Mild summer weather, not rail problems, is the biggest reason for softness in the US over-the-counter coal market, Ted O’Brien, an analyst with Doyle Trading Consultants said Wednesday. The effect is most acute in the Powder River Basin market, but it has also kept Central Appalachia prices soft. “Lots of people I talk to say you look at the weather in Texas and that dictates the direction of PRB pricing,” O’Brien said. “[Pricing] was pretty resilient coming out of the spring, even though we did have rail issues, but I think all the incremental weakness is driven by or attributed to very unfavorable weather.” In the CAPP market, it’s the same story, he said. “It’s come off, driven almost exclusively by weather,” he said. “The [barge market] probably has held up a little better than the rail contract.” In Wednesday’s session, the physically-settled CAPP barge contract (12,000 Btu/lb) for […]