Banks, Investors Pumped $52 Billion Into Met Coal Between 2022 and 2024
German environmental and human rights group Urgewald has exposed how major financial institutions continue to bankroll the metallurgical coal industry, funnelling nearly $52 billion into mine expansions between 2022 and 2024 despite global climate commitments.
Its new report, Still Burning: How Banks and Investors Fuel Met Coal Expansion, reveals that banks provided $22 billion in loans and underwriting during the period, while institutional investors hold $30.23 billion in securities tied to companies expanding coal mining operations. The top investors include Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street.
Urgewald, which earlier this year launched the first global database of metallurgical coal developers, says many financiers have pledged to end coal funding but exclude metallurgical coal from those promises, which the say it’s a “dangerous” loophole to climate goals. Met coal accounts for about 11% of global CO? emissions.
“Met coal fuels the climate crisis just the same as thermal coal,” Lia Wagner, met coal expert at Urgewald, says. “Banks and investors that ignore this fact are financing the destruction of our planet’s carbon budget.”
China, US lead financing
The report identifies 201 banks that financed metallurgical coal developers in recent years, with Chinese institutions dominating at 67% of global funding — roughly $14.7 billion. China Everbright, CITIC, and CSC Financial top the list, driven by demand from China’s massive blast-furnace steel industry.
The United States ranks second, contributing $3.04 billion. Jefferies Financial Group leads U.S. financiers, increasing its met coal funding nearly 400% since 2022. In 2024, Jefferies, along with KKR Group and Deutsche Bank, arranged a $2 billion loan to Peabody Energy, which later abandoned a major acquisition following mine fires in Queensland, Australia.
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Coal Company to Lay Off 118 in Southwest Virginia
Wellmore Energy Co., a metallurgical coal mining company, is again planning to lay off workers in Buchanan County.
The company plans to lay off 118 workers across several locations, according to notices sent in early October to the state in compliance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act.
In August, Wellmore notified the state it planned to lay off 72 workers in Buchanan County in September.
A subsidiary of United Coal Co., a Tennessee-based metallurgical coal company, Wellmore’s operations include two company-operated underground mines, one company-operated surface mine, seven contract mines, three shops, two preparation plants, rail-loading facilities, a lab and an administration office, according to United Coal’s website.
According to notices to the state dated Oct. 6, Wellmore plans to lay off 95 employees at one location in Big Rock and 14 employees at another Big Rock site, eight employees at a site in Grundy and one employee in Hurley on Dec. 6.
United Coal and its parent company, Ukraine-based mining and steel company Metinvest Group, did not immediately return requests for comment Monday.
Wellmore produces approximately 1.8 million tons of coal, according to United Coal’s website. Metinvest Group bought United Coal in 2009.
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How President Trump Is Strengthening The Coal Industry
Recently, the Trump administration recently announced a broad plan to strengthen America’s coal industry.
The Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency outlined new funding, expanded leasing, and regulatory relief to extend the life of coal plants to meet rapidly increasing electricity demand and ensure reliable, affordable, and dispatchable electricity.
For Wyoming, the top coal producer in the nation, these actions matter.
Coupled with the July decision to reduce the royalty rate for coal on federal lands to 7% and the state’s reduction of the severance tax on surface coal, Wyoming’s coal and mining industry is in a prime position to thrive after years of being tied to burdensome regulations and executive orders.
Importantly, the tax and royalty burden on the industry has been “right- sized” to meet today’s competitive market conditions.
Wyoming coal has been the backbone of America’s power supply for decades, but it has also been carrying a heavier financial load than other fuels.
Royalty rates directly affect whether Wyoming coal is competitive in the national marketplace.
When the cost of production on coal is pushed higher than on competing fuels — in part due to its diverse tax structure —, markets move away from coal regardless of reliability or demand.
The Department of the Interior is leveling the playing field for the coal fuel supply by adjusting the royalty rate downward.
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Here's Who's Staffing the White House Energy Council
A small team of energy industry alumni and political insiders is working inside the White House to coordinate President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda across the government.
Eight months after the official launch of Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council, the White House has installed a cadre of staffers tasked with advancing the president’s goals of boosting domestic energy production and slashing regulations.
Trump “wanted a group at the White House that could cut through the bureaucracy and get projects done,” the council’s executive director Jarrod Agen said in a September interview with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Trump, Agen said, envisioned a group that could work across agencies including the departments of Energy and Interior, with EPA, the State Department and “help industry and help our allies kind of streamline this whole process.”
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As Electricity Prices Rise, Coal Provides Answers
Concern over rising electricity prices is everywhere. The pickle Americans now face has been a longtime coming. Residential electricity prices have jumped 27% from 2019 through 2024 and they’re likely to continue their upward trajectory before policy can begin to soften the blow.
As policymakers grapple for answers, new studies are providing important evidence about why prices have risen so quickly, outpacing inflation.
A recent study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory shows state energy policy, namely state renewable mandates, are having an impact.
“States with the largest price increases in recent years typically featured shrinking customer loads — partially linked to growth in net metered behind-the-meter solar — and had [renewable portfolio standard] programs in concert with relatively costly incremental renewable energy supplies,” the researchers said.
In addition, spending on grid infrastructure to reshape and upgrade the grid is also driving costs. Utility spending on distribution — largely the poles and wires that deliver electricity to homes and business – accounted for 44% of utilities’ capital expenditures in 2023, marking a significant rise since 2019.
With infrastructure spending still rising and inflationary pressure affecting supply chains, further price increases appear already baked in. According to the study, pending rate hike requests from utilities are at their highest level since the 1980s.
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