According to the latest US Census data, US metallurgical coal exports in December totaled 4.2 million mt, up 20.7 percent from November and up 47.9 percent from December 2015. The December 2016 total was the highest total since March 2015.
For the full year 2016, US metallurgical coal exports totaled 37.1 million mt, down 11 percent from 2015. Metallurgical coal made up 75.4 percent of US coal exports in 2016, compared with 62 percent in 2015.
Top metallurgical coal export destinations in December were Brazil, which imported 776,991 mt compared with 167,715 mt in the year-ago month; the Netherlands, which imported 446,768 mt in December compared with 491,957 mt in December 2015; and Canada, which imported 440,120 mt in December compared with 550,611 mt last year.
For 2016, the largest importers of US metallurgical coal were Brazil, at 6.2 million mt compared with 5.6 million mt last year; the Netherlands, at 3.7 million mt compared with 4.1 million mt last year; and Japan, at 3.6 million mt compared with 3.2 million mt last year.