Houston — US Western coal production totaled 14.6 million st in the second quarter, down 2.4% from the first quarter and down 12.4% from the year-ago quarter, Mine Safety and Health Administration data released through Monday showed.
This was the lowest production level since a total of 13.7 million st in Q2 2016.
Combined Q1 and Q2 production in 2018 totaled 29.6 million st, compared to the 2017 Q1 and Q2 combined total of 32.9 million st, as seen by the data released throughout July.
The Bull Mountains mine in Montana, operated by Signal Peak Energy, was the top producing mine in Q2 with 1.9 million st of production. The mine saw a rise of 4% on quarter and 38.5% from the year-ago quarter.
The Kayenta mine in Arizona, operated and owned by Peabody, produced 1.7 million st and saw the second-highest production level. The mine had a rise in production of 10.8% from Q1 and of 22.3% from Q2 in 2017. Peabody's El Segundo mine in New Mexico produced 1.1 million st of coal in the second quarter for the third-highest total. However, the New Mexico mine saw some of the steepest production declines in the quarter, down 29.3% from the first quarter and down 14.1 from the year-ago quarter. The last time the mine produced less than 1.2 million st in a quarter was Q1 2017 with 938,000 st.
The Sufco mine in Utah, one of the longest continuously running and most productive underground longwall mines, produced 1 million st, down 7.8% quarter on quarter and down 19.9% from the year-ago quarter.
This was the lowest production quarter for the Sufco mine since Q2 1999 when 1 million st were produced.
On a state by state basis, Colorado was in the lead with 3.8 million st of production in Q2 and Utah followed with 3 million st produced. Wyoming's 2.4 million st of coal production came in third, while Montana, including only the Bull Mountain mine, came in fourth with 1.9 million st of production.
Arizona, which had only the Kayenta mine in production, and New Mexico tied for fifth most production at 1.7 million st.
