Read this….
Pike boss tells MPs: I’ll quit if they re-enter that mine
The chairman of Pike River Mine owner Solid Energy, Andy Coupe, has told MPs he would resign if a re-entry of the defunct mine proceeds.
“I would resign as a director [if a re-entry went ahead]. I would resign if that happened on my watch,” he told a select committee on Thursday.
He says even if a re-entry was ordered by the Government, he would still “seriously consider” resigning.
Mr Coupe is in Wellington for state-owned Solid Energy’s annual review at Parliament.
He has been bombarded with questions from Opposition MPs over his vehement opposition to re-entering Pike River, despite dozens of experts saying it can be done safely.
He rejected suggestions the Government is controlling Solid Energy’s stance on the matter.
“There is no cover-up or conspiracy regarding this company’s opposition to re-entering the defunct mine,” he says.
“The insinuations of a cover-up are wrong, and quite frankly, I’m offended.
“The directors or board have not been told either on paper or verbally by the Government to block re-entry plans.
“The directors or board have not been told either on paper or verbally by the Government to block re-entry plans.”
…you know the thing that I have NEVER understood about this entire Pike River Mine disaster?
Why. The. Hell. Are. We. Listening. To. Solid. Energy?
Every attempt to do the right thing by the families of those who have died, Solid Energy has tried to shut down because it’s not safe enough and they can’t do this and they can’t do that.
Who cares what Solid Energy have to say, because why the sweet zombie Christ would you listen to anything solid Energy has to say?
Remember this?
Solid Energy lost more than $60m in biofuels
Solid Energy’s five-year foray into biofuels cost it more than $60 million, although it is unclear how much was clawed back from selling the business in parts.
Details of the failed venture were released under the Official Information Act.
The state-owned coalminer bought Biodiesel New Zealand (then called Canterbury Biodiesel) from founder Paul Quinn in 2007.
It initially paid $2.3m for 80 per cent of Biodiesel NZ and raised its stake to 90 per cent a year later. It bought Quinn’s remaining shareholding in 2010 for $1.
During the half-decade in command of the company, Solid Energy spent $5m improving the existing Addington biofuel refinery which transformed used cooking oil into biodiesel.
It also built a $17m canola oil pressing plant at Rolleston, near Christchurch, in 2009/10 which was part of an agricultural contracting arm of the business that Solid Energy built from scratch to supply canola oil. The businesses clocked up $38m in operational losses from 2007.
They were sold as two separate businesses after Solid Energy decided it wanted out of the loss-maker last year.
On Tuesday Solid Energy strategy manager Bill Luff told Campbell Live that Biodiesel NZ was the worst mistake the company made in trying to diversify.
“I think Biodiesel sticks out a mile: It’s probably a business – the old adage – you don’t go into businesses that are based on government subsidies.”
Alarm bells over the cost of carbon and fuel that were ringing when Biodiesel NZ was bought never amounted to real changes in the market and the business always struggled, he said.
In five to 10 years the company “may make a lot of money for somebody”, he said, but Solid Energy had got in much too early.
Luff would not talk yesterday.
Solid Energy pumped a total of $62.3m into the biofuels business.
Remember this?
Solid Energy to slash Chch HQ staff
June 2012: Solid Energy’s former chairman, John Palmer, resigns from the company to make way for a successor who can “commit all the way through” its expected listing on the NZX.
August 2012: Former chief executive Don Elder says the firm needs to cut $120 million in costs after world coal prices fall more than 40 per cent. Work at West Coast’s Spring Creek mine is suspended.
September 2012: Cuts are proposed targeting 455 staff – a quarter of its workforce.
October, November 2012: 230 staff at Spring Creek, 162 in corporate and head office and 63 at Huntly East mine are made redundant.
February 2013: Elder resigns as chief executive but remains on full pay from home to help recruit his successor.
February 2013: Government reveals Solid Energy on the brink of receivership with debt of $389m.
May 2013: Solid Energy slashes another 105 roles in its corporate team, 52 in Christchurch and 53 at regional sites.
Remember this?
Govt unveils Solid Energy bailout plans
The Government has proposed a deal to restructure the debts of Solid Energy, including a $25 million cash injection and another $130m in loans.
Banks which lend to Solid Energy will be required to inject $75m in return for non-voting redeemable preference shares – the same status as the Government’s $25m cash injection. This is effectively an interest free loan to the company.
State Owned Enterprises Minister Tony Ryall said the banks were also being asked “to waive some of their rights”. A Treasury official said this was the right to apply to place the company into receivership.
If agreed, the Crown will also give three-year loans of $100m, as well as a further $30m standby loan, to be redeemed if required.
In February the Government announced it was in talks with Solid Energy’s lenders about restructuring the company’s debts, “with the aim of returning the company to a sustainable financial position”, Finance Minister Bill English said.
As Labour’s Energy spokesperson, Clayton Cosgrove noted at the time, “”It took a $335M hit, earnings were down 78 percent, it paid $13M in redundancy to white collar corporate staff and had to write off $150M in abandoned projects,” – why are we listening to a company that only 4 years ago had to be bailed out because its fantasies got ahead of its abilities?
Solid Energy have proven themselves to be incompetent bordering on lunacy, so what they have to say about Pike River Mine, the safety of re-entering Pike River Mine or any topic for that matter should be taken with so much salt to cause your Kidneys to immediately shut down.
Viewing employees as a liability is a major phenomenon through out the managers class. With increasing frequency contracts stipulate you must hand over all digital pass words so employeers can access weather comunications between employees are work related to protect interlectual property. These new digital detectives have now replaced work place liability.
When once we had a manual for every job so blame was assigned to the employeer, then in the 90’s blame assigned on the notion that fault always lay with the operator, who operated larger machines.
Now that machines have gone through dramatic miniaturisation they can be replaced easily so to protect the IP workers are looked at as snithes.
I believe that will change as the underdog fights back against the managerial class. The managerial class really has no power. It is assigned to them from above. But not given through democratic means. So the people will always go with the worker and if the managerial class head grows to much it gets lopped off like what happened in the french revolution with the aristoctats. I think a little revolution from time to time not to be a bad thing. Maybe not the lopping off of heads these days…
It’s about justice and a full air crash style investigation so we can learn what happened and adjust work safe manuals ect. You just cant learn anything shot crete’ing over mistakes like a green horn who gets tired scalling.
The first thing that should have been outlawed in New Zealand are rising declines. It angers me to no end that the mine bosses couldn’t get permission untill the last minute to cut a road accross a national park to install a crusial vent fan that was vital.
And i heard a rumour the mine manager hadn’t even mined coal seems.
There is a simple solution. Andrew Little said he’d reenter and thats good enough for me
Dont even try and deny it, fossil fuels are for those who cant afford biofuels
It is great to see Bill English coming to the rescue. Finally a politician with a bit of guts coming to help out the Pike River families. Better that National Party and its alliance is coming to their aid, than Winston, who is all fluff, dandruff and bluster and a populist policitican.
Well done Bill!
Let the low-life chair resign, “good riddance to bad rubbish my Dad would always say.
They never tried to save those men from the start, so they are murders I say.
Interesting listening to Bill English interview that it is the board of Pike River (Solid Energy) who stand to be incriminated and found responsible for 29 deaths if any evidence of malpractice is found on re-entry , that have to make the decision on the safety of re-entry.
Also interesting that the critical consideration is that someone must be able to be held liable now if anything goes wrong on re-entry; rather than seeing to it that nothing goes wrong.
There is constant risk in many occupations all the time; it can only be constantly monitored , it can’t be eliminated. With the care that would be taken in re -entering that mine now it would be the safest job in the country.
D J S
Let’s run and X-Factor-style voting system.
The politician from National with the most number of votes, gets to replace Winston going into the Pike River Mine drift.
National and its spin-doctor-handlers have only got off their collective arses because Winston shamed them into it.
Must be an election year. Gerry Brownlee gets my X-Factor vote. Labour-Greens will get my strategic election votes.
An analysis of what contributed to Solid Energy’s demise.
It began in 2009 with a signed a letter from Bill English to Solid Energy approving a higher debt level; https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/05/17/solid-energy-a-solid-drama-of-facts-fibs-and-fall-guys/
Wow! That was some in depth analysis Frank! Well the feck do you find time to sleep??
It gave a whole new insight into how the Nats gutted solid energy for revenue.
+1
Frank is doing what the MSM should be doing. The level of questioning how things are, was once the domain of MSM journalist. That was till the right, grabbed teh reins of the media and started to make New Zealand like Orwell’s Oceania.
“Winston dialled ‘back numbers’ on the telescreen and called for the appropriate issues of ‘The Times’, which slid out of the pneumatic tube after only a few minutes’ delay. The messages he had received referred to articles or news items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alter, or, as the official phrase had it, to rectify….
This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs—to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold
any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place.
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