While the coal industry has faced many critics in recent years, coal industry insiders are optimistic that the continued demand for coal – largely from fast growing Asian countries – will continue fueling growth. While the coal industry is in no danger of collapsing any time in the very near future, industry experts know that there are many reasons that they must keep up with growing concerns about the environmental impact of coal, the demand in foreign countries, and the increased regulations pertaining to the coal industry.
The coal industry, like many other fossil fuel related businesses, will likely continue to face ongoing discussions about how emissions should be regulated. For the coal industry, this can potentially make future costs hard to estimate since it will be difficult to predict what the cost of these regulations will be. However, since more than half of the electricity in the United States is created by coal power plants, the demand for coal will continue to remain stable for years to come. In fact, there are currently nearly thirty coal plants under construction in the US, creating jobs and a good financial outlook within the coal industry.
The demand for coal with the United States has begun to experience a decrease as utilities companies show an above average amount of coal inventory. Certain industries which had decreased their demand, such as the steel industry, have shown improvements as the economy begins to rebound. The coal industry also looks to the growing demand from Asian companies as China alone continues to bring in millions of tons of coal each year. Some coal industry analysts predict that there will be growth in the demand for coal that is between seven and ten percent each year, particularly from India and China as they purchase both thermal and metallurgical coal.
In general, coal industry experts are optimistic about the future of the coal industry in the United States and abroad. In fact, some companies claim that the biggest limitation on their ability to sell coal is simply the speed at which they are able to harvest it from mines. Of course, a number of safety incidents have given the coal industry a proverbial black eye. Long a staple of employment in areas along the East Coast, more people have grown aware of the dangers of working within the coal industry, and there is an increasing demand for an improvement in mine safety and a reduction in the news-generating accidents that have recently captured the attention of Americans.
The bottom line is that while the coal industry is full of optimism about its future financial picture, there are also a number of challenges that it is likely to face in the coming years. Increased regulation, demand for lower coal emissions, and the need for improved coal mine safety are all wild cards in the big picture for the coal industry. Investors everywhere will be watching to see if the coal industry can handle these new challenges and continue to hold its place as one of the most profitable and largest American industries.