From Stark
Writing in Sightline Daily, analyst Eric de Place notes recent weakness in Chinese demand for coal. He suggests that industry analysts may have exaggerated China’s potential coal appetite, and proposed Northwest coal export terminals like Gateway Pacific in Whatcom County may not make economic sense.
De Place’s essay includes links to several articles in financial news outlets, noting weak coal demand in China.
In this Reuters report, Greg Boyce, chairman and chief executive of coal giant Peabody Energ, acknowledges a downturn but says the long-term outlook for Chinese coal demand remains strong.
I never liked the idea of the GPT. It is pie-in-the-sky corporate promises versus very real long-term, and possibly devastating, environmental degradation. Corporate hacks, like the “Good Jobs Now” campaign, are promoting misinformation to get simple-minded voters to do the corporate bidding for them, knowing full well that GPT won’t provide jobs until 2016, if at all, since SSA Marine has a history of bringing in their own workers.
Therefore, I am glad that China needs less coal, which questions the economic viability of the project
Duh!
Not only is China’s economy slowing dramatically, they have just vowed to reduce their coal usage by 300 million tonnes per year due to problems with severe pollution due to burning coal. GPT didn’t make sense before, and now it makes even LESS sense. Maybe now the Snow Jobs Now folks can refocus their efforts on truly good jobs for our citizens. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they just faded away into the sunset.
Be careful Frank… those same simple-minded voters are going to try to vote in a new President.
And if I’m correct, “Good Jobs Now” is the brainchild of Craig Cole, who is getting paid very well to get simple-minded voters to jump on the bandwagon. He thinks it’s as simple as selling groceries, which he wasn’t very good at.
Sorry, I’m a little testy today.
Natural Gas used to be 7 times the cost of Coal in terms of BTUs as recent as 2006. Now Natural Gas is cheaper than Coal. In addition, NG is 20% more efficient and much, much less polluting.
China will go for the best bang for the buck and for now, that is Natural Gas. Coal exports have no future.
It’s really pretty simple, when you have the leader of the free world downsizings the economic machine that drives the world economy most other nations of the world will have to downsize accordingly now if that leader was to change to someone who is pro growth and not anti growth, well that’s a horse of a different color!
Methinks if the people who want to build us a port do so without a market today betting on a market tomorrow we still will be better off; market or no market, with the jobs create to build that port, don’t ya know!!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!