Pike River recovery achievable 'on time and on budget'

Thursday, 4 June 2020

Andrew Little discusses the need to ramp up work on the Pike River mine re-entry project. (Video first published in January 2020)

Recovering the Pike River mine drift can still be done on time and on budget.

Pike River Recovery Agency chief operating officer Dinghy Pattinson said he was confident the job could be completed by the end of the year, despite the set back of seven weeks' lockdown.

Pike River Recovery Agency chief operating officer Dinghy Pattinson breaching the 170m seal.

The Government approved another $10.8m in March to complete the project, as well as a $4.2m contingency, bringing the total budget up to $51m.

The agency was set up in January 2018 to re-enter the drift of the West Coast mine with the hope of finding out why 29 men died in a series of explosions in November 2010.

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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Andrew Little, the Minister Responsible for Pike River Re-entry, console family members at the entrance to the Pike River coal mine in May 2019.

* Re-entry of West Coast's Pike River mine 'will be done'

The Government originally budgeted $7.6m a year for three years, totalling $23m.

Pattinson said agency staff had reached up to 630m of the 2.3km drift, or access tunnel.

He said progress on re-entry was 'going really well'.

'We lost eight weeks like most businesses did to level 4 lockdown, but the time wasn't wasted. We were able to continue monitoring conditions underground remotely and review all our plans, and we completed a final stage plan and submitted it to WorkSafe for acceptance.'

WorkSafe has accepted the agency's plan to recover the drift up to a plug installed at the end of the drift by granting it a regulatory exemption. The final plan will allow the agency to breach the plug and inspect the rockfall which is blocking the mine workings.

It was developed with the help of video conferencing with experts from around the world, Pattinson said.

The journey down the Pike River mine drift.

The agency had also developed a new time and cost-saving system of installing roof bolts, which was working well since staff returned underground on May 14 when New Zealand entered Alert Level 2.

A different type of drill, along with new bolts, had reduced the time per bolt from 50 minutes to 15 minutes. The team had already installed 200 bolts saving days of work.

Roof bolts were needed to secure the integrity of the tunnel roof for re-entry to continue safely. Miners were progressing up the drift in two shifts removing any 'items of interest' and handing them over to police investigators.

'We have made really good savings in time and on the cost of consumables. I am confident we can still come in on time and on budget. Of course unexpected things could crop up, but it is achievable,' Pattinson said.

The aim was to complete the drift recovery by the end of the year.

A new track up to the mine, where a memorial will be built, will become part of the new Paparoa Track Great Walk. It will be handed over to the Department of Conservation early next year.

Pike River Recovery Minister Andrew Little has ruled out bringing any proposal to cabinet to move beyond the roof fall at the end of the drift and explore the main mine workings because initial assessment by the agency suggested it would cost another three years and at least $50m more.