Foreign companies are buying up U.S. coal mines.
In a statement on Nov. 12, the chairman of Coal India Ltd., a state-controlled entity and the world’s largest coal producer, with a near-monopoly on Indian coal mining, confirmed that the firm was in talks with several U.S. coal companies to buy stakes in mines throughout the continental U.S. According to the Associated Press, Coal India has budgeted $1.2 billion this year alone to buy American, Australian, and Indonesian coal mines. Facing voracious energy demands and a yawning gap between domestic supplies of coal and projected needs, the company is going on a global buying spree.
It is not alone. Reliance Industries, also of India, bought a $3.4 billion stake in three U.S. shale gas companies earlier this year. In March, India’s Essar Group acquired Trinity Coal for $600 million; the company has active mines in Kentucky and West Virginia. China’s ENN Energy Trading, a subsidiary of one of China’s largest natural gas companies, signed a preliminary purchase agreement in early November with Cheniere Energy for 20 years of processing capacity at Cheniere’s Sabine Pass LNG termi... Read more
