COAL EXPORT PROSPECTS

The demand for export coal has exceeded the capacity of the U.S. transportation system to move it onto ocean-going ships. To better understand all aspects of this problem, TRB's Task Force on Transportation and Logistics of Energy Materials met in Norfolk, Virginia on April 20, 21, and 22 1981. The consensus of the Task Force was that the ports are the major obstacle to increased coal exports. Efficiency in transporting coal by rail to the ports has improved significantly in recent years. However, a bottleneck remains in the facilities to transfer coal from rail cars to ships. Loading facilities should not only be expanded but modified to also handle steam coal (which is the object of the present growth in demand) as well as the metallurgical coal the ports were originally designed for. Channels should be dredged to a level of 55 feet to allow the newest design vessels that are as large as 170,000 deadweight tons (dwt) to be fully loaded. (The present depth of 45 feet allows only ships of 80,000 dwt or less to be fully loaded.) A possible alternative to constructing on-share loading facilities and deepening channels is hydraulic loading via coal slurry pipeline.