McDuffie Coal Terminal

The McDuffie Coal Terminal of Alabama is the second largest coal terminal in the United States and largest import coal terminal, and is part of the Alabama State Port Authority's Port of Mobile, the largest bulk forest products port in the United States. In 2008, the Port of Mobile had a trade volume of 67,635,501 tons.

The port is located along the Mobile River where it empties into Mobile Bay. The Port of Mobile has public, deepwater terminals with access to 1,500 miles of inland and intracoastal waterways into the the Great Lakes, the Ohio River and Tennessee River river valleys (via the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway), and the Gulf of Mexico. The Alabama State Port Authority owns and operates the public terminals at the Port of Mobile. The port is also home to private bulk terminal operators. The container, general cargo and bulk facilities have immediate access to two Interstate Highway System systems and five Class I railroads.

Coal port expansion
The Alabama State Port Authority has announced $360M to be spent over five years to improve infrastructure at the port, which may include land acquisition, new rail and inter-modal yards, and cargo terminal investments for deep-water oil and gas field vessels and equipment.

The Alabama State Port Authority hopes that two customers - Drummond Company and Walter Energy - will foot the bill for a proposed $9.5 million project to add export capacity at the McDuffie Coal Terminal. On Feb. 22, 2011, authority members voted to give state docks Director Jimmy Lyons the power to contract for a second shiploader at the terminal if he can reach an agreement with the Drummond Company and Walter Energy to pay for it by accepting a surcharge on top of the fees they normally pay to export coal through the terminal. The amount of metallurgical coal shipped from the Port of Mobile is rising due to increased demand from overseas steelmakers and widespread flooding in Australia in 2010, which shut down several coal mines there.

Demand for export coal is increasing so much that Birmingham-based Walter had recently purchased the Mobile River Terminal for $35 million to increase its shipping capacity. Company officials said that they still planned to use McDuffie as well. McDuffie has two shiploaders, but one of them is broken. Lyons said McDuffie currently has capacity to export between 10 million tons and 12 million tons of coal a year. A new shiploader, to be built by Shanghai-based ZPMC, would expand capacity by about 50 percent. If Drummond and Walter do not agree to a surcharge to fund the improvements, the facility will reportedly continue to operate with one shiploader.

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