Westport - Bugger! Another ghost town in the making

[husaberg]

It stopped importing coal last year

Gee that's was great of them. its a shame there wasn't a few coal mines close.
Imagine building a coal fired power station in Huntley so far away from the overseas coal in the first place.
You would have to wonder why on earth they put it at Huntley

[MD]

shafted??? what sort of world do you live in, do you run a business? if so if thae market changes and you get half the price for your goods, half the customers you used to or materials double in price do you just make up the differenence out of your own pocket and keep it going the same????
just how are these people supposed to do that ya clown?

If you read my post I said' there's all the economic reasons under the sun to close it down' Never disputed that fact or said anyone should prop it up forever. The point of my post was that knowing the inevitable is going to happen doesn't make it any easier when the time comes for the poor workers losing their jobs and the future of a once bustling town is doomed.

Easy for you to scoff from your pc keyboard. I've grown up with parents, grandparents and great grandparents that worked as gold or coal miners and coal truckies at some point in their lives . From childhood onwards I experienced adults around me worrying about the demise of the coal industry. Coasters haven't been living in denial. It's still bloody hard to walk away from a paying job it if it's all you know and there's no local alternatives. Unless they want to go live in some ugly cesspool like Auckland or Lower Hutt.

[husaberg]

Was involved in making some new gear for Spring Creek a few years back.
Very interesting job it was to. New Conveyor drives etc.

Developed drives so they could be implemented in any mine in any location.

Pike river and the drop in coal price etc stopped future work
a real waste. I put weeks on making the gear easy to use etc. Most hours unpaid because i could see it used everywhere all over NZ

All the Bits parked up here and there.......

still think some shake up of the coal mining industry was warranted. but I am too far away from the coal face.

loss of jobs=typical accountants is still sad to see.

That's the thing though Solid energy is in the poos cause it was poorly run and it has got into trouble because it was expected to borrow money to pay a dividend to the government.
It was also told it had to Buy Pike. it had to borrow to do this as well.
What kind of company has no forward contacts in place for its product.
Everyone keeps making out it is not worth propping up Yet Rio Tinto is.(Bluff smelter)
Solid Energy has sole mineral rights for Most of NZ.
Read between the lines.

Their Chiefs to Indians ratio must be getting out of kilter

Bout time they had a culling session at head office

Oddly that hasn't happened..........

[AllanB]

Hmmm makes you wonder what will happen if the world decides cows milk is out of fashion ..............

[Kickaha]

Gee that's was great of them. its a shame there wasn't a few coal mines close.

They used around 50% local coal anyway

[husaberg]

It stopped importing coal last year

Mr Gordon says the Huntly Power Station only uses imported coal when it can't get enough from New Zealand mines because overseas coal is more expensive than local coal.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/nation...ne-allegations

State-owned electricity generator Genesis Energy [NZX: GPLFA], slated for partial privatisation in the first half of this year, has paid to extract itself from contracts that saw it importing coal from Indonesian suppliers.
He gave no figures for the cost of quitting existing commitments for coal supply from Indonesia, which have been controversial both because of the high carbon emissions profile of coal compared to other electricity fuel sources and because of the proximity of Solid Energy's Huntly East mine to the ageing coal and gas-fired Huntly power station.
The Solid Energy contract has been extended for three years to June 2017, and is understood to give Genesis much more flexible terms than in the past, given its existing stockpiles and reduced demand for and availability of Huntly's coal-fired units.
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/genesis...alls-dc-151026

[eldog]

Mr Gordon says the Huntly Power Station only uses imported coal when it can't get enough from New Zealand mines because overseas coal is more expensive than local coal.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/nation...ne-allegations

State-owned electricity generator Genesis Energy [NZX: GPLFA], slated for partial privatisation in the first half of this year, has paid to extract itself from contracts that saw it importing coal from Indonesian suppliers.
He gave no figures for the cost of quitting existing commitments for coal supply from Indonesia, which have been controversial both because of the high carbon emissions profile of coal compared to other electricity fuel sources and because of the proximity of Solid Energy's Huntly East mine to the ageing coal and gas-fired Huntly power station.
The Solid Energy contract has been extended for three years to June 2017, and is understood to give Genesis much more flexible terms than in the past, given its existing stockpiles and reduced demand for and availability of Huntly's coal-fired units.
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/genesis...alls-dc-151026

I am not at that coal face and there are definitely others who know more.
Assume coal from Indonesia was shit and provided lots of problems compared to NZ supply
Yes coal industry needs a shakeup - Pike River both management AND workers (My own opinion here) - saw a sad loss of lives

I often think SE gets a raw deal from bulk users threatening to buy coal from overseas, saying its cheaper this is the accountants way.(hate accountants)
The aren't really comparing apples with apples.
There should be a cost on emissions, if NZ supplied coal produces less emissions then (SE) it should benefit

but that's just the global economy..... buy everything from an Asian/3rd world economy because its cheaper, wait till you visit one of those countries and see how people live. NZ is a paradise in comparison. Those countries are generally raping the environment and people. But what can you do, they need to live too

I thought Huntly was run on gas because it was cleaner - looked inside on of the main burners and seen the flame path quite interesting

[Swoop]

Simple solution: The West Coast takes the lunatic-fringe party to court for loss of earnings.

Green party has fucked up the use of coal, so they and their supporters either #1, get forcibly relocated to the Coast, or #2, financially support the Coast with all of their earnings.

[98tls]

What happened with the open cast mine plans for up round Denniston? or was called off due to snails or similar...

[pete376403]

I was thinking SASOL could set up a coal to oil plant as they have in South Africa. But then I see this : "On March 9, 2015 Sasol announced it will cut 1,500 jobs in response to low oil prices.[3]"

[FJRider]

Gee that's was great of them. its a shame there wasn't a few coal mines close.
Imagine building a coal fired power station in Huntley so far away from the overseas coal in the first place.
You would have to wonder why on earth they put it at Huntley

Perhaps because there was a coal mine 34 km's away ...

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/waikato-places/page-4

[PrincessBandit]

My dad was born in Westport and spent his childhood there. The family moved to Whanganui (sorry, it was spelt Wanganui back then) but Balu and I have gone to the Coast a number of times checking out the family history - mainly in the cemeteries... and on the last trip went to the Denniston Incline. That was something we'd wanted to do for a long time.
They breed 'em pretty tough down there, and I'm not sure if I could ever live there. Balu, though, has tried to convince me a few times that it could be a place we end up once we leave the rat race of Dorkland.

[scumdog]

Hmmm makes you wonder what will happen if the world decides cows milk is out of fashion ..............

Hmm, it is not too far off if you use prices as a guage of it's desirability world-wide..

[eldog]

Gee that's was great of them. its a shame there wasn't a few coal mines close.
Imagine building a coal fired power station in Huntley so far away from the overseas coal in the first place.
You would have to wonder why on earth they put it at Huntley

they could have built it in 'strya, could have built a 1 lane highway with the power cable attached back to NZ. now thats an idea

[eldog]

My dad was born in Westport and spent his childhood there.
They breed 'em pretty tough down there.

Been to Hokitika for a job delivering some machinery a few years back.

They worked hard and only had the a few days off in the gold mines I visited. But they were good people, gave you the shirt off there back and went out of their way to help me - even arranged some tours on the way back up the coast of various mines.

Most memorable was the Grey river dredge - where I got a personal tour of the dredge by the owner(his name escapes me-thought of it a second ago-Birchfield?) I am sure they had a alluvial mine at Ross, I stopped and looked over the edge of the pit. Brought the Tee Shirt (its still in the wardrobe and its a good un)

Plan to go back there on a bike next time.

Much better than Aklders