Earlier this month, the Navajo Transitional Energy Company offered to buy 167 million tons of federal coal in southeast Montana for $186,000, or less than one-tenth of a penny per ton. NTEC was the only bidder.

You don’t have to be an accountant to know that to have one company bid $186,000 for 167 million tons of coal is, to put it bluntly, not good.

In fact, it was so not good that the BLM postponed the coal lease sale that had been planned for Campbell and Converse counties. NTEC was in the queue to bid on the 441 million-ton West Antelope III federal coal lease.

According to federal data, the last major sale in the PRB, in 2013, brought in $793 million for 721 million tons, or about $1.10 per ton.

Maybe this underwhelming result is just a blip. Maybe coal will bounce back. There ar

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