The coal industry is enduring an unprecedented assault, one that has been led by President Obama and aided by powerful ideological and business allies. The accumulating political and regulatory pounding is threatening to push the coal industry over the tipping point, jeopardizing thousands of jobs, and denying consumers a cheap, domestic and reliable source of electricity. [...] Continue reading
The US has developed into a crucial base supplier of coal to European, South American and Asian markets hungry for reliable and competitively priced tonnage. The shift differs from other recent export booms, when coking coal fueled the surge. Now, demand for US steam coal is jumping, even as new environmental rules make generators here look to alternative energy sources. [...] Continue reading
In his documentary The Last Mountain, featuring Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., director Bill Haney weaves quite a tale of intrigue in the quest to rebrand surface mining as “mountain-top removal,” an emotionally-charged term that carries infinitely more public relations punch. Allegations of complicity between former West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin, the Bush Administration, and coal executives to force surface mining upon the [...] Continue reading
Pity poor Mongolia, bereft of fiscal resources, caught between the ambitions of its superpower neighbors, Russia and China.
Ulaan Bator’s situation is akin to interwar Poland, dexterously attempting to reconcile its foreign policy between the USSR’s hammer and Nazi Germany’s hard place. Who will ultimately benefit is anyone’s guess, but the country’s nascent energy and mineralogical riches have opened the [...] Continue reading
Indian steel, power and commodity investors have featured heavily in recent mining press due to acquisitions and sustained interest in international mining assets. China, Japan and Korea have led the charge to secure coal supplies from mineral-rich countries like Australia and Indonesia with great success. Although a late entrant, India appears to be playing catch-up in the coal asset acquisition in a wider geographical horizon, including [...] Continue reading
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