SUGAR LAND--July 17, 2012--Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Natural gas dethroned King Coal in the electricity business, and the shock waves continue to rattle the coal segment of the Metals & Minerals Industry . For the first time since 1973, when the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) (Washington, D.C.) started collecting data, electricity generated from natural gas-fired plants equaled generation from coal-fired plants . Each fuel provided 32% of total U.S. electric generation in April 2012, said EIA, the statistical and analytic arm of the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) (Washington, D.C.). For that month, net electric generation from natural gas was 95.9 million megawatt-hours (mWh), essentially even with generation from coal at 96 million mWh. Other companies featured: Duke Energy Corporation (NYSE:DUK) , American Electric Power Company (NYSE:AEP) , Patriot Coal Corporation (NYSE:PCX) , Alpha Natural Resources Incorporated (NYSE:ANR) , Arch Coal Incorporated (NYSE:ACI)