Miners at the underground Spring Creek mine walked off the job yesterday to strike for 24 hours until this morning, New Zealand Press Association reported.
The Spring Creek underground mine near Greymouth is the replacement for Solid Energy's Strongman 2 Mine, which closed in August 2003. Production is scheduled to be up to 800,000 tonnes per annum, double the current output of Strongman 2.
The low sulphur, low ash semi-soft coking coal is used by Japanese steel manufacturers and for thermal power generation.