Coal news and updates

The Richmond City Council planned to vote Tuesday night on whether to ban coal shipments from its port.Richmond’s ordinance would give businesses three years to phase out coal and petroleum coke, a byproduct of oil refining. The legislation targets a port operated by Levin-Richmond Terminal Corp., which last year loaded almost 1 million metric tons of the fuel bound for Japan and South Korea.The Levin Richmond Terminal is one of just four ports on the West Coast that still ship coal, after Oakland banned the product at its port, a move that faces legal challenges. In May 2018, a federal judge ruled that Oakland could not ban the storage of coal and the city is appealing the judge’s decision.Efforts to build coal terminals have been resisted. In 2017, the Washington State Department of Ecology denied a permit for the Millennium Bulk Terminals in Longview, blocking the last proposal in the state to export coal to Asia.Richmond Mayor Tom Butt said in a Nov. 23 newsletter, “Moving away from burning fossil fuels, especially coal, is a good thing. Even an essential thing.”In a letter to the City Council, Gary M. Levin, President and CEO of the Levin Richmond Terminal, said that transporting petroleom coke and coal is a majority of the port’s business and warned that the ordinance would put them out of business.Hundreds of people filled into the city’s council chambers Tuesday. Some people expressed support of the ban and others urged the council to delay action.Prior to the start of the meeting, two opposing groups broke out in various chants. One group yelled, “Ban Coal Now” and another group yelled “Union Jobs.” Some people held red signs that read, “Protect our health,” and other people had signs that read, “Are our jobs too dirty for you?”In Richmond, coal mined in Utah by Wolverine Fuels is shipped to the Levin Richmond Terminal, where it is stored before being exported to Japan. Wolverine Fuels owns and operates three coal mines in Utah and produces nearly 11 million tons of high heat content, low sulfur thermal coal.If the ban is approved, Wolverine’s production and exports would be greatly impacted, said Brian S. Settles, the company’s chief administrative officer and general counsel.In a letter submitted to the City Council, Settles said, if passed, the company will “have no alternative but to pursue judicial remedies in litigation.”The terminal also stores petroleum coke from the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo before it is shipped. Phillips 66 has used the Levin Richmond Terminal for storage of pet coke for nearly 22 years, said Carl Perkins, the manager of the San Francisco Refinery at Rodeo, in a letter submitted to council.The petroleum coke from Phillips 66 is transported to Richmond’s port where it is then transferred to “ocean-going freighters” that go to Asia, Europe and Australia, Perkins said.In their letter, Perkins said that if operations are banned at Richmond, Phillips 66 would be forced to clog highways by traveling further to a marine terminal in Stockton.Butt said in his newsletter that the fuels produced by Phillips 66 and other refineries are responsible for 40% of greenhouse gases.“They could remodel their refinery to produce asphalt, like Chevron, instead of petcoke,” he said. “They could go into the electric car business. But they would rather maintain the status quo, feeding climate change, selling fossil fuels and petcoke, and creating a world their kids and grandkids may not be able to live in.”Maureen Brennan, 66, was at the Richmond City Council meeting Tuesday to voice her support for the ban. Brennan, a resident of Rodeo, said operations at Phillips 66 have had a negative impact on her and her neighbors.“I live there, I see what is going on,” Brennan said. “I am breathing it all the time. Everyone is breathing this coal dust and it’s making all of our health problems worse.”Mike Croll, a spokesman for the Operating Engineers Local 3, a union, said that if the ban goes into effect, people could lose their jobs at the port. “I’m trying to protect the jobs of close to 50 members,” he said.The union is “asking the City Council to wait for data from AB617 to come back before they make a unilateral decision to end the jobs with no scientific data whatsoever,” he added.AB617 is a state bill that was signed into law in 2017 by former Gov. Jerry Brown that increases air pollution monitoring around industrial facilities, toughens penalties for polluters and forces many factories and refineries to upgrade old equipment.In his newsletter, Butt argued that the move to ban the storage and handling of coal at the port wouldn’t result in job losses for “years to come.”“Climate change is here, and it’s killing us,” he wrote. “It’s just going to get worse without dramatic action... In this still red hot economy, there is a good job out there for any skilled union construction worker. Loading coal is not a job of last resort, and it is certainly not the healthiest union job around.”

 

Source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea