The
Pike River Coal Company is set to develop the Pike River Coal Mine in the
Paparoa Ranges of New
Zealand's South Island.
The mine will be developed to extract a coking coal deposit of the Brunner Seam,
some 46 km north-east of Greymouth, using a combination of continuous miners and
hydraulic extraction.

The
mining area is located within Department of Conservation (DOC) land and is
adjacent to the escarpment of the Paparoa Range
and the Paparoa
National Park. As such, the
major restriction to planned extraction is protection of:


the western escarpment,

vertical and sub-vertical rock faces,

permanent water courses,

significant vegetation, and

steep slopes.

The
mine will use its elevation advantage to hydraulically flume coal from the
working faces to the pit bottom area where it will be slurried to approximately
35 per cent density of solids and pumps down a slurry line to the coal prep
plant some 10.5 km down the Pike River
Valley. The coal will be
sold on the export market as a high quality coking coal for international steel
making.