Houston—East Kentucky Power Cooperative, or EKPC, bought 50,000 st of Central Appalachia barge coal from River Trading Co. for deliveries in 2021, while increasing deliveries on two of its contracts with Foresight Energy by a combined 48,000 st, according to a state regulatory filing.
The Winchester, Kentucky-based cooperative told the Kentucky Public Service Commission it bought 50,000 st of 11,500 Btu/lb CAPP coal from the broker for deliveries through Dec. 31, 2021.The coal deliveries, which started on Feb. 17, will come from the Job No. 5 surface mine in Johnson County, Kentucky, and shipped to the Spurlock Station's Gilbert Unit No. 3 and Unit No. 4 near Charleston Bottoms, Kentucky.
Base price for the February and March deliveries was 142.26 cents/MMBtu, or $32.72/st, while the remaining months will be determined based on the adjusted base price of the existing agreement for the applicable month, according to the filing.
All shipments -- minimum 1,550 st -- will be loaded in Ingram Barge Co. barges at the River Point Terminal on the Kanawha River.
Specifications for the coal, on an as-received basis, were a minimum heat content of 11,500 Btu/lb, maximum sulfur content level of 6 lbs SO2/MMBtu, maximum moisture content of 10% and max ash content of 13%.
All shipments will be sampled and analyzed by Mineral Labs Inc., and any coal with an average heat content less than 11,000 Btu/lb, sulfur content above 7 lbs SO2/MMBtu, moisture above 12%, or maximum ash content higher than 15% will be rejected, according to the filing.
In 2020, the Spurlock Station took delivery of 3.06 million st of 11,613 Btu/lb coal from 10 suppliers at an average delivered price of $41.53/st, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration. River Trading Co. delivered 75,861 st to Spurlock in 2020 at an average delivered price of $42.81/st.
Two contracts with Foresight amendedEKPC also amended a pair of contracts with Foresight Energy by increasing the scheduled deliveries by 20% for six months for a combined increase of 48,000 st.
EKPC notified Foresight to increase its base monthly delivery amount by 4,000 st between April 1 and Sept. 30, 2021, according to the filing. The new base delivery amounts for both contracts are now 24,000 st/month, but beginning on Oct. 1, the base amount decreases back down to 20,000 st/month.
One of the original contracts with Foresight was a three-year supply deal for 240,000 st/year at a base price of $29/st in 2021, $29.25/st in 2022, and $30/st in 2023, while the other agreement was a two-year contract that was also for 240,000 st/year at $28.50/st in 2021 and 2022. Both contracts were for 11,400 Btu/lb coal with max sulfur levels of 5.5 lb S02/MMBtu and max chlorine of 0.25%.
Foresight shipped 689,678 st of 11,879 Btu/lb coal in 2020 at an average delivered cost of $38.68/st, according to EIA data.
