The USA’s Energy Information Administration has put out preliminary statistics which suggest the country’s coal output was down about 1% in 1999. If the figures are confirmed officially, the fall would be the first in nearly a decade.
The EIA’s early estimates put calendar 1999 production at 1,000,463 tonnes, compared with 1,010,153t in 1998. It was the sixth consecutive year US coal production exceeded one billion tonnes. The preliminary estimates for 1999 had production east of the Mississippi River at 492,208,039t, down 4.6% on the previous 12 months, and production west of the Mississippi River up 2.9% to 508,254,683t.
