Prime Minister John Key announced in Greymouth the equipment was offered by Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard as part of Australia's "enormous" contribution to the disaster response.
Pike River Coal chief executive Peter Whittall explained there were three techniques to reduce the mine's oxygen level so the atmosphere was not explosive.
Two of those involved filling the mine with nitrogen. The device developed in Queensland after an explosion there in 2004 uses water vapour instead.
Mr Whittall said using the machine was the quickest and "probably the easiest" method, although he had not personally seen it in operation.
Reducing the oxygen in the mine had not been an option while the possibility remained the 29 men were still alive.
Hope for families ended on Wednesday afternoon when a second underground gas explosion occurred, bigger than the initial explosion last Friday.
Mr Whittall said tests had shown there was still a large concentration of dangerous gas in the mine and that continued to frustrate recovery efforts.
He said the company had given an undertaking to the families again yesterday that "we would bring their boys back to them".
"But we still can't send anyone underground. It's exactly the same scenario we've had for the last week.
"This explosion we had ... didn't use up all the gas in the mine," Mr Whittall said.
But, while there was burning gas, the coal itself had not begun to burn, he said.
"If it progresses into a coal fire where the coal in the actual walls of the tunnel starts to burn, that makes it much, much more difficult."
He warned that, even acting quickly, it could be weeks before the bodies were retrieved.
"If we can make it safe, it could still take a week or more to re-enter the mine, and that's moving quickly. And if we re-enter the mine, it could still take us a couple of weeks more or less to recover the men."
Mr Whittall said sealing the mine to cut off the oxygen supply was an option but, once the mine was sealed, it was "much, much" more difficult to re-enter and he had been asked by families not to seal the mine.
Mr Key met the men's families and told them how "deeply sorry" the country was.
"There is an awful lot of sorrow in that room but not anger," he said.
Mr Key promised a commission of inquiry that would leave "no stone unturned".
"I think the families, they now have accepted their loved ones have gone, but they want answers."
