Kai Point Mine

Early Kai Point Coal Open Cast WorkingsIn 1983, after an extensive drilling programme, further reserves at this site were discovered. Earlier the Barclay Seam was mined (this has now been worked out). Currently, the Kaituna Seam is being mined. This seam, which varies from between 13 - 18 metres thick, is a black lignite verging on to a sub bituminious coal. At the floor of the Kaituna Seam the workings are about 110 metres (360 feet) below the original ground level. The changes and developments in the opencast mining business, due mainly to the increase in the size and power of the earth-moving, machinery, resulted in less time being needed to extract the overburden. In this open cast mine, the material overlying the coal seam is removed by a 76 tonne hyraulic excavator and this spoil is dumped by three off-highway 40 tonne dump trucks back into the area from where the coal had previously been mined. Explosives are occasionally used to break up the overburden, but thay are not used at all on the coal. The coal is then extracted and transported to the screening plant, which still occupies its original site the the eastern end of Berry Street, where it is crushed, screened and sold over the weighbridge. This site was originally chosen because of the closeness to where the rail link to Stirling terminated. Kai Point Coal has a subsidiary company in Dunedin which handles the distribution to industrial clients in the city. Many Dunedin customers require a blend of different coal types and this is handled by the Dunedin company. Typical of the company's effort for greater prodution and efficincy is the use of aluminium alloy trays on thier trucks. Although these are more expensive than steel trays, the saving in weight allows an extra half-ton capacity for more coal per load. [History of Kaitangata 1800s - 2004; published Otago University Print 2006, Authors - Irene Sutton & Bill Proctor]

[Information gathered from the Kai Point Coal Mine official web-site and authorised for use by Kai Point Coal Mine] Notability|date=July 2008

Kai Point Coal Mine,incorporated in 1951 in a coal mining company in New Zealand.

The company was started by the late George Cross. Cross received his grounding in the coal business by running the Linton Coal Co, the forerunner of the present day Ohai mine. He started the contracting business and several other ventures; and after much prospecting the Kai Point Coal Company at Kaitangata.

In October 1958 the new mine site was opened, which is still occupied today. The mining operation itself is an opencast one, in which the material overlying the coal seam is removed and dumped back into the area where the coal had been removed previously.

Kai Point Coal Mine utilizes a 76 tonne digger and three 40 tonne dump trucks to uncover the coal. The coal is then extracted, crushed, screened and sold over our weighbridge in Berry St, Kaitangata.

Approximately 55,000 tonne per annum is produced, about 80% of which is industrial coal. The balance is for the domestic market.

[from official Web-site, Kai Point Coal Mine, New Zealand]

Kaitangata Coalfield - The strata of this coalfield consist chiefly of conglomerates, sandstones and shales, and cover an area of about forty square miles in the hilly country between Kaitangata lake and the sea coast, along which the measures and coals can be seen in the cliffs. There are several seams; one of them being as much as 30 feet thick in places, is seen in open section at Coal point. The coal contains 3 per cent of ash and about 10 percent of water. It is free-burning, furnishes a good house coal, and is also used on locomotives.

[The Geology of Coal and Coal-Mining; 1908, Arnold's Geological Series by Walcot Gibson, D.SC., F.G.S, London Edward Arnold ]