Pike chief executive Gordon Ward said the upgrade was the last step to get the CM operational.
“We have experienced a few issues with the continuous miners over past months, the major one being with the tracks that were fixed at the German manufacturer’s expense,” he said.
“Now the software upgrade is completed, we expect to see these machines operate with far greater reliability and enhanced performance.”
He added there was good progress at the three drill and blast faces at the company’s namesake underground coal mine in New Zealand.
Pike is working to get through a rock graben (faulted area) by late December or early January.
“The graben is only 100 metres in extent so once we are through that, we’ll be driving towards the first hydro panels and on our way to hydro-mining in the April-June 2010 quarter,” Ward said.
Pike shares shed 1c to 80c this morning.
