Stockton Coal Mine

Stockton, New Zealand’s largest opencast mine, is on the Buller plateau 35km north of Westport and between 500 and 1,100 metres above sea level. The low ash coking coal is highly valued for steelmaking.

At Denniston closer to Westport similarly on a plateau where production began in the 1890s the coal was famously brought down the hill on a very steep incline by a self-acting rail system.

Stockton, developed in the early twentieth century had the New Zealand’s first electric railway to bring the coal down to sea- level. The line was 10.5km long with 2.4 km in two long tunnels. The power station can still be seen.
After 44 years of operation the railway was replaced by an aerial ropeway 2.5km long.
Initially mining was underground but then open casting was introduced and today this involves giant machinery to recover the coal and transport it to the top of the aerial ropeway.

Day tours of the mine can be booked at the Westport Information centre. These take in views of the giant coal excavators, a visit to the central control where the location of all the trucks and mining machinery are monitored using gps and to the head of the aerial ropeway where the coal is loaded from the trucks. All of which gives an indication of the giant scale of the operation.
An interesting aspect is how the coal quality is controlled to meet the specifications for shipping by rail to Lyttelton and then the different markets in India, Japan and China.

The mining operation is now owned by a joint venture of Talleys, a Nelson company and Australian Bathhurst resources. The venture acquired it after the State owned Solid Energy over-reached itself and became bankrupt when there was slump in the coal price.

In order to make a sale the Government controversially provided $57 million to cover the cost of rehabilitation of the mined area.