By Tyler Godwin

February 17, 2019 - Dominion Terminal Associates loaded and exported 144,438 st of coal on three coal carriers at its Newport News, Virginia, pier in the week ended February 15, down from four with 274,969 st a week earlier, company data showed Friday.

The terminal, which is owned by Contura Energy (65%) and Arch Coal (35%) and served by CSX, loaded the Epictetus with 13,094 st of coal on Sunday, the DTA data showed. The ship is currently docked at Pier IX, which is owned and operated by Kinder Morgan, according to cFlow, S&P Global Platts trade-flow software.

The Navios Southern Star loaded 47,840 st on Monday and is expected to reach Ijmuiden, Netherlands, on February 25, according to the data and cFlow.

On Thursday, 83,504 st was loaded onto the Kiran Eurasia vessel, which departed for the Port of Gibraltar on the south coast of Spain. The ship is expected to arrive on February 25.

The Andante and Rio Grita are currently anchored at the pier, and as of 11 am EST (1600 GMT), the Andante had loaded 85,968 st, but the Stonington Eagle had not started loading the scheduled 55,225 st.

Five coal carriers are currently anchored near Cape Charles, outside of Hampton Roads, that are waiting to load coal at one of the three terminals, but only one is currently scheduled to load at DTA. Last week, eight were waiting near Cape Charles.

So far this month, nine ships have departed DTA with 529,189 st on board. In January, 17 ships with 1.16 million st left DTA, down from 18 in December that exported 1.24 million st.

Since January 1, 25 ships have left DTA with 1.69 million st of coal on board.

Including the ships at the pier and those departed, DTA currently has 18 ships scheduled to arrive in February that will load 1.11 million st of coal, while another 26 are estimated in March to export 1.38 million st, according to the company data.

DTA is the second largest of the three coal terminals in the Hampton Roads region. In 2018, the terminal exported 15.82 million st of coal, up 23.4% year on year, according to data from the Virginia Maritime Association. The 15.82 million st was only behind Norfolk Southern-owned Lamberts Point, which exported 17.16 million st.