Europe Buys $5 Million Worth of Hard Coal from Schuylkill County

From the Pottsville Republican

For the first time in two decades, a large commercial order of local hard coal totaling $5 million is being filled for transport to Europe.

“The industry is experiencing a good period as far as production,” said Dan Nester, vice president of Kobin Coal Corp., Plain View, N.Y., on Wednesday, one of a handful of coal brokerage companies specializing in anthracite.

Nester said the order for 22,000 tons of anthracite to the Dutch firm Anker Coal Co. for commercial industrial used mostly in the steel industry in Ghent, Belgium, will be filled by Dec. 18.

The anthracite is being supplied by eight local coal companies in Schuylkill and Luzerne counties and represents what Nester expects to be the first of numerous orders from Europe in contracts expected to run at least through 2009.

Duane Feagley, executive director of the Pennsylvania Anthracite Council, an industry organization, said the order is truly unique in an industry whose sole exports have been shipments to Canada and Brazil and a single government contract for a U.S. Army base in Germany in recent years.

“Nobody’s sending coal to Europe,” Feagley said.

One reason for the pickup in European business, Nester said, is the comparatively poor performance of the U.S. dollar, making purchase of American anthracite cheaper than before for European companies.

Terrence Guay, clinical associate professor of international business at Penn State University’s Smeal College of Business, said Pennsylvania anthracite is not the only U.S. export likely to be positively affected.

“The economic side of the equation is that the U.S. dollar has weakened considerably compared to the euro and the English pound,” said Guay.

Reasons for that poor performance include everything from low domestic interest rates to a growing federal budget deficit and a growing international pessimism about the U.S. economy.