Date for planned Pike River Mine drift re-entry announced by Government

A date has been announced for the commencement of re-entry into the Pike River Mine drift.

The Minister Responsible for Pike River Re-entry Andrew Little says Friday May 3 of this year is the scheduled date for re-entry.

"Since I announced on 14 November 2018 that the project will proceed, there has been an incredible amount of preparation to get ready for re-entry," Mr Little says.

"This has included preparing bridges for heavy loads, installing a nitrogen plant, upgrading the power supply, laying many kilometres of piping for the nitrogen, drilling more boreholes, installing monitoring equipment, and purging and ventilating the drift.

"As well as this, staff have been trained on working in a forensic environment. Worksafe have been reviewing all aspects of the planning, risk assessments and supporting documentation, in order to ensure the re-entry plan is safe."

Mr Little went on to say in a statement released this afternoon that there is still work to do in the re-entry plan.

"There is still some preparatory work to do: installing compressed air lines; awaiting the arrival of underground equipment such as loaders, roof bolting rigs, a driftrunner and a refuge chamber from Australia and breaching the concrete seal at 30 metres.

"Once the 30 metre seal is breached, then the re-entry and recovery operation can begin. All things going to the current plan, the Agency expects we will be at this point by May 3rd.

Once inside the drift Mr Little outlined what the investigation will hope to achieve.

"We’re hopeful that work in the drift will enable the agency and police to thoroughly investigate what can be found there and find clues to what caused this dreadful tragedy.

"This is about looking for clues to what caused the explosion that killed 29 men on 19 November 2010. The recovery operation is led by the agency and supported by police, who will be on site managing forensic work from the start of the re-entry," says Mr Little.