CN’s partnership with Cline a key part of its export coal growth strategy

The sale of Canadian National's assets of IC RailMarine Terminal Company to Raven Energy, LLC, an affiliate of Foresight Energy, LLC and the Cline Group for US$73 has closed and Cline assumed operation of the Convent transfer facility as of August 1, 2011. As part of this sale agreement, CN has also entered into a 10-year rail transportation agreement with Savatran LLC, another affiliate of Foresight and Cline, to haul coal from four Illinois mines to the Convent transfer facility. Savatran will ship a minimum volume of coal via CN growing to eight million tons per year as of 2014. "We are excited that we have successfully concluded this transaction," said Michael Beyer, Foresight CEO. "The acquisition of the terminal and the long term transportation partnership with CN firms up our logistics for our growing export business and provides a platform for us to immediately expand our export volumes." "This partnership with Cline is one of the key elements of our strategy to leverage and expand our unique export coal franchise across North America." Said Claude Mongeau, president and chief executive officer of CN CN directly serves five export coal terminals in Canada and the United States and moved 21 million tons of petroleum coke, thermal and metallurgical coal destined for offshore markets in 2010. "With this partnership and the significant coal mine and terminal expansions already announced or planned along our rail network in Western Canada, we hope to double our coal export volume over the next four years if trends of increasing global demand continue," stated Mongeau.