Pike River Coal Limited is in the process of developing 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.