This, from today's Wellington DominionPost:
" Sharemarket-listed company Bathurst Resources has taken another step towards starting an open-cast coalmine near Westport, but hiring up to 225 people will not begin till it gets official consent to mine.
Bathurst's subsidiary, Buller Coal, has appointed Greymouth-based firm Brightwater Engineering to build a coal-processing plant and associated facilities.
The plant will process coal from the mine, in the south of the Denniston Plateau, about 14kms from Westport. Bathurst expected to draw local workers.
Bathurst managing director Hamish Bohannon said: "The pressure is on to get the mine up and running – the community is crying out for jobs."
While Bathurst is based in Perth, Western Australia, Mr Bohannon is based in Nelson.
It had $42 million in the bank and facilities for more, he said. Bathurst hoped to start mining by the end of the year, with commercial production soon after.
The company expected to start hiring straight after it gained consent. But how long that would take was unknown, with no official start date yet.
The mine was no different from what Solid Energy was doing nearby, he said, so consent should be "relatively straightforward".
The project is expected initially to employ up to 160 people, rising to 225, pumping about $30m into the region in salaries and wages.
The 160 would be mining and administration staff, with the balance for the coal washplant when it was completed. "There will be plenty of other jobs," he said, including at the local port.
The mine was expected to produce 360,000 tonnes of coal in the first year, which he said was modest, but would rise to 1 million tonnes, reaching 2 million in later years.
Most of the coal would be shipped out of Westport, with some going through Lyttelton.
The coal from the mine would be sold to Asia, for use in making steel.
Coal was selling for about US$250 (NZ$311) a tonne, and steel was very much in demand in Asia.
"The appetite from China is insatiable," he said. "
"