Here are some followup comments by contacts on this article:
– Some plant people involved with petcoke trial say this article is fiction & they are following the freight & petcoke markets. The news source is liberal press that tends support environmental viewpoint & politics against project.
<Since there are direct quotes from lot NB executives – I suspect the truth is somewhere between views>
-The cancelation of this project will dump more than 500,000 tons back into the petcoke market if true.
-The trial permit was originally set June 2007 but some delays getting started so end date 2008 has slid to March 2009. This means if project wasn’t cancled a new permit would have to be put in place.
-The trial of blending HFO & Petcoke has probably lost lot of economics due to BIG drop in Crude/Diesel/Fuel Oil recently….which has yet to happen in coal/petcoke markets. The price of resid is somewhere in $50/Bbl range now while petcoke is still hanging in the +$100/ton due to market lags which would make economic justification hard to sell.
