Coal transport

Moving coal by unit trains, bulk ships, barges, trucks, conveyors and slurry pipelines.

Transport · Solid and nuclear fuels · No. 61

• Transport
• Form: Solid fuel

On China's Daqin line, about 51 trains a day each haul 20,000 tonnes of coal; the line carried 390 Mt in 2025.

Chart: Illustration: Coal transport

Where it comes from

Chart: Map of where it comes from

Coal is heavy and cheap, so moving it is all about tonnes. It is crushed at the mine and loaded into unit trains, trucks or conveyors bound for ports and power plants.

Three things to know

1. Rail and ships use about 1% or less of coal's energy per 1,000 km, while trucks use about three times as much.
2. An untreated open coal wagon can shed up to about 290 kg of dust over 400 miles of track.
3. The Black Mesa slurry pipeline pumped ground coal mixed with water 439 km, drawing about 1.3 billion gallons a year from the Navajo Aquifer.

The journey

1. 1 MineCoal crushed and loaded from silos
2. 2 Unit trainOne cargo, mine to port or plant
3. 3 PortStockpiles built, then shiploaders fill holds
4. 4 Bulk carrierCapesize or Panamax ships cross oceans
5. 5 Power plantBarges, trucks or conveyors finish the trip

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