Today in Donkin, Nova Scotia, a local councillor is talking to the press in support of a local coal mine project, saying he believes there will be demand for Maritimes coal for many years to come.
He is, of course, nuts.
It’s a sad way to open a new year, by continuing to hype the lie that coal has a future – any future at all, as anything other than a throwback way to light barbeques and shame naughty children at Christmas time.
The Market Vectors Global Coal Index (
NYSE:KOL,
Forum) was
down 57.4% over the last year, and it’s a shock that it ONLY fell that far.
Teck Resources (
TSX:TCK.B,
Forum), which pounds the stuff out, was down 71.7% in 2015, and is down 91% since the heydays of 2011. Consol Energy (
NYSE:CNX,
Forum) shed 76.6% last year. Peabody Energy (
NYSE:BTU,
Forum) collapsed by 93.3%.
Cape Breton Councillor Kevin Saccary is unperturbed, according to the Canadian Press. He says the Donkin mine, which is gearing up to reopen, will bring much-needed jobs to his economically battered area once it starts turning drills.
Of course, his predecessors have been saying that for the last eight years. They even dug tunnels for the project back in the 1980’s, at public expense, just before the mine was abandoned for several years. A crown corporation gave the property a once over, then abandoned it in 2001. The mine had filled with water until just a few months back when, suddenly, amidst terrible market conditions and after eight years of trying, someone finally got the gears turning again.
That someone is Kameron Coal, part of the mammoth US Cline Group company, for an estimated $20 million. [Note: An earlier version of this story said they picked the property up for "a bag of soccer balls and a Tim Hortons gift card." I'll coincede it would have been a large bag]
Kameron is running a job fair this week to hire for the mine, which is nice, though Saccary would likely be disheartened to hear the event will take place in Calgary, not Nova Scotia.
The reason for that is, an
Alberta coal mine closed on Christmas Eve, killing 220 jobs there in just about the least charitable way possible, and at the worst possible time, so Kameron is looking to import those knowledgeable folk before it begins production.
The plan is Nova Scotia Power to take the new mine’s coal and use it for local energy needs. That said, the Nova Scotia government has said it's looking to phase coal power out in the coming years.
The new operation promises to be
Canada’s third largest mine, even as it enters its ‘phase one’ period. Phase 2 will look to double production by 2022.
They’ll need to, because at the current coal price, anything less than a behemoth dig will struggle to bring in enough revenue to cover the vig.
Teck closed 6 mines in Alberta and BC for three weeks earlier in 2015, citing terrible global demand. In the UK a few weeks back, the
last deep pit coal mine closed its doors. 50 years ago, there were over 1,000 such mines in Britain, now none are economically viable.
Admittedly, coal mining is still big business in Canada. In 2013, eight of the top ten largest revenue-earning B.C. mines were
churning out coal, but a large chunk of those are under the Teck banner and, well, they’re not exactly throwing parties over there.
According to the Canadian Press, Catherine Abreu, energy coordinator for the Ecology Action Centre in Halifax, says coal is
a dying industry and the Donkin mine is ‘poor long-term planning for Nova Scotia.’ You’d be hard pressed to look at the numbers and disagree.
The same article that quotes Abreu, quotes Robin Campbell, former Alberta Environment Minister and now President of the Coal Association of Canada (now there’s a moral leap), in claiming ‘the coal industry is still viable.’
You’d expect him to say that, obviously, but what else he said is telling.
Campbell was quoted as saying while coal can still work, ‘governments should focus on developing green technology.’
Let’s be charitable here and assume what he’s saying is governments should focus on developing green technology ‘that allows coal to be utilized without destroying the environment so much’ (a stretch) – is that really the best hope of the coal industry? That someone, somewhere, finds a way to make poison less poisonous? How’s that working for asbestos?
There are still places where coal is king. Australian politicians seemingly really want to open new coal mines, despite global trends. The Carmichael coal mine, owned by Indian giant Adani, has been given the green light to produce up to 60 million tonnes of coal annually. That’s ten Donkin’s for a project that has been called, ‘the
dumbest, most dangerous and uneconomic development in Australia,’ by opponents. Australian banks have refused to finance the deal.
Moody’s said, in October of this year, around
half of the world’s coal just isn’t economically viable to pull out of the ground. An analyst report said, ‘further production cuts are necessary to bring the market back into balance’, which is the polar opposite of what Adani, and others, are planning.
In fact, speculation is rife that Adani will pull their coal right back to India, which is currently one of the largest importers of Canadian coal but will no doubt be the opposite of that if they can source their own a short hop away in Australia.
Canada exports around 60 million tonnes of coal annually. Adani is looking to produce 60 million tonnes of coal annually. Hmm…
Meanwhile, Australian Nathan Tinkler, who made a billion in the last coal boom before losing it all when coal collapsed, has agreed to buy a coal mine off Anglo American that has been on care and maintenance for nearly a decade, for $50 million.
Tinkler told a Reuters reporter that he believes his purchase is a very good investment, but added, “having said that, we understand there are not a lot of buyers out there for coal […] and
the investment case at the moment is tough.”
Frankly, I can think of a lot of better things to do with $50 million than buy a non-functioning coal mine, but when you’re playing with other people’s money, the decision making process gets easier.
New Hope Coal (
GREY:NHPEF,
Forum) took a 40% stake in a Rio Tinto (
NYSE:RIO,
Forum) coal mine recently for $606 million, which seems absurd when you note coal’s price is down 80% from 2008 levels, and down 1/3 from prices seen in the summer of 2012. It seems even crazier when you note Stanmore Coal bought a mine off Vale (
NYSE:VALE.P,
Forum) and Sumitomo (
OTO:SSUMY,
Forum) recently for the princely sum of $1, which seems altogether less risky.
Canadian entrepreneur of note Jim Pattison appears to be a coal bull, bucking the trend by buying up shares in coal exporters Westshore Terminals Investment Corporation (
TSX:WTE,
Forum). The company was recently told by Cloud Peak Energy Logistics (
NYSE:CLD,
Forum) that it would rather pay a series of penalties than continue to ship product through Westshore ports through 2018, which prompted a slash of quarterly dividends from $0.33 to $0.25, and was soon followed by another quarterly cut to $0.16 per share.
In February, a
special ‘stock pick’ report in the Globe and Mail touted Westshore shares as being up 50% over the previous five years, as it prepared to spend $275 million replacing old equipment and building new offices. The piece, which called the company “a play on coal for the yield-seeking investor” excused a 15% yearly stock price drop as being a side effect of talk the company might take over Ridley Terminals, the other big player in B.C.’s coal export sector, which is currently running at ¼ capacity.
And, hey, even a slashed dividend is still an actual dividend, which is nothing to be sneezed at in this market, right?
John Stephenson, chief executive at Stephenson & Co. Capital Management, was quoted as saying of Westshore that the company “is agnostic about the price of coal,” adding, “There’s nothing really to trip them up.”
Stephenson wasn’t just wrong, he was spectacularly so.
2015 saw Westshore shares crushed. TD Securities analyst Greg Barnes had opened the year with a “hold” and $34 target on the company in February, when the share price was $32. Today? It’s at $11.60.
That’s one hell of a trip-up.
Barnes was cautious about future earnings growth and estimated every 1 million tonne drop in annual Westshore export volume would see a 4% reduction in earnings. The company has seen a 6 million tonne drop in the months since and is now borrowing money for that equipment upgrade.
Let’s be honest, kids, if you see coal as a great contrarian play after all of the above - no pun intended – more power to you.
But consider this: If you owned just 7 shares of Westshore, your last quarterly dividend cheque would have been enough to outbid Stanmore Coal and buy an actual coal mine.
I’d rather buy a Kit Kat, but you’d need the dividend from an extra Westshore share to cover the price difference.
--Chris Parry
https://www.twitter.com/chrisparry