Cladding has been removed from the power station and the big gantry crane, which operates on rails, and other smaller cranes have been set up to begin lifting out heavy equipment including the turbine stator, a 190-tonne condenser, 95-tonne steam drum, 157-tonne air preheater and 175-tonne main transformer.
Structural components of the power station weigh 10,000 tonnes, its 4000-tonne boiler is being cut into three-tonne panels, and there are 200 tonnes of high-pressure piping.
SPI dismantling manager Paul Wilkens said testing of lifting gear was expected to completed in the next few days. All going well, the big lifts could begin next week.
Parts from the power station which will fit into containers are being loaded for shipment, expected to begin toward the end of the year.
United Telecoms, based in Bangalore, bought the plant for re-use. Mighty River will retain ownership of the 49.13ha Marsden B site of prime coastal land between Ruakaka and the Marsden Pt oil refinery.
Marsden B was a Think Big project from the Muldoon era. It was built in the 1970s adjacent to New Zealand's first major oil-fired power station, Marsden A, to provide reserve generation to offset the risk of generation shortfall from hydro electric stations.
But Marsden B was never used. It was mothballed in 1978 when the rising price of oil made running it uneconomical.
The twin 120m tall chimneys for both Marsden A and B stations were felled in 1997 because then owner Electricorp New Zealand said they were surplus to requirements as both stations were obsolete.
Marsden A was leased to the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) for fisheries research.
Mighty River Power, which was allocated Marsden B during the break-up of the ECNZ, announced plans in 2005 to refire the station using coal, but the scheme sparked a public protest and the company withdrew its application for resource consent in 2007.