Pike police: Mine not receivers' yet

Superintendent Gary Knowles. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Pike River mine will not be handed over to receivers while the operation to recover the bodies of the 29 workers continues, police say.

"We came here for a search and recovery operation, we still are looking... if it is possible...(to) recover some of these guys and bring them home," Superintendent Gary Knowles, who has headed the police operation since the November 19 explosion, said today.

He said the mine would not be handed over to receivers at this stage.

"It may be handed over to another government department, It's not a case of making the mine safe, it's making it inert, it's making the environment stable so we can hand it over," Mr Knowles told Radio New Zealand.

He said until they could stabilise the mine no one would be going in - "we're not talking days, we're talking multiple weeks...any plan of action may be some months".

Meanwhile, a 20 tonne nitrogen machine has begun its trip down to Greymouth after arriving from Australia in Auckland yesterday.

It will get a police escort to Wellington before crossing on a ferry to continue the journey to Greymouth and the mine.

The generator will pump nitrogen into the mine to reduce the chances of further explosions.

One of the receivers, John Fisk of PricewaterhouseCoopers, say they may want to put the mine up for sale, but in the short-term they had insufficient funds available to carry out the re-entry work.

"At this stage there's considerable uncertainty about how long it will take to get re-entry, if at all possible," Mr Fisk told Radio New Zealand.

"Obviously there is significant value in the mine, in terms of the coal that is down there, and it's within the company's interests to try and access that, as it is a priority to try and access the 29 men that are still down there."

Asked if the receivers might want to put the mine up for sale, he said it was.

"And again, we need to know what we're actually going to be able to sell," Mr Fisk said.

He said it would be a major step forward if the nitrogen machine was able to neutralise the atmosphere in the mine.

The cost of the operation to recover the bodies of the men from the mine has been put at up to $5 million so far and could reach $10 million by Christmas.

- NZPA