U.S. coal exports surged last year in Honduras, which has been the target of barbs from the president related to immigration and border security.
Honduras showed a 242 percent year-to-date increase in U.S. coal in the third quarter, making it the largest increase in coal of any country in 2018, according to new federal Energy Information Administration data released last week detailing production and exports from the past three quarters of the year. EIA is the Energy Department’s independent analysis arm.
Trump had referred to a caravan of thousands of Hondurans seeking to migrate to the U.S. as an “invasion,” sending troops to the border in an effort to head them off.
Trump also said during a rally in November that Honduras does nothing for the U.S. and that he will be cutting foreign aid the U.S. sends there very soon.
At the same time, Trump has made exporting more coal a key part of his “energy dominance” agenda.
The number two country for increasing imports of U.S. coal for power plants was Pakistan. Other more traditional allies, like Canada, France, and Germany, cut their imports of coal last year, according to the Energy Department.
Meanwhile, Greece, Poland, and Italy saw sizable increases in U.S. coal imports, increasing their imports by 100 percent or more.
Asia saw the largest increase in U.S. coal imports: 66 percent from the previous year. China increased its coal imports by 40 percent, but that’s a far cry from the increases made by India and Pakistan, which led the region in the amount of new coal imports from the United States.
The agency released a number of reports on U.S. coal last week, showing more coal going to overseas power plants in the last two years since Trump was inaugurated president than in the last year of previous administration, even as total production is expected to wane in 2019.
The Energy Department’s latest short-term outlook shows U.S. coal exports for supplying overseas power plants are at a three-year high, rising nearly 4.5 percent in the third quarter of last year alone.
Steam coal exports for power plants rose by 4.4 percent in the third quarter of 2018 to 14.5 million tons, taking up the slack from waning demand for metallurgical coal required to make steel.
Overall, the Energy Department sees total coal exports totaling 113 million tons once the fourth quarter data comes in for 2018. Exports will reach 102 million tons in 2019, according to its most recent forecast.
Exports to Honduras rose from just under 36,000 tons in 2017 to over 123,000 tons in 2018.
Meanwhile, domestic consumption of coal surged to 194 million tons in the third quarter of 2018, marking a 23.9 percent increase from the 156 million tons reported in the second quarter.
Nevertheless, consumption was still 4.6 percent lower than the 203.5 million tons reported in the third-quarter of 2017.
Nearly all the U.S. demand for coal last year came from the electricity sector, around 94 percent.
EIA expects U.S. coal production will total 762 million tons in 2018, which is down about 2 percent from the previous year.
It will reach 742 million tons in 2019, which marks a 3 percent drop from 2018.
