Washington (Platts)--4May2010/543 am EDT/943 GMT

Mississippi River bulk shipping operations have yet to be affected by a Gulf of Mexico oil spill now threatening the coastlines of several southern US states, keeping open an important transportation route for eastern and central US coal field operators reliant on booming international demand.

New Orleans area terminal operators, heavily tilted toward coal exports, said Monday that the commercial impact of the Deepwater Horizon spill has been minimal even as the region girds itself against an environmental disaster of historic proportions.

"From an operational, commercial standpoint, it's not really affected the lower Mississippi River yet and may never really" significantly affect it, said Michael Titone, president of the Mississippi River Maritime Association, a trade group representing regional shipping businesses.

The US Coast Guard has not limited traffic in or out of the Mississippi River, even as the Department of Commerce on Sunday closed off federal fisheries in the area for 10 days as a precautionary measure.

Oil, spewing from the underwater well the Deepwater Horizon rig was drilling before it exploded and sank, began reaching the Louisiana coastline over the weekend and is threatening parts of Mississippi and Alabama.

New Orleans terminals in 2009 exported more than 4.8 million short tons of coal, primarily bound for international utilities, making it the fifth busiest export region in the US. Imports, at 432,000 st, were far less, EIA data shows.

Adam Smith, general manager of the International Marine Terminal near Belle Chasse, Louisiana, said the river's operations were unlikely to be affected unless the Coast Guard ordered a closure of Southwest Pass, the sole entry point from the Gulf of Mexico.

"Any closure of the river or restrictions on vessel movements out of the river into the Gulf would begin to have an effect on us," he said.

The terminal, 57 miles from the Gulf, is jointly owned by Kinder Morgan and American Electric Power, and can handle up to 5 million st annually.

While company officials have been in steady contact with customers at mines in Appalachia and the Illinois Basin, Smith said alarm bells have not gone off.

Further downriver, in the small Louisiana towns of Boothville and Venice, the Coast Guard has set up stations to clean incoming boats dirtied by the oil spill. But according to Smith, Titone and others, ships have not yet been required to use the cleaning facilities.

The US exported 59 million st of coal in 2009 and imported 22.6 million, according to the Energy Information Administration. Mobile, Alabama, was the US' largest importer in 2009, handling 6.9 million st. Tampa, Florida, another Gulf Coast port, was second at 3.5 million st, according to the EIA.

--Peter Gartrell, peter_gartrell@platts.com