Dow will succeed Professor Ray Meyer, who is also deputy chairman of parent company New Zealand Oil and Gas. Meyer will remain on the Pike River Board as non-executive director.

Besides his role as chairman and managing director of Newmont, Dow has acted as a geologist and later as a senior executive for Newmont operations in South-East Asia, USA, Latin America and Australia.

Dow will continue as director of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and as chairman of the external advisory boards of the Western Australian School of Mines and of the CODES centre of excellence at the University of Tasmania.

“The mining of Pike River coal will be an important development for the South Island’s West Coast and even on a national scale,” Dow said.

“Forecasts for the production of steel and demand for premium hard coking coal

over the next three years have firmed since December. This has been further reflected by the firming of prices commanded by premium hard coking coal in the seaborne trade.”

Pike River, located northeast of Greymouth, expects to begin coal production late in the 2008 March quarter.