New coal and mine technology services for Buller Region

Press Release: For immediate release

30 June 2011

New coal and mine technology services for Buller Region

The Hon. Chris Auchinvole, MP for West Coast and Tasman, yesterday officially opened CRL Energy's new office in Westport at a ceremony also attended by the Minister, Hon. Rodney Hide. The facility will be offering coal technology and mine geology services for operations in the Buller region. Both Mr Auchinvole and the Minister spoke of the importance of coal and mining to New Zealand.

CRL Energy Chief Executive Rob Whitney says the coal industry is booming in the Buller region with strong international demand for its high quality coking and thermal coals. “There are a significant number of new developments planned in the Buller and other West Coast coalfields. CRL Energy provides services ranging from geological assessments and advice, testing including coal preparation studies on coal washery parameters, spontaneous combustion, methane drainage and rock reactivity, to research on upgrading coal properties and advanced coal conversion technologies. The new laboratory will be our shop front for these services in the Buller.”

Dr Whitney says New Zealand has benefited and will continue to benefit from CRL Energy’s research, “Our work on fluidity of Buller coals in the 1990s provided extensive knowledge of the coal and underpinned Buller coal as a premium coking coal on the world market. CRL Energy is planning new research related to the safe production of coal, and will be setting up a spontaneous combustion test facility in the Westport laboratory.”

About CRL Energy
CRL Energy, with its head office in Lower Hutt, is an energy and environmental research and consulting company with specialist knowledge in new energy technologies, such as hydrogen and biomass conversion, and a strong history in all aspects of fossil fuel energy, particularly coal-related research. The Government invests some $1 million annually in research at CRL Energy from its contestable science fund.

“CRL Energy’s work on lignite gasification has sparked interest in gasification as a way of unlocking the potential of our South Island lignite, particularly as a chemical feedstock and for liquid fuels. The South Island’s lignite is a resource many times larger than the Maui gas field,” says Dr Whitney.

CRL Energy’s current research programme is aimed at co-utilising this resource with biomass and renewable electricity, to get the best out of New Zealand’s plentiful energy resources.
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