Oregon Department of State Lands denied a needed permit

100 miles

Coos Bay, Ore.

california

Proponents let lease agreement expire

Oakland Army Base, Calif.

nevada

Oakland City Council passed ban on coal handling

Sacramento

San

Francisco

Thwarted Exports Out of seven West Coast export terminals proposed in the past five years, none has opened.

Seattle

washington

Cherry Point, Wash.

Critical permit denied by Army Corps of Engineers over violation of Lummi Nation's treaty rights

Portland

Grays Harbor, Wash.

Proponent dropped plans

Longview, Wash.

oregon

Currently under environmental review

Port of St. Helens, Ore.

Proponents pulled their plans

Port of Morrow, Ore.

Oregon Department of State Lands denied a needed permit

100 miles

Coos Bay, Ore.

california

Proponents let lease agreement expire

nevada

Oakland Army Base, Calif.

Oakland City Council passed ban on coal handling

Sacramento

San

Francisco

Thwarted Exports Out of seven West Coast export terminals proposed in the past five years, none has opened.

Seattle

washington

Cherry Point, Wash.

Critical permit denied by Army Corps of Engineers over violation of Lummi Nation's treaty rights

Portland

Grays Harbor, Wash.

Proponent dropped plans

Longview, Wash.

Currently under environmental review

oregon

Port of St. Helens, Ore.

Proponents pulled their plans

Port of Morrow, Ore.

Oregon Department of State Lands denied a needed permit

100 miles

california

Coos Bay, Ore.

Proponents let lease agreement expire

nevada

Oakland Army Base, Calif.

Oakland City Council passed ban on coal handling

Sacramento

San

Francisco

Late last month, the city council in Oakland, Calif., gave final approval to a rule blocking coal exports through a new terminal on a decommissioned army base. The future of the $500 million project—backed in part by $53 million of Utah tax revenues—is uncertain, according to a spokesman for the Oakland Global Trade and Logistics Center project.

Arch Coal Inc., the nation’s second-largest coal producer after Peabody Energy Corp., sold a 38% stake in Longview-Wash.-based Millennium Bulk Terminals in June, four years after it had originally hoped to start sending coal from the port. Arch paid $25 million for the stake and received no cash compensation for giving it up, though the company acquired the right to ship coal through the terminal.

Cloud Peak Energy Inc., the country’s No. 3 coal producer, said last month it was exploring “all options,” including a sale of its stake in a planned terminal about 100 miles north of Seattle, after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in May blocked the project. The Army Corps said the terminal would have infringed on the fishing rights of an American Indian group, the Lummi Nation.

Oregon denied a permit for a coal-export facility on the Columbia River in 2014, and another large terminal in Washington has been under review by the Army Corps for four years.

Environmentalists have cheered the rejections.

“Communities aren’t going to let this stuff get developed in their backyards,” said Cesia Kearns, Western region director of the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign, which has been fighting against the development of coal terminals on the West Coast.

As China’s growth slowed recently, U.S. producers were undercut by cheaper coal from Australia and Indonesia. Western U.S. exports plunged to 306,714 tons in the first quarter from a peak of 2.7 million tons in the second quarter of 2014, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Miners have struggled to pay debt used to buy billions of dollars in mines that were supposed to feed Asia.

Even with functioning export terminals, today’s international prices would barely cover the companies’ shipping costs.

“If one of these ports got approved tomorrow, they could have the option of losing $10 a ton selling more coal,” said Evan Kurtz, analyst at Morgan Stanley.

U.S. miners need to set aside their export plans and address their financial problems, said Matthew Gray, a researcher at Highland Capital Management LP, which manages $17 billion in assets, including Arch debt. Miners can rebound by shrinking to match the smaller domestic market and emerging from bankruptcy with improved finances, he said.

More in Logistics Get the latest news and analysis on logistics and supply-chain issues via a daily newsletter, at WSJ.com/Logistics. XPO Logistics Adjusts Guidance Off Customer Bankruptcy

Coal companies publicly say they haven’t given up on exports. Cloud Peak expects Asian customers to start buying U.S. coal again as developing economies build more coal-fired power plants, said Tom Nelson, the company’s vice president of sales and marketing. Several companies maintain rights to ship coal through these terminals.

“We remain supportive of the [Millennium] project and will continue to engage with [its owner],” a spokeswoman for Arch wrote in an email.

However, an executive at one of the miners involved one of the Washington terminals said the projects are “not dead, but barely on life support.” Meanwhile, the biggest terminal on Canada’s West Coast has spare capacity now that exports have slowed and could handle an uptick.

Write to Timothy Puko at tim.puko@wsj.com and Erica E. Phillips at erica.phillips@wsj.com

Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the August 2, 2016, print edition as 'Long-Sought U.S. Port Plans Get Derailed.'