Global coal prices are painting a bleak future for state owned enterprise Solid Energy, which has been haemorrhaging more than $2 million each month of this financial year.
The record $US350 a tonne in 2008 for specialist hard coking coal emboldened Solid Energy's then chief executive, Don Elder, to venture into expensive, high risk research and development projects.
However, once China's voracious demand had waned, the price slide gathered momentum to became a rout, and coal now trades just above $US80 ($NZ107) a tonne.
About all that Westport's almost 4000 strong population has to consider for the remainder of 2015 is the extent of job losses on the way, at Solid Energy, Oceana Gold and Holcim.
Solid Energy employed almost 2000 people in 2012, but its burgeoning debt saw it nearly collapse the following year. It lost more than $500 million over two years and survived only through a $130 million government intervention and bailout from the banks.
The medium term outlook for global prices remains highly unstable, but analysts have predicted prices of about $US133 a tonne this year, $US140 in 2016 and $US145 in 2017.
However, separate, more recent, research from Craigs Investment Partners estimates coking coal at the end of this year will be at $US106 a tonne, then $US120 at the end of 2016 and, longer term, $US166 in 2020.
Solid Energy's announcement this week of a further 113 likely redundancies is pushing the tally of total jobs lost since 2013 close to 1000, with 887 preceding the latest redundancy round.
Solid Energy's neighbour on the West Coast, Bathurst Resources, above Westport on the Denniston plateau, may have found itself in the same position as Solid Energy.
Its estimated full workforce was to have been about 400 about three years ago, but is now fewer than 100. The management team has been halved and chief executive Hamish Bohannan was the latest cost cuts casualty.
Bathurst had its start delayed about two years by legal challenges to its consents, which it ultimately won, but the declining global prices have since left it too in survival mode, reliant on domestic thermal coal production for cash flow.
Bathurst's estimated break even price to begin mining the specialist hard coking coal for export from the plateau is about $US120 a tonne.
While the latest Solid Energy redundancies and leave payments could total $4.3 million, Solid Energy expects to cut annual costs by as much as $36 million.
Solid Energy's chief executive, Dan Clifford, said while earlier cost savings had been made, the improvements had been ''more than'' cancelled out by the continuing coal price plunge.
He quoted analysts' estimated coal price below $US90 a tonne for the next 12 to 18 months.
The Craigs research notes coking coal imports into China were being discouraged to protect its domestic industry, and the brokerage's forecast further declines during 2015, down 15% year on year.
Solid Energy's more immediate hurdle is its debt refinancing, which falls due in September next year.
Mr Clifford said that while the company had ''no immediate difficulty in meeting its commitments'', it had already opened talks with its banks and the Government.
He said the options could be to sell assets, continue trading through the price slump or consider the liquidation of Solid Energy.
Just a fortnight ago, the country's largest gold miner, Oceana Gold, said it was still expecting to mothball its Reefton open pit at the end of the year with a loss of nearly 250 more jobs, while Holcim cement is scheduled to close its ageing Westport plant within two to three years, costing about 120 jobs.
