Industry News
American Coal Council Welcomes Opportunity to work with President-elect Trump on the Future for Coal
President-elect Trump knows the strategic importance of energy in America. This includes our abundant coal resources, larger than those of any other country in the world. He supports coal and energy jobs as an integral part of a strong economy. He understands the urgent need to rein in the Washington bureaucracy and sweeping, excessive regulations in order to protect jobs, retain and grow our nation’s industrial and manufacturing base, and reduce the costly burden of rules that lack commensurate benefits. "The coal sector has been devastated by lower demand and job loss in recent years due to the mounting impact of regulations pointed squarely at our industry. These regulations have significantly increased the cost of coal for electricity generation and industrial use, made it less competitive against other fuels, and resulted in the closure of a large number of coal plants", American Coal Council CEO Betsy Monseu said. "Rather than offer environmental benefits, regulatory streamlining, and business planning certainty, regulations have become about costs, administrative burdens, and lost jobs." With a significant loss of coal demand made permanent due to plant closures, it will be critical to protect the investments made in the remaining coal generation fleet. These plants are essential for our nation’s power sector to deliver reliable 24/7 electricity to American homes, hospitals, and schools as well as business enterprises and manufacturers of steel, cement, chemicals, paper, and other industrial products. The path forward for coal must also include new technologies and uses. We look forward to working with President-elect Trump and the members of Congress to begin the process of restoring coal and rebuilding the nation’s economy. Visit https://www.naylornetwork.com/ccw-membersupdate/articles/index.asp?aid=414366&issueID=46705 to view the full article online.
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.jpg) Congratulations and welcome to the newly-elected members of the American Coal Council Board of Directors whose terms begin January 2017. We appreciate the commitment of these volunteer industry leaders who support and guide ACC’s programs, activities, and advocacy. With deep appreciation, we thank outgoing board members Donna Cerwonka of CSX Transportation and Brian Miles of United Bulk Terminals as well as Sam Johnson, formerly of CONSOL Energy, for their contributions to the ACC Board and organization.
Our 2017 Board of Directors are:
PRESIDENT
Mike Siebers, Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Peabody Energy (2013-2017)
IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT
Matt Schicke, Head of U.S. Coal, Noble Americas Corp. (2013-2017)
COAL SUPPLIERS
Adam Anderson, Vice President Marketing/Sales, Armstrong Energy (2016-2018)
Elliott Batson, Vice President Business Development and CCO, Hallador Energy Company (2015-2017)
Scott Spears, Chief Executive Officer, Jesse Creek Mining, LLC (2017-2019)
COAL CONSUMERS
Benjamin Baughan, Senior Market Originator, Dominion Generation (2016-2018)
Christian Dueweke, Category Manager, LafargeHolcim US (2015-2017)
H. Craig Romer, Director Fuel Supply Operations, Xcel Energy (2017-2019)
Rob Hardman, Vice President – Coal Supply, Dynegy (2017-2019)
TRANSPORTATION
Todd Nuelle, Director Sales & Marketing U.S. Coal, Bulk, CN Railway (2015- 2017)
Scott Becnel, Director Energy Sales and Business Development, Cooper Consolidated, LLC (2017-2019)
Jennifer Sackson, Asst. Vice President Coal Marketing, BNSF Railway (2017-2019)
ENERGY TRADERS
Kimberly Chilcote, Manager Fuel Procurement, AEP Energy Supply (2015-2017)
Pat Panzarino, Vice President Trading, Trammo, Inc. (2016-2018)
COAL SUPPORT SERVICES
Buddy Hancock, Sales & Quality Manager, US Minerals, SGS North America (2015-2017)
Leonard Marsico, Partner & Coal Team Leader, McGuireWoods LLP (2015-2017)
Scott Smith, Senior Sales Leader North America, GE Power & Water (2016-2018)
AT LARGE
Ken Riddle, Supervisor of Chemical Processes, Lakeland Electric (2016-2018)
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The ACC’s Tomorrow’s Leadership Council (TLC) is designed to advance and vest executive talent in the coal industry. TLC is an annual program designed to provide a meaningful opportunity for up-and-coming executives to enhance their industry knowledge and networks through projects and activities that advance industry-wide objectives as well as professional development goals.
The TLC program, which launched in 2009, has "graduated" more than 120 executives from 50 companies throughout the coal supply chain.
We welcome member and nonmember companies to register their entry-level staff and mid-level executives for this one of a kind professional development program. They will have the opportunity to meet and engage with others in the coal supply, consumption, transportation, and trading sectors, as well as those working in companies that partner with and support these business sectors.
The TLC program is open to all coal-related companies and organizations, with a discount for ACC member company participants. The program cost is $1,750 for ACC members and $2,250 for non-members.
Participants benefit from professional development seminars, ACC conference attendance, special networking dinners, and the opportunity to work on a collaborative group project with others in the program.
Additional program and registration information is available on the ACC website. Please also call or email Betsy Monseu, ACC CEO, at 202.756.4540 or bmonseu@americancoalcouncil.org with any questions or comments.
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 Have you checked out the ACC’s social media outlets lately?Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmericanCoal
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmericanCoal
Please be sure to follow @AmericanCoal. Tweet "shout outs" and links to @AmericanCoal, along with coal-related hashtags: #coal, #climate, #CCS, #CCT, etc.
Please be sure to like and share ACC’s page and posts with your company and personal accounts.
If your company has tech or social media savvy employees, or employees with graphic design capabilities who are willing to donate time to help prepare infographics, social media posts, write articles, etc., please let the ACC know – info@americancoalcouncil.org.
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 Each year we publish a Membership Directory with contact information for each of our member companies.As a benefit of membership, we make this Directory available for ACC members to download (in PDF format). Click here or on the graphic below to download the 2016 Membership Directory.
As the Membership Directory is a membership benefit, we ask that you please refrain from sharing this file w
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 The ACC's 2015 Tomorrow's Leadership Council recently developed a "Coal Communications Kit" to help coal advocates educate, inform, build bridges, and counter misinformation about coal. This document provides ideas and information that coal industry employees and others can use to improve communications and relations with others in the public realm.Whether you're on an airplane, at a business or community event, or seeking to inform relatives and friends, coal advocates now have useful facts and information to assist them in communicating the importance, value, and benefits of coal in U.S. energy production.
The Coal Communications Kit describes
1. Technological improvements in the coal industry
2. Airborne emissions and emissions reduction
3. Scalability of coal as an energy resource
4. Comparisons of coal vs. other fuels/energy resources
5. Coal’s role in grid reliability
6. Climate change
7. Costs of not using coal
8. Coal's role in international trade
9. Impacts of mining coal
10. Coal and resource depletion
11. EPA regulations
12. Pollution in China
The Coal Communication Kit provides ready responses to commonly held negative notions about coal. It offers convenient "elevator speeches", Facebook posts, and Tweets, as well as more detailed information and resources.
We’re confident coal advocates will find this information useful and easy to share. Be sure to check out the Coal Communications Kit, use it in your discussions with friends, the media, elected officials, and others. Then, please be sure to share the Coal Communications Kit on your social media accounts. Spread the information around so everyone can access it!
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Thank you to our Champion Sponsors!!
       Thank you to our Patron Sponsors!! You are invited to join an exclusive group of American Coal Council (ACC) member companies who have elevated their level of commitment to the ACC through their Annual Sponsorship support. In doing so, these companies have also gained recognition as industry leaders in supporting the ACC’s objective to advance the development and utilization of coal as an economic, abundant and environmentally sound fuel source. Click here to learn more about the benefits and opportunities associated with an annual ACC sponsorship.
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Training and Education
Creating Coal Advocates
Presented by ACC’s 2016 Tomorrow’s Leadership Council
Tuesday, December 14, 2016 ˜ 2 – 3 pm Eastern
There is an increasing need for coal stakeholders to be active proponents in educating others, both those related to our industry and those outside of it, on the importance and value of our nation’s abundant coal resources. It’s more and more important to "think and act local" to provide balancing information and counter myth and misinformation about our industry.
The American Coal Council’s Tomorrow’s Leadership Council 2016 participants have been preparing for and engaging in this type of ‘everyday advocacy’. Their activities and outreach have included public speaking and presentations, written communications such as letters to the editor, social media activities, and more.
Join us as the Tomorrow’s Leadership Council presents the results of their 2016 advocacy engagement. Learn how they prepared, who they targeted and reached, what information they shared, and the responses and feedback they received.
There is no charge for members of the
American Coal Council, but pre-registration is required.
Non-members may register for a fee of $50. |
Calendar of Events
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Mark your calendars for these upcoming 2017 ACC events:
Be sure to watch the events page on the ACC website for registration and event information for our conferences and monthly webcast programs.
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American Coal Magazine
 The fall edition of the American Coal magazine, published by the American Coal Council is now available.
If you are interested in obtaining a free digital copy please click the on the link above. |
Despite persistent challenges, the outlook for the North American coal industry has been revised from negative to stable, Moody’s Investors Service said in a new report.
A combination of fourth quarter 2016 metallurgical coal benchmark prices settling at $200 per metric ton (mt) and natural gas prices hovering around $3/MMbtu, has provided immediate relief for the strained sector.
The rating agency has also revised its price sensitivity assumptions for seaborne coal prices. In the medium-term range, met coal has been lifted to $90-$130/mt from $85-$90/mt, and Newcastle Thermal assumptions have been increased to $50-$65/mt from $53-$58/mt.
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After declining for several months, the share of U.S. electricity fueled by coal is expected to slowly begin growing when compared to the same period last year. In contrast, the share of generation from natural gas is expected to experience year-over-year declines. Based on expected temperatures and market conditions, coal is expected to surpass natural gas as the most common electricity generating fuel in December, January, and February.
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Two Utah counties are suing the Obama administration over its moratorium on new leases to mine coal on federal land. Kane and Garfield counties and a nonprofit sued the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Utah federal court late Wednesday, calling the moratorium "an act of unwarranted agency overkill." "In enforcing the Moratorium and bypassing substantial and immediate financial returns, the BLM is disregarding its statutory fiduciary duty, as set forth in the Mineral Leasing Act ... to maximize economic recovery for coal mined on federal lands," the counties state in their complaint. The dispute, however, could be short-lived. President-elect Trump has promised to lift the moratorium and indicated that he could take action on Jan. 20, the day he takes office. Visit http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/308299-utah-counties-sue-over-obamas-coal-moratorium to view the full article online.
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By Michelle Nijhuis
Shortly after 9:30 in the morning on April 29, 2016, a loud boom thundered through western Colorado’s North Fork Valley. Near the top of the narrow valley, a 14-story-high concrete coal silo sagged, and then crumpled to the ground, seeming to dissolve into clouds of black and gray smoke.
For decades, the coal mine that filled the silo had employed most of the people in the surrounding town, but in recent years activity at the mine had slowed and, finally, stopped, leaving a skeleton crew of just four. In 10 minutes, the silo demolition confirmed what many had long feared: The Oxbow Mine and its well-paying jobs had left the valley for good.
ACC Zero Tolerance Response:
The American Coal Council made the following response on social media and in the comments section of this story from National Geographic to address inaccuracies in this story.
Here's the Facts:
"Obama regulations forced closure of hundreds of coal-fired power plants, killing market for millions of tons of coal. Other Obama regulations pushed up cost of production, making coal less competitive. They made it increasingly more difficult to mine and market coal. These were passed with the stroke of a pen and can be changed with a pen stroke.
"Some of the damage, such as the closed or converted coal-fired power plants, can't be undone easily (if at all), but if we turn the economy around and start to grow our manufacturing base, demand for steam and metallurgical coal will increase. Making it easier to mine and market coal will allow us to take advantage of that demand."
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By Ken Silverstein
When Donald Trump is sworn in next January as the nation’s 45th President, it will mark a new era — one that will at least partially scrap the Obama administration’s environmental agenda and one that may make room for modern and advanced coal plants. While it may be a sensible idea, questions still loom as to whether it would be a cost-effective one.
Coal’s rise to power during the last century made perfect sense given its abundance and low cost — and the ease in which it has been easily integrated on to the transmission grid. Coal use, in the meantime, will remain a staple of both domestic and global economies. New investments into the coal fuel technology are important, not to prop up the coal industry but to help cut down on the sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter, as well as carbon dioxide.
"We now anticipate that we will have an audience who is more inclined to have this conversation," says Jeffrey Keffer, chief executive of Longview Power, which has owned and operated for four years an "advanced super-critical" coal plant in Morgantown, W.Va. "Our plant is so far beyond the older the coal technologies."
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 What the Media Says –"America’s coal industry was slowly dying long before President Obama took office."
The Reality –
From 1985-2008, U.S. coal production boomed 33% from 884 million tons to 1,172 million tons and coal generation boomed 43% to nearly 2,000 TWh. Source: U.S. Energy Information Association.
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 The American Coal Council and Naylor Association Solutions have partnered together to provide the American coal industry with a wide variety of print, digital, and online advertising opportunities.Be sure to check out our Media Guide & Rate Card with all the information that you need to advertise in any of our publications.
Remember that ACC Members receive a 10% discount on all advertising rates listed in our Media Guide.
Please contact Betsy Monseu, ACC CEO at 202.756.4540 / bmonseu@americancoalcouncil.org or Anthony Land, Project Leader at Naylor Association Solutions 352.333.3454 / aland@naylor.com with any advertising questions.
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Technology / R&D
