The simple version

Coal is not one product. The kind that goes into steel and the kind that goes to power stations are different materials, sold to different buyers, at different prices.

So a headline about the price of coal is incomplete until you know which one it means. The gap is not small and it is not noise.

A company that happens to sell both put the two prices side by side on October 23, which is the cleanest way to see it.

The numbers

• Metallurgical coal: 3,617 thousand tons sold, $450,397 thousand of coal revenues, a realization of $124.52 per ton.
• Thermal coal: 298 thousand tons sold, $23,674 thousand of coal revenues, a realization of $79.44 per ton.
• Within the metallurgical figure, the filing prints three separate lines. Domestic: 979 thousand tons, $133,312 thousand, $136.17 per ton, 27 percent of met tons sold.
• Export priced against an Australian index: 800 thousand tons, $120,370 thousand, $150.46 per ton, 22 percent of met tons sold.
• Export on other pricing mechanisms: 1,838 thousand tons, $196,715 thousand, $107.03 per ton, 51 percent of met tons sold.
• Combined: 3,915 thousand tons and $474,071 thousand, a blended realization of $121.09 per ton. Coal revenues of $560,579 thousand less freight and handling fulfillment revenues of $86,508 thousand gives that same $474,071 thousand.
• The filing prints its own margin figures on the same 3,915 thousand tons: a GAAP coal margin of $9,580 thousand, or $2.45 per ton, and a non-GAAP coal margin of $55,454 thousand, or $14.16 per ton. It defines the non-GAAP figure as non-GAAP coal revenues less non-GAAP cost of coal sales, divided by tons sold, and prints a non-GAAP cost of $418,617 thousand, or $106.93 per ton.
• The company reported a net loss of $9,293 thousand for the quarter, or $0.73 per diluted share, with adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $29,428 thousand. These are preliminary and unaudited; the company says definitive figures are planned for November 6, 2026.
• Figures are Alpha Metallurgical Resources's own, from the exhibit filed with its Form 8-K on October 23, 2026, for the three months ended September 30, 2026.
• On what each product is for, the U.S. Energy Information Administration describes metallurgical coal as used primarily as a raw material in steelmaking and thermal coal as a major fuel for electricity generation, in an analysis published April 24, 2024 covering 2001 to 2023.
• The same analysis sets out the steelmaking chain: metallurgical coal is a low-ash, low-sulfur bituminous coal converted into coke; the coke acts as fuel and reductant with iron ore and limestone in a blast furnace to produce pig iron; and pig iron is then converted into steel by adding oxygen.
• That analysis gives three reasons for the price premium, not one: the quality and uses just described; fewer competing producers in the metallurgical market, with only Australia, Canada and Russia holding comparable reserves for export; and a higher cost to mine it, from thinner seams worked underground in Appalachia.

Why one sells for more than the other

The buyers are not after the same thing, and the steelmaking route has more steps than it sounds. The Energy Information Administration describes the first kind as a low-ash, low-sulfur coal that is converted into coke, which then goes into a blast furnace with iron ore and limestone to make pig iron.

Oxygen added to that pig iron is what makes it steel, so the coal sits two steps upstream of the steel rather than acting on it. The second kind is wanted for the energy in it, and energy has other sources.

The agency gives three reasons for the price gap rather than one: that quality and those uses, fewer competing suppliers in this market than in the other, and a higher cost to extract. All three point the same way, which is why the two track separate markets.

The actual math on 45 dollars a ton

Take the two realizations the filing prints. The steelmaking material came to $124.52 per ton and the power station fuel to $79.44, so the first fetched $45.08 more on every ton.

Put another way, one is about 1.57 times the other, a premium of roughly 57 percent. Both of those are ours, worked out from the filing's two printed figures.

The three lines inside the steelmaking figure are worth a second look too, because they run from $107.03 to $150.46 per ton. Same material, same quarter, same seller: how each contract sets its price moved the number by more than 43 dollars a ton.

What this means

When a story quotes a price for this material, the first question is which of the two it is pricing. A chart that looks alarming or encouraging can be about the market you were not thinking of.

It also travels. Wheat, oil, copper and timber all come in types that command different prices, and a single quoted figure usually refers to one specified type rather than the category.

For reading a producer's own report, the useful move is to find the line that splits the total. This filing gives four prices where a summary would have given one.

What this is NOT

This article explains the difference between metallurgical and thermal coal and why they carry different prices, using Alpha Metallurgical Resources's own preliminary quarterly exhibit filed October 23, 2026 as the worked example, with the U.S. Energy Information Administration for what each product is used for. It is not a recommendation about any security, any producer, or any commodity position, and nothing here is a view on whether to own, avoid, or trade any of them. We do not give personalized advice. It does not predict where either price goes next. The $45.08 gap, the 1.57 multiple, the roughly 57 percent premium and the $43.43 spread inside the metallurgical lines are our subtractions from figures the filing prints; the filing presents none of them as comparisons. The producer's figures are one company's realizations over one quarter and are explicitly preliminary and unaudited, so they can change when definitive results arrive, and they are not national prices or a market benchmark. The Energy Information Administration's 90 percent average premium for 2001 to 2023 measures national export series over a long period and is not the same measure as one company's quarterly realizations, so the two should not be read as a trend and a data point on one line. An earlier draft of this article said the filing's per-ton revenue of $121.09 and per-ton cost of $106.93 should not be subtracted; that was wrong, and the filing itself performs that subtraction, defines the result as its non-GAAP coal margin and prints it as $14.16 per ton, beside a GAAP coal margin of $2.45 per ton on the same tons. This is not a political endorsement or criticism of anyone.

Sources

• Alpha Metallurgical Resources, Inc., Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8-K filed October 23, 2026, accession 0001704715-26-000038. Met segment sales by pricing mechanism, thermal coal revenues, and the non-GAAP revenue and cost reconciliations.
• U.S. Energy Information Administration, Today in Energy, Reasons behind the price premium for U.S. metallurgical coal exports, published April 24, 2024, for what each product is used for and the long-run premium.