U.S. Coal Mines Are Opening In A Year Of “Cautious Optimism”

By Tim Loh
Bloomberg

Add Corsa Coal Corp. to the shortlist of U.S. coal producers doing something that’s become a bit of a rarity these days: opening mines.

The Canonsburg, Pennsylvania-based company will start a new operation in Pennsylvania as early as May. It joins Ramaco Resources Inc., which began producing at its first mine in West Virginia in December and plans to open two more this year in central Appalachia. They’re among the few turning more bullish on the business following an unprecedented market collapse that has shut hundreds of mines and left thousands jobless in recent years.

“We’re staffing up,” Corsa Chief Executive Officer George Dethlefsen said in a phone interview last week. “We’re going to hire 100 people, and we’ve gotten hundreds of applications.”There’s newfound optimism in America’s coalfields with spot prices for metallurgical coal – the sort used in steelmaking – twice as high as they were a year ago. China curtailing its own production and tightening seaborne markets helped stoke a rally last year. President Donald Trump is now promising to bring coal jobs back, making his first move last week to roll back Obama-era environmental regulations that targeted the sector.

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