About Our Coal
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Pike River is mining premium metallurgical hard coking coal, in international demand by steel making mills and coke-making plants. Pike River coal sells for the same price as benchmark premium hard coking coal from Australia.
Pike River coal has the lowest ash content of the world's coking coals at one per cent (once processed through the coal preparation plant) and it also has very high fluidity.
The selling advantage of low ash coal is that it uses less energy and results in less wastage in the process of manufacturing coke. Coke is an essential ingredient in the steel making process and is essentially carbon with some residual ash.
When coal is heated at super high temperatures to form coke, ash is a by-product which has to be separated and disposed of. Fluidity is a measure of how well the coal runs at high temperatures, with Pike River coal acting like a glue to bind other coals together.