No Pike River sale this side of Christmas, receiver says

Friday 16th December 2011 1 Comment

The receiver for Pike River Coal doesn’t expect to sign a sale agreement before Christmas as negotiations with international parties interested in the sealed coal mine continue.

Receiver John Fisk of PricewaterhouseCoopers said he doesn’t expect to conclude the deal before Dec. 25 as he looks to sell the mine’s assets, which include a 58.5 million tonne resource of premium high fluidity hard coking coal of which 17.6 million tonnes is estimated to be saleable.

“There are a number of international parties that are interested in the mine but they each have their own internal processes to follow which will take longer than we had initially hoped,” Fisk said in a statement.

As part of the sale, the receiver expects to establish a trust that will help oversee efforts to reopen the mine and recover any remains of the 29 miners who died in the explosions which closed the mine last year.

In October, state-owned Solid Energy was reported as teaming up with China’s Shanxi Corp to buy the assets.

(BusinessDesk)

BusinessDesk.co.nz

Comments from our readers

On 18 December 2011 at 10:04 am Joronda said:

It is wonderful news for the families to hear that the Receiver is expecting to set up a trust to recover the remains of the 29 miners.