How's That War On Coal Going? Update From India -- November 9, 2015

I don't know the best way to handle this. It's been a problem from the start. I hate to clutter the blog with a lot of unrelated, non-Bakken energy stories, but those stories are critically important (at least to me) to help put the Bakken into perspective. [If I had not been following these other stories, based on what I read in The Los Angeles Times I would have thought that the entire world had gone to intermittent energy (wind and solar) and that the oil companies had converted their rigs to wind turbines/towers and solar panel supports.]

I track these unrelated, non-Bakken energy stories elsewhere, but if I just provide a link, there is risk that the link will break some months down the road, and the gist of the story will be gone; on the other hand, if I post excerpts of the story at the site where I track such things, the one page would become excessively long.

So, until something better comes along, I will continue to clutter the blog with these unrelated, non-Bakken energy stories, and then link them at the page where I track such events.

Tracking these stories begins over at "the big stories." One of the big stories I track is natural gas and coal in the post-nuclear world.  I break that subject into countries or regions of interest, for example India, which leads me to this story sent to my be Don early this morning, from SeekingAlpha:
GE will invest $200 million in Indian Railways --

India GE announced today it will invest $200 million to develop and supply Indian Railways with 1,000 diesel locomotives.

The company received a Letter of Award from the Ministry of Railways for a locomotive supply and maintenance contract, worth approximately $2.6 billion over 11 years.

The deal advances the Make in India initiative and reinforces Indias position as a global manufacturing destination. The largest deal in GEs 100-year history in India, the company will build a diesel locomotive manufacturing facility in Marhowra district in the Indian state of Bihar, as well as maintenance sheds at Bhatinda in Punjab and Gandhidham in Gujarat. This effort is a major boost to Indias railway modernization efforts, and will provide skill development opportunities for local talent.

I always love how some very important details always seem to be buried in the story. Dollar amounts seem not to catch my interest but that 's the lede in so many of these stories. For me the big story was that this is the largest deal in GE's 100-year history in India.

There are so many story lines.

First, and foremost, less than five years ago, in the energy business, GE seemed to be all about wind turbines. I assume that's still a big part of GE (I don't know; I don't follow GE very closely; and don't write me about GE and wind turbines; I don't have the time; I have my myth, my world view, and I don't want facts to confuse me) but some years ago GE made a strategic shift from intermittent energy to dependable energy. See two stories on GE's recent move into Europe: from The Wall Street Journal and from Forbes.

The Indian story above does not say what the locomotive story is all about, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to suggest that it's all about coal. From the blog back in September, 2014, the same link as one of the links above:

Blackouts in India widened as inadequate coal supplies forced plants to shut down, after increased industrial activity and a monsoon deficit boosted electricity demand from factories and households.

The national peak shortage yesterday expanded to more than 6 percent from the 3.9 percent average in July, according to data from the Power Ministry and Power System Operation Corp., a unit of Power Grid Corp. of India. Stocks at power stations run on local coal plunged. Equipment breakdowns or maintenance also caused other plants to be under shutdown, including ones operated by Tata Power Co. and Adani Power Ltd.

A surge in economic activity has led to higher demand for the fuel, exacerbating supply bottlenecks caused by heavy rains at some mines and slow railway transport in places. India’s economy grew at the fastest pace in more than two years, the Central Statistical Office said in a statement in New Delhi yesterday. Slow economic activity had caused coal stocks at power plants to swell last year.

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Earnings

Reporting today:

• Arch Coal (ACI), forecast a loss of $5.45; much, much better -- only a loss of $3.38/share; Arch Coal soars after earnings beat; up as much as 10%; Revenue decreased to $688.5 million, down from $742.2 million for the year-ago period. Analysts surveyed at Zacks were expecting the company to report a wider loss of $5.79 per share on revenue of $688.29 million.

I guess that's it; nothing else, unless I missed something, interests me.