U.S. exports of steelmaking coking coal rose to 55 million tons in 2010, the highest level since 1991, according to statistics released Wednesday by U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

U.S. producers have steadily expanded coking coal exports in recent years and the exports rose from 37 million tons in 2009 to 55 million tons in 2010, or an 49-percent increase, EIA said.

Experts believe that, in 2011, U.S. exports will reach 65 million tons, much of which will be in the form of relatively low grade blending coals.

The EIA said the export increase trend mainly results from a decrease of domestic consumption. The 2010 export level is nearly three times the consumption of coking coal at U.S. coke plants. > The United States consumed less coking coal domestically due to the continued adoption of technologies such as electric arc furnace (EAF) technology, an alternative steelmaking process.

EAF technology recycles scrap steel and does not require coking coal. Its share of crude steel production has been rising in 2002, 50 percent of U.S. crude steel production used the EAF process, but in 2008 which had similar levels of crude steel production as 2002 EAF accounted for 58 percent of total production.

Low levels of U.S. coking coal consumption in 2009 and 2010 were also partly attributed to the recent economic downturn across the country, according to EIA.

Meanwhile, EIA said that substantial steel production growth in developing countries, combined with international coal supply shortages (mainly due to weather and transportation bottlenecks in other coal exporting countries), fostered the growth of U.S. export of coking coal.

Although the quality of U.S. expert coking coal is poor, experts noted the prices for U.S. coking coal have risen by about 100 dollars per ton over the past month. EIA statistics show that Brazil remained the largest buyer of exported U.S. coking coal in 2010. Compared to 2009, exports of U.S. coking coal in 2010 increased significantly to Netherlands, Poland, Turkey, Ukraine, China, India, Japan and South Korea.