BHP sets record for metallurgical coal output
UK-Australian mining firm BHP increased metallurgical coal production to a record 42.6mn t in the July 2017-June 2018 fiscal year and is expected to set a new record next year in the 43mn-46mn t range. Thermal coal output was mostly unchanged.
The company achieved record output at its Peak Downs, Saraji, Caval Ridge, South Walker Creek and Poitrel mines in Australia's Queensland state in the 2017-18 fiscal year, BHP said in its annual operation review.
Although further gains are expected next year, volume growth will be weighted towards the second half of the year as an extensive maintenance programme will be carried out in the first half.
Met coal output in the April-June quarter rose by 16pc to 12mn t from March-May. BHP attributed the increase to the resolution of geological issues at its Blackwater and Broadmeadow mines, as well as the improved performance of its Caval Ridge and Poitrel wash plants.
BHP's second-quarter met coal output increased by 48pc from the same period last year, but that was from a low base after flooding of railways following Cyclone Debbie caused the company to declare force majeure during the April-June 2017 quarter.
The surplus of premium mid-volatile coking coal and relative shortage of premium low-volatile cargoes in the current spot market — where BHP is a major supplier — was partly reflected in the company's production report.
Output from the Goonyella mine, a premium mid-vol supplier, increased to the highest level of the year at 2.64mn t in the April-June quarter from 2.31mn t in March-May, while output from premium low-vol supplying mines Peak Downs and Saraji fell by 3-4pc over the same period to 1.66mn t and 1.2mn t respectively.
Production at mid-vol semi-soft mine Blackwater increased to 1.85mn t in the second quarter from the lowest level of the year at 1.38mn t in the first quarter as geotechnical issues were corrected.
Thermal coal production at BHP's assets in Australia and Colombia were little changed, edging lower to 29.16mn t in the 2017-18 fiscal year from 29.29mn t previously. A 2pc increase at BHP's thermal operations in New South Wales on the back of higher stripping performance was offset by a 3pc decline at the company's Cerrejon facility in Colombia because of weather impacts.
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Q&A: Ramaco adding production, sees market growth
Q&A: Ramaco adding production, sees market growth
New York, 16 April (Argus) — Randall Atkins is a founder and chief executive of metallurgical coal producer Ramaco Resources. He also has been involved in energy-related investment and financing activity for over 40 years. In this Q&A, edited for length and clarity, he discusses effects from the Francis Scott Key bridge collapse, his outlook for coal and the company's research projects. What effect has the Key bridge collapse and Port of Baltimore closing had on Ramaco and the US coal industry in general? Like most things of that tragic nature, it is going to take longer than everyone expects to actually solve the problem. I think where it is going to impact producers probably more is on the rails. There will be a need for...producers to rearrange stockpiles and to rearrange where they are going to try and ship, even at reduced levels. Particularly, CSX is going to have an immense logistical complexity to deal with over the near-term. We do not ship from Baltimore. We have not seen any problems, knock on wood, with our rail shipments post the incident. What are your long-term projections for metallurgical coal given expectations that low-volatile coal reserves will shrink in coming decades and the steel industry could be in oversupply? Low vol coal has traditionally been the highest priced coal and the dearest, if you will. High vol A coal has over the last few years grown in importance, and to the extent that there is any new increase in production in the US, it's high vol. What we perceive is that there is going to be a crowding in the high vol space. As a result, our increase in production is primarily in low vol. As far as the demand side is concerned, we do not believe that blast furnace steel demand is going to decline anytime soon. There's a lot of noise from the green community that hydrogen is going to replace coal in blast furnaces. We took some advice on that from the IEA…and when that question was posed (to IEA), the answer that was given was it would take about $1.5 trillion to build a pilot plant using hydrogen by 2035 and probably about another equal or greater sum to build a commercial facility by 2040. So, I don't lose a lot of sleep on the demand for coal for blast furnaces. What I do see shifting, however, is the US has held relatively steady at about 20mn short tons (18.1mn metric tonnes) of met coal demand over the last 10 to 15 years. The growth is clearly overseas, and the growth is clearly at the moment in Asia. When we started back in 2017, and 2018 was really our first year of production, we predominantly sold coal domestically; I think 80pc of our coal went to US steel mills. Now that is almost reversed. We're going to sell probably this year, 70pc overseas, and about a third or less domestically. With Europe moving towards electric arc furnace technology and significant new blast furnace capacity coming online in Asia, what kind of role will the US play as a coal supplier over the coming years? It is cheaper to use a blast furnace than electric arc. And the steel that they (Asian companies) mostly require is the heavier steel for cars and buildings and things of that nature. So, they have a bias towards blast furnace capacity. The US and Europe are very developed economies that are trying to go and wean away from coal, (while) the rest of the world is aggressively moving further into coal. People will shake their heads at the cost that European and American consumers will start to have to pay for that privilege. We see market growth is still there, but it's a different kind of growth. It will be more in the Asian markets, predominantly some in Europe, some in South America and Africa. The low vol coal demand in Asia is extremely strong because while they are able to buy high vol product from Australia very inexpensively, they do not have the low vol production. They need that to blend up to get the proper mix in their blast furnaces. There is a very good future for low vol, and that is the direction we are positioning ourselves. How confident is Ramaco about securing its investments in the longer run given the emphasis on ESG? What I see is sort of a dichotomy. In the thermal coal business, there's not a lot of investment in new mining there for the obvious reason that their customer base is declining. On the met side, it is a bit shortsighted from an investment standpoint because of the composition of the ownership of met coal companies. Virtually every major metallurgical coal producer except for us went through bankruptcy and post-bankruptcy proceedings. Their board composition became essentially distressed debt investors...Their interest was not developing a long-term coal company. Strategically their vision was: "How can we most quickly get money back out of that coal company?" We are certainly the only coal company that is doubling in size. We produced a little under 4mn st last year. We will be at about 4.5mn st this year. We can maybe go higher, depending upon the market. The market is not strong right now. The other issue (for coal producers) even when they weren't doing special dividends, is they've now shifted to doing large-scale share buybacks. You are starting to see the cost curve increase for most domestic coal producers. What you haven't seen, but I think you will probably find over the next probably 18 to 24 months, is you will begin to see depletion kick in. The amount of coal that they are able to produce from their existing operation will begin to decline. And that is strictly a result of not investing in new mine production. My approach was to kind of be a little bit of an outlier and then approach coal to products as an alternative use, certainly for thermal coal. And that, of course, brought us to rare earth (mineral extraction). Do you have funding for Ramaco's rare earth materials projects? Let me step back one step. We introduced the idea that we actually had rare earth (deposits) in May 2023….When we sent the samples to be tested, they tested them as if they were hard minerals. In other words, they did not combust off the organic material. What we have done since then, is we went back and we had samples that were probably 200-300 parts per million. From a commercial standpoint, we have kind of crossed the Rubicon that this is indeed sufficiently concentrated that it makes commercial sense. Now what we are doing is we are going through a process of further chemical analysis and testing to determine what is the best extraction and refinement technique. And the last point you raised was financing. We have a very nice growing mining metallurgical business, which can provide the funding to do whatever we want to do on rare earth. I am not too concerned about our financing capability. Any updates on your coal-to-carbon product projects ? We have looked at a number of different things with the national labs. We started looking at carbon fiber, which could be made from coal and we have got some patents around some very interesting processes. The areas that we are now focusing on...are using coal to make synthetic graphite. The other thing we are working on is using coal for direct air capture. We are considering going into a pilot phase sometime starting later this year with Oak Ridge National Laboratory on a synthetic graphite plant. As far as direct air capture, we probably have more work to do. We are also working on that with Oak Ridge. But I would hope that sometime by 2025, certainly 2026, we would perhaps have our first product, quote unquote, to be able to offer into the market. And it would be delightful if it was synthetic graphite. By Elena Vasilyeva Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
Australian new environment agency to speed up approvals
Australian new environment agency to speed up approvals
Sydney, 16 April (Argus) — The Australian federal government announced today it will introduce new legislation in the coming weeks to implement the second stage of its Nature Positive Plan, which includes setting up a national environment protection agency to speed up approval decisions. The planned Environment Protection Australia (EPA) will initially operate within the Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water until it transitions to become an independent statutory agency, with "strong new powers and penalties" to better enforce federal laws, the government said on 16 April. The EPA chief will be an independent statutory appointment, similar to the Australian federal police commissioner, so that "no government can interfere" with the new agency's enforcement work. The agency will be able to audit businesses to ensure they are compliant with environment approval conditions and issue environment protection orders to anyone breaking the law. Penalties will be increased, with courts able to impose fines of up to A$780mn ($504mn) or jail terms for up to seven years in cases of extremely serious intentional breaches of federal environment law. EPA will also be tasked with speeding up development decisions, including project assessments in areas such as renewable energy and critical minerals. Almost A$100mn will be allocated to optimise the approval processes, with its budget directed to support staff to assess project proposals and help businesses comply with the law. A new independent body Environment Information Australia (EIA) will also be created to provide environmental data to the government and the public through a public website. EIA will need to develop an online database giving businesses quicker access to data and helping EPA to make faster decisions. It will also need to publish state of environment reports every two years. The government said that an audit ordered by environment minister Tanya Plibersek last year found that around one in seven developments could be in breach of their offset conditions, when a business had not properly compensated for the impact a development was having on the environment, highlighting "the need to urgently strengthen enforcement". The planned new legislation is part of the federal government's reform of Australia's environmental laws including the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Resource project decisions are currently made by the environment minister, with the move to an independent agency will removing any perception of political interference in such decisions, the government said when it first announced the reforms in late 2022. The first stage of the reform was completed late last year with new laws passed to create the Nature Repair Market, with further stages expected to be implemented in the future, the government said. Tight timing Resources industry body the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia (CMEWA) welcomed the announcement that the federal government will take a "staged approach" to the implementation of the reforms but noted the timing of EPA's implementation was "tight". "We continue to hold reservations about the proposed decision-making model and will continue to advocate for a model that balances ecologically sustainable development considerations and includes the [environment] minister as the decision maker," CMEWA chief executive Rebecca Tomkinson said. The Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) said that it had been advocating for the creation of EIA, whose future collated data "will provide greater certainty and reduced costs for both government and project proponents", which "may shave years off project development". But it was cautious about potential "unintended consequences" stemming from more bureaucracy. "Australia has one of the most comprehensive environmental approvals processes in the world and the MCA has been clear about the significant risks of duplicative, complex and uncertain approvals processes pose to the minerals sector, the broader economy and the environment if we do not get this right," it warned. By Juan Weik Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
Poland's JSW declares force majeure on coking coal
Poland's JSW declares force majeure on coking coal
Warsaw, 15 April (Argus) — Polish coking coal and met coke producer Jastrzebska Spolka Weglowa (JSW) declared force majeure on some of its coking coal contracts and cut its output outlook following a fire at its Budryk mine on 5 April. JSW expects production at Budryk mine — which produces premium hard coking coal, semi-soft coking coal, as well as thermal coal grades — to fall by 400,000t than previously planned as a result of the blaze. The fire affected a long wall located at a depth of 1,290m that was planned for closure, but it forced the evacuation of mines from affected areas, the company said. A fire that broke out at the firm's premium hard coking coal-focused Pniowek mine in December last year will also result in greater production loss than previously expected, JSW said. Output at Pniowek will be down by 450,000t from the 350,000t reduction estimated in December. JSW operates four mines in southern Poland. In the first quarter of this year, JSW produced 2.4mn t of coking coal, representing a decline of about 10pc both on the year and on the quarter. JSW's production of coke reached 830,000t in the first quarter of this year, up by 8pc on the year but down by 5pc from the fourth quarter of last year. Metallurgical coke typically accounts for about three-quarters of JSW's total coke output. Its met coke sales significantly exceeded output, reaching 990,000t in the first quarter of this year. JSW last year produced 10.9mn t of coking coal, down by 1pc on the year, and 3.35mn t of coke, up by 4pc on the year. By Tomasz Stepien Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
Engie to switch Chile coal plant to energy storage
Engie to switch Chile coal plant to energy storage
Santiago, 11 April (Argus) — French utility Engie is investing approximately $180mn to convert its former Tocopilla coal plant in northern Chile's Antofagasta region into a 116MW standalone battery energy storage system (BESS). The BESS Tocopilla plant will be able to store 660MWh captured from significant solar and wind curtailment in the north, which has risen by almost 250pc to 1,699GWh in the year-to-date compared to a year ago. The project involves installing 240 lithium ion-based containers on the former coal plant's site and making use of infrastructure synergies such as its transmission assets. Construction is scheduled to start in June. BESS Tocopilla will have an average annual generation capacity of 211GWh, the equivalent of supplying almost 90,000 Chilean homes with power, avoiding the emission of 51,231 t/yr of carbon dioxide equivalent, said Engie. Engie disconnected the 268MW Tocopilla coal and fuel oil plant in September 2022. Its 394MW combined-cycle Tocopilla gas plant, part of the same complex, continues to operate. Engie is the country's fourth-largest generator with an installed capacity of almost 2.5GW. BESS Tocopilla is its fourth industrial-scale storage project in Chile, one of which is already in operation and another two under construction. By Emily Russell Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
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