New Zealand's mining sector is haemorrhaging tens of millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs, reflecting the billions of dollars and thousands of jobs already lost in Australia.
With China's economic growth easing, but on target for 7.5% growth this year, a pall has been cast over the resources sector with iron ore, gold and industrial metals plunging.
The impact on the respective transtasman economies can be gauged from the resource sectors' respective contribution to gross domestic product (GDP), being 9.6% of Australia's and just 0.9% of New Zealand's.
In the year ahead, the industry, environmentalists and public will be hearing much about ''projects of national significance'', proposed RMA changes and the small print of ''affected parties'' behind non-notification of consent applications.
Last month's annual meeting of the New Zealand branch of the Australasian Institute of Mining & Metallurgy (AusIMM) in Nelson was held amid the worst economic climate experienced by delegates in decades.
Most said it was worse than the global financial crisis, and the sector remains on edge from the continued global volatility of commodity prices.
While there was a surge in conference attendance, contractors and suppliers looking for work were buoying up attendance figures. A reflection of the dire times was AusIMM offering members suffering hardship a 50% membership discount.
New Zealand's extraction companies have little tangible assistance to look forward to in the year ahead, but Minister for Energy and Resources Simon Bridges spoke at the conference of further streamlining of the resource consent process under the the Resource Management Act (RMA).
However, about a week later, the Maori Party and United Future pledged not to support Minister for the Environment Amy Adams' proposals for changes to RMA.
The extent of consenting issues is best reflected in West Coast specialist coking coal miner Bathurst Resources having spent two years grappling with multiple appeals by environmentalists through the Environment Court, Supreme Court and Court of Appeal against its granted consents.
The challenges have effectively delayed the start of its Denniston Plateau project, on which about $300 million has been spent.
The proposed RMA changes include the Government considering a nine-month time frame for the consenting process for projects of national significance, all part of streamlining the processes for oil and gas, and resource extraction.
It was Mr Bridges' co-announcement, days after the conference ended and in conjunction with Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce, which restated the Government's aims more plainly.
The ministers for the first time lumped in mining and oil and gas exploration in a 158-page release of data, highlighting the jobs, investment, exploration and production from gravel to fertiliser, gold, gas and oil condensate.
Together, mining and oil and gas represent 2.5% of New Zealand's GDP; a total $2.8 billion in export receipts last year, or 6.2% of all exports.
If the public, unlike environmentalists, cannot understand the significance of non-public notification of resource consent applications, the extraction companies will be confidently going to head offices with promising test drilling results and a stronger argument for exploration and production funding.
Non-notification means neither the open-slather seabed drilling, nor the overnight establishment of pit mining, but it does represent cost and time savings resource for explorers.
But environmentalists and the public appear headed for having less say during applications for these activities.
Non-notification for consents feeds directly into the industry and the Government's preferences, which includes the controversial onshore production practice of fracking, and the more recently proposed non-notification of discharges and dumping at sea by oil rigs.
Depending on public sentiment, the relatively new Environmental Protection Agency, which will decide consenting issues at sea, will have several masters to appease; a conundrum noted by EPA chairwoman Kerry Prendergast during her conference presentation.
Back onshore, between Newmont Waihi Gold and Oceana Gold, the pair have already choked off, or deferred, $US350 million ($NZ447 million) in operational spending, with Oceana planning to mothball its Reefton open pit operations and up to 260 jobs by mid-2015.
Its 770 New Zealand employees are awaiting the outcome of its company-wide review, with expectations of pay cuts or redundancies. Anecdotally, indirect mine services companies in Otago are already feeling the pinch.
With about 1200 junior exploration companies listed on the mining-friendly Toronto stock exchange, which underpins many New Zealand ventures, half of the 1200 are estimated to disappear in the next year, prompting one senior delegate to suggest half of the remaining 600 will be gone the following year.
Craigs Investment Partners broker Peter McIntyre said the the gold sector was in a ''chaotic scene'' at present, as funding dried up for junior explorers and major companies undertook reviews and sweeping cutbacks.
''There's been a lot of funding out of Canada until now. But that has largely gone,'' he said.
As when there is a trough in any sector, opportunities arise and those with the largest war chest can prosper in dire times; Newmont is forging ahead with its new underground project in Waihi and Oceana has applied for consents to open a new pit on its northern boundary, at Macraes in East Otago.
However, Mr McIntyre cautioned the present funding crisis meant the usual expectations of mergers and acquisitions by the major companies were ''likely to be the last thing on their mind''.
''Even the large players are struggling themselves,'' he said.
Tellingly, gold explorer and boutique producer Glass Earth Gold exited its South Island operations last month, paring back its staff and operations to refocus on three hard-rock prospects around Hauraki, in the central North Island.
In a sign of the toughened times, Glass Earth recently proposed to consolidate its shares, exchanging 10 for one, having seen them hugely diluted from numerous capital-raisings during the past almost eight years. While the gloom lingered for many at the conference, Glass Earth's exit from Otago has opened the way for one, if not two, private companies which purchased its alluvial (loose) gold operations around the wider Maniototo for $1.75 million.
Still in the South Island, MOD Resources is progressing Sams Creek gold aspirations, with diamond-drilling well under way at the remote ridge line in Upper Takaka, containing an estimated 1 million oz resource.
In Southland, private company Waikaia Gold Ltd's plans to dredge the flood-plain alongside the Waikaia River completed financing last year for its $12 million project, which is targeting an estimated more than 100,000oz over about eight years.
While no environmentalists spoken to at the protest-free conference sought mileage over the resource sector's dire straits, much less the loss of jobs supporting families and communities, its predicament prompted some wry ''We told you so'' comments regarding the wider peak oil and climate change arguments.
In the latest twist, the Maori Party and United Future pledged in Parliament not to support Ms Adams' RMA changes, prompting Forest and Bird and Labour to call on the Government to dump the planned changes.
The pledge means the Government has lost its parliamentary majority to pass RMA reforms. Labour and the Green Party further pledged to repeal any legislative changes if they win the next election.
The same day, Sir Geoffrey Palmer QC waded into the Government in a report to Fish and Game on the changes to the RMA and freshwater management.
He said the changes had ''the potential to significantly restrict the ability of ordinary New Zealanders to have their say'' on the impact of commercial development on environmental and recreational concerns.
''The Government's proposals will replace those provisions with a single list of competing considerations, under which principles protecting the natural environment and its recreational enjoyment will be consistently weakened, and principles promoting development will be consistently strengthened,'' Sir Geoffrey said.
The changes could become one of the most polarising pieces of environmental legislation since the RMA was put in place.
