Coal news and updates

US weekly coal carloads dip 0.6% from week before, rise 3% from last year: AAR

The number of coal carloads that US railroads originated for the week ending Saturday totaled 113,414, down 0.6% from the prior week, but up 3% from the same week a year ago, the Association of American Railroads said Thursday.

For the year, coal carloads originated on US railroads total about 1.3 million, down 1.2% from the same period last year, the AAR said in its weekly rail traffic report. The 2014 year-to-date total is down 9.4% from 2012.

The Canadian railroads, including the US operations of Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, originated 10,034 coal carloads during the week, down 1.6% from the prior week, but up 9.7% from the same week a year ago, according to AAR.

For the year, Canadian-railroad originated coal carloads totaled 103,034, down 3.7% from last year.

US coal production during the week that ended Saturday was estimated at 18.9 million st, according to data the US Energy Information Administration released Thursday. The estimate was 0.7% below last week, but up 0.5% from the same week a year ago.

For the week that ended Saturday, the four largest US railroads reported handling -- including originations and interchange -- the following weekly coal and coke carloads:

    BNSF Railway, 43,348 weekly coal carloads, down 2.6% from the prior week and up 2.7% from a year ago. For the year, the BNSF's coal carloads are up 2.8% compared with 2013.
    Union Pacific, 32,343 weekly coal carloads, down 0.6% from the prior week but up 13% from last year. YTD coal carloads at 397,768, up 7.7% from last year.
    CSX, 23,101 weekly coal carloads, down 0.7% from the prior week but up 3.1% from the same week a year ago. For the year, coal carloads were 245,753, down 3.2%.
    Norfolk Southern, 24,699 weekly coal carloads, down 3.4% from the prior week and 9.4% from 2013. For the year, coal carloads total 263,513, down 14.6% from last year.


Weekly US carload originations of coke, which includes petroleum coke and coke from coal, totaled 3,840 for the week ending Saturday, up 10.1% from last year, according to the AAR. YTD coke carloads total 43,147, down 2% from last year.

    BNSF reported 533 coke carloads during the week, down 11.6% from last year. YTD coke carloads total 6,527, up 0.7% from last year.
    Union Pacific reported 505 weekly coke carloads, up 77% from the year-ago week. For the year, coke carloads total 5,651, up 11% from last year.
    CSX reported 964 weekly coke carloads, down 29.8% from the year-ago week. For the year, coke carloads total 13,148, down 19.7%.
    Norfolk Southern reported 1,339 weekly coke carloads, up 65.1% from the year-ago week. For the year, coke carloads total 12,852, up 15.2%.

Source: Platts