The publisher said the handbook combined an exhaustive, no-nonsense analysis of the United States and global coal markets with comprehensive coverage of coal trading techniques and risk management strategies.

"We created this product for companies with ‘coal capital’ at risk: hedge funds, electric utilities, coal companies, merchant generators, banks, energy traders, bankers, energy analysts, railroads, barge lines and PUC commissioners," said co-author Stephen Doyle, founder of Doyle Trading Consultants.

"I have been in the coal business since 1983 as a scheduler, exporter, importer, salesman, buyer, negotiator, OTC trader and futures trader.

“Over the years, I have established a reputation for developing and executing successful trading and hedging strategies for premier companies such as Ruhrkohle Trading, Integrity International, Peabody Coaltrade, Vitol/Avista, Sithe Energies and Allegheny Energy.

“My outcome was to transfer my coal industry experience and my trading acumen into the Coal Trading Handbook. This is a reference manual and a trading manual wrapped up into one."

Doyle said the collaboration with Hill & Associates and leading coal and emissions broker Evolution Markets allowed the inclusion of proprietary data and analysis not available elsewhere.

“Our goal is that the Coal Trading Handbook becomes the 'Physician's Desk Reference' of the energy industry,” Doyle said.

The handbook has 400 pages of information and commentary on every market driver that affects the coal sector: mining techniques, physical characteristics of coal, combustion methods, coal reserves, transportation costs, inventories, mining companies, supply/demand drivers, price volatility drivers, utilities, merchant generators, synfuel plants, importers/exporters, traditional risk management techniques, OTC participants, details of standardized OTC products, regulated/unregulated trading groups, futures trading, the principles of hedging, basis trading, options trading, swaps trading, equity trading, tips for working with OTC brokers, OTC FAQ's, the use of structured products, how to interpret forward curves, the function of the back office, the role of the risk manager and prognostications on the future of coal the coal sector and coal trading.

Also included are tables, charts and graphs, such as global steam/coking coal flows, volatility curves, basis trends, market participants, coal curves, emission curves, ocean freight curves, energy correlation matrices, option pay-outs, equity charts, OTC trading volume, and regional coal consumption by electricity regions.

The Coal Trading Handbook concludes with a fifteen-page chapter titled: A Day in the Life of a Coal Trader. This puts the reader in the shoes of an OTC trader and takes them minute-by-minute through a roller-coaster of a trading day.

Not only is it a very entertaining chapter, it was designed to bring many of the concepts covered in the handbook into a real-life setting.

A six-page, detailed table of contents, a five-page Introduction to the Coal Trading Handbook and excerpts from 21 chapters can be downloaded from Doyle Trading Consultants' website: http://www.coaltradinghandbook.com