Bathurst Resources

The company was originally based in Perth, Western Australia. Bathurst Resources Limited was incorporated in New Zealand on 16 November 2010. The name of this company was changed to BR Coal Pty Ltd on 6 December 2013, with Pier Westerhuis as its sole director.[1] Bathurst Resources (New Zealand) Limited was incorporated on 27 March 2013 and changed its names to Bathurst Resources Limited on 18 December 2013.[2] This company has four directors, including Westerhuis.[3] Another director is Richard Tacon, who has since March 2015 been the CEO of Bathurst Resources.[3] Tacon is the chairperson of the Coal Association of New Zealand.[4]

Since 21 June 2013, Bathurst Resources has been listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.[5] From the same date, Bathurst Resources was listed on the NZX (New Zealand's Exchange). With a background of falling coal prices, the company delisted from the NZX on 3 July 2015 as a cost saving measure.[6][7] Bathurst Resources is majority-owned by Singaporean interests.[8]

The reason for Bathurst Resources' entrance to New Zealand was the Escarpment Mine Project on the Denniston Plateau. In March 2010, the Perth-based coal company Bathurst Resources announced it was buying L&M Coal's hard-coking coal exploration assets and mining permit areas in the Buller District of the West Coast.[9] In June 2010, Bathurst Resources announced plans to develop an opencast coking and thermal coal mine for exporting in 2011 in a joint venture with Christchurch-based company L&M. The proposal had an exploration target of between 17 and 23 million tonnes of coal in the Denniston area.[10] In early September 2010, Bathurst Resources confirmed plans for a US$57 million hard coking coal opencast mine on the Denniston plateau above Westport. The plan included a slurry pipeline to carry coal down the steep plateau slope from a processing plant to a rail load-out 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from Westport. The plans for a pipeline were dropped in 2012 and an aerial transport system agreed to instead to address objections made by residents of Fairdown.[11]

L&M Coal Limited became Buller Coal Holdings Limited on 9 November 2010, and the name was further amended to Buller Coal Limited on 28 February 2011. Buller Coal Limited, fully owned by Bathurst New Zealand Limited which in turn is fully owned by Bathurst Resources Limited, is in charge of the Escarpment Mine Project.[12]

Hamish Bohannan was the company's first CEO; he resigned in March 2015. Richard Tacon, who was the company's CFO and had joined in 2012, succeeded Bohannan.[13] Tacon became a director of the company on 1 April 2015.[14] Tacon remains the company's CEO.[15]

The company started operating in New Zealand in 2011, with the head office located in Wellington.[16] It operated small mines in Westland and Southland while waiting for the much larger Escarpment Mine Project to get consented, and once consent was achieved in 2013, for resource prices to recover to make extraction economic.[17] In 2014, Bathurst Resources wrote off the $449.9 million value of the Escarpment Mine Project. The six-month revenue of the mines in Westland and Southland was reported as $26.5 million at the end of 2014.[18][19]

The Takitimu Mine, also known as the Nightcaps mine, was operated as an open-cast mine by Bathurst Resources from 2011. From 2011, the company was operating to adjacent Coaldale Mine. The Coaldale Mine was then expanded into the adjacent Black Diamond deposit.[20]