West Coast-Tasman MP Damien O'Connor says Solid Energy's decision to buy back Cargill's 49 per cent share of the Spring Creek underground mine is driven by the National Government's desire to "sell off New Zealand".
Cargill, an international conglomerate, joined Solid Energy as the minority joint-venture partner in March 2007 and supported a development programme at the Dunollie mine, which has provided four years of coal production. This week, state-owned Solid Energy, which is itself subject to a partial privatisation by the Government, announced that the partnership had ended.
Chief operating officer Barry Bragg said Cargill was essentially a trader, shipper and marketer, and wanted out of the mining business.
"Spring Creek was Cargill's first investment in physical coalmining and we have always appreciated that and taken it as a mark of confidence that they decided to investigate this side of the business with Solid Energy," Bragg said. "We understand that physical mining is not really part of their business and that they have now decided to exit this end of it."
However, O'Connor said the coincidence that Cargill wanted out at a time when the Government wanted to sell was too great to ignore.
