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The old portal seal at the Pike River Mine - Source: Supplied -
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The sale of Pike River mine to Solid Energy has been completed, receivers PricewaterhouseCoopers have announced.
Solid Energy today paid the final $5 million instalment of the $7.5 purchase price and assumed responsibility for the mine and related assets.
"We are pleased that all conditions relating to the sale have now been met, and responsibility for the mine and related assets has been transferred to Solid Energy," receiver John Fisk said today.
Pike River Coal was placed in receivership on December 13, 2010, shortly after a series of explosions at its West Coast mine which killed 29 miners.
In March this year Solid Energy and the receivers announced a conditional agreement to sell the company's assets to Solid Energy.
The main conditions included reaching agreement with the Government on responsibility for the recovery of the miners' bodies and on a contribution to the costs incurred by the police following the explosions.
In a recent meeting with families of the men, Solid Energy said it could see no way to safely carry out a standalone re-entry to recover the bodies. It said the only way this could be attempted would be as part of a wider commercial mining operation.
Solid Energy said today it is likely to be several years at least before the company would be in a position to say if it had a safe, technically feasible and commercially viable mining plan.
An exploration programme to better understand the resource and geology would be needed before a safe and economic mining plan could be proposed for development.
Fisk said there was a number of matters that still need to be addressed before the receivership is retired.