Solid Energy - Coal Operations

Coal Operations

Solid Energy produces approximately 85% of New Zealand's coal annually. Each year it produces around 4 million tonnes, more than half of it for export.

Solid Energy Mines
Mine Location Type Reserves, kt Production, kt pa
Huntly East Waikato Underground 2000 400
Rotowaro Waikato Opencast 14,000 1200
Stockton West Coast Opencast 16,000
Spring Creek West Coast Underground 18,000 mothballed
Terrace West Coast Underground 700 nil
Strongman West Coast Underground closed
Reddale Mine West Coast Opencast 140
New Vale Southland Opencast 250
Ohai Southland Opencast 2,000

Solid Energy has proposed opening two further mines: the Cypress Mine and the Mt William North Mining Project.

In 2006 Solid Energy bought Newvale Coal Co Limited and acquired the Newvale opencast mine, located in the Waimumu coal field in Southland. The Newvale mine supplies lignite to the domestic market, including to Fonterra's Edendale dairy plant. In December 2010 the Terrace mine near Reefton, which had closed in 2009, was sold to Crusader Coal. In October 2011 Solid Energy opened the small opencast Reddale Mine near Reefton on the West Coast.

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Famous quotes containing the words coal and/or operations:

    ““The room’s very hot, with all this crowd,” the Professor said to Sylvie. “I wonder why they don’t put some lumps of ice in the grate? You fill it with lumps of coal in the winter, you know, and you sit round it and enjoy the warmth. How jolly it would be to fill it now with lumps of ice, and sit round it and enjoy the coolth!””
    —Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)

    “There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)