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Short-Term Energy Outlook

Release Date: August 6, 2019  |  Next Release Date: September 10, 2019  |  Full Report    |   Text Only   |   All Tables   |   All Figures

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Coal

  • EIA expects electric power sector demand for coal to fall by 2% in 2020, compared with an expected decline of 15% in 2019. However, planned coal plant retirements will continue to put downward pressure on overall electricity demand for the fuel. Almost 13 gigawatts of coal-fired electricity generation capacity has retired this year or is scheduled to retire by the end of 2020, accounting for 5% of the capacity existing at the end of 2018.

U.S. coal production

U.S. coal consumption

U.S. electric power sector coal stocks

U.S. Coal Summary
  2017201820192020
Prices (dollars per million Btu)
Electric Power Sector 2.062.062.092.12
Supply (million short tons)
U.S. Coal Production 774.6755.5687.9651.0
Imports 7.86.06.15.4
Exports 97.0115.6100.090.4
Consumption (million short tons)
Electric Power Sector 665.0636.5538.1525.9
Other Sectors 51.950.851.049.8
Total Consumption 716.9687.3589.0575.7
End of Period Inventories (million short tons)
Electric Power Sector 137.7102.8109.0108.3
Total Inventories 167.0132.1137.7137.1

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Related Tables
Table 1. U.S. Energy Markets Summary PDF
Table 2. Energy Prices PDF
Table 6. U.S. Coal Supply, Consumption, and Inventories PDF
Table 9a. U.S. Macroeconomic Indicators and CO2 Emissions PDF
Table 9b. U.S. Regional Macroeconomic Data PDF
Table 9c. U.S. Regional Weather Data PDF
Related Figures
U.S. coal production XLSX PNG
U.S. coal consumption XLSX PNG
U.S. electric power sector coal stocks XLSX PNG
U.S. electricity generation by fuel, all sectors XLSX PNG
U.S. carbon dioxide emissions growth XLSX PNG
U.S. summer cooling degree days XLSX PNG
U.S. winter heating degree days XLSX PNG
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