The future’s not looking great for the coal industry as members of the Montana Association of Oil, Gas and Coal Counties Inc. learned last week during its annual meeting.

The industry, which produced a record amount of coal in 2008 (44 million tons) and is holding steady, continuously faces complications in regulations and restrictions from legislation, Bud Clinch, executive director of the Montana Coal Council, said during his presentation. This is why Montana’s ranked fifth nationally in the production of coal, he said, and it’ll probably stay that way for a long time.

Clinch said Gov. Brian Schweitzer has been the “biggest cheerleader” the coal industry’s ever had with its 120 billion tons. But that won’t be enough if things are going to change. “The unfortunate thing...” he said, “is that it takes a lot more than cheerleading to get new development and to actually get projects on the ground.”

There has been some excitement as a couple projects have gotten under way. A “new mine” is up and running in Roundup. It’s been permitted for 20 years, which Clinch says is probably the only reason it’s able to move forward. It’ll produce about 10 million tons, about a 25 percent increase in Montana’s annual production. Also, although there’s no power plant in Montana currently pursuing carbon sequestration and the technology, groundwork has been laid in Senate Bill 498 that would allow the process to begin in the near future.

Still, the industry faces strong obstacles. In 2008, the coal industry stayed strong as the country moved into the recession while other industries slowed because of its vast use for electricity. But when the economy worsened in Detroit, Chicago and elsewhere in the Midwest (mostly largely populated areas) where Montana coal is shipped, demand for electricity began slowing down. It’s had an effect on the industry.

“Our production is down about 20 percent, and that’s an exact replication of the decrease in demand from the electrical consumer clients in both the Pacific Northwest as well as the Midwest states,’ Clinch said, referring to first-quarter 2009 figures.

It’s just one of many stumbling blocks the industry’s confronted. Others include the proposal for a coal fire generating plant in Great Falls by the southern Montana electric cooperatives, which has taken several years to develop permitting and technology. The plug was pulled on that recently due to heavy opposition. Instead, they decided to pursue a natural gas facility.

A coal to liquids plant at Malmstrom Air Force Base was a department of energy pilot project in the news for about a year and is now dead. Another dead project was a coal fired generating station that would have been located near Circle, but the the company working on it, Great Northern Properties, made a conscious decision to move to North Dakota where new projects are more welcoming.

“It’s a sad state of affairs because of the volume of coal and natural resources we have and the need we have for revenue generation,” Clinch said. “Yet we can’t seem to move forward with that.”

With every potentially new project comes hope and a “tangled web” of environmental or political problems that tie them up indefinitely. Project developers get “the message that there’s a better place to do business,” and why many move to Montana’s neighboring states.

This has been the “real challenge,” why officials say they’d like to be like North Dakota and Wyoming and why there will never be change.

“We could probably spend the whole day talking about why Montana is always a bridesmaid and never a bride,” Clinch said. “We can’t seem to ever get the wedding to take place.”

reporter@sidneyherald.com