Washington (Platts)--21Dec2012/634 pm EST/2334 GMT

Alabama's State Port Authority expects to export 2 million st of thermal coal from its McDuffie Terminal in Mobile in the fiscal year that began October 1, more than three times the 600,000 st exported in the last fiscal year, CEO James Lyons said Friday.

The majority of the terminal's exports have been metallurgical coal. In the last fiscal year, the terminal shipped a record 9.9 million st of met coal, Lyons said in an interview.

Despite the recent decline in demand from Europe for met coal, Lyons said the terminal is shipping more to Asia and has picked up steam coal from the Illinois Basin for export.

"Our core business is the met business, especially to Europe, but that is off," Lyons said. "We're offsetting some of that with met business going into Asia, which is picking up some of the slack for us and we're picking up additional steam business, which has not been a traditional business of ours."

Lyons said the terminal projects to export more than 10 million st of met coal in the current fiscal year.

In addition, Lyons said the terminal is in the process of commissioning a second shiploader to handle greater export volumes.

Asia-bound vessels move through both the Panama Canal and around the Cape, said Lyons.

"The bulk carrier market is not very good right now," Lyons said. "What I'm hearing is basically bulk carrier prices are still very soft, so shipping costs are flat to down."

The terminal, which has an annual throughput capacity of 30 million st, also handles imports of thermal coal, primarily from Colombia, for use by regional utilities.

--Andrew Moore, andrew_moore@platts.com --Edited by Jeff Barber, jeff_barber@platts.com