Gonet, in Europe this week looking for new markets for Illinois’ tonnage, told the State Journal that coal from the Illinois Basin was replacing central Appalachia coal in terms of thermal supply and, much like CAPP, it too was looking to exports to keep it going.
He told the paper that in 1990 Illinois mined about 62 million short tons of coal, but by 2011 that figure had fallen to 37.4Mt.
In 2012, as the state began to become the go-to thermal output over central Appalachia in the market, totals were once again up to 48.5Mt.
“Our industry knows full well what Central Appalachia is going through now,” Gonet said.
“Earlier in the year I thought we would be in the mid-50s, but we'd be lucky to crash 50 right now. A couple of our mines shut down.”
US statistics agency the Energy Information Administration supported that rise in a new report. It recently said Illinois’ mines produced about 40.6Mt through October 5.
The increase was more than 6% year-on-year.
Additionally, for the 52-week period that ended October 5, Illinois production was 51.1Mt, the agency said, a rise of about 8.3%.
While much of the state’s generation fuel comes from western coalfield mines, such as those in the Powder River Basin, due to its lower sulphur content, the Illinois power market is deregulated.
That means, Gonet said, because few of the state’s generation facilities had scrubbers, the largest utilities had to turn to the western tonnage because extra expense of working from within cannot be justified.
That, in turn, leaves Illinois coal up for grabs by facilities outfitted with scrubbers or to the export circle.
Thankfully, the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers offer the state’s mines access to Gulf ports.
“If we can get our coal to the river, we can ship it anywhere in the world,” Gonet told the Journal.
