Assessment of development and production potential of federal coal leases
As of late 1980, there were 565 federal coal leases in existence in 14 states covering 812,000 acres and containing 16.5 billion tons of recoverable reserves. This study examines the development potential and production prospects for the 548 federal coal leases in the seven states of Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Oklahoma, with principal emphasis on the 502 leases in the first six states listed above: the six major western federal coal states. These six states contain over 98 percent of leased federal reserves and account for over 99 percent of federal coal production. The estimates of potential production from federal leases are not forecasts of the coal that will produced at a given price or a given demand. They are estimates of the total amount of coal that could be produced from operating federal mines and from those federal leases that have characteristics comparable to operating mines in the same region. Production from existing federal coal leases is likely to increase substantially over the next 10 years. Planned production capacity for 1986 for federal mines is 400 million tons per year; for 1991, over 535 million tons per year. OTA estimates that production from federal mines could range between 410 million and 500 million tons per year in 1991 depending on markets, synfuels development, and rail construction. Actual production in 1991 could fall below this range, however, because of competition with non-federal mines and new federal coal leases in the West and from other coal-producing regions of the country and because overall demand for coal may not grow sufficiently during the next decade to support this level of production from federal mines. (DMC)
- Research Organization:
- Office of Technology Assessment (U.S. Congress), Washington, DC
- OSTI ID:
- 5722993
- Report Number(s):
- OTA-M-150; ON: DE82902052
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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CARBONACEOUS MATERIALS
COAL
COAL DEPOSITS
COAL MINING
COLORADO
DATA
DATA COMPILATION
ENERGY SOURCES
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
FOSSIL FUELS
FUELS
GEOLOGIC DEPOSITS
INFORMATION
INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS
LAND RECLAMATION
LEASES
MATERIALS
MINERAL RESOURCES
MINING
MONTANA
NEW MEXICO
NORTH AMERICA
NORTH DAKOTA
NUMERICAL DATA
OKLAHOMA
PRODUCTION
PRODUCTIVITY
PUBLIC LANDS
RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
RESOURCE POTENTIAL
RESOURCES
ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION
SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS
SOUTHWEST REGION
THEORETICAL DATA
TRANSPORT
USA
UTAH
WYOMING