Approximately sixty people representing industry, regional government, training providers, employment agencies, infrastructure, local councils, and product and service providers attended the 2006 MWC Annual Forum held in Reefton on 13 July.

Why Reefton? Firstly it is in keeping with Minerals West Coast Trust’s intent to move the Forum around the Coast’s four main centres and to recognise – particularly this year – that Reefton is the hub of new mine development for the region with both Pike River Coal’s and Oceana’s construction activities in full swing at their Pike River and Globe Progress sites. It also gives visitors a better feel for the spread of projects and the size of the region and the difficulties this does bring in terms of operations.

The theme for this year’s Forum was Back to Basics – the Essentials of Mining. Throughout history mining has always required three basic inputs – Water, Energy and Land to enable location, extraction and processing. Over the last twenty years modern mining has introduced a fourth dimension – the Community – often referred to as the forgotten factor. In this age of rapid and all-enveloping communications, news and views are instant. The lack of understanding in some cases and the blatant environmental disregard in others has bought the spotlight to bear on mining companies. The industry has responded with the concept of social licence (to operate) and the Community has become the fourth essential of mining.

The scene was set for a morning of keynote presentations from a national perspective followed by an afternoon of regional industry updates and then a field trip to Tai Poutini’s Digger School and Giles Creek Coal Mine. Just before proceedings got underway notice was received that the charter flight bringing both attendees and keynote speaker Greg Partington and the replacement speaker for Rick Pridmore had turned back due to technical problems.

Eddie Davis the standing MWC Trust chair welcoming all attendees and presiding over a short AGM where existing trustees were reappointed and Peter Whittall appointed as the new Chairman following Eddie’s decision not to seek re-election. Eddie made reference to the strong global commodities market and suggested that although this had resulted in an upsurge of exploration interest and activity, this had not translated into any new mining projects and it would undoubtedly take time to do so – with such lag periods resulting in lost opportunity to the industry and region.

Minerals West Coast Trust Project Co-ordinator Keith Brodie summarised the Trust’s progress over the year and outlined where efforts will be concentrated in the next twelve months. Keith reported that Minerals West Coast is now well-established and becoming better known as a representative for the industry. Steady progress is being made, especially with DoC. Campbell Robertson from DoC spoke briefly on the department’s efforts improve the certainty and timeliness of managing access arrangements on Crown managed public land.
Keynote speakers Rod Oram, media commentator and business analyst, and Kit Wilson, media/community advisor provided very engaging and informative presentations.

Rod spoke at length about water as a crucial but finite resource, one of New Zealand’s great natural assets, but with increasing development there is a need to look at a range of water aspects: quantity, quality, policy, use and economics, ‘a deluge of issues for the mining industry’. Internationally New Zealand is amongst the best-endowed nations in the world with respect to availability of freshwater but it is not evenly distributed. Rod suggested that this might be exacerbated by global warming which may cause growing problems with allocation and management. Equally, declining water quality is likely to have implications for the mining industry with increasingly stringent standards being developed to protect what is available. National policies are being developed, but the very skewed distribution means that all encompassing rules will not always be workable. Growing use, particularly in agriculture, is added pressure on supplies and the economics of the future will dictate that allocation will be based on the best economic return /benefit rather than the existing first come first served basis. In spite of the seemingly unlimited abundance of water on the Coast, rules to better control quality and allocation will eventually affect the minerals industries access to water, as we know it.

Kit Wilson presented a fresh and perceptive look at how industry and community work with each other. He challenged the industry ‘Why is the community still on your case? Why does your industry only make the news when it doesn’t want to, and for all the wrong reasons? Why can other industries seem to engage in activities with impunity, but mining has the spotlight turned on it for seemingly every indiscretion?’ Kit suggested that part of the problem is that there is no ‘manual’ for industry-community interaction, and that as a result of this we tend to improvise strategy in the field or base it on ‘what worked before’. He then outlined a range of tools for the identification of critical issues, audiences and motivations, which he suggests, can provide a more robust, quantifiable, and effective community strategy.

The afternoon’s regional presentations from Pike River, Oceana and Solid Energy (Stockton) offered timely updates on all three projects.

Les McCracken, Pike River’s project manager for their development near Moonlight, provided a window on construction activities and difficulties, and the ramifications of the project development for the region. Pike’s development is buoyed by the growth in international demand that will see coking coal experience steady growth of 3% plus for many years. This will result in employment for 140 new staff directly and many more downstream transport and processing plant jobs.

Gareth Thomas, the recently arrived Operations Manager for Oceana’s Reefton project, provided what many in Reefton have been waiting years to hear – progress on construction activities at the Globe – Progress site. The present development will have a significant effect upon the local economy with total overall development capital of $NZD77m and up to 50 new jobs created.

Mike Lynn, Stockton Mine Manager for Solid Energy, introduced Ant Black of Geotech Ltd who detailed the work being undertaken at Stockton to de-construct the Mt Augustus ridgeline. This activity follows the removal of snail habitats along the ridge as an integral part of the removal of overburden to access the high-grade coal.

The day’s events concluded with a wet but very informative field trip to Tai Poutini’s Digger School just south of Reefton and to the Giles Creek Coal Mine northwest of the town. Peter O’Sullivan and Miles Cutbush provided the group with an overview of Tai Poutini’s facilities and course programme for both the civil construction and mining courses. At Giles Creek Glenys Perkins described the characteristics of the Giles Creek resource, mining methods and processing. Visiting Giles Creek was a great opportunity for many locals and out-of-towners to see one of the Coast’s more substantial independent producers

Keith Brodie Project Co-ordinator

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