Radio New Zealand reported that about 40 former Pike miners have “signed up” to work at Narrabri while another 12 are moving to Queensland to work.

The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union also represents miners in New Zealand, and its national secretary Andrew Little told ILN he had heard that more than 50 workers have been offered jobs with Whitehaven.

Whitehaven confirmed that recruitment efforts were underway, but agreements were yet to be signed.

“Whitehaven Coal/Narrabri Coal is not in direct discussions with any of the former Pike River miners at this stage,” a company spokesperson told ILN on Friday.

“However, discussions are well progressed between a group of the highly skilled NZ miners and one of our mining contractors, and an agreement is expected to be finalised in the near future.

“We understand the discussions commenced after the miners responded to an advertisement in Australian media.

“Should the Pike River miners decide to take on the contractor roles at Narrabri, Whitehaven management and employees will be working alongside the contractor to provide the miners and their families in NZ’s Greymouth community with all available support as they re-enter the workforce and come to terms with fly-in, fly-out arrangements.”

But Whitehaven and other Australian coal companies seem to have also made direct recruiting efforts, according to Little.

“They [Whitehaven] weren’t the only ones. There were a couple other mining companies within a week or so of that first explosion – they were already sounding out the possibility of recruiting guys.

“They came over and did presentations and all that sort of stuff.”

From his understanding of what he had heard, Little said some ex-Pike miners will work at Narrabri on a two-week fly-in, fly back out to New Zealand roster for the first three months.

“If they take a permanent position they have got to relocate,” Little said.

The union leader said 52 of the ex-Pike miners had found work in Australia, with this representing the bulk of the “actual miner” workforce since disaster struck.

He added that about 30 of Pike’s management workforce were retained by Pike’s administrators.

Most of the retrenched Pike workers received a bonus or redundancy payment before Christmas.

“Those who didn’t, the union gave them $1000,” Little said.

He added that other money was donated to these workers from the public.

The underground mine on New Zealand’s West Coast employed a total workforce of about 180 before disaster struck on November 19 and claimed 29 lives.

Whitehaven’s Narrabri mine in the Gunnedah Basin plans to install new Bucyrus longwall equipment in the September quarter.

The mine could produce 6 million tonnes per annum of raw coal through conventional longwall mining of a 4.2-metre bottom section of the 8-9m thick Hoskissons seam.

The Bucyrus longwall equipment, however, can be retrofitted to perform Longwall Top Coal Caving.

If LTCC is proven to be feasible and is implemented, extracting the full seam could increase raw coal production to 12Mtpa after the first two panels are mined.