(Download PDF version of the entire publication)

(View the HTML versions of the data tables)

The Quarterly Coal Report (QCR) provides comprehensive information about U.S. coal production, distribution, exports, imports, receipts, prices, consumption, and stocks to a wide audience, including Congress, Federal and State agencies, the coal industry, and the general public. Coke production, consumption, distribution, imports, and exports data are also provided. The data presented in the QCR are collected and published by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) to fulfill data collection and dissemination responsibilities as specified in the Federal Energy Administration Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-275), as amended.

This report presents detailed quarterly data for April through June 2004 and aggregated quarterly historical data for 1998 through the second quarter of 2004.

Additional historical data can also be found in the following EIA publications:

Annual Energy Review 2003 DOE/EIA-0384 (2003); Monthly Energy Review DOE/EIA-0035; Coal Data: A Reference DOE/EIA-0064 (93) DOE/EIA-0035; and Annual Coal Report DOE/EIA-0584 (2003).

The historical data in this report are collected by the EIA in two quarterly coal surveys (coal consumption at manufacturing plants, and coal consumption at coke plants), one annual coal distribution survey, two monthly surveys of electric generation facilities, and one quarterly coal production survey by the Mine Safety and Health Administration. The coal surveys originated in the 1920's, at the Bureau of Mines, U.S. Department of the Interior. In 1977, the responsibility for these surveys was transferred to the EIA under the Department of Energy Organization Act (Public Law 95-91). The two electric power surveys originated at the Federal Power Commission (FPC)--one in 1936 under the Federal Power Act and one in 1972 under FPC Order Number 453. The EIA continued these surveys, reducing the frequency and quantity of information requested and increasing the automation of the associated data processing and report generation functions.

Coal export and import data are obtained from the Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, which compiles monthly data from documents filed with the U.S. Customs Service, as required by law.

Beginning in 2001, the coke imports and exports data have been revised. In an effort to more accurately reflect U.S. coke imports and exports, two additional categories of the “Harmonized Tariff Schedule ¹”– “Coal coke and semicoke, commercially suitable for use as fuel” and “Other” are now included in the coke imports and exports totals.

All data for 2002 are final. All data for 2003, with the exception of all electric power data, are final. All data for 2004 are preliminary.

Coal, coke and breeze stocks are shown at the Census Division level in order to make maximum amounts of data available without the withholding of data to avoid disclosures of individual operations and State-level data, respectively.

¹The “Harmonized Tariff Schedule” provides the statistical categories for all merchandise imported into the United States and is based on the international Harmonized System, the global classification system that is used to describe most world trade in goods.