Solid Energy bidding for Pike River

Hayden Donnell in the NZ Herald reports:

State owned mining company Solid Energy has revealed it wants to buy the Pike River Coal mine, pay off its unsecured creditors and recover the bodies of 29 men still trapped inside. …

Solid Energy, which operates several West Coast mines including the nearby Spring Creek Coal Mine, today announced it was one of those looking to buy the rights to extract the $6 billion of coal still at Pike River through a mixture of opencast and underground mining.

Chief executive Don Elder said recovering the 29 bodies still inside the mine would be a priority in that proposal.

It was committed to addressing the “many challenges” of making the mine economically viable while respecting the wishes of the families of the dead, he said. …

“As a non-negotiable part of that, the wishes of the families have to be a priority in considering all options including potential recovery, if feasible, of the 29 miners’ bodies. The same applies to the unsecured creditors on the West Coast; any solution to invest in and work the mine needs to address that issue as a top priority.”

That’s possibly the best news the Coast has had, since the explosion.

Elder said the company’s plan would include opencasting parts of the mine.

Somehow I suspect the usual suspects won’t oppose this mine being opencasted.