NZ s resource management system "encourages delay"

Tuesday 7th February 2012 1 Comment

New Zealand’s resource management consent process creates “real opportunites for a project to be intentionally delayed” by its opponents, says Bathurst Resources managing director Hamish Bohannan.

Bathurst is seeking resource consents for its Escarpment open-cast mining project on the Denniston Plateau above Westport, but has faced a six-month delay since being granted consents, which have been appealed by various parties, including the New Zealand Forest & Bird Protection Society.

A wider coalition of environmental groups, grouped under the banner “Keep the Coal in the Hole” is also opposing all coal-mining, from Solid Energy’s plans to turn low-grade lignite into bio-fuels and fertiliser through to Bathurst’s plans for high quality, high value coals used in the steel industry.

While West Australian Bathurst accepted New Zealand had its own processes, the company was receiving regular communication from shareholders expressing “concern and disappointment at the process.”

“The biggest thing is now that once a decision is made, it’s made,” Bohannan told BusinessDesk. “There is certainly real opportunity today for a project to be delayed intentionally. You can hold a project up.”

He expressed frustration at the six-month delay between being granted resource consents and next week’s pre-hearing on the appeal against those consents, and the lack of certainty about the timing of court dates beyond the initial hearing.

“The issue is about demonstrating, technical, financial, environmental and social capability. The big question is net conservation gain,” said Bohannan. “If you can get that, there shouldn’t be a never-ending loop.”

Bathurst is already mining low ash, low sulphur coking coal from the Cascade mine and will shortly begin production at Coalbrookdale, an underground mine which is also in the same vicinity, has employed 40 staff in Westport, and has built covered storage for coal at Port of Taranaki. It plans to ship most of its coal from Westport, where it also plans investment in an upgrade to port facilities.

The Escarpment mine and another project, Whareatea West, are planned as “cut and cover” projects, where soil is removed, the coal is mined, and soil replaced and replanted. Bathurst contends the area is “in pockets” and that large areas of the plateau will be undisturbed by its plans.

The company has four drilling rigs working in the Escarpment area and will spend $2.2 million over the next two years to identify coal-bearing areas, and will be taking part in a “bio-blitz” initiative next month with Forest & Bird to catalogue wildlife and vegetation on the plateau.

“We appreciate the concern that we going to mine the whole plateau, but physically we aren’t,” Bohannan told BusinessDesk. “Where there’s no coal let’s make sure we keep that area pristine, if it is pristine.”

Some parts of the plateau had been mined in the past, and included sites of historical rather than environmental significance.

While Bathurst’s mining operations on the West Coast and at Takitimu in Southland would fund its operations while resource consents for Escarpment wound through the system, it would be “terrible for New Zealand” in lost export income and investment on the West Coast were it to be substantially delayed.

“We are well-funded,” Bohannan said. “There’s no risk us running out of cash, and we have strong support from our shareholder base. But while they can see this is a great project with legs, they say ‘when will it produce a return’?”

Once the company was producing one million tonnes a year, mainly from Escarpment, Bathurst would be injecting around $140 million a year directly into the New Zealand economy.

(BusinessDesk)

BusinessDesk.co.nz

Comments from our readers

On 7 February 2012 at 7:54 pm Bernie said:

It seems crazy that various parties can delay such an important project. The New Zealand Resource Management Act is in urgent need of change.