Coal exports out of Hampton Roads, Virginia, climbed last month by 25pc from a year earlier, partly because mine production issues and weather disruptions hindered loadings at the port in January 2025.

Hampton Roads terminals loaded nearly 2.74mn short tons (2.49mn metric tonnes) of coal in January, up from 2.2mn st in the same month last year, the Virginia Maritime Association reported on Monday.

Last month’s loadings were also 9.2pc above December 2025 volumes, but the increases might not have been indicative of a fundamental rebound in market conditions. While prices for metallurgical coal, which make up the majority of coal shipments out of Hampton Roads, were at four-month highs, the seaborne coking coal market was still considered to be well supplied. There also was limited interest in exporting US thermal coal even though those prices also were at multi-month highs.

Loadings in January 2025 were at a near four-year low following some mining setbacks. Core Natural Resources, which co-owns the Dominion Terminal Associates (DTA) facility at Hampton Roads with Alpha Metallurgical Resources, had to idle its Leer South metallurgical mine in West Virginia in mid-January 2025 because of an underground fire. The mine remained off line for most of last year, briefly reopening in the middle of 2025 and then remaining closed until mid-December while the company addressed high carbon monoxide readings.

In addition, Alpha in early 2025 said severe snow and flooding in January and February weighed on the company’s ability to produce and transport coal. Alpha added that it could not buy as much coal from third party producers, all of which faced similar weather-related disruptions during the same period.

While a winter storm and extreme freeze hit much of the US in the last week of January this year, eastern US mining operations were mostly unaffected, and the weather conditions only caused minor delays loading coal from the mines onto railcars for shipment.

Coal export loadings at DTA had the greatest increase last month when compared with a year earlier, climbing by 69pc to 1.05mn st. Kinder Morgan’s Pier IX export loadings rose by 15pc to 557,710st in January on the year, and Norfolk Southern’s Lamberts Point terminal handled 1.13mn st, up by 3.7pc from the previous year.

Export coal markets remained relatively lackluster in January, but pricing was slightly more favorable than it had been in the back half of 2025.

The monthly average price for US high-volatile type A metallurgical coal out of Hampton Roads reached $156/t fob in January, its highest since September 2025. But that was still down from $178.45/t in January 2025.

On the thermal side, the midpoint of the high-low range for prompt two-month shipments of 6,000 kcal/kg steam coal out of Hampton Roads averaged a six-month high of $104.41/t fob last month but still was down from $108.75/t a year earlier.

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