By Tyler Godwin and Keiron Greenhalgh

June 22, 2018 - Utility company Entergy Texas bought 140,977 st of coal in April, up 30.3% from the 108,165 st purchased a month earlier, according to a regulatory filing made public Tuesday.

The utility told the Public Utility Commission of Texas it bought 67,113 st of coal for its 241-MW Big Cajun No. 2 plant and 73,401 st for its 385-MW Nelson-6 unit, compared with 43,120 st and 63,461 st purchased in March, respectively, according to the filing. 

The remaining 463 st was listed as physical inventory adjustments, compared with 1,584 st in adjustments a month earlier.

In the year-ago month, 293,685 st was delivered to the Big Cajun plant, while no coal was delivered to the Nelson plant, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration.

The Entergy unit paid roughly $4.99 million for the coal, or $35.43/st, compared with $3.85 million, or $35.56/st in March, according to the filing.

The average heat content for Big Cajun No. 2 was 8,458 Btu/lb, while Nelson-6 averaged 8,472 Btu/lb for coal from the Powder River Basin.

Roughly $2.54 million, or $37.81/st, worth of coal was delivered to Big Cajun No. 2, while $2.38 million, or $32.44/st, worth of coal was bought for the Nelson unit.

The filing did not provide any details on the suppliers of April's coal. In the year-ago month, 146,003 st was supplied by Kiewit's Buckskin mine, while 82,183 st was supplied by Arch Coal's Black Thunder and Coal Creek mines and 32,664 st was from Peabody's Caballo mine. The remaining 32,835 st was from Blackjewel's Eagle Butte mine, although it was owned by Contura Energy at the time.

March and April are usually slower months for utilities, which tend to carry out maintenance at that time of the year.

In April, Nelson-6 generated 6,798 MWh of power, which cost $200,869 or $29.55/MWh, compared with 8,100 MWh at a cost of $150,899, or $18.63/MWh a month earlier. Big Cajun No. 2 did not generate power in April, compared with 57,485 MWh produced in March.

Big Cajun No. 2 opened in 1983 and is located in New Roads, Louisiana, while Nelson-6 began operations in 1982 and is in Westlake, Louisiana. 

CoalZoom.com - Your Foremost Source for Coal News