Chicago

WHEN it comes to exporting American coal, the West Coast's loss is the Gulf Coast's gain.

While environmental opposition has stymied plans to build terminals in California and the Pacific Northwest, the Mississippi River town of Darrow, Louisiana, has a new US$300 million export facility. It's part of a regional expansion that will increase capacity by 66 per cent to 119 million tonnes by 2017, or more than half the national total, according to New York-based Doyle Trading Consultants LLC.