Teck Resources hasn’t experienced much of an impact to their sale of steelmaking coal despite rifts between Canada and China, or ongoing trade disputes between China and the United States.
In 2018, Teck Resources sold 26 million tonnes of steelmaking coal to customers around the world, with five of six of Teck’s steelmaking coal operations based in the Elk Valley. As per their unaudited results from 2019’s second quarter, Teck made a gross profit of $1.1 billion, compared to $1.2 billion in the same period in 2018.
According to Sparwood Mayor David Wilks, the trade impacts aren’t hampering Teck’s ability to get their resources to market, which in turn is good news for the Elk Valley economy.
“Teck Coal is still turning out the coal and they still have their significant coal trains that are coming through with CP Rail,” Wilks told MyEastKootenayNow.com. “They have an active coal market not only to China, but to Japan, Korea, and other places around the world and there’s a high demand for coking coal or metallurgical coal to make steel, including in China.”
Despite the trade disputes brewing between the United States and China or the high tensions between Canada and China, Wilks said there is still an opportunity to export steelmaking coal and that the product is valued around the globe.
“Those demands are based upon steel making capability around the world,” said Wilks. “At this point in time, there is still a great demand for metallurgical coal coming out of the Elk Valley throughout the world.”
Wilks told MyEastKootenayNow.com that the Elk Valley mines including Coal Mountain, Elkview, Fording River, Greenhills, and Line Creek haven’t been affected by the political tensions, as the mines continue to hire and continue to produce their metallurgical coal for global markets.