Staff called to meeting on Stockton mine sale
WESTPORT: Solid Energy has called all Stockton Mine staff members to meetings today.
Solid Energy chief executive Tony King said the meetings were to ‘‘update all staff on progress relating to sale of its operations to BT Mining Ltd’’.
‘‘We will not be making any further comment until after the meetings, consistent with our longstanding policy of advising staff before making public announcements.’’
Westport’s The News newspaper asked Mr King how many people were employed at Stockton. He replied yesterday that he would have that information ‘‘tomorrow’’.
There were reports Solid Energy would make its employees redundant and BT Mining would undertake a recruitment process, seeking to employ up to 100 more workers at Stockton.
Last October Solid Energy announced that a partnership of mining company Bathurst Resources and food producer Talley’s would buy Stockton.
Joint venture BT Mining also bought the stateowned enterprise’s Rotowaro and Maramarua mines in the Waikato.
Bathurst owns 65% of BT Mining and Talleys 35%.
Bathurst has headquarters in Wellington but the deal needs Overseas Investment Office (OIO) approval because most of its shareholders are based overseas. The company’s shares are traded on the Australian stock exchange. A spokeswoman for the OIO yesterday said the application was still being assessed.
Last week Bathurst announced it had received clearance from government permitting agency NZ Petroleum and Minerals for the transfer of Solid Energy’s mining licences for Stockton and the Waikato mines.
When the joint venture purchase was first announced, Bathurst chief executive Richard Tacon said combining Solid Energy assets with its existing mines would create the country’s largest specialist coal mining company.
Talley’s director Andrew Talley said his company would leave Bathurst to operate the mines.
Solid Energy said in October it expected the asset sales to be completed in the first half of 2017.
The stateowned mining company was placed in voluntary administration to protect it from collapse in August 2015. — NZME