to 395,517 carloads.
In Q4, NS coal counts of 220,340 carloads dipped only 3.6% compared with Q4 2015.
In the West, BNSF and Union Pacific also saw coal business improvement in the second half of the year on a healthier thermal market for Powder River Basin coal.
BNSF, the largest US coal shipper, saw total volumes drop 20.9% year on year to 1.8 million carloads from almost 2.3 million carloads. Second-half volumes were down 8.3% to 1.04 million carloads, while first half volumes fell 33.3% to 765,666 carloads.
UP coal volumes fell 21.8% year on year to 1.1 million carloads from 1.4 million carloads. Second-half volumes were down 13.5% to 623,080 carloads, while first-half volumes fell 30.4% to 481,961 carloads.
