Our first Coal Action Network Aotearoa strategy day of 2025 focused on Bathurst Resources, the coal mining company that swooped in from Australia to buy most of Solid Energy’s coal mines at bargain basement prices a decade ago, and is now hoping to benefit from the Government fast-tracking two big coal mining projects it wants to push ahead with.

(For the purposes of this article, I’m considering BT Mining, their jointly-owned subsidiary with the notorious fishing company Talleys, as part of Bathurst – despite the fact that Bathurst and Talleys are fighting in the courts.)

Having a compliant Government, and a Prime Minister who mouths all the mining industry’s talking points like the world’s most complacent sock puppet, has certainly helped Bathurst’s prospects and lessened the continuing grumbling from their investors about inadequate dividends.

The Government has included two planned Bathurst mining projects, Buller Plateaux and North Rotowaro, in the list of projects in the Fast-Track Approvals Act.

But all is not rosy in the garden. The problem for Bathurst is that, despite their and the Government’s worst efforts, Aotearoa is slowly continuing to move away from the use of thermal coal – that is, coal burned to provide heat for industrial processes and energy generation. For many years, the three biggest domestic users of coal have been Genesis Energy’s power station at Huntly; Bluescope’s New Zealand Steel plant at Glenbrook; and Fonterra’s many coal-fueled milk powder factories. But in recent years:

While there are many smaller users of thermal coal in Aotearoa, and none of them should be let off the hook to decarbonise, such cuts by the “big three” have left the future of thermal coal mining in Aotearoa looking increasingly short-term. The Government, despite adding metallurgical coal to its critical minerals list against the advice of the consultants who drew up the draft list, left thermal coal off the recently-released critical minerals list.

So Bathurst are betting big on mining metallurgical (coking) coal, which the Government did include on the critical minerals list. This coal would not be for domestic use – confusingly, New Zealand Steel uses thermal coal, not metallurgical coal, in its current Glenbrook furnaces. It’s all about export, and Bathurst is betting that it can navigate a world increasingly breaking into geographic power blocks and find markets for coking coal. That is very bad news for a large stretch of beautifully, ecologically valuable land on the West Coast – if they’re allowed to get away with it.

I expect you’ll be hearing plenty more about Bathurst’s Buller Plateaux projects this year, so in this article I’ll focus on their other projects. What else has Bathurst got going on?

  • Bathurst’s second fast-track project is the North Rotowaro coal mine near Huntly. This is near to their existing Rotowaro mine, and if it goes ahead, would result in around a million tonnes of GHG emissions per year – so it is a substantial project that we’ll be working hard to oppose with the tools available to us.
  • Separately, they have started on a three-year project, called Waipuna West, to extend the existing Rotowaro mine.
  • Bathurst’s Maramarua mine, also in Waikato, has an existing M1 pit and an M2 pit that they’re going to be seeking resource consent for. There is a long and distinguished history of protest against coal mining at Maramarua.
  • Their other North Island facility is their corporate head office at 1 Willeston St, Wellington, just a well-fed post-lunch stroll down from delivering personally-labelled lumps of coal to the Beehive.

Turning to Te Waipounamu, besides its big investment in the Buller Plateau, Bathurst has the Takitimu mine in Southland. Takitimu is due to close in the 2027 fiscal year, and we are currently trying to establish whether, in the light of the decline in South Island thermal coal use, Bathurst is planning to go ahead with the possible nearby New Brighton mine, which Forest and Bird has taken legal action against.

Bathurst has more corporate offices in Christchurch, a large coal yard in Washdyke, Timaru which appears from aerial photos to be exposed to the open air.

The Bathurst commercial “ecosystem” is, to put it mildly, a target-rich environment for both lawyers and activists – and just in case you thought Bathurst didn’t have enough appetite for risk, they are also trying to develop two large coal mines in that latest of geopolitical hotspots, Canada.

Right now, Bathurst Resources is a bit like Gollum. They can see the ring. They wants it, precious, yes they does. But it isn’t quite in their grasp yet. It would be such a pity if a crew of Eowyns and Frodos and Aragorns were to rise up, stand against them, and send them falling into the Mount Doom of failed companies and melted corporate dreams.

– Tim Jones