Peabody Exports More Coal In First Six Weeks Of 2008 Than In All Of 2007 - SLPD

[hatrack]

Crippling snowstorms in China, floods in Australia and blackouts in South Africa might seem like problems a world apart. But they’re closer than you think. Since Jan. 1, crises such as these have strained coal markets already stretched thin by soaring Asian demand, and the impact is reverberating to mines in West Virginia and Wyoming, which are being counted on to fill the void.

St. Louis-based Peabody Energy Corp. shipped more coal overseas in the first six weeks of this year than it did all of last year, said Chief Executive Gregory H. Boyce.

"The globe — and we look at the whole globe — is short of coal for the needs of demand," Boyce said in an interview. "That is now pulling huge amounts of exports out of the U.S."

The trend is evident at the Port of Hampton Roads in Newport News, Va. — the nation's busiest coal port — where shipments could rise 50 percent this year to 42 million tons, said David F. Host, president of T. Parker Host, a shipping agent in Norfolk, Va.

EDIT

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/stories.nsf/0/F39E69ADF6BB30CB86257406000DC963?OpenDocument