Lamberts Point rail coal export volumes to rise: NS
Coal shipments to eastern US railroad Norfolk Southern’s (NS) Lamberts Point terminal in Hampton Roads, Virginia, should continue to be elevated for at least the early months of this year, driven by greater metallurgical coal volumes, a company executive said.
This month “will be the biggest February we’ve had in 10 years,” Brad Yeatts, NS’ group vice president for coal, said at the American Coal Council’s Miami Coal Forum on 21 February. That is building on momentum from December and January, when NS’ shipments to Lamberts Point were the strongest in four years, Yeatts said.
Some of the gains in recent months may be a result of recovering rail service to the terminal. Last year, coking coal shipments to the US east coast were “a tale of two cities” at NS, Yeatts said. The railroad set delivery records at Baltimore, Maryland, terminals, but struggled at Lamberts Point after February 2023 following the railroad’s derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
In the aftermath of the “well-publicized” event, “our transits didn’t do what they’re supposed to do, and we probably left about a million tons of demand still on the ground at Lamberts Point,” Yeats said.
Increased railcar capacity has helped boost shipments. NS also has increased railcar dumping operations at Lamberts Point to three shifts per day and has begun dumping cars on both sides of the pier.
NS expects to be handling more coking coal this year, benefiting from development of 3-4 new mines in Appalachia. There are also some new coal train loading points in development that are on the railroad’s lines.
“We are on the origin development side a lot more these days,” Yeatts said. That’s part of NS’ strategy to manage future coal demand.
“And that’s one of the things that keeps us up at night is making sure, especially now with all the capacity at Lamberts Point, we have enough coal to feed the beast” he said.
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- On March 5, 2024