Published: June 7, 2017 |

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Black Diamond, the new coalmine alongside Coaldale coalmine, is half complete and on track to open completely in the coming months.

Last year the Southland District Council awarded resource consent to Bathurst Resources, which operates the existing Takitimu and Coaldale mines, to open up a new seam to mine sub-bituminous coal, called Black Diamond.

Bathurst Resources Domestic Operations General Manager Craig Pilcher said the mine was well on schedule.

It was about half complete with the first pit area already opened, he said.

“All is on track . . . the wheels are turning,” he said.

The Black Diamond mine, north of Nightcaps, will be an extension of Bathurst’s existing mines in the area.

Black Diamond would be next to the current pit, the Coaldale mine, which was expected to come to an end earlier this year but it was recently found that the supply was more than first thought, Pilcher said.

There was about nine months’ more coal than expected, he said.

Generally, the coal was mined from between 10 and 30 meters underground and in the Black Diamond mine Bathurst was looking to take about 1.3 million tonnes of coal.

The company expected to get about six years of work out of the Black Diamond mine.

However, no extra staffing was needed, with about 45 workers in the Coaldale mine to transition to the Black Diamond mine later in the year, Pilcher said.

Cost reduction was the company’s main focus but the budget was on target and looking good, he said.

“It’s all going to plan. We are happy,” he said.

Pilcher said the company was looking to export in the future was it was dependent on the world market.

The land consent use for the Takitimu mine expires in 2020 and the Coaldale mine expires in 2022, and the plan for Black Diamond was for it to be re-instated as a lake when it came to the end of its life, he said.

Source: (June 5, 2017) The Southland Times

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