Short sea loses out to rail

Pike River Coal Ltd will start production in April this year, when it will send its coking coal over the Southern Alps to Lyttelton for export, rather than Port Taranaki, the proposed destination of the short sea route. Port Taranaki’s chief executive Roy Weaver said his officials had worked extremely hard to establish an innovative solution for west coast exporters, with coal from Pike River providing the base load. “We are terribly disappointed at not being able to realise an environmentally-friendly transport solution for the western seaboard of New Zealand at this time,” he said.

Pike River chief executive Gordon Ward said they’d gone for the rail option because of a significant increase in rail capacity, which offered 45-wagon trains, and had resulted from investment of $125m in the line by the NZ government and Solid Energy.