The Pike River mine is on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. On 19 November 2010 the mine was rocked by an explosion, and several more explosions followed in the days ahead. 29 men lost their lives.
NZOG, as a large shareholder and lender to Pike River Coal Ltd, extended its heartfelt condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of the lost men. Like them, NZOG expects that the various inquiries will uncover what went wrong, so that such a tragedy can be prevented from happening again.
On the 13 December 2010, PRC was placed in receivership. Pricewaterhouse Coopers are the receivers.
On 12 September 2011, the Receivers advised that an insurance settlement had been received with PRCL's insurers. Read more.
Background
A former subsidiary of NZOG, Pike River Coal Ltd (PRC) became a separately listed company on the NZX and ASX following an initial public offering (IPO) in July 2007. NZOG retained an interest as a shareholder.
As the mine was developed, various rights issues, share placements and convertible bond issues were made to fund that development. NZOG participated in these.
The seam of high quality coking coal was reached in October 2008. There were then production delays before the first shipment of coal was sent to India in February 2010.
NZOG's interest in PRC
Shareholding:
NZOG has 119,031,670 shares in PRCL (29.4% of issued capital).
Debt holding:
NZOG is owed secured and unsecured debt and interest. A payment of $41m was received in October 2011.
Further information on Pike River Coal Ltd is available from www.pike.co.nz and www.pwc.com
