CORRECTED - US coal exports okay so far but '09 at risk -experts

Corrects 13th paragraph to show Ramco Trucking based in Kentucky, not West Virginia.

By Bruce Nichols

HOUSTON, April 25 (Reuters) - U.S. coal exports soared in the first quarter, 81 percent year over year at key Virginia ports alone, and experts said Friday that mines, railroads and ports are strained but meeting ravenous world demand.

Serious problems could arise by the second half of 2009, however, without some resolution of a U.S. mine-permitting slowdown that threatens production, experts said.

"Volume-wise, we're probably doing as well as expected," Matt Preston, a senior analyst with Hill & Associates, a Wood Mackenzie company specializing in the coal industry, said of first-quarter 2008 output.

The only full first-quarter 2008 data currently available comes from the Virginia Maritime Association, which says exports from the huge Newport News and Norfolk terminals rose to 9.4 million short tons in the first three months of 2008 from 5.2 million tons in the same quarter of 2007.

Partial reports indicate loadings also are on the upswing from the smaller Mississippi River, Mobile, Alabama, and Baltimore, Maryland. Lesser amounts also are leaving previously idle U.S. West Coast ports, analysts said.

Most industry forecasts expect U.S. exports to total 80 million tons this year, up from less than 50 million tons in 2006 and a bit more than 59 million tons last year, counting both steel-making and power-plant grades.

Mine expansion permits have been snagged by environmentally based court orders and resulting government reluctance to issue new permits until appeals are resolved, experts said.