Anthracite Coal Quality

Yanche wrote:Is the quality of the coal different from the different coal fields? If so which is the best?

Yes to some degree, if you get coal out of the Hazelton area they have what amounts to the "best".

Note, I'm talking about coal quality not how well the breaker or colliery processes it.

That's probably the most important factor. There's that old saying you "can't polish a turd" but in this case you can to some degree. You can put some pretty poor quality raw product through and have a decent run. The key there being that they can recover enough usable product to make it worth it.

I'm guessing but wouldn't underground mined coal have an advantage? Extracting coal just from a coal vein rather than stripping away everything and then trying to sort out just the coal.

Although they try and run nothing but coal even deep mined is going to have some amount rock and other undesirable material. The good and bad have to be separated at the breaker no matter where it's coming from.

Since only a small fraction of the Anthracite mined is for residential heating does this market get the best or worst of the coal quality?

Unless you have a special order in the anthracite you are getting will be the same as the other guy. They have a standard product that they sell to everyone. If you are buying huge quantities you can special order it to whatever specs you want, this is done occasioanlly where I get my coal but it's a lower quality. the customer is getting a discount, most likely it's for a factory or some industrial appplication.

You want to look for ash content, 9-10 is good. Anything below 9 and it's premium stuff.