PRC - Pike River Coal

The Pike River Coal mine may have to be temporarily sealed after a fourth, powerful explosion sent large amounts of smoke and flames spewing from underground.

"There is quite a large amount of smoke coming out of the mine. This smoke has changed, it's no longer a gas fire, it's obviously now a coal fire," chief executive Peter Whittall said.

Families were told the news at 5pm.

"Where that coal fire is or how big it is, we don't know."

The worst-case scenario was that the coal seam would start to burn.

A gas fire was easy to put out, but a coal fire in a seam would be a "very different beast", Mr Whittall said.

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Who Dares Wins said:

PRC has been placed in receivership this morning.

This is despite Peter Whittal on TV 1 NZ on friday evening stating "it was premature to speak of receivership".

Well maybe but only by 2 days Peter.

This goes to show that CEO's and the like will talk positive sh*t and toe the company line right up to the last minute.

i'll be making sure i'm at the next public shareholders meeting if there is one.

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McCoy Pauley said:

The CEO might not wanted to have called in the receivers, but from the article written in The Australian, it seemed like the decision was taken by the majority shareholder in PRC.

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Who Dares Wins said:

Yes you're right it was NZO that called in receivers but only after the PRC board advised them they could not meet the debt repayment agreement after the stand still period offered by NZO and BNZ.

But 2 day earlier when asked if PRC had funds to pay all miners their entitlements including the bonus they were due Whittal replied "Oh, absolutely".

This morning receivers are evaluating how many miners will receive money and how much. One miner walked out of the talks after being told he will get nothing.

Whittal must have known this, he must have.

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