Solid Energy's Elder reveals true mission
Don Elder has revealed that when Solid Energy employed him as its chief executive a decade ago he was supposed to wind the company up.
"I was hired, basically, to close the company down," Dr Elder told a breakfast meeting in Westport. "It was a three-year job."
He said he was expected to sell off the parts of the company with any value. The remainder, including Stockton opencast mine, was to be mined out and cashed up.
At that stage Stockton had a mine life of only three to six years.
Since then the mine has been expanded and now employs about 560 workers - more than twice as many as a decade ago.
"Where we are today, of course, we hope that Stockton has a 20-year life and beyond," Dr Elder said.
If anyone had told him a decade ago that he would still be with Solid Energy in 2010, "I would have said you were nuts".
He thanked Buller people for their "support and understanding" over the last six months, when strikes hit Stockton and other mines nationwide.
He said Solid Energy had made big changes at Stockton, and change was always difficult for people to work through.
"We understand that. But of course the important thing is the change was not for change's sake. The change was basically we wanted to have a 20-year life into the future."
Solid Energy and Australian company Downer EDI formed the Stockton Alliance last year and have been running the mine together since October.
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Comments
I presume it was Cullen and
I presume it was Cullen and co who appointed him
In which case it shows what wonderful judges of what was a good business proposition they were
How good could this country have been now if only that 1999 election was held a year later when the economic boom was well underway and Shipley could have retained power?
Tragic really the way things unfolded
who's drum is he beating?
Elder beats his own drum too loudly here.
Obviously he was appointed by a Government to sell of assets, but had to work under one which didn't want them sold.
and made the best of it.
He hasn't mentioned the millions he wasted on court actions over snails which weren't in the end at risk; and the very poor profits he made on coal exports.
Never mind, he is quite safe: investigative journalism is nearly dead and he'll win through clip-and-paste journalism
"How good could this country
"How good could this country have been now if only that 1999 election was held a year later when the economic boom was well underway and Shipley could have retained power?"
Then we would have to beg for health care from an American style health system. Please keep in mind the fact that Labour closed no hospitals after 1999 but before, National closed a whole lot.
Youre a bad person TOM. You hate the poor, sick and the workers.
It is a pity he did not do the job he was told to do!
If Don Elder wound up the company NZ and the rest of the world would be a better place. Coal mining is causing a number of environmental problems - acid mine drainage, possible species extinction and climate change.
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