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Tom Sanzillo
Broad Indexes Are Up in the Short, Long and Medium Term; Coal Indexes Are Not; Little Indication Producers’ Performance Will Improve
If stock prices are any measure of a company or industry’s success or failure, the coal industry has been failing now for 10 years. The recent progress noted by many companies in their second-quarter earnings reports notwithstanding—production increases, slight improvements in profit margins, some increases in exports via East Coast ports, and purportedly […]
Karl Cates
Utility Executives Speak of ‘Greening the Fleet’; a Coal-Subsidy Scheme Backfires; Clean-Energy Lobbyists in Washington
A remarkable bit of news surfaced this week through SNL—the trade publication, not the comedy show—in an article that cobbled together recent U.S. utility-industry earnings calls that had a strikingly common theme: CEOs talking openly now about getting out of coal. Several even “seem excited” to be doing so, among them the chief executives of […]
Seth Feaster
Anecdotes of Note, and Some Irony, in Company Filings
Public filings by U.S. coal-mining companies disclose vast data that is crucial to investors—which is the point of having such information publicly available. They also yield revealing anecdotal notes that add perspective and depth to the numbers, and that include wrinkles of irony sometimes. Some coal-fired power has gotten so expensive that coal producers are […]
Tim Buckley and Simon Nicholas
Project Remains Unbankable and Cannot Proceed Without Government Subsidies
Last week’s news that Commonwealth Bank, Australia’s largest, has ruled out financing for the proposed Carmichael project because of the climate risk it comes with is but the latest in the long drip of events adding to the probability the mega-mine-and-rail complex will never be built. In fact our view has only hardened that Carmichael […]
Tom Sanzillo and David Schlissel
A Flimsy and Dangerous Rationale Rooted in a Denial of Modern Energy Market Trends
Just how big a giveaway to the Appalachian coal industry is West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice talking about as he lobbies the White House for a $15-per-ton subsidy for coal producers in the region? Central and Northern Appalachia coal fields produced 167 million tons in 2016, which not incidentally was its lowest year of production […]
Karl Cates
Justice Prevailed on ‘Justified.’ But Only Because Somebody Stood Up for It.
What becomes now of the America of straight-talking, tough-but-fair Deputy U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens, the hero (and sometimes anti-hero) of the late great Elmore Leonard? Givens was the central character in the AMC show “Justified,” a series that ran for six strong seasons before ending in 2015. It was built largely off a classic Leonard […]
Yulanda Chung
Out of Step With a Global Shift in the Energy Economy
We’ve just published a report that calls into serious question Indonesia’s plans to expand its commitment to coal-fired electricity generation. The report—“Overpaid and Underutilized: How Capacity Payments Could Lock Indonesia Into a High-Cost Electricity Future”—analyzes Indonesia’s 2017-26 national energy blueprint and shows how long-term coal power contracts that the country is contemplating will not just […]
Tom Sanzillo and Seth Feaster
Companies Are Cancelling Applications for New Leases on Public Lands or Seeking Delays; Presidential Pronouncements Seem Little More Than Symbolic
Its reversal earlier this year of a moratorium on federal coal leases put into place last fall by President Obama got the Trump administration lots of applause from the industry. It got more this week for rescinding a rule that came onto the books several months ago in a federal policy change meant to end […]
Simon Nicholas
Investors Grow Wary of Reputational, Regulatory and Return Risk
Coal apologists the world over like to cite spurious “facts” to support their argument for new investments in coal projects. A commonly heard theme: We need more coal because it’s cheap. In Australia, the government’s chief scientist’s call for a national “clean energy target” has set off a wave of highly dubious claims about coal […]
Karl Cates
U.S. Nuclear Industry Reconsiders Expansion; Utility Exec Sees Less Risk in Turbine Farm Than Coal; Keystone XL Doesn’t Pencil Out Anymore
It’s de rigueur anymore for energy companies across the board to play up their clean-energy commitments—actual or just advertised—but executives at American Electric Power put some of their money where their mouths were in announcing intentions last week to invest $4.5 billion in the new Wind Catcher farm in Oklahoma. AEP’s logic is rooted in […]
IEEFA Update: Coal Stocks Lose, However You Dice the Data
Broad Indexes Are Up in the Short, Long and Medium Term; Coal Indexes Are Not; Little Indication Producers’ Performance Will Improve
If stock prices are any measure of a company or industry’s success or failure, the coal industry has been failing now for 10 years. The recent progress noted by many companies in their second-quarter earnings reports notwithstanding—production increases, slight improvements in profit margins, some increases in exports via East Coast ports, and purportedly […]