Coal mining in the United States

Coal mining in the United States is a major industry, coal being mined in 25 states, 40% on public lands. Mined tonnage reached an all-time high of 1.06 Gt (1.17 billion short tons) in 2008, but by 2015 had declined to 986 million short tons. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), in 2015 Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, and Pennsylvania produced about 639 millions of short tons (MST) representing 71% of total U.S. coal production in the United States. The U.S. is a net exporter of coal. U.S. coal exports, for which Europe is the largest customer, peaked in 2012, and have declined since. In 2015, the U.S. exported 7.0 percent of mined coal.

In 2005 coal provided approximately 50% of electricity in the United States and about 92 percent of coal consumption went to electricity generation. However, in 2016, the EIA calculated that coal would provide only 30% of electricity generation nationwide with natural gas providing 34%, nuclear, 19%, and renewables, 15%.

By January 2016, more than 25% of coal production was in bankruptcy in the United States. In 2015 four publicly-traded US coal companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, including Patriot Coal Corporation, Walter Energy, and the fourth-largest Alpha Natural Resources filed for bankruptcy protection. The second-largest producer Arch Coal and the largest producer Peabody Energy declared bankruptcy in 2016. By March 2017, the coal industry employed approximately 77,000 miners. 60,000 jobs have been lost since 2011.

Nationwide, US coal production peaked in 2008, and has declined since then, with 896 million short tons produced in 2015, representing a drop of 10.3% year-over-year, the lowest annual production level since 1986. The price of coal had dropped 50% since 2011. When Arch Coal filed for bankruptcy protection, it was $4.5 billion in debt.

1 short ton = 0.907184 metric tonnes

The three regions producing the largest amount of coal are Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana, the Appalachian Basin and the Illinois Basin. In the United States, coal production declined from 2008 but the decline was unevenly distributed. Production from the largest coal mining-region in the U.S., the Powder River Basin, with most of the coal buried too deeply to be economically accessible, declined 16 percent, the Appalachian Basin declined 32 percent 2008 to 2014 and the Illinois Basin increased its production 39 percent from 2008 to 2014. In 2015, five states—Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, and Pennsylvania—produced almost 3/4 of all coal production nationwide. Wyoming produced 375.8 million short tons representing 42% of U. S. coal production, West Virginia produced 95.6 million short tons or 11%, Kentucky was third with 61.4 or 7%, Illinois was fourth with 56.1 or 6% and Pennsylvania was fifth with 50.0 or 6%.

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