Tickets available for Minerals West Coast 2021 forum

Minerals West Coast's 2021 forum has been set in for Thursday the 28th of October, and will be held in Reefton.

Minerals West Coast's annual general meeting will also be held on the same day, prior to the forum starting.

The line up for the 2021 Forum: Resurgence, ticket prices, and registration details, can all be found on the forum page - click the button below to see for yourself.

Minerals West Coast and West Coast Commercial Goldminers' Association amalgamation

Minerals West Coast and the West Coast Commercial Goldminers' Association will need to meet at least once more prior to the joint AGM to be held in Reefton this year in conjunction with Minerals West Coast's annual forum.

This is to ratify the amalgamation of Minerals West Coast and the West Coast Commercial Goldminers' Association as one entity.

The last meeting was held in Hokitika in July, with all attendees voting in support of the merger. In line with the West Coast Commercial Goldminers' Association's constitution, another meeting will be held prior to finalising the amalgamation at the AGM in Reefton this year.

This meeting will be held once the country moves to Covid-19 alert level 2, and will be held in Greymouth. Once the time and location for this meeting have been confirmed, members will be notified.

Mining at Covid-19 alert level 3

With KFC and McDonald's back operating, so are many businesses in New Zealand outside Auckland and Wellington.

The government recommends that staff within an organisation who can continue to work from home should do so. 

For those who physically need to be at their work to do it, the following advice is given for working and running a business at alert level three:

• Everyone on site maintaining at least one metre of distance from one another at all times
• Visitors to worksites (customers, contractors etc) maintaining at least two metres of distance at all times
• Staggering break times between staff to reduce the number of people in one place at one time
• Providing hygiene and cleaning products so workers can disinfect shared surfaces (like the inside of a machine if it will be used by multiple operators) and wash and dry their hands
• Making sure a QR code or hard copy register is available for contact tracing
  
  

Vaccination bookings on the West Coast

If you've been thinking about booking an appointment for your Covid-19 jab, but haven't yet, you can either book online or over the phone.

The phone number is 0800 28 29 26, and operators are available to take your call any time from 8:00am to 8:00pm.

If the vaccination centre closest to you doesn't have any vacancies any time soon, ask the operator whether there are any other centres nearby with vacancies at an earlier time - this may mean having to take more time out of your day, but it is an option.

Rumour has it, it takes only five minutes to book online if you don't want to deal with waiting on the phone. 

Minerals West Coast and New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals Working together to address permit application backlog

Minerals West Coast met with New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals staff in mid-August to discuss time delays in the processing of applications for exploration and mining permits under the Crown Minerals Act.

In mid-August Minerals West Coast's chairwoman, Glenys Perkins, and manager, Patrick Phelps, met with  NZP&M staff in Wellington.

Minerals West Coast understands that in line with new protocols of not accepting applications if they are incomplete, about a third of permit applications are being rejected.

This is to ensure that those applications that lodged with the complete set of information required can get the full attention of staff, whereas incomplete applications need to be rewritten and resubmitted. If applications are rejected, application fees are refunded to the applicant.

Minerals West Coast intends to work with NZP&M to reestablish performance reporting, which was carried out on a quarterly basis throughout 2016 and 2017.

This involves NZP&M publishing permissions processing reports four times a year, outlining the number of applications received in a three month period, and the percentage of those applications processed within the target time frames, shown below.

Subject to alert level restrictions, NZP&M will be speaking to these issues and other matters at the 2021 forum in October.

Minerals West Coast manager talks coal supply and demand with Bryan Crump

About the 10th of August the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change published its report labelled a "code red to humanity" and stressed all countries, big and small, rich and poor, need to drastically reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

About the same time, in New Zealand, there were power cuts around the country on the coldest night of the year, with unprecedented demand for electricity. The next morning, the same energy and resources minister who wants 100% renewable electricity by 2030 wanted to know why 51% Crown-owned Genesis Energy hadn't burnt more coal to keep the lights on.

All this and more was the focus of the latest conversation between Minerals West Coast's manager, Patrick Phelps, and host of RNZ Nights, Bryan Crump. The full interview is available below.

Minerals West Coast is proud to announce a date has been set for its annual forum, to be held in Reefton on Thursday the 21st of October, along with its annual general meeting.

Once the full line-up of speakers has been finalised, along with a few other details, tickets will be made available for purchase for those wishing to attend.

Minerals West Coast is looking forward to hosting another successful forum on the back of last year's Reefton event.

Subject to interest, a field trip to a mine within the Reefton area may be organised for Friday the 22nd of October.

More information will be available within the coming weeks.

Minerals West Coast will be meeting with staff from New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals to address concerns over the speed of permit processing for those working in the minerals sector, such as miners and explorers.

In July, Minerals West Coast wrote to New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals raising concerns with the department's processing of permits and the impact it is having on the mining sector. New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals staff have since spoken with Minerals West Coast at the most recent trust meeting (held in August) to explain some of the issues.

Another meeting will be held when Minerals West Coast representatives meet with New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals staff in Wellington this month. If you have any concerns you would like raised at this meeting, or solutions, please contact Minerals West Coast's manager, Patrick Phelps, so that these matters can be put in front of the officials.

Patrick can be contacted by email at manager@mwc.org.nz or by phone on 021 238 6846.

In mid-July a meeting was held in mid-July to confirm and progress the merger of Minerals West Coast and the West Coast Commercial Goldminers' Association. All those in attendance from both organisations (which have many common members) supported the two groups becoming one, with the West Coast Commercial Goldminers' Association amalgamating into Minerals West Coast.

In line with the constitution of the West Coast Commercial Goldminers' Association constitution, another meeting will be held on between now and the annual general meeting of both groups in October when the merger will be finalised, subject to the approval of each respective groups' membership.

This is a reminder to members of both Minerals West Coast and the West Coast Commercial Goldminers' Association of the meeting being held this Wednesday (14th of May) at the Hokitika RSA (22 Sewell Street) regarding the amalgamation of Minerals West Coast and the West Coast Commercial Goldminers' Association.

This amalgamation was discussed and agreed to in principle at last year's annual general meetings of both organisations in Reefton (3rd September, 2020).

This meeting is to discuss the details of the amalgamation, and talk through any matters members wish to raise.

The West Coast Commercial Goldminers' Association's constitution can be found here.  The constitution of Minerals West Coast Trust can be found here.

If you have any questions about this meeting, please contact Patrick Phelps on either 021 238 6846, or email manager@mwc.org.nz .

Time: Meeting will start at 7:00pm, running through till 8:00pm.
Location: Westland RSA, 22 Sewell Street, Hokitika.

MINERS' MONTHLY: JUNE 2021

Echo and Federation Mining field trip

A field trip this month (June) allowed attendants to get a close up look at operations at Reefton's Echo coal mine, and Federation Mining’s development at its Snowy River site. The Minerals West Coast contingent travelled by van to Reefton and Echo coal mine was the first stop of the day. Echo sits in the Garvey Creek Coalfield (part of the Brunner coal measures), producing coal for export, which is taken by rail to the Lyttelton Port before being taken by ship to international markets.

Mine manager, Eamon Moynihan started the day by giving the Minerals West Coast visitors a run through of the history, development, and modern operations of the mine, followed by a visit to view the working pit.

Then visitors were shown the results of the rehabilitation efforts at the site, as well as the mussel shell reactor acid mine drainage treatment.

After travelling back through Reefton for lunch, Minerals West Coast travelled south to visit Federation Mining’s Snowy River site. Broken up into groups of three, each group was given a run through of the development of the site, and future exploration and mine plans, an explanation of the wetland water treatment system, and a walking tour of the tunnel development to date.

Photos of the underground development can be seen below. 

Nights interview

Every ten weeks Minerals West Coast manager, Patrick Phelps, speaks to Bryan Crump (host of Nights on RNZ National) to discuss whatever subject relating to mining is topical at the time.

This month’s focus of conversation was where the mining history sits in the context of New Zealand’s biodiversity crisis.

Mining matters #10: Significant natural areas

In the same context, the latest installment of Mining Matters looks at the issue of significant natural areas – SNAs’ – on private land. This video can be watched in full below.

Meeting to approve merger of Minerals West Coast and West Coast Commercial Goldminers' Association

As notified in Minerals West Coast’s May newsletter, a meeting will be held in July to confirm the merger of the West Coast Commercial Goldminers’ Association with Minerals West Coast. This amalgamation was agreed to in principle at the annual general meetings of both respective organisations in Reefton in September last year.
The meeting will be held at the Westland RSA on Wednesday the 14th of July, starting at 7:00pm. 

If government this government implements its policy proposals as drafted, coal boilers in New Zealand industry could be a thing of the past within the next two decades.
The discussion document, ‘Phasing out fossil fuels in process heat’ is the fourth document of its kind in the past in just over two years. Documents of this type have been published in January 2019, December 2019, by the Climate Change Commission as recently as February this year (and submissions are still being reviewed).

The government is proposing to ban all new coal boilers, and phase out existing boilers no later than 2037 under proposed changes to the Resource Management Act, essentially through the consenting process – the proposal is effectively to deny new consents for coal boilers for low and medium temperature (everything under 300°C) by 2037.
This would capture every boiler in the South Island currently using coal for space heating, hothouse growing, dairy product manufacturing, and meat processing.
Minerals West Coast’s submission can be read below.

After years of inaction since the November 2017 pledge that there would be no new mines on conservation land evidence suggests the government is still moving to implement the policy, however slow such movement may seem.

Documents released this month to the Greymouth Star under the Official Information Act have shown up to as recently as March this year both the Department of Conservation and the Ministry for Business, Innovation, and Employment have been working on progressing the policy.

These documents show the progress to date has been slow due to a lack of agreement within government, and a desire to clarify the status of stewardship land.

Minerals West Coast has prepared a breakdown of the most relevant parts of the documents released, available below.

A good example of why access to conservation land is vital for all resources, be it coal, gold, rock and aggregate, is covered in the latest installment of Mining matters on Minerals West Coast's YouTube channel.

As Federation Mining progresses its three kilometre long journey underground to establish its mine at Snowy River, activity in the Reefton Goldfield is in the headlines.
Other companies, such as Reefton Gold, and Siren Gold, are also actively carrying out exploration programmes to find gold deposits in the area.

This month NZ Herald reporter Kate McNamara visited the West Coast to cover the ‘mini goldrush’ underway in the Buller. The article is available here for those who have a subscription to the NZ Herald.

A field day in mid-June is fast approaching, but it’s not too late to register. Minerals West Coast is running a field day to visit mine sites in the Reefton area on Wednesday the 16th of June.

The field trip will visit local coal mines, looking at mine site management of health and safety, water treatment, and rehabilitation on conservation land. In the afternoon, Minerals West Coast will visit Federation Mining’s Snowy River mine site for a look at how the three kilometre tunneling project is progressing.

If you’ve been thinking of attending and haven’t registered yet, or just want to know more, check out the details.

This month The Drug Detection Agency put on a workshop at Tai Poutini Polytechnic to enable miners to manage and respond to drug and alcohol abuse in the mining industry.
Therese Gibbens of the Drug Detection Agency took attendants through how to identify behaviours associated with the different uses of drugs, what responsibilities employers have for drug use in the workplaces, and approaches for dealing with these issues.
Those who require drug detection services or advice or systems for managing drug and alcohol issues in the workplace can contact Therese on either 021 467 042 or Therese.Gibbens@tdda.com

An amalgamation of Minerals West Coast with the West Coast Commercial Goldminers’ Association was discussed at the AGMs of both respective organisations in Reefton last September.Minerals West Coast and the West Coast Commercial Goldminers’ Association will be meeting on the 14th of July to discuss progressing the merger. Members of both organisations are invited to attend.The meeting is scheduled for 7:00pm on Wednesday the 14th of July, at the Hokitika RSA (Sewell Street). More information on this meeting will be sent out shortly.

Minerals West Coast will be hosting a field day visiting mines in the Reefton area on the 16th of June, 2021. The field day will start from Equip Engineering (42 Jacks Road, Paroa) at 8:00am, arriving at the first mine in Reefton about 9:30am for induction with a site tour from 10:00am onward. The morning will be made up of visits to coal mines in the Reefton area, looking at site rehabilitation and water management, as well as on site health and safety practices.

In the afternoon the field trip will visit Federation Mining's Snowy River site where the company's underground development is progressing.

Minerals West Coast expects to return to Greymouth by about 4:00pm.

For more details, including pricing, and to register, click the button below.

If you have any difficulty registering, or would like more details about this event, please contact Patrick Phelps on 021 238 6846, or manager@mwc.org.nz

Reducing the risk of drug and alcohol related harm in the workplace means knowing what steps to take to prevent it.

Minerals West Coast is proud to provide a four hour drug and alcohol workshop run by the Drug Detection Agency.

This will help equip mine and quarry managers to prevent, identify, and manage substance abuse in mines and quarries.

Topics covered in the four hour workshop will include, but not be limited to:

• Why it’s worthwhile conducting drug and alcohol testing
• When that testing can be conducted
• Who is involved in the testing process
• What new drug trends are emerging
• How to actively manage your company’s drug and alcohol policy
• Drugs that can be tested for (including prescription medicines and illicit substances
• Ho to identify the signs, symptoms and risks through behaviour and other indicators
  
  

This event is ideal for managers, leaders, and supervisors working on mines and in quarries.

The session will run from 1pm to 5pm.

To register for the event, please visit the event page and follow the instructions to pay by either credit card or request an invoice. Minerals West Coast uses this system to make registrations automatic and easy to manage. If you have any difficulty using this system, please phone Patrick on 021 238 6846.

MINERS' MONTHLY: MARCH 2021

Climate Change Commission submission lodged

Minerals West Coast's submission to the Climate Change Commission addressed the previous advice industry has given to the government on barriers to removing fossil fuels from New Zealand's energy profile, and the importance of cheap, reliable energy for New Zealand's provincial communities.

Much of the commission's analysis ignores previous rounds of policy consultation the government has held on removing fossil fuels from New Zealand's energy mix, especially process heat. Minerals West Coast raised this issue, and the cost to communities like the West Coast, in the submission sent to the Climate Change Commission. The full submission is available below.

The commission will now assess all the submissions it has received, and shared its finalised advice with the government on the 31st of May, 2021.

Mines Rescue CPD course on remote worksite safety

Being ready to respond to life or death emergencies was the central point of this month's CPD training event at Mines Rescue in Rapahoe. Glenville Stiles of Mines Rescue ran the three hour training session on emergency management planning. The session covered basics such as how to communicate with emergency services in areas with limited mobile coverage, or none at all; what plans to have in place for workers who operate on their own; access to injured staff in uneven terrain; having staff adequately trained in first-aid and having appropriate equipment on site. As well as having processes in place to be ready to respond in the event of injuries or other emergencies, Glenville emphasised the need to work through these plans in drills and practice sessions to ensure these plans are more than just documents.

Upcoming CPD events for 2021

Minerals West Coast will continue to organise training events for 2021 and notify members of events being organised by other industry groups. Events coming up in the coming months are in the table below.

Interview with on Nights RNZ National

About every ten weeks Minerals West Coast's manager, Patrick Phelps, speaks with the host of RNZ National's evening show, Nights, Bryan Crump. The most recent interview, on Tuesday the 23rd of March, focused mainly on the Climate Change Commission's advice to the New Zealand government. The full interview is available below.

The Climate Change Commission released its draft report on emissions budgets for the coming fifteen years through to 2035, and how New Zealand can meet its emissions reductions targets under the Paris Agreement.

The report had initially been set for six weeks of consultation, with a deadline for submissions of Sunday the 14th of March. Fifteen industry groups cosigned a letter requesting an extension to the consultation deadline. The extension was granted, and the submission deadline extended to Sunday the 28th of March. This extra two weeks will allow Minerals West Coast and others to submit a better researched and detailed submission than would have otherwise been possible.

​Minerals West Coast is in the process of drafting its submission and will be consulting with members in the coming weeks. Once this draft is written, it will be circulated to membership for wider review. 
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MEDIA COVERAGE FOLLOWING REPORT'S PUBLICATION
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At the time the draft report was released, there was significant media coverage of the many aspects of the report. Minerals West Coast outlined the issues with the commission’s report within local and national media in the days following its publication in mid-March. Minerals West Coast manager, Patrick Phelps, spoke on Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report programme to discuss the reality of what the commission is proposing. You can listen to this interview below.

An article also appeared on stuff.co.nz's website outlining the potential impact of the Climate Change Commission's draft recommendations for the West Coast economy. You can read this article by clicking the picture below.​

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CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT EVENTS 2021
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Minerals West Coast is working to ensure there are ample opportunities for the coming year for mine and quarry managers to attend training events and workshops over the coming year. If you haven’t registered yet for the first event for the year, a March workshop on remote workplace emergency management, please do so. Click the button below for details.​
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Other events on the horizon are outlined below, with those being organised or run by Minerals West Coast coloured gold. As dates and events are confirmed, Minerals West Coast will work to distribute notices and invitations. Please contact Patrick Phelps if you have any questions on either 021 238 6846 or by email at manager@mwc.org.nz ​

Other events are being planned for the year and will be made known to members as early as possible to allow operators to make plans in advance.

Minerals West Coast will be holding its annual forum again this year, most likely in September of October. 

NEW ZEALAND PETROLEUM AND MINERALS TRAINING NIGHT IN GREYMOUTH
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With annual summary reports to be filled out online from this year onwards, New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals staff visited Greymouth in mid-February to guide local miners through the process. NZPAM has produced a video guide showing the steps through the online ASR process. This video, now publicly available, can be found on YouTube, by clicking here, or watched below.​