Nut coal shortage

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TigerLab
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Post by TigerLab » Fri. Nov. 23, 2018 3:46 pm

I stopped in Tamaqua at a coal delivery guy and he said that nut coal is impossible to find this year.

Anyone else hearing this?


 
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Post by KingCoal » Fri. Nov. 23, 2018 4:20 pm

i cautioned Matt about setting up dealers faster than they can break and screen coal.

his success would make slim supplies understandable since the average production is being sent many more places now.

 
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Rob R.
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Post by Rob R. » Fri. Nov. 23, 2018 4:26 pm

I think the main problem is too many people wait until this time of the year to order coal, but I have also been told that the unusually went summer & fall made it very tough to keep the mines in operation, and very little coal has been stockpiled.

 
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CoalisCoolxWarm
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Post by CoalisCoolxWarm » Fri. Nov. 23, 2018 4:58 pm

Uh-oh. I get mine monthly. It's a budget and storage capacity issue for us.

We get Buckwheat Reading Coal through our local dealer.

Is this expected to affect other sizes, too?

 
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coaledsweat
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Post by coaledsweat » Fri. Nov. 23, 2018 5:01 pm

It varies on sizes season to season but yes, coal gets scarce when the weather is cold. Best time to buy is spring/summer. And it's cheaper then too.

 
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tcalo
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Post by tcalo » Fri. Nov. 23, 2018 5:21 pm

coaledsweat wrote:
Fri. Nov. 23, 2018 5:01 pm
Best time to buy is spring/summer. And it's cheaper then too.
No price difference throughout the year in my area. Same price year round.

 
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Richard S.
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Post by Richard S. » Fri. Nov. 23, 2018 8:57 pm

CoalisCoolxWarm wrote:
Fri. Nov. 23, 2018 4:58 pm
We get Buckwheat Reading Coal through our local dealer.
Nut and rice are the sizes that typically will become scarce, it's not something unusual this time of the year. Of course you should be able to use pea if you are using nut and many stokers that use rice can use buckwheat. Buckwheat followed by pea are the least popular sizes so you shouldn't have any trouble obtaining them.

Busiest time of the year is from September until the end of the month. Demand will slow for December and then it it will pick up at the end of January as the people who get two loads a year get their second delivery. Sometimes there is a minor shortage in January/Feb if there is cold snap, between the higher demand and some breakers not being able to run it can put a strain on the supply.

Generally speaking there has always been these dire warnings about coal shortages posted here but they usually blow over pretty quick and are forgotten in a couple of weeks. There was only one year I had any concern when I was delivering, think it may have been '08. They had no stock of rice and we were taking it as fast as they could make it but they did catch up eventually.


 
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Post by hank2 » Sat. Nov. 24, 2018 12:47 am

When I got a load of bulk nut in Sept., they must have been scraping the yard. It was a half ton short of what I ordered. I realize it gets estimated. It was about 25 % pea, 25% nut, 40% stove and 10% egg. True range coal! It's been working fine. Like Richard wrote, busy time for loads.

I remember the shortages in '08. I didn't resume coal burning until the next year, but there were some newspaper articles about no coal to be had for a while. At least in Berks and Lehigh counties. Sometime around the late 70's or early 80's there was a very bad, long coal shortage, at least for rice. Late Spring or Summer I think. A kind neighbor finally found a ton or two of Jeddo for me at a distant feed mill around Allentown and hauled it in his old heavy farm truck. That was probably the only time that particular bin had likely been completely empty in decades. Found blue painted coal at the very bottom.

 
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Richard S.
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Post by Richard S. » Sat. Nov. 24, 2018 10:00 pm

hank2 wrote:
Sat. Nov. 24, 2018 12:47 am
When I got a load of bulk nut in Sept., they must have been scraping the yard. It was a half ton short of what I ordered. I realize it gets estimated.
If you are buying in bulk you should get weightmaster certificate with the purchase, that's the law.

Weightmaster Certificate for Bulk Coal Sales

 
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Post by hank2 » Sun. Nov. 25, 2018 12:21 am

Richard S. wrote:
Sat. Nov. 24, 2018 10:00 pm
If you are buying in bulk you should get weightmaster certificate with the purchase, that's the law.

Weightmaster Certificate for Bulk Coal Sales

Yes, in my case I had the weighmaster receipt. I was just thinking that when loading before weigh out they were estimating the load. Or they really were about out of coal on that day. A half ton short is not a big deal. I'll have to get that extra half ton or more, eventually. Might be a long extended Winter ( again).

 
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Post by McGiever » Sun. Nov. 25, 2018 1:51 am

Ahh, some coal producers supply more than us residential home heating customers. And they will buy more total coal in a year than most any of us will.

 
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Post by CoalJockey » Sun. Nov. 25, 2018 7:31 am

In the past if things were running very tight we have had to ration it out a bit. If someone came and asked for a ton we would give them a half ton so there was some for the next customer. However we made sure that the customer was aware of this before they were loaded.

A little inconvenient for the said customer but in times of few we just did what we needed to do.

 
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Post by Blaschak Coal » Mon. Nov. 26, 2018 8:33 am

Over the Summer months several of the smaller operators were not running or were crushing larger sizes in order to supply industrial accounts like steel mills that use fines like barley and No.5 as injection carbon in steel production. This was done for cash flow over the summer months when people weren't buying coal for home heating. With the wet weather it was difficult for many to run their strippings. Now that the coal is needed for home heating raw coal supply is low for many of the producers. With the raw coal supply low some are unable to run. This is all temporary and part of the anthracite cycle. Blaschak (and others) are fortunate to have multiple mining operations keeping us with a good supply of raw coal. However, you can only run so many hours of the day. I know that Reading, Lehigh and Blaschak are all running as many hours as possible to try to meet the temporary demand. Like coaledsweat said, it is best to buy over the Summer.

 
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Post by tcalo » Thu. Nov. 29, 2018 12:02 pm

Just ordered 4 tons of bulk nut from my local coal yard. Taking delivery 12/11. No shortage here! Same exact price as last year.

 
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Post by bambooboy » Thu. Nov. 29, 2018 6:56 pm

just got 3 ton nut this week,225 ton, 10 dollars cheaper than last year.ellison trucking in freeland md near pa line. he also said coal yards said to wait 2 weeks before another big load.


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