Important tidbit from Joe Craft on today's $ARLP call - "Today, utilities are acknowledging that they're dispatching uneconomic gas over coal."
That's because coal stockpiles haven't really improved much since I tweeted this out.
Sub-bituminous #coal stockpiles - which saved western rate payers last year - are down 13 Mst YoY, with only about 10 Mst between May 31 levels and last year's Aug-Sept lows (during which natgas rose 66%).
Bituminous #coal stockpile situation is even worse, with levels at all time lows, and only 1.7 Mst away from last year's lows.
During that period last year, coal plants basically shut down to rebuild stockpiles while utilities burned uneconomic natgas...just like today.
Adding an even more serious level of concern, US #natgas inventories are sitting ~300 Bcf below last year's levels, and despite high production levels, injection rates have once again flattened...only this time coal plants can't back them up to the same degree as in 2021.
Our #power grid was bailed out last year by surging Haynesville output and blowtorch Dec temps.
With coal backup in question, and record production/Freeport explosion unable to bolster inventories, this year looks worse.
When Freeport starts back up in winter...what saves us?
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OK, so $AHQ.AX filed a strategic review…sucks for met #coal beta chasers.
But I’ve commented on several Spaces before that New Elk’s resurgence typically signals the end of a cycle, and even just given the ramp up costs and productivity concerns, it was never guaranteed. 1/x
So @Twitter’s algorithm slapped a sensitive content warning on a tweet in which I complained about it slapping a sensitive content warning on a tweet that contained no sensitive content.
And now I’m interested to see how far their terrible algorithm will go.
Game on. 😂
This game is apparently the sensitive content algorithm version of the movie Inception™.
And I am losing.
OK so I wonder if this sensitive content warning was because I mentioned copyrighted IP?
I'm a liberal and a registered Democrat who happens to have worked as a coal markets analyst for close to a decade for a major global institutional research and consultancy firm.
So "coal nerd" in this case indicates I am professionally qualified to evaluate others' analysis 1/X
While I understand it's pretty splashy to pump articles with titles like: "Aussie coal boom is ‘over’: new report co-authored by (politician's kid) says".
It's important to investigate the claims being made. 2/X
Let's start with the conclusion: "“Our findings are clear; Beijing’s plans for rapid decarbonisation and energy security signal the end for Australia’s current coal export boon,” Dr Gosens said"
It first might be good to see if there was, in fact, an "export boom"? 3/X
US HRC #steel forward curve has been correcting for about a month, but near term prices (highlighted in white) showing more resilience than further out.
Got to keep in mind that with tariffs still in place there's a floor price here...possible it has four digits.
Not sure if an analogous dynamic could play out in prime #scrap too...busheling forward curve 1st contract flattening but out months continue to decline.
Coking #coal beginning to inflect lower, not terribly dissimilar to the trend we saw in #steel two tweets ago.