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A t the time of nationalisation in 1947 there were 958
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coal mines in the UK, producing over zoo million tonnes of coal a year. By the time the industry was privatised in 1995, there were just 16 deep mines left. Now there are io major deep mines left in production and all are owned by UK Coal (formerly RJB Mining), which makes it by far the largest coal producer in the country. The smaller remaining deep mines are owned and operated by a variety of companies including Betws, Tower and Coalpower.
In the first four months of 2002, UK Coal sold 6.7 million tonnes of coal—of which only
5% was moved by road. Around 90% of UK Coal's output goes to power stations and these are designed to receive their coal via rail on 'merry-go-round' trains which can move 1,000 tonnes at a time.
Hauliers working for UK Coal mainly work out of the company's colliery land sales depots, where the coal is graded into various sizes and quality for different markets.
"Transport movements are, in the main, confined to merchants or wholesalers collecting large lorry-loads of specific fuel to take to depots around the country, from where it's supplied to domestic users," says Stuart Oliver, company spokesman for UK Coal. "Road-borne coal is mainly confined to iomestic and smaller ndustrial use, or is >eing moved between he pit head and washng and blending sites.'' Other road movenents undertaken by he company are from ts opencast sites. Ehese tend to be vorked for much ;horter periods of time Ilan the deep mines, so t's not worth building a -ail link.
"A typical opencast ;ite lasts for about three :o four years and the mal is taken by road to the nearest coal disposal point," says Oliver.
In the coalfields of Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire and the Midlands, the company operates a number of rail-heads which service its opencast sites. This keeps the road journeys to a minimum and allows the trains to take over for the longer hauls. "It makes sense to move 1,000 tonnes at a time on a train, rather than 25 tonnes at a time on a lorry," says Oliver.
Pit closures
It is this simple fact that makes the coal industry a somewhat barren hunting ground for hauliers, and this can only get worse as pit closures continue and imports increase. In 2001, imports of coal moved ahead of domestic production and the trend continues with coal from Australia, Colombia, Poland, South Africa and US being landed at British ports, all of which are served by rail.
"There will always be a place for hauliers but their involvement will be determined by the number of pits that remain in production.
"As more coal is imported, less will be moved by road. Port facilities are geared up to move coal by rail, as the tonnages demand. You have to be realistic —if you've got a ship unloading a quarter of a million tonnes of coal, you can't have L000 lorries lined up on the quayside to take it away," says Oliver.
Currently. UK Coal is conducting a review of colliery operations, which was due out in December 2002 but is still not complete.
In 2001, the company started making a loss and has announced the closure of its Prince of Wales colliery, Pontifract, which will
cease production this August. Its complex of mines at Selby will also close in 2004, and other mines are also under threat.
Even though there are still major reserves of coal in the Midlands and Yorkshire fields, the prospect of new pits being sunk are remote.
"A typical new mine today would cost 13-400m and take about eight years to bring into -r
F oduction," says Oliver. "Given that foreign coal can be landed on our shores for about i23 a tonne and we are lucky to get £3o a tonne, it's difficult to imagine how, without some public participation, there could be investment in new mines."
So what are conditions like for those hauliers that are still involved in the coal industry? CM spoke to a major coal haulier who asked not to be identified. He runs a fleet of 150 artic tippers that spend 95% of their time carrying coal.
He paints a grim picture: "If nothing were to change I could see us losing road-borne volume at the rate of between io% arid 25% per year for the foreseeable future," he says.
Fragmented
"I've been in the business for 30odd years and it's extremely fragmented and full of very small hauliers who are going out of business overnight. Nobody is coming into the industry because it's impossible to make any money, and the volumes are collapsing as we speak.
"It's a very tough business to be in. I know haulage is tough in every sector, but the coal industry is particularly tough when you have to take into account government and local authority policies to get all the coal onto rail. If you were being honest about it, there is no future in it at all."
So what does he see as a solution to the current situation? "The government needs to support UK Coal, the biggest producer, in particular and needs to realise that we have to have a 50-year energy 1:•o1icy. The coal industry has to be able to invest in deep mines and pencast coal mining over a long period of time. It requires large mounts of capital and sustainable investment that has to be !upported by the government. "The reality of it is that all the ?ther countries round the world, including the US, are gearing up their coal production and are building coal-fired power stabons," he say. "We are the odd?ne-out because our government s determined to lead the way in reducing emissions, even to the extent of closing our coal-fired generators and the 1.1K coal industry down."
Coal imports
He recommends that hauliers who are heavily involved in coal Should diversify as soon as possible and not look to the increasing rate of coal imports as an (opportunity.
This decline is echoed by the experience of Fife-based Barclay Bros. The company has been a coal merchant since the 19 Gos and, until four years ago, the coal side still accounted for about 5% of the company's busi ness. "The coal sales are way down as very few people have coal fires now," says transport manager John McLean. "It's been declining every year, as the old people die off and the young people take the coal fires out to put electric ones in."
He says the company will probably drop coal altogether once its coal man retires. "At one time he was out every day but now he's on just three days a week," says McLean, However, hauliers that are lucky enough to be in the right location can still make a living out of coal.
The only remaining deep coal mine left in Wales is the Tower Colliery at Hirwaun, MidGlamorgan. Condemned as uneconomical and slated for closure by British Coal in 1994, it became the subject of a successful buyout by its workforce, and in 1995 they produced 450,000 tonnes of high-grade anthracite and made over Am in pre-tax profit. Today, it's still in production and still running at a profit.
M&M Greene Transport Services, based at Cross Hands, transports about 30 attic loads of coal a month from the pit head to Tower's distribution depot. "This is my forty-sixth year in road haulage and I've been involved with coal through different companies all that time," says Alan Greene. M&M's general manager. About 35% of the company's business is coal. "Coal is a dying fuel as we all know, but in West and South Wales you've got the older population that won't use anything else," he says.
Distribution
The company also delivers coal to distribution depots and coal factors throughout South and West Wales using a fleet of Dafs, which pull step-frame artic tipping trailers with Wilcox aluminium bodies.
These are favoured because their lower tipping height is less risky in windy conditions. "The lower the centre of gravity, the less chance you have of going over in the wind once the coal comes out and you've got to lower the body," says Greene.
His vehicles are loaded directly under the coal screens in the washery which, says Greene, is a much cleaner way of handling it. "It's got no dust in it and it hasn't been handled off th floor. If you handle it to, much when it's dry, i breaks up and peopl■ don't like a lot of dust it their coal.
"If it was put on th. railhead, can you imag Me the number of time: that coal would have to be handled? They drop i into a truck, then i would have to go to a sid ing, loaded back onto: vehicle and taken out te the coal merchant."
Local market
M&M also makes three trips a week to a pit ir Nottingham to brin back coal for the loca market. "We try not t( run empty. When w( take coal out, we ge grain or animal feed tt bring back. We have t( wash the tippers on using high volume wash ers before putting in th( grain," says Greene.
Tower produce anthracite, which is mainly usec for domestic heating, and ha: also just opened a plant neat Ammanford to make smokeles, fuel, which is exported to Europe as well as sold locally.
Greene reckons Tower's sue cess is a result of the workforce owning the business: "All the employees there, apart from about 2o, are shareholders and they've got to make a profii because it's their money that's in there.
"They get good wages and bonuses but they work hard for it. We are very, very lucky that we've got this contract," he says.