
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 21, 1991                   TAG: 9103210080
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NS DISPUTES GOVERNMENT COAL REPORT

Virginia's coal production dropped by about 19 percent in both January and February, a new Energy Department report says.

But an executive for Norfolk Southern Railway, the state's biggest coal-hauling railroad, said the decline in domestic coal traffic has been nowhere near the magnitude reported by the government.

The DOE's Energy Information Administration this week reported Virginia mines produced 3.7 million tons of coal in January, 18 percent less than the 4.5 million tons a year ago. In February, the state's production fell 19 percent to 3.4 million tons from 4.2 million tons a year ago, the government said.

The U.S. coal industry as a whole is producing 2.4 percent less coal this year than in 1990, the agency reported.

John Randolph, director for the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research at Virginia Tech, said he views the DOE reports with suspicion. "I don't really have an indication from the industry that things are way down," he said.

William Bales, Norfolk Southern's vice president for coal and ore traffic in Roanoke, said the railroad's coal loadings are down some from last year, but he has not seen the degree of change reported by the government.

Bales attributes the drop in coal usage to mild weather, beginning last summer and lasting through the winter, compared to the higher-than-usual demand during the extremely cold winter of 1989-90.

Electric utility companies, the primary purchasers of U.S. coal, have burned less of it this winter, Bales said. And coal stockpiles going into the winter were already high because of lower demand for electricity for air conditioning during last year's mild summer.

The result has been that utilities have built up "very excessive" stockpiles of coal and are buying very little coal on the spot market, Bales said.

The export market for Virginia coal remains strong, however, he said. Virginia coal is exported primarily to Europe and Asia for steel making and power generation.

Steve Anderson, a spokesman for Westmoreland Coal Co., said production by his company, one of the state's three-largest, was down in January and February but not because of market conditions. The company lost 17 days of production over four weeks because of bad geologic conditions in its mines and the need to move longwall mining machines, he said.

by CNB