‘I’ve kept that promise’
Analysts question how much credit president should get for spike in U.S. coal production
WHEN it comes to the coal industry, President Donald Trump has plenty to be pleased about.
Exports are up 60 percent from a year ago, driving what most industry analysts believe will be an increase of U.S. coal production of close to 60 million tons this year.
At a political rally in coal-heavy West Virginia this month, Trump told a cheering crowd, “I made you a promise during the campaign ... and as you’ve seen, I’ve kept that promise.”
“We’ve stopped the EPA intrusion. American coal exports are already up.”
But how much of this recent spike should Trump honestly take credit for? Coal is a global market, with supplies coming from countries around the world. Prices, which drive miners to produce more or less coal, are set through the laws of supply and demand, and what is going on in China — which consumes almost as much coal as the rest of the world combined — is the barometer most who follow the market watch.
A report this summer by ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service described the recent rise in U.S. production as a combination of market factors. A rise in natural gas prices is pushing more of the U.S. electrical grid back to coal. Plus China’s decision to
curb production from its own mines — even as demand at its steel mills rises — is driving up prices for coal exporters worldwide.
And what about the Trump effect? Not a whole lot, the Moody’s analysts say, calling the recent price spike “unsustainable” and predicting U.S. power generation from coal will fall by 5 to 10 percent over the next decade.
“U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change will not alter the long-term trend of natural gas and renewables producing a growing share of the nation’s energy,” they wrote.
That’s a fairly consensus view among analysts, who generally like to explain business trends in bigpicture macroeconomic terms. Just as presidents throughout history have liked to claim positive news to be the result of their economic policies, there has been a financial analyst around to say, “not so fast.”
And while Trump might be overstating his own role, it wouldn’t be entirely fair to claim he had no part in this rare good news for the coal industry he’s championed.
Andy Roberts, director of international thermal coal research at Wood Mackenzie, said that since Trump’s election American coal executives have become more optimistic in talking about the future.
“The thing I think he’s done that might have had some impact on the margins, right around the edges, is trying to reduce regulations,” Roberts said. “Mood matters, and if you’re a coal company, you may feel like you get a respite. You might feel better about investing.”
Last year the U.S. coal industry mined less than 730 million tons of coal, down more than 30 percent over five years.
After such a dismal year, there was a certain inevitability production was going to come back this year.