Pipeline transportation and energy storage giant Kinder Morgan is expanding its terminal business into owning, leasing and acquiring natural resource properties. Despite coal being a dirty word with regard to power generation and climate change, Kinder Morgan will purchase coal reserves and lease them to mining companies for development and royalty compensation.

While Kinder Morgan plans to first move into coal markets, the company plans to leverage this new platform in all business areas. “We are not limiting the platform to coal. Because of market opportunities we plan on starting with Coal. We handle in excess of 100 million tons of bulk commodities and over 650 million barrels of liquids. It is our intent to explore utilizing this platform in all areas where Kinder Morgan participates,” a company spokesperson told Breaking Energy in an email.

With numerous older, less efficient US coal plants scheduled to retire in the next few years and stricter environmental regulations for new plants, many companies are looking to export coal overseas. In fact, Europe has been importing more coal from the US in recent years, as natural gas remains comparatively more expensive in many European countries.

Kinder Morgan told Breaking Energy the company is currently engaged in $450 million worth of coal expansion projects.

Exporting coal is an important climate change issue, with many arguing that closing US coal plants will do little to throttle back global carbon emissions if the fuel is simply burned in plants outside the US. At the same time, huge swaths of the developing world’s population lack electricity – which is deemed crucial for economic growth, education, health care services, etc – and coal-fired power is often the cheapest way to provide electricity to large numbers of people.