Quote:
Grey River dredge on auction block
20 March 2013
The largest gold dredge in the southern hemisphere, the Grey River dredge, is for sale.
The Greymouth Star reported that Birchfield Minerals’ 3,500 tonne dredge, parked at Ngahere, has been placed on the global online auction site E-bay.
The asking price, according to the posting, is $3 million.
The company’s managing director Allan Birchfield mothballed the giant Grey River dredge late last year, declaring at the time that council bureaucracy was making it impossible to operate.
He had recommissioned the dredge in 2009 after a six-year absence and ferried it across the Grey River to mine land on the Blackball side. However, the paper said plans to extend the life of the Blackball operation for a further 10 years were later abandoned.
Birchfield blamed the West Coast Regional Council and Grey District Council rules for the closure, but the councils said the demands they had made of the operation were simply requirements of the Resource Management Act.
When he shut down the operation, Birchfield reportedly said 200,000 ounces of gold remained untouched in the licence area.
He had gained the dredge which was built to operate on the Grey River after the joint venture of Australian company Giant Resources and an engineering company from Spokane, Washington, failed to make it function property.
Birchfield made significant alterations to get the dredge performing.
Source: greystar.co.nz