Industry | Mining |
---|---|
Headquarters | Australia |
Key people | Alan Eggers, John Seton |
Parent | Manuka Resources |
Website | www.ttrl.co.nz |
Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) is an Australian mining company, wholly owned since 2023 by another Australian mining company Manuka Resources. TTR has been involved in court proceedings in New Zealand related to proposed seabed mining off the Taranaki coast.
Trans-Tasman Resources was established in New Zealand in 2007 with headquarters in Wellington. In 2010 it announced private equity firm Denham Capital (based in Boston) had invested in the company. TTR was acquired by Australian mining company Manuka Resources in November 2022, and directors Alan Eggers and John Seton joined the Manuka Resources board. [1] [2] [3]
In 2016 TTR applied to the Environmental Protection Authority for permission to mine minerals from the seabed off the West Coast of the North Island of New Zealand, an area known as the South Taranaki Bight. TTR proposed to dredge 5 million tonnes per annum of iron sand from 65km2 of seabed over 35 years in order to extract vanadium, iron and titanium. [4]
The sand would be extracted by a machine ‘crawler’ which would remove up to 11m depth of sand from the seabed. The sand would be processed aboard a specialised mining vessel, with an expected 10% yield. The concentrated ore would be transferred to another ship for export, and the remaining 90% of sediment, approximately 45 million tonnes per year, would be discharged to the seabed. Marine sediment is a recognised pollutant and so its discharge requires approval from the EPA. [5] [4] TTR director Alan Eggers admits that the seabed mining "totally destroys the seabed" but claims it rehabilitates in two years and would only affect 'a few starfish and worms'. [6] Opponents say that the environment is permanently destroyed. [7] A seabed survey by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in 2023 found that the area that would be affected by the marine discharge had rocky reefs with abundant life including "kelp forests, macroalgal meadows, and gardens of 39 species of sponge. Blue cod (including nurseries at four sites), scarlet wrasse, butterfly perch, leatherjackets and tarakihi dominated the fish species, also including snapper, trevally, kingfish, and kahawai". [8]
TTR’s proposals were initially redacted by the EPA, but after an application to the Environment Court by environmental group Kiwis Against Seabed Mining, Ngāti Ruanui iwi and Talleys Fisheries Group the documents were made public in November 2016. [9]
The Environmental Protection Authority granted a marine discharge consent to mining company Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) in 2017, but a later High Court decision cancelled these consents. In April 2020, the Court of Appeal found that EPA's 2017 decision was not consistent with the law to protect the environment from harmful substances. [10] [11] TTR appealed to the Supreme Court, to which campaigner Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said "We’re annoyed that we may have to go to court for a fourth time as right now our efforts are focused on protecting our community from Covid-19. But we are undeterred in our resolve and we will oppose TTR’s application for yet another appeal." The Supreme Court unanimously rejected the appeal “over lack of environmental caution”, directing the EPA to decline the proposed mining “if consent conditions could not prevent pollution”. [12] [13]
In March 2024 two days of hearings to reconsider TTR's proposals were held. However TTR withdrew their application in March 2024, sparking fears by opponents that they would try to gain approval through the Government’s 'Fast Track' consenting process. [14] [15] [16] TTR told investors on 28 March that it had been invited to apply for fast-track approval. [17] The Minister for Infrastructure Chris Bishop responded by saying this was misleading, as the 'invitation' TTR was referring to was a form letter his office had sent to more than 200 organisations that had expressed interested in the Fast Track Approvals process. [18] Environmental group Kiwis Against Seabed Mining subsequently made a complaint to the ASX about TTR claiming to hold a consent and not declaring to shareholders that this has been quashed. [19]
In August 2024 TTR successfully applied to expand the permitted area for seabed mining from 6600 to 24,300 km2. [20] In September that year, five Greenpeace protestors were arrested at the headquarters of mining industry lobby group Straterra. [21] The protestors were objecting to Straterra's work for TTR on fast-tracking their seabed mining proposal. [21]
On 7 October 2024 TTR told the Australian Stock Exchange it could contribute $1 billion a year to the country's export earnings. [22] It retracted the claim two days later, causing Kiwis Against Seabed Mining to call for the TTR proposal to be removed from the Fast Track approved projects. [22] [23] [24]
The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is a Kingston, Jamaica-based intergovernmental body of 167 member states and the European Union. It was established under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and its 1994 Agreement on Implementation. The ISA's dual mission is to authorize and control the development of mineral related operations in the international seabed, which is considered the "common heritage of all mankind", and to protect the ecosystem of the seabed, ocean floor and subsoil in "The Area" beyond national jurisdiction. The ISA is responsible for safeguarding the international deep sea, defined as waters below 200 meters, where photosynthesis is hampered by inadequate light. Governing approximately half of the total area of the world's oceans, the ISA oversees activities that might threaten biological diversity and harm the marine environment.
The Waitangi Tribunal is a New Zealand permanent commission of inquiry established under the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975. It is charged with investigating and making recommendations on claims brought by Māori relating to actions or omissions of the Crown, in the period largely since 1840, that breach the promises made in the Treaty of Waitangi. The Tribunal is not a court of law; therefore, the Tribunal's recommendations and findings are not binding on the Crown. They are sometimes not acted on, for instance in the foreshore and seabed dispute.
The South Taranaki Bight is a large bay on the west coast of New Zealand, south of Taranaki, west of the Manawatu, north and west of the western entrance of Cook Strait and north of the South Island. The name is sometimes used for a much smaller bay in South Taranaki, between the mouth of the Kaupokonui Stream directly south of Mount Taranaki and the mouth of the Pātea River.
The Resource Management Act (RMA) passed in 1991 in New Zealand is a significant, and at times, controversial Act of Parliament. The RMA promotes the sustainable management of natural and physical resources such as land, air and water. New Zealand's Ministry for the Environment describes the RMA as New Zealand's principal legislation for environmental management.
Deep sea mining is the extraction of minerals from the seabed of the deep sea. The main ores of commercial interest are polymetallic nodules, which are found at depths of 4–6 km (2.5–3.7 mi) primarily on the abyssal plain. The Clarion–Clipperton zone (CCZ) alone contains over 21 billion metric tons of these nodules, with minerals such as copper, nickel, and cobalt making up 2.5% of their weight. It is estimated that the global ocean floor holds more than 120 million tons of cobalt, five times the amount found in terrestrial reserves.
Wind power constitutes a small but growing proportion of New Zealand's electricity. As of November 2023, wind power accounts for 1,059 MW of installed capacity and over 6 percent of electricity generated in the country.
Mining in New Zealand began when the Māori quarried rock such as argillite in times prior to European colonisation. Mining by Europeans began in the latter half of the 19th century.
The Ngakawau Restoration Project is a proposed hydro scheme planned to divert acid mine drainage from coal mines to an ocean outfall to restore water quality of the Ngākawau River, in the northern section of the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. The project is a configuration of the Stockton Plateau Hydro Scheme being developed by Hydro Developments (2013) Limited. Project information can be found at https://hydrodevelopments.co.nz
The Tangahoe River is a river of the Taranaki Region of New Zealand's North Island. It flows generally southwest from its origins in hill country to the east of Lake Rotorangi, reaching the Tasman Sea in the South Taranaki Bight 5 km (3.1 mi) southeast of Hāwera.
Water pollution in New Zealand is an increasing concern for those who use and care for waterways and for New Zealand regulatory bodies. An increase in population is linked to an increase in water pollution, due to a range of causes such as rural land use, industrial use and urban development. Fresh water quality is under pressure from agriculture, hydropower, urban development, pest invasions and climate change. While pollution from point sources has been reduced, diffuse pollution such as nutrients, pathogens and sediments development and from stormwater in towns is not under control. There are more than 800 water quality monitoring sites around New Zealand that are regularly sampled.
Denniston Plateau is an 18 km long, 600–800 m high coalfield plateau in the Papahaua Range on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. A combination of impermeable rock, high rainfall, and shallow acidic soil has created a unique ecosystem of stunted trees and heath-like vegetation which is home to numerous endemic and undescribed species of plants and invertebrates. The plateau contains rich seams of high-quality coal, which led to the creation and abandonment of the mining towns of Denniston and Millerton, and the current Stockton Mine. Plans to create a new open-cast mine on the southern part of the plateau have become an environmental controversy.
The Escarpment Mine Project is an opencast coal mine at the Mount Rochfort Conservation Area on the Denniston Plateau on the West Coast of New Zealand in the vicinity of the disused Escarpment Mine. Bathurst Resources Limited intended to extract and export between one and four million tonnes of coal a year from open cast mining in an area of 200 hectares of conservation land on the southern Denniston Plateau. The mine would be the second largest opencast coal mine in New Zealand after Solid Energy's Stockton Mine on the Stockton Plateau. Environmental groups such as Forest and Bird and the West Coast Environment Network opposed the project.
Solar power in New Zealand is increasing in capacity, in part due to price supports created through the emissions trading scheme. As of the end of November 2024, New Zealand has 538 MW of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) solar power installed, of which 172 MW (32%) was installed in the last 12 months. In the 12 months to September 2024, 514 gigawatt-hours of electricity was estimated to have been generated by grid-connected solar, 1.2% of all electricity generated in the country.
The Tui oil field is an oil reservoir located 50 kilometres (31 mi) off the west coast of Taranaki, New Zealand. Tui is the sixth largest crude oil field in New Zealand with total reserves of 41 million barrels. Remaining reserves as at January 2018 were 1 million barrels. Oil is produced from the Tui, Amokura and Pateke wellheads on the seabed in approximately 120m of water. These wells are connected to the Umuroa, a floating production storage and offloading vessel.
Debbie Anne Ngarewa-Packer is a New Zealand politician, iwi leader and activist. She is a Member of Parliament and co-leader of Te Pāti Māori alongside Rawiri Waititi, and is the chief executive of the Ngāti Ruanui iwi.
Allan John Birchfield is a coal and gold miner from the South Island's West Coast of New Zealand. He is a West Coast Regional Councillor who served as chairperson from 2019 to 2023. He is known for his climate change denial.
The Barrytown Flats are a 17 km (11 mi) coastal plain north of Greymouth on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. A series of postglacial shorelines and dunes backed by a former sea cliff, they was originally covered with wetland and lowland forest, including numerous nīkau palms. The sands were extensively sluiced and dredged for gold from the 1860s, centred on the small settlement of Barrytown. The drier areas of the flats have been converted into pasture, but significant areas of forest remain, including Nikau Scenic Reserve. The flats are bordered by Paparoa National Park and the only breeding site of the Westland petrel. There are significant deposits of ilmenite in the Barrytown sands, and there have been several mining proposals, but the possible environmental consequences have been contentious.
The Southland Wind Farm, also referred to as the Slopedown Wind Farm, is a proposed wind farm near Wyndham in the Southland district of New Zealand. If built it would be the largest wind farm in New Zealand. A wind farm on this site was first proposed in 2008, but did not progress. The idea was revived in 2023 by Contact Energy.
The Fast-track Approvals Bill is a proposed New Zealand Act of Parliament that seeks to establish a permanent fast track approvals regime for a range of infrastructure, housing and development projects. The Bill is part of the National-led coalition government's efforts to overhaul resource management legislation. The Bill was first introduced into the New Zealand Parliament on 7 March 2024.