Pike River buildings dismantled

Department of Conservation waits to resume ownership of the site.The site is expected to be handed to DOC shortly. Photo / Mark Mitchell

It cost $290 million to develop but - almost five years after it was ripped apart by a deadly explosion - the Pike River Mine site has been dismantled bit-by-bit as the Department of Conservation waits to resume ownership of the site. The site is expected to be handed to DOC shortly.

Environment Minister Nick Smith is also expected to announce a memorial "Great Walk" dedicated to the 29 men who died in the explosion, about the time of the fifth anniversary of the disaster on November 19.

Although $290m was spent on mine development, just a month before the November 2010 disaster the Pike River Coal Company was facing potentially $50m in extra costs.

After the disaster, Solid Energy purchased the mine in July 2012 for just $7.5m.

Solid Energy legal services manager Rob Paige said the coal processing plant deconstruction was being done by the purchaser.

By late last month, the bathhouse was also being removed.

All but the top end of the roadside pipeline had also been removed.

The main water pump station and pumps had gone, along with the dry goods store.

The nitrogen line and redundant gas-monitoring lines run to the top of the ventilation shaft were in the process of being removed.

"The only other large structure still to be removed is the workshops-warehouse building at the top offices complex," Mr Paige said.

Both levels of the top office complex would remain on site.

Mr Paige said most of the assets cleared, or yet to be cleared, had been sold on an "as is, where is" basis.

Since November 2014, when Solid Energy decided not to re-enter the main drift, the cost of clearing the site was put at $54,000, but that figure did not include Solid Energy's general operating costs of maintaining the site over the past three years.