China Coal Needs Driving Business at Port of Baltimore

The Port of Baltimore was prominently featured on National Public Radio in a report that analyzed the factors behind the current boom in the coal industry and what it means for the global economy these days. 

From Consol Energy officials to coal heaver Larry Bobbitt (also known as LarryBob), the NPR story focused on the incredible boom in Chinese demand for metallurgical coal and the benefits it is bringing to the Consol terminal at the Baltimore port, which now has twice as many workers as it did a year ago. 

Many like coal heaver LarryBob are working 12-hour shifts, six days a week, as Consol scrambles to bring its coal from western Pennsylvania and West Virginia by rail to Baltimore and then load it onto massive ships to send it halfway around the world—mainly to China. 

LarryBob—who sits atop a crane high in the sky loading the coal into basketball court-sized containers aboard the ships—is the last man to see the coal before it leaves for China. It's a fascinating and informative report.  You can hear it here.

It's an up-close look at the way the global economy works and what it means for the Port of Baltimore. The only caveat: It might be better if some of this met coal was going into domestic steel mills rather than those in China. But that's a story for another day.