Port conditions - January 5
London, Jan 5 -- A press report, dated today, states: Norfolk Southern Railway's large coal loading port terminal is back to normal at Norfolk, Va., and the railroad today lifted its "force majeure" declaration on coal moves. The company said operations at its Lamberts Point terminal, the largest facility in North America for transloading coal from trains to ocean ships for export, have been restored and NS "is working to clear the current backlog of shipments." A spokesman said 11 ships were waiting on Jan 4 to load coal from Lambert's Pier 6, a large facility that blends coal and has twin ship loader conveyor belts to fill two vessels at a time. But a mechanical problem damaged one belt Dec 26, knocking that loader out, and a separate problem shut down the other belt the next day. NS on Dec 18 invoked force majeure to lift delivery guarantees as a major snowstorm swept into the Appalachian coal mine region and delivered record snowfalls from there to the NS port area. It kept the cla