Coal Zoom | Hampton Roads May Have Space for Baltimore Coal Exports

Hampton Roads May Have Space for Baltimore Coal Exports

By Anna Harmon

March 28, 2024 - Terminals in Hampton Roads, Virginia, may have some available capacity to take rerouted coal shipments from Baltimore, Maryland, despite increasing exports from a year earlier for the seventh consecutive month in February.

Coal loadings at Hampton Roads reached an estimated 3.31mn short tons (st) (3mn metric tonnes) last month, rising 7.8pc from February 2023, according to the Virginia Maritime Association. Still, historic Hampton Roads export data going back to 1993 showed that combined shipments from the three terminals in the region peaked at 5.48mn st in April 2012, which is nearly 66pc higher than last month's exports.

This suggests that Hampton Roads terminals may have capacity to load additional coal volumes that were originally booked to ship out of terminals upstream from the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, which collapsed on Tuesday morning, closing the Port of Baltimore for an indefinite period of time.

Hampton Roads coal exports in 2012 st

The two Baltimore coal terminals cut off by the bridge collapse, Consol Energy's Consol Marine Terminal and CSX's Curtis Bay Coal Piers, have a combined export capacity of about 34mn st.

Railroad Norfolk Southern (NS), which operates the Lamberts Point terminal at Hampton Roads, said today it is working with impacted international customers and port partners to "provide alternate routing solutions."

"Ports on the east coast are resilient and have the capacity to serve the flow of freight," NS said.

Lamberts Point terminal handled 1.19mn st of coal in February, a 20pc jump from February 2023. Despite this increase, that is still down from the 2.18mn st exported from the terminal in April 2012.

Dominion Terminal Associates (DTA) exported 1.24mn st of coal in February from the Hampton Roads area, which is down 30pc from April 2012, while exports from the nearby Pier IX terminal were down 53pc to 727,023st last month.

DTA's co-owners, Alpha Metallurgical Resources and Arch Resources, and Pier IX's owner Kinder Morgan all did not respond for immediate comment.