Bouquets and briquettes

What's happening with the $25 000 000 briquette factory at Mataura?
Driving past, I see no signs of industry at all.
I have to give credit though, where it's due. The native tree roadside plantings Solid Energy did in order to screen the proposed open cast lignite mines from the travelling public, are doing really well and look great!

Geoffrey Palmer - good man

Coal mining, the coal miners argue, cannot be tied to greenhouse gas or climate change - their hands are clean! It's only when the stuff is burned, silly, that it becomes a problem. Blame the users of the coal, not the miners.
I suppose the cooks in a 'P' lab could argue the same thing. They're only cooking, it's the users that are doing the crime - close the door on your way out, Mr Drug-squad man!
Sir Geoffrey Palmer's not fooled by the Solid Energy rhetoric though, and is arguing in the Environment Court that the claims by the coal mining fraternity are a con - that it's inevitable that coal mined will be burned and will end up in the atmosphere, endangering us all. The bottom line, it seems to me, is will they or won't they get permission to do just that, endanger us all. Solid Energy, and Buller Coal, the two companies engaged in this particular battle with the environmentalists, seek to win the argument and go ahead with their plans that will inevitably result in adding to the greenhouse gas load. Beneath all the clever explaining and rationalising  by the coal industry (and the National Government) must be a belief that AGM is a myth. No rational thinker would go ahead believing that an action would imperil the future of humanity, which surely covers their own and their children's futures, would they?
Stark choice.
I'm with Sir Geoffrey.
And the other clear thinkers.

Missed comment from Bernie from Straterra

(Sorry Bernie - your comment was languishing in my spam bucket and I only found it this morning. I'd like to add my thoughts later.)


I am happy to debate climate change issues with anyone, including Mataura meatworkers. I respect Jeanette Fitzsimons, however, cannot agree with her views, and views like it, on the global climate change response. On CCS, I suggest you read the Transfield Worley report on our web site. Commissioned by the NZCCS Partnership, it was written by people who know a lot about CCS, and that forms a counterpoint to your source. To the bigger issue, what NZ should do by way of a climate change response, at issue is that taxes from the direct and indirect economic activity arising from Fonterra pays for one in four hospitals, and schools in New Zealand. Much of Fonterra's wealth is earned by using coal and gas to turn milk into milk powder. Fonterra competes against subsidised producers of dairy products, so it uses cheap energy and other inputs. Sure, we could be more aggressive with our climate change response, put a much bigger price on carbon in our domestic economy, and then risk the collapse of our economy, because no one else is doing anything significant. New Zealand, in fact, has the most comprehensive framework for any ETS in the world; on that sense, we are the world leader on the climate change response. Meantime Canada pulls out of the Kyoto Protocol, there is no guarantee Australia will introduce its fixed price carbon scheme, Japan and Korea are dragging the chain, the US is not doing anything worthwhile, etc etc. Yes, we should be prepared to take serious action, but this is only worth doing if everyone takes action. It's the classic Prisoner's Dilemma, granted. How to get around it? James Hansen's global carbon tax is hopelessly naive. For now, CCS has to be a crucial part of the global response. Jeanette, and others, should get behind this technology, instead of criticising it at every turn. Regards, Bernie Napp, Straterra

Rosemarie Smith - champion gardener

Rosemarie Smith, Southland Times garden writer tells us this morning that mining ruins good garden soil, or something along those lines, only she does it a little more obliquely and entertainingly. Rosemarie has put a cat among the pigeons with her latest article, which focuses on the Moanataiari subdivision of Thames, her old stamping ground. Or rather, place of cultivation. She describes the harm done to the soil there following the mining and the legacy that still exists, years after the batteries stopped pounding. It's not a story that's new, but it's timely. Rosemarie is presently living nearby to the proposed lignite mines of Mataura and clearly is concerned that damage like that she's seen up north, will affect her gardening activities down here, should Solid Energy's open cut lignite mine go ahead. Her whole article raises the alarm over just what mining does to the soil and for how long it does it. She's to be congratulated for raising the issue of the real effects of large scale mining on ordinary people and their livelihoods.
There's a photograph of Rosemarie (I can't post it or the article as it isn't on-line), showing her holding a handful of the soil she presently cultivates, and the caption reads:
"Unknown: What's in this soil?
The Moanataiari case has made me think about the history of the soils in my own garden beds and about long-term air and water quality issues that might arise from Think Big lignite developments upwind."
Curiously and coincidentally, I had a letter published in the same newspaper this morning, on the theme of gardens and lignite.

Mining ruins farms


I struggle to believe Greg Visser's assurances that the Mataura farms destroyed by mining for lignite will be put back better than before once the mining is finished.
  Solid Energy plans to remove millions of tonnes of lignite from beneath some of the best farmland in the world.
  To do that, they'll have to bulldoze that excellent soil off to one side, dig up the layers of subsoil and pile it somewhere, then with their huge machines grind the mass of lignite out and carry it away.
  If I imagine this happening on the scale of my garden, I have no confidence whatsoever that what I've developed during the years could be "put back better than before"., especially given that so much of my garden would become a deep-pit lake, as is promised for Mataura.
  Mr Visser might believe that the wonders of diggers and bulldozers, urea and propaganda can care for the farmland of Mataura, but I don't."

Robert Guyton

Serendipitous, eh!

Our visionary mayor - Frana Cardno

Keeping our resources for future generations

Mayor of Southland District, Frana Cardno today wrote an extraordinary opinion piece for The Southland Times - one that deserves to be broadcast as widely as possible and through it, our wonderful mayor should receive comment from around New Zealand for her clarity of vision and bravery in speaking from the heart where our other mayors seem to be mumbling from their wallets.

Frana writes:

"In today's world it's all about the global economy and global environment, but I think we must start being aware of possible issues in our own country first. New Zealand is sold overseas as 100% Pure, but that marketting slogan is very much at risk.
  We are a wealthy country compared to the Third World and we should be looked upon as leaders. I believe strongly we are only borrowing the land from future generations and as such , the resources we are so fortunate to have in Southland do not have to be used by this generation. In the future I am sure we will come up with alternative energy sources that are environmentally friendly. New Zealand is responsible for only 0.2 per cent of global greenhouse emissions, but that is still quite high per head of population, compared with other countries.
  We cannot expect to continue to market our agricultural exports to the rest of the world, using our clean, green image to promote them, unless we show some commitment to reducing those emissions.
  Of grave concern to me, and to many others I talk to in Southland, is the mining of our lignite resources. I know there are sceptics in the world who do not believe in climate change and the effects on our environment, but why take the risk?
  Lignite mines of the scale proposed will be visible to any visitor and will affect our landscape and reputation to tourists and consumers in our overseas markets.
  I guess it's hard to believe on a beautiful day in Southland that there are problems, but I am equally certain in the reality of climate change, particularly after the large number of of in-depth studies on climate change and the various side-issues, including fuel-use, that surround it.
  Not least in this list of studies is that recently released by Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Dr Jan WRight.
Lignite and climate change: the high cost of low-grade coal discusses lignite as a resource, New Zealand's climate change obligations, options to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and the impact of lignite use on those emissions.
  In her overview, Dr Wright states the Government agreed to reduce its annual greenhouse gas emissions to between 10 per cent and 20 per cent below the 1990 level by 2020. At the rate we are going at the moment, the emissions are on track to be 30 per cent above that level in 2020.
  "The production of diesel from lignite on the scale contemplated would increase New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions significantly," she says.
  The report goes on to say that lignite is a carbon-intensive energy-source and large-scale lignite use can result in green house gas emissions much larger than other fuel sources. However, the production of diesel and urea from lignite are both new activities that could qualify for support from the Government in the form of free carbon credits.
  "But it makes no sense that the Emissions Trading Scheme rules would lead to taxpayers subsidising, even at a modest level, new investment in outdated, dirty technology.," the report states. Dr Wright goes on to make recommendations to the Government, but I want to emphasise to all Southlanders that if they do not want large-scale lignite mining, they need to voice their opinion to central Government now.
  Importantly, lignite will not deteriorate while left in the ground until future generations discover technology to use it with less environmental impact.
  For now we need to capitalise on our New Zealand Pure image to maximise returns for the food products we produce so efficiently from Southland for the markets around the world.

FRANA CARDNO

Briquettes uneconomic

That's the way the Southland Times letters editor titled John Fogarty's contribution to the discussion to the lignite debate in today's paper. John says casts doubt over the viability and worth of the briquettes that Solid Energy plan to make from the low-grade brown 'coal' that lies under the rich Mataura farmland, destined to be scraped off in favour of a giant open cast mine.
John says:

"Southland should not get too excited about the lignite briquetting plant.
  In 1987, a similar plant was built by State Coal at Mercer, south of Auckland.
  Our company designed and built the coal-fired drying furnace.
  Unfortunately, selling briquettes did not prove to be an economic reality. The more acceptable solution now would be wood-based fuels being promoted by Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority.
  Check out the authority's website for biofuels research and reports.
  Two of the boilers detailed in these reports were designed and built by our company in Invercargill, partly funded by the authority."

JOHN FOGARTY
Invercargill

Councillor holds own meeting

Councillor holds own meeting on miner's plant

An Environment Southland councillor says it would be futile to sit on the committee hearing the case for a briquetting plant at Eastern Southland, and will hold his own public meeting instead.
  Robert Guyton, a member of the council's resource consent hearing committee, said yesterday he would hold an informal meeting to gauge public opinion on Solid Energy's plans to build a $25 million briquetting plant near Mataura, as legislation meant he would be unable to "ask the questions I feel are most important" at tomorrow's hearing.
  A clause in the Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill meant councils could not consider climate change and the impact of greenhouse gases when granting consent applications, so the public was unable to question the potential environmental impact of lignite mining at tomorrow's hearing, he said.
  Rules that meant regional councils had to look at conset applications on a case-by-case basis was flawed - as shown recently at the waituna Lagoon, he said.
  "It's death by a thousand cuts" and I'm not happy to sit and allow that to occur." Mr Guyton said.
  That clause made him wonder how much sway industry had on the country's policy-making, and what direction the National-led Government was heading, he said.
  Last month the Gore District Council approved a resource consent application from the Government-owned energy company, and Prime Minister John Key has backed plans to mine Southland's lignite.
  Tomorrow's Environment Southland hearing is for water and discharge permits.
  Mr Guyton said he believed the committee would approve the application, but it was important councillors heard a range of viewpoints and were not close-minded.
"[At meetings organised by stakeholders] I've found they can't really have a say too easily. They're more there to be told, to have the case presented to them, rather than back-and-forth sharing of information," Mr Guyton said.
  He wanted to hear from those in support of mining plans just as much as he wanted to speak with others in opposition, and planned to present the findings of tomorrow's discussion when Environment Southland attended a presentation by Solid Energy later this month, he said.
  Environment Southland chief executive Ciaran Keogh yesterday declined to comment on whether he believed Mr Guyton should be attending the consents hearing, rather than holding his own meeting.
  "It's actually a substantial political argument, and it's not up to me to be involved in that realm," he said.
  However, Mr Guyton and other committee members were under no obligation to attend every single hearing, and what each councillor chose to do as a private individual was their business, he said.
  Mr Guyton will hold his meeting at the Invercargill Public Library from 1:30pm to 3:00pm tomorrow. The resource consent hearing will begin at 1:30pm at Environment Southland.

 alana.dixon@stl.co.nz

The other lignite meeting

I'm spending some time at the library - the Invercargill Public Library and I won't be alone (I hope!)

Rather than sit through the Solid Energy consent application being held at Environment Southland at the same time where I doubt I'll be able to raise the concerns I have, I've opted for a meeting of my own - an informal 'meet your councillor' event in the city, where I hope concerned citizens (and rural Southlanders) will come and talk with me about what they feel about the proposed lignite mining by Solid Energy. I've no intention to lecture - I'm not learned when it comes to the issue but I'm willing to listen to those who will be most affected by the mining. The Southland Times have shown a lot of interest in the 'alternative' meeting and sent their journalist and photographer out for a chat and a shot. Tomorrow's rag will, with any luck, carry the story. If they do, I'll post it here.

Goff says no sale

"State-owned power companies will be "lost forever" if they are sold to private buyers, Labour leader Phil Goff says.
Launching the party's "Say No to Asset Sales" campaign in Auckland last night, Mr Goff attacked National for the proposed part-sale of Mighty River Power, Meridian, Genesis and Solid Energy."

Labour openly opposing National's asset sale plans?

Good.

 

Shooting down the Nats

"This is a Government who are allowing Solid Energy to build a lignite production facility in Bill English's electorate to power his Brother's Federated Farmer's industry cheaply."

Ah Tumeke!
You've done it again!

That clear?

Solid Energy has plans to start mining lignite in Southland, turning low-grade coal into diesel, urea, electricity, and briquettes. If the projects go ahead, our carbon emissions will go through the roof.

We cannot develop a sustainable economy by subsidising activities that intensify climate change and dig up our environment in the process.

The Government should be looking for clean green energy solutions. We need to amend the ETS so that there's a price on all new activities that increase carbon emissions and support for sustainable alternatives.

Kennedy Graham, Green MP

Coal action!

This is what the Coal Action Network has to say about the report from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment's report (just released) on lignite.

Lignite Costs The Earth


MEDIA RELEASE
Coal Action Network
Thursday 9th December 2010


The Coal Action Network today praised the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE) for exposing the high environmental cost of Solid Energy’s plans to exploit South Island lignite reserves in her new report ‘Lignite and climate change: The high cost of low grade coal.’
“For too long, Solid Energy has used greenwash, contradictory statements and snazzy promotional videos to obscure the reality of what they are planning to do in Southland,” said Coal Action Network spokesperson
Frances Mountier. “In her report, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has clearly shown how digging up and using South Island lignite would incur a prohibitively high environmental cost.”

“The reality is stark,” continued Ms Mountier. “Solid Energy has managed to lay its paws on 1.5 billion tonnes of lignite reserves. The PCE’s report states that there are over 6 billion tonnes of economically recoverable lignite deposits in Southland and Otago.[i] If Solid Energy, L&M and the other companies exploit all 6 billion tonnes, they will be responsible for releasing 8.89 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere.”[ii]
“It’s not true that New Zealand is too small to make a difference on climate change. We can let these companies go ahead with their plans, and bring the world closer to the tipping point of runaway climate change, or we can stop them in their tracks, and make a major contribution to the stability of the world’s climate.
“We need to keep the coal in the hole,” Ms Mountier concluded. “We need to send the message that the mining companies must abandon their plans to mine and burn Southland lignite.”

More on coal

Treesoftommorow has this to say over in Frogblog's pond -


"Jeanette Fitzsimons has announced a six-point plan to effectively shut down NZ’s coal industry, which includes converting Solid Energy into a renewable energy company and closing the Huntly Power Station.

She suggested a change in direction for SOE Solid Energy too:

Fitzsimons believes Solid Energy should cease investigations into converting Southland lignite to liquid fuels and instead focus on becoming a renewable energy company, building especially on its expertise in waste wood. She notes Solid Energy has recently invested in a wood pellet and wood stove business, as well as a solar water heating business, and is also producing bio-diesel from rape seed.
 
And here's the article he cites:
 
Greens Want To Close Down NZ’s Coal Industry


April 30th, 2008

The Green Party has outlined a radical policy that includes a ban on new coal mines, with a view to phasing out coal production in NZ apart from a small amount for specialist non-energy uses. Co-Leader Jeanette Fitzsimons has announced a six-point plan to effectively shut down NZ’s coal industry, which includes converting Solid Energy into a renewable energy company and closing the Huntly Power Station. Thankfully for Labour and National, Fitzsimons says the Greens won’t make the coal mining policy a bottom-line issue in any post-election coalition talks. But she has accused both parties of “greenwash and spin” over coal, noting the Govt has banned new coal-fired power stations in NZ but is happy to export coal to be burned overseas. Fitzsimons argues there is sufficient coal in existing mines, which the Greens are not proposing should shut down, to keep market contracts supplied and the workforce employed. But she believes a Govt that aims to be carbon neutral can’t allow its own State Owned Enterprise to carry on expanding coal production, either for domestic consumption or for export.

The only exemptions would be for specialty coals in small quantities for uses such as carbon fibre and activated carbon, and for enough local coal of a sufficient quality to keep NZ Steel supplied. The Greens will also try amending the Emissions Trading Bill to include coal seam methane in the climate change obligations of coal mining companies. Fitzsimons also dismisses the idea of “clean coal” as “a highly misleading slogan” of the coal industry. While carbon capture and burial may be possible one day, she sees this as “a hugely expensive red herring” which is diverting funds away from renewable energy research.

Fitzsimons believes Solid Energy should cease investigations into converting Southland lignite to liquid fuels and instead focus on becoming a renewable energy company, building especially on its expertise in waste wood. She notes Solid Energy has recently invested in a wood pellet and wood stove business, as well as a solar water heating business, and is also producing bio-diesel from rape seed. About 5m t of coal is mined each year in NZ, most of it by Solid Energy. Almost three-quarters is high-quality coking coal, which goes to Japan, India and other countries for steel making. Huntly burns 44% of NZ’s coal. About half is imported from Indonesia and the rest comes from the Waikato coal fields. NZ Steel uses about 31% of domestic coal, and Fonterra uses it at several dairy factories to dry milk, as well as other big industries such as cement and aluminium.

Fitzsimons on coal

(Required reading for Southland Regional councillors)

Jeanette Fitzsimons, post parliament, reflects on her work in energy and climate change, and makes a confession.

For 35 years I have been wrong about how to prevent climate change. It’s time I confessed.



For 35 years I have worked to improve energy efficiency – insulating homes, efficiency standards for appliances, better light bulbs, fuel economy standards for cars, energy saving technologies in industry and farming. The assumption was that this would result in less fossil fuel being burned and less carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere. Well, it doesn’t.



For 35 years I have promoted renewable energy – solar water heating, solar electricity, wind power, log and pellet burners, biogas – assuming that these would result in less fossil fuel being burned and less carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere. Well, they don’t.



We would be stupid not to make those changes, which achieve cost savings, health benefits, warmer homes, jobs, more affordable energy, more profitable businesses and a stronger economy. But to protect the climate, we have to change tack. I’m changing tack.



Imagine you own a coal mine or an oil field, and demand for your product drops because people are using alternatives. Do you shut up shop? Not likely. Your job is to ensure that those resources get burned one way or another. So you look for a whole new use for the resource.



The key issue for the climate is how much greenhouse gas we allow to accumulate in the atmosphere. That total depends on how much fossil fuel is mined, and determines whether we cross the tipping point into dangerous levels of warming, with associated ice melt, acid oceans, storms, droughts and floods.



We are focussed on annual emissions to the atmosphere. We need to focus on how much of the total stock of oil, coal and gas in the world we can burn without destabilising climate, and therefore how much must be left in the ground forever.



Leaving a resource in the ground forever goes against the grain – our whole history and culture is built on making use of resources. It sounds daft to deliberately leave economically recoverable resources unmined. But let’s get used to the idea, because our survival depends on it.



James Hansen, renowned NASA climate scientist, has calculated how much more fossil fuel we can afford to use if we are to get back to 350 parts per million of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the level that he calculates will allow climate to stabilise. His recipe, set out in his 2009 book “Storms of My Grandchildren” allows us to use all the conventional oil (though not tar sands or shale or oil from extreme environments like the Southern ocean) but coal must be phased out completely by 2030, starting now.



New Zealand is heading in exactly the opposite direction. In addition to intense oil and gas exploration there are well advanced plans to use more than 3 billion tonnes of economically recoverable lignite from three fields in Southland.



These plans are big, and New Zealanders are hardly aware of them. Because we don’t need coal for electricity, State owned coal company Solid Energy has developed plans to use the lignite for fertiliser and diesel. This is why changing your light bulbs will not reduce greenhouse gases – Solid Energy, and its government owner, are determined to use that coal somehow.



The company wants to build a pilot plant next year to make briquettes, taking the water out of lignite so it burns cleaner and hotter (but with no less carbon emissions) for Fonterra’s milk processing plants and for export. The pilot plant will produce “only” 100,000 tonnes a year of briquettes. The full scale plant would be many times larger.



Next off the blocks is a plant to convert coal to crude oil and/or diesel. They claim they could produce all New Zealand’s diesel this way. Depending on the technology used, it is likely to double the carbon emissions of every litre of diesel compared with petroleum sourced fuel.



The third leg of the trifecta is coal to urea, a nitrogen fertiliser. More urea is more cows per hectare so more effluent in rivers and more nitrous oxide emissions – another powerful greenhouse gas.



Solid Energy say all the emissions will be “offset”. But increasing the amount of biological carbon that cycles between atmosphere and plants can’t compensate for long for putting more fossil carbon into the system, even if our ETS scheme pretends it can. Paying money is, in the end, not a get out of jail free card for increasing pollution.



These huge lignite developments are very close – Solid Energy intends to start building next year. Any hope we had of actually reducing our greenhouse emissions would go out the window.



We need to refocus international negotiations to keep most of the remaining coal in the ground, world wide. We need to refocus our domestic action as citizens to tell Solid Energy and the Government by every means available to us to keep the coal in the hole. Every tonne of lignite NZ keeps in the ground forever is 1.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide that doesn’t get into the atmosphere - ever.



We can do this and let energy efficiency and renewable energy give us a good standard of living, a prosperous economy, more jobs and a clean green marketing brand. But if we mine the coal, we are fooling ourselves that those “green” developments will do anything for the climate.

Mixed signals from Gore's mayor

Today's Southland Times reports that mayor Tracy Hicks has made some good decisions over potential conflicts of interest in his new council and has signalled that some councillors who have close connections with the proposed lignite developments at Mataura, should not sit on committees involved in those issues.
Good thinking Tracy.
He says that the planning and regulatory committees in particular are not suitable places for such individuals to sit.
"Cr Watt is director of farmer cooperative Ravensdown, which is a joint venture partner with Solid Energy in its lignite to urea.." seems some good judgement there Tracy, however..."Cr Bolger is one of the few landowners in the Mataura lignite field who has not sold to Solid Energy." ... which is, I suppose, reasonable enough.
The mighty clanger for me though, comes where Cr Bret Highstead, about whom I've written before, has been elected to the chair of the planning and regulatory committee!
Cr Bret Highstead's 'family involvement in the coal industry' (they sold their coal mine at New Vale to Solid Energy!) seems not to be seen as a factor that might affect his performance on that 'sensitive' committee!

I must be missing something here.

Someone might like to clarify for me what it is Tracy is doing.

Pundit - Leave it in the ground

"James Hansen, renowned NASA climate scientist, says we should cut off access to coal at source, because it is “the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet”. Tim Flannery, who visited NZ recently, has said the same: “There is so much carbon buried in theworld’s coal seams [alone] that, should it find its way back to thesurface, it would make the planet hostile to life as we know it.”

Climate carbon negotiations: a black hole, and a new idea

by Claire Browning

Coal Giant Fails to Ignite

This is very odd.

Today's Southland Times reports that Solid Energy's 'deal' with Australian company Ignite has failed.

'Lignite deal gets canned' the headline ran.

At the recent Chamber of Commerce breakfast in Gore, lignite conversion manager Greg Visser hailed trials of New Vale lignite at Ignite's New South Wales pilot plant a success and described, with graphs and statistics, how vastly superior, in terms of environmental effects, the Ignite system was to any other.

Now it seems, they'll have to revert to 'something else'. Wonder what that will be!
This looks to be a major blow to the project.
Greg will be spitting. Everything had been going spiffingly til now.
However, they've not thrown in the towel just yet. The article finishes:

"Solid Energy has not completely turned its back on the technology and would undertake a further stage of work to investigate its potential for the conversion of low energy lignite into synthetic crude oils that can be upgraded to transport fuel."

Don't give up just yet Transport Companies of Gore!

* Update: Sonia Gerkin writes:

"One of the beauties of the new technology(ed. offered by Ignite, now stalled/lost) over the mega-expensive proven Fisher-Tropp process of converting lignite to liquid, is that a plant can be developed in modular trains. This will avoid the big bang effect where everything happens at once, as well as being more cost effective."
They will be fuming (pun intended).

The smell of burning rubber

Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee, Solid Energy's Don Elder and L&M Energy's Chris McKeown are 'talking up', 'aggressively pushing' and bullishly describing how 'the rubber is about to hit the road' in their fields of interest: coal-seam gas, urea and diesel production and methane.
That's Big Boy talk from the Energy Men.
The biennial Petroleum Conference in Auckland is giving their passion wings and they are bristling with confidence about their projects.
Elder went all coy though, when asked whether Solid Energy "should be privatised following a moment of controversy the day before when the chief executive of New Zealand Oil & Gas suggested that the Government should sell it's assets to private buyers".
Bit of a wet blanket, that chap, letting the cat out of the bag like that!

A little history

29 August 2006

New Vale Coal purchase agreed

Solid Energy New Zealand Ltd has reached a conditional agreement to purchase 100% of the privately-owned New Vale Coal Company Ltd, subject to Commerce Commission clearance. It is hoped that this will be obtained by the end of October.

New Vale, a long-established family owned business, operates the New Vale Mine which is located on the Waimumu lignite coal field in Eastern Southland. The mine produces more than 200,000 tonnes a year, supplying local industry including Fonterra's nearby Edendale Dairy factory.

Solid Energy plans to continue New Vale's mining operations and to retain the current workforce of 30 people. Both parties have briefed customers and other key stakeholders in the area.

For further information contact:

Vicki Blyth Bret Highsted

Communications Director General Manager

Solid Energy New Zealand Ltd New Vale Coal Company Ltd

Note to Editors:

Solid Energy currently owns and operates, in Southland, the Ohai Opencast Mine which currently produces about 180,000 tonnes per annum and is investigating the viability of reopening the former Mataura Opencast Mine to serve the South Island industrial market.

(Bret has served one term on the Gore District Council to date and is a candidate for this local body election)

What to avoid...

Watt to avoid conflict issues

Mayor Tracy Hicks seems to think that it can be done, but what do you think about having

A long-term director of fertilizer co-operative Ravensdown

(which is involved in investigations a multi-million dollar lignite-to-fertilizer plant for the Gore district)

preparing to take his place on the Gore District Council.

Read the report (if you will)
and weep!