The Indian media has been all over the recent scandal over the country’s coal allotments—the system where the state’s resources are divvied up among companies. And the various articles are of obvious interest to Kentucky, where a private company recently inked a $7 billion deal to send up to 9 million tons of Appalachian coal to India every year for the next twenty-five years.
Last week, there was huge news for the coal industry. Kentucky coal producers signed a deal to export up to nine million tons of coal a year for the next 25 years, to the reported tune of $7 billion.
A recent deal to send millions of tons of Appalachian coal to India could bring billions of dollars to Kentucky coal producers over the next twenty-five years. But it’s not very good news for climate change.
The deal will ship up to nine million tons of Appalachian coal to India for the next 25 years. This is a lot of coal—nine million tons is actually about equivalent to the amount of coal purchased by the state of Virginia in 2010.
Nine million tons of Appalachian coal will be heading to India this year, after a new deal was announced yesterday between several Kentucky coal producers and an Indian company. This is good news for the struggling Kentucky coal industry—but it may not be enough.
