Powder River Basin coal production totaled 78.2 million st in the first quarter, down 6.2% from fourth quarter of 2017 and 6.8% from the year-ago quarter, US Mine Safety and Health Administration data shows.
Quarterly production has been sliding due to availability of cheap natural gas fueling a considerable amount of coal-to-gas switching and increased focus on renewables as well as coal plant retirements
The PRB 8,800 Btu/lb mines -- Cloud Peak Energy's Antelope mine, Arch Coal's Black Thunder mine and Peabody Energy's North Antelope/Rochelle mine -- produced 50.7 million st in Q1, up 1.5% from Q4 2017.
Production from PRB 8,400 Btu/lb mines totaled 21.1 million st, down 21.5% from Q4 2017 and 22.6% from the year-ago quarter.
The basin's biggest mine remains Peabody's North Antelope/Rochelle mine, which produced 26.3 million st, up 1.3% from Q4 2017. The quarterly total was roughly 26.1% of all the coal mined in the western region in the quarter.
Arch Coal's Black Thunder was the second largest producer in the quarter, mining 17.7 million st, up 2.1% from Q4 2017 but down 2.6% from the year ago quarter.
Cloud Peak's Antelope mine came in at third producing 6.7 million st, up 1.1% from Q4 2017 but down 10.3% from the year-ago quarter.
All the three mines are in Wyoming.
Contura Energy's Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr mines were the fourth and fifth largest producing mines, mining a total of 7.9 million st in the quarter.
The over-the-counter price for PRB 8,800 Btu/lb coal for delivery in January-March of this year averaged $12.62/st. By contract, those prices a year ago were $11.85/st.
In the last five years, quarterly PRB coal production peaked at 110.4 million st in the fourth quarter of 2014.
The PRB in Wyoming and Montana is the nation's largest coal production basin, and virtually all of the 334 million st produced last year was consumed by the nation's power sector. Coal from the basin makes up roughly half of US power sector coal consumption.
