Chinese buying up NEPA anthracite?

Anyone hear this from a reliable source in NEPA: that the Chinese are buying up as much anthracite as they can get and to expect another price increase on top of the usual annual increase? I heard they built a railway to transport it to a cross country system so they can ship it off to China.

Comments?

There was a very interesting & lengthy article in National Geographic a few months back about this very thing. I can't remember if it stated anything about anthracite or not being it's not the preferred coal for power plants but there is even IMO more to worry about with China, India & others buying mines, gas & oil leases in America. It seems we are selling our countries lifeblood for a few pieces of gold. Look it up for yourselves, I don't want to be accused for providing leftists links.

I think the Chinese understand too well that we will be devaluing the dollar with repeated "quantitative easing". We cannot pay what we currently owe in a reasonable time frame. They know they have to spend it on things they need. We brought this on ourselves with excessive deficit spending.

Yep, what do you think a credit card payment would look like if you have never put a dime toward the principal since 1960?

To my knowledge, most of what the Chinese need is referred to as "Met Coal", which is coal that is required for the production of steel. I don't know what types of coal are classified as Met Coal.

Bit coal to make coke for steel but I believe they use a lot of elec. furnaces now, they are also buying all of our scrap that they can get. Thats why the price of scrap iron is up.

It's bit.

http://www.flatheadmemo.com/north_fork_ ... /coke.html

samhill wrote:Bit coal to make coke for steel but I believe they use a lot of elec. furnaces now, they are also buying all of our scrap that they can get. Thats why the price of scrap iron is up.

Scrap is a commodity. It has intrinsic value. The US dollar is printed on toilet paper. They can't print more steel or gold!!! Steel has remained constant. The dollar has not!!!

samhill wrote:Bit coal to make coke for steel but I believe they use a lot of elec. furnaces now, they are also buying all of our scrap that they can get. Thats why the price of scrap iron is up.

From the Jeddo Coal website:

Electric Furnace Users
In the last two decades, great strides have been made in the electric furnace steel production. Perhaps the most important was the use of anthracite as a foaming slag for protection of furnace walls and roofs. This introduction has resulted in decreasing tapping time by half, by staying on high tapl all of the time, and by less downtime due to refractory savings. Also, the decline of blast furnaces and increased scrap recycling has created a market for anthracite as a carbon and heat source during melting. Call us for detailed information on trace elements, phosphorous, and nitrogen contents.

I recently read that scrap metal is currently the #1 export of the US. If anthracite is useful for electric furnace operations, it makes sense that demand is up.

Nope, no coal at all used in electric furnaces, it's a direct melting of scrap & additives to make the wanted recipe. They do as you can probably guess require a lot of power & that would come from coal fired power plants. They are probably leading the world in alternate power sources but are growing far faster than the power that is needed. From the Nat. Geographic story they are also becoming a quiet leader in green tech. development. They will be the force to be reckoned with, also unlike us they are investing in their infrastructure at an astounding pace. I wish I still had the mag. to be able to better recall.

lsayre wrote:To my knowledge, most of what the Chinese need is referred to as "Met Coal", which is coal that is required for the production of steel. I don't know what types of coal are classified as Met Coal.

Quite right. And, I recalled from an ad I read that in times of shortages anthracite may be substituted for met coal and coke.

http://www.penncoal.com/wst_page7.html

I have recently read the same thing! Anthracite is useable as a substitute for coke.

Mark, thats interesting, they used to just use limestone to form the slag but new things are coming all the time. It was 84 the last time I worked on an elec.fce. it is still a relatively small yield but in being so can make a much more controlled grade. It would still be a small amt. of coal, it doesn't take much. Might be the coal wouldn't drop the temp. as much. I don't know why they couldn't use argon like they do in the basic oxygen & LMF process.

There is a large anhtracite mine in Schuylkill County which surrounds the town of Coaldale. I was told personally by an enployee from that mine that their coal is shipped "overseas". I assumed that to mean China, (since they buy everything else we are too regulated and stupid to use here) but did not ask for confirmation.

oldlumpofcoal wrote:There is a large anthracite mine in Schuylkill County which surrounds the town of Coaldale. I was told personally by an enployee from that mine that their coal is shipped "overseas". I assumed that to mean China, (since they buy everything else we are too regulated and stupid to use here) but did not ask for confirmation.

LC&N and all other of the big surface mining companies have always sold coal overseas weather to the Germans or China
India or whoever else they always sold there product overseas nothing new here Just like all the oil pump out of Alaska
goes to China & Japan we do not see a drop of that oil in the US all exported nothing new there either