"The WCI welcomes Solid Energy and looks forward to their constructive contribution to the WCI's affairs. Enlarged and more widespread membership helps to underpin the WCI’s effort to represent the coal industry effectively," said WCI chairman Roger Wicks.

Solid Energy New Zealand is a state-owned company but operates as an arms-length, fully commercial enterprise under the NZ Companies Act, with an independent Board and only one shareholder, the New Zealand government.

Solid Energy extracts, processes, markets and distributes around 4.5 million tonnes of high quality coking and thermal coal a year from its nine underground and opencast mines. Around half its annual output is sold for export to major international customers and production and sales have been growing at over 20% per year.

"Solid Energy may be a small producer globally but our coals are in high demand both internationally and in New Zealand. We and our customers face the same issues in maintaining responsible growth in production and coal use that the coal and energy industries face worldwide,” said Solid Energy CEO Don Elder.