Europe is seeing a ‘golden age of coal’ thanks to cheap U.S. exports, said a senior gas analyst at the International Energy Agency (IEA). “In Europe no golden age of gas will come. Europe is an exception to the revolution,” Anne-Sophie Corbeau, senior gas analyst at the IEA, said at a conference in London. She said gas was losing the battle in Europe’s power plants against cheap coal coming from the U.S., where the discovery of shale gas has left huge oversupply in unwanted coal. “We may be talking of a golden age of coal in Europe and this is (in) contrast with what is happening in the U.S.,” Corbeau said, echoing comments from the IEA’s head made in Vienna on Thursday.