While no conclusion has been reached on cause, the data and evidence of the event are under review.

“The building has now been made safe for entry, and the mechanical inspection of the building has concluded that most of the exhaust side of the dryer system will need to be replaced,” company officials said.

Teck has retained an engineering firm to serve as project manager on the rebuild of the facility. That group is currently on-site at Greenhills establishing a scope of work and project timeline.

“The current plan is to activate the bypass system around the dryer, which will allow the company to produce and ship wet coal for blending with dry coal from other mines,” the producer said.

Teck is also sending raw coal to Fording River for processing, reducing the explosion’s impact on production.

Power is being established to the bypass system so the company can determine its mechanical integrity and operational control.

The producer confirmed that no production guidance update for the year is available at this time; that will not be known until the timing of the steps needed to return to active status are defined.

The producer said early this month that it has insurance to cover both property and business interruptions. That coverage is expected to be sufficient to cover the incident’s foreseeable losses.

Teck has an 80% interest in the mine, with the other 20% held by POSCO and subsidiary POSCO Canada.

The 2010 production target for Greenhills is 4.3 million tons of met product, with Teck’s share totaling about 3.4Mt.

Greenhills is located just north of Elkford and is made up of 11,806 hectares of coal lands, of which 2265h are mines or planned for mining.