Published: September 28, 2017 |

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The coal industry was reborn on election day, announced Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association.

His coal industry audience nodded.

He pulled out a black baseball cap with gold letters that read, “War On Coal Survivor” and they smiled.

“The NFL don’t care about this old boy, but the coal mines love him,” Mr. Raney said.

On the screen next to him was a large photo of President Donald Trump — two thumbs up and pointing at himself, a hard hat on his head and a crowd behind him holding signs that read: Trump Digs Coal.

The joke landed.

Relief was in the air, even hope, which is how Mr. Raney began his presentation at this year’s Platt’s Coal Marketing Days conference at the Omni William Penn Hotel, a 40-year old event that has been growing slimmer and dimmer over the past half decade.

“There is HOPE where there was none!” was his title.

It was the same crowd that last year sat through statements like: “This is the most important election of our lifetime,” from Michael Carey, vice president of government affairs at Murray Energy Corp.

And the year before: “As you guys know, bankruptcy is just a change in ownership,” from George Dethlefsen, CEO of Corsa Coal.

And in 2014: “Grandma is going to get cold in the dark,” from Murray Energy CEO Bob Murray.

For years, coal has been facing an onslaught of challenges — from cheap natural gas taking over as the darling of electric power generation, to oversupply and lack of demand in the U.S. and globally, to environmental regulations making mining and burning coal more costly.

It was in this atmosphere of the coal industry being either on the brink of extinction or salvation that Bob Simons, a partner at Reed Smith, founded the Cool Coal Club at last year’s Platt’s conference at the Omni William Penn Hotel.

He convened a group of industry insiders, lenders and academics and, after drinking at least one Manhattan, said the club’s mission would involve agreeing to keep the industry alive even if they can’t agree on how to do it. Mostly, its members e-mail each other news clips and report back from industry conferences.

Over lunch on Tuesday, a few Cool Coalers surveyed the unexpected trajectory of the past year and tried to place the Trump effect in its proper context.

The truth is, things were already looking better for coal last September, they said. The price of metallurgical coal had risen sharply. Coal use domestically was inching up.

When Mr. Trump took office, he gave the industry a confidence boost that dominoed from the mines to the executive suites. Investors mustered the guts to invest in coal mine projects again, they said.

Coal production is up. Coal exports are up. Money flowing into the sector is up.

The election was the unshackling that everyone was looking for, they said.

Mr. Dethlefsen on Tuesday recalled the June day when Canonsburg-based Corsa inaugurated its Acosta Mine in Somerset County. Mr. Trump sent a video for the celebration.

“I think we need more days of celebration in the coal industry especially after the last couple of years that we’ve suffered through,” Mr. Dethlefsen said.

Others noted that a trove of the industry’s most dreaded environmental and safety regulations have been frozen by the current administration.

A National Academy of Sciences study to assess the health impacts of living in coal communities has been defunded, Mr. Raney reported.

Scott Pruitt, “who has a great record of practical environmental control and regulation,” according to Mr. Raney, was appointed to head the Environmental Protection Agency after years of suing to stop its regulations and enforcement as attorney general of Oklahoma.

Neil Gorsuch, the Supreme Court’s newest justice, was hailed more than once as a victory for coal interests.

“One man in the White House CAN make a difference,” Mr. Raney said. “It’s made a huge difference, we think, in West Virginia.”

Attendees seemed hopeful that more research money would be funneled into coal. They strategized how to get the federal government to subsidize coal generation and improvements to coal plants.

Mr. Simons, who chaired Tuesday’s conference, called the crowd’s attention to the movie “The Replacements,” in which a team of stand-in football players gets a second chance at success but is afraid to blow it.

That’s the story of coal, he told them. It’s been given a second chance. Don’t blow it, he warned.

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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