Houston — Weekly US coal production totaled an estimated 15.6 million st in the week ended September 1, up 0.8% from the prior week and down 0.5% from the year-ago week, US Energy Information Administration data showed Thursday.
The most recently concluded week saw the third highest production levels for the year so far, behind the week ended August 4 with just under 15.9 million st and the week ended August 18 with slightly over 15.8 million st.
Coal production in Wyoming and Montana, which is mostly made up of production from the Powder River Basin, totaled more than 7.2 million st, up 0.4% from last week and down 6.2% from the year-ago week.
On an annualized basis, production in the two states would total less than 343 million st, down 2.5% from last year.
In Central Appalachia, weekly coal production totaled an estimated 2 million st, up 4.1% from last week and up 16.3% from production in the year-ago week.
Annualized production would total more than 97 million st, up 6.2% in 2017.
Weekly coal production in Northern Appalachia totaled an estimated 2 million st, down 0.8% from last week and up 2.3% from the year-ago week's production.
Annualized production would total 100 million st, down 4.7% from last year.
In the Illinois Basin, weekly coal production totaled slightly less than 1.7 million st, up 2.3% from last week and up 3.8% from the corresponding week in 2017.
Annualized production in the basin would total less than 104 million st, very similar levels to 2017 production.
Through the first 35 weeks of the year, US coal production totaled an estimated 506 million st, and would total an estimated 754 million st on an annualized basis, down 2.6% from last year's production of 774 million st.
