The Coal Market Bets Everybody Got Wrong
- Coal miner didn't expect coking coal prices to keep falling
- Market was battered by cheap gas, slowing China, India demand
Peabody Energy Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
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A year and a half ago, the chief executive officer of America’s biggest coal miner predicted a bottom to the commodities rout that had dragged prices to their lowest level in a decade.
Peabody Energy Corp.’s Greg Boyce said in an interview at the time that the fundamentals for coal were better than some feared, that supplies would soon shrink and the industry would head into an “inevitable” rebound. Prices instead continued to slide, production remained high, and on Wednesday, Peabody said it had joined rivals including Arch Coal Inc. and Alpha Natural Resources Inc. in filing for bankruptcy.