Likelihood of a Shortage?

 
speerstra
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Post by speerstra » Sat. Jul. 12, 2008 11:20 am

Guys,
I live NW of Philly. Have a LL coal stove on order. May get it in time for winter. For various reasons (health, equipment,storage etc) would like to pick up 1/2 ton bagged from coal dealer as needed throughout the winter. I realize this will cost more but it works out best for me. What is the likelihood I go to the dealer and he is out? New stove isn't worth to much without coal. Fools plan or reasonable?
Speerstra.


 
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Duengeon master
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Post by Duengeon master » Sat. Jul. 12, 2008 12:42 pm

If you have a pickup, a 1/2hr. ride up the Northeast extention west on 78 then up 61 will get you more coal than you can eat in a lifetime.:D

 
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Richard S.
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Post by Richard S. » Sat. Jul. 12, 2008 3:29 pm

This year its certainly possible especially with the rice. Generally around the late months of the winter you might get a few weeks where stock piles get low and that is usually during a cold snap. What happens is everyone calls for delivery during these cold spells because they suddenly realize they don't have much coal left. It gets so cold a lot of the breakers might not be running. As another example 2 or 3 years back there was a shortage down south because of a lack of raw product to process and the paper up here ran a story that there was a coal shortage. Wasn't a problem here until after they ran that article. :mad:

Having said that in the 15 years I was in business there was a few weeks stretch where getting rice coal was a real problem on a day to day basis and that was after Katrina hit and everyone wiped the stock piles out. I don't know if a lot of places have ramped up production in anticipation for this year or not. If they haven't then its certainly a possibility there will a problem especially in the later parts of the winter.

 
speerstra
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Post by speerstra » Sat. Jul. 12, 2008 4:29 pm

Guys, appreciate the info. Richard, it is always good to see an admin on the ball.

 
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Post by sharkman8810 » Sat. Jul. 12, 2008 9:21 pm

Personally I hope the mines see that people are buying stoves, and ramp up production some.And people who have the coal stoves but werent using them will go back to at least supplementing more with the cost of oil being insane. I plan on getting 3 tons in bins early in the season. I think oil will cost enough to even make my dad start burning it some more.

 
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Post by Richard S. » Sun. Jul. 13, 2008 12:15 am

It's more than the mines, there is a limited amount of places to process it. you could have all the raw product in the world but its noy going to anyone a bit a of good if it can't be made into a usable product. Same thing you have with gas with a limited amount of refineries.

 
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Post by coaledsweat » Sun. Jul. 13, 2008 7:00 pm

I don't think there will be any serious shortage, dealers may run out of this size or that at times though. It is best to do your fuel shopping in the warmer months anyway, I wouldn't want to be looking for coal in the dead of winter.


 
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Post by vtec350 » Sun. Jul. 13, 2008 8:38 pm

I spoke with Superior the other day to confirm my delivery on the 24th.Everythings good to go and Double Run Trucking is doing the delivery. She told me they're not taking any new customers and she doesn't think they will have enough rice (processed) to make it through the winter. They're having a hard time keeping up with their regular customers and dealers now.

Dave

 
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Post by coalkirk » Mon. Jul. 14, 2008 7:02 am

I'm in the middle of building a 14x20 outside coal bin and I'm starting to get worried. Would someone please explain to me why in the middle of July, there are suddenly restrictions on new customers and predictions of shortages? Are they not mining and processing? I've been counting on 20 tons of superior rice and now it doesn't sound good. :wtf:

 
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Post by Richard S. » Mon. Jul. 14, 2008 7:44 am

Well as I said the rice ran short in the winter now, you have everyone buying stoves and a majority of them use rice.... FYI buck is not as popular and if your stove can burn that you might want to give it try. If worse comes to worse I know Hudson can "make" rice by grinding up pea coal which is usually plentiful, other breakers could do the same thing but that is going to cost money because it has to be ground up and rescreened which will drive the price up for it.

Edit: Should add that so far the only report here is from Superior, they were shut down for a lengthy time. Are they even running now?

 
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Post by breaker_boy » Mon. Jul. 14, 2008 10:21 am

vtec350 wrote:I spoke with Superior the other day to confirm my delivery on the 24th.Everythings good to go and Double Run Trucking is doing the delivery. She told me they're not taking any new customers and she doesn't think they will have enough rice (processed) to make it through the winter. They're having a hard time keeping up with their regular customers and dealers now.

Dave
Two week ago they were taken orders but today they won't even give me a date when rice coal will be available. The guy who I spoke with was very nice about the situation, he said they are a small operation and the government is putting a lot pressure on deep mine coal because of safety and death at UAE mine.

They do have other sizes available but not rice in the 23 ton quantity I needed for my location.

Jack

 
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Post by Yanche » Mon. Jul. 14, 2008 11:57 am

I was at Superior on Friday, 7/11/08, and bought 4 tons of pea loaded from the stockpile. The breaker was back in operation after being out of operation a few weeks for structural repair. Some of the original many decades old wooden beams needed replacement. They were making all sizes of coal and I watched them dump several loads that had just been removed from the breaker. Compared to last summer at this time the size of their stock piles seemed smaller. This is to be expected when the breaker was out of operation for a few weeks. I talked briefly to one of the owners, he said what limits them in coal production is getting mined coal. Superior will make smaller sizes of coal from larger sizes only when it makes economic sense for them to do so. In past years they did it when there was no market for the larger sizes. They have to rent a crusher to do it.

You have to understand that small operations like Superior are family operations with blood and by marriage relatives being an essential part of the operation. One of Superior's raw coal sources has some mine regulation enforcement actions pending. It's uncertain what the decision will be or what any effect if any it will have on Superiors ability to provide coal. It seems to me, and this is my opinion only, having spent the money to repair the breaker they will keep it in operation and continue to sell processed coal.

The plight of the independent underground coal miners is an interesting one. Many of the small underground coal miners have operations not much different from what they were a century ago. The owners and workers have coal in their blood, so to speak. It's more like a culture and way of life. They are a proud hard working group of people and resist being told how to do things especially by outsiders. At one time there were separate federal regulations for Bituminous and Anthracite coal mining safety. It's been combined into one regulation and enforcement bureaucracy. As you can expect a proud group of hard working owners and miners don't take kindly to being told differently. Ever time there is a mine accident and especially a death, the inspectors increase the inspection and enforcement. What might have been unimportant in the past and in the miners eyes still is unimportant suddenly becomes a big issue. Tempers flare, enforcement action occurs and no one wins. You can see the pattern occurring time after time. Some see conspiracy theories in the actions to close down the small operations. Who knows.

If you look at the production data of mines and coal processors they little guys hardly matter. Anthracite coal will continue to be available but you will be buying it from a coal broker not a family run business. More surface mining is also likely because it's arguably safer. In any event, as Richard our leader has pointed out several times, coal will always be cheaper because it has to be. No one would put up with the extra work of coal handling and ashes if it's costs as much as oil, gas or electric heat.

 
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Post by mike » Mon. Jul. 14, 2008 12:39 pm

I wouldn't write the deep mines off yet. The last couple of years have been grim at best, BUT, with increased demand it's at the point that it's profitable again to deep mine. Give it a couple of months and I'm reasonably sure your going to see a couple reopen and possably (hopefully!) some laws change in our favor for once.

 
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Post by sharkman8810 » Mon. Jul. 14, 2008 8:41 pm

This is going even farther off topic, but fast eddie and the mining industry and I believe dep got together and put out a new "manual" on what the rules are etc. And hopefully this will help with consistentency and now the miners know what they need and don't need etc. and what there costs will be to get the equipment and education to meet new regs. Uncertainty in business and not knowing costs etc makes it tough to plan if runing your mine is feasible.

 
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Post by Richard S. » Mon. Jul. 14, 2008 9:00 pm

Those new rules unfortunately do not address the primary issue in that they are applying bituminous rules to anthracite mines and over zealously at that. Anthracite coal mining is a completely different animal than bituminous mining. I've seen it mentioned one mine got fined because a workers shoe was untied... :roll:


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